A Far Wilder Magic

by Allison Saft

Before she leaves for a trip, she always says the same thing: As soon as I get what I need for my research, we’ll be a family again. There’s no sweeter promise in the world. Their family will never truly be whole again, but Margaret cherishes those memories from before more than anything.

Besides, maybe killing it for a noble cause is the most respect she could pay it. Margaret has no interest in hearing her name sung in pubs; she’s never craved anyone’s recognition but her mother’s.

Better to quickly cut the throat of this fragile hope instead of letting it languish like a wolf in a snare. Margaret knows, deep as marrow, how this story ends. What happens to people who crave things beyond their reach. Maybe in another life, she could dream. But not this one.

Thick sheets of ivy climb the siding, and flowering weeds spill from the garden beds like beer overflowing from a tap. The splintered wooden gate lists on its hinges, less a welcome than a plea for help. Welty Manor looks like the kind of place people weren’t meant to live—the kind of place nature clearly wants back.

“You’re here to ask for an apprenticeship.” “Well, uh … Yes, actually. I wrote to her a few weeks ago, but she never responded.” “Then maybe you should learn to read between the lines.” “If you’d just let me explain—” “I understand the situation already. You think you’re deserving enough that your own lack of planning is no barrier to you getting what you want.”

He hates it—hates that his own sister thinks he’s selfish, that this apprenticeship will end up like all the others, that he’s doing this only to avoid his responsibilities. But ever since Dad died, it’s been like this. Resenting each other more than they love each other. He doesn’t know how they got here.

That is the only kind of alchemy he has mastered: spinning words into gold. Turning girls’ hearts soft.

But even if it were possible to kill it before the Cold Moon, victory means nothing if it isn’t hard-won. The more dangerous the monster, the more glorious the hero who slays it.

A little tragedy is good for the constitution.”

But he’s endured enough lectures to know when to keep his mouth shut.

“This is my family. My dad’s gone, and…” And what? There are no words sufficient to finish that sentence. Now we have no money. Now we’re barely making it. Now the whole world is duller, and I don’t think I’ll ever be as good a man as he was.

To him, home is a loud, cramped place, warm with bodies and stove heat and love. But Welty Manor is none of those things. Ghosts, not people, live here.

He’s survived this long by letting everyone believe he’s selfish and shallow. It’s better that way. No one knows how to hurt you if you always play the fool. No one can truly be disappointed in you if they don’t expect any better.

She’s felt fear like that only once before, but the memory of it lies in shards on the floor of her mind, too sharp to pick up and handle.

Alone, she can breathe easier. Sometimes it’s hard to believe this house ever held more than one person.

It stings, even after all this time, to know that he thinks of her as someone to take care of. If there’s one thing you have to learn, her mother told her, it’s how to take care of yourself.

That quiet kind of happiness feels so impossible now.

Besides, Margaret has only survived this long by making herself small, by needing nothing and no one. Wanting something for herself is bad enough, but the very thought of admitting she needs Weston feels like cutting her own throat. If he denied her now, it’d crush her.

Girls like her don’t get to dream. Girls like her get to survive. Most days, that’s enough. Today, she doesn’t think it is.

Destroying things has always come easy to him.

“I’m not a bad alchemist, I swear. I just … don’t test well.”

The ancientness of this forest has always grounded her. It has watched her grow up, and it will watch her die. There should be comfort in that certainty, in that familiarity. But today, it feels menacing. The shadows grin in the corner of her vision, and the hissing of the leaves sounds so much like her name.

Jaime’s face slackens with concern. It wounds her more than she wants to admit. It’s evidence that he’s not always awful—not to everyone.

She searches his face for any hint of deception, but his expression is as unbearably earnest as ever. It feels like safety—and something like kinship. If she thanks him, if she acknowledges it at all, she worries she won’t be able to maintain her composure.

He looks wild, from his wind-tossed black hair to the mingled fear and excitement sparkling in his eyes. In this light, they’re the color of the heart of a damp redwood. He is wild, but in the same familiar, steady way these woods are.

But now that he’s seen the reality of it, it makes him a little sick to his stomach that he’d ever envied this kind of life.

Mam can’t be dead. Halanan would’ve told him. And deep down, Wes thinks he would know. There’d be some shift in the polarity of the earth, or the snap of something vital within him.

All is One and One is All is the fundamental tenet of alchemy. It’s always been an ethical code for him. To help one person is to help better the entire world. But right now, it’s not so cut and dry.

But if he’s forced to make a decision, he’ll make the same one every time: his family. If pursuing his dreams mean abandoning them, they’re not dreams worth pursuing.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and here they are. Miles between them and an ocean of resentment to fill them.

He’s always liked to surround himself with people who let him pretend, who let him talk enough to drown out the noise of his own feelings.

She started reading “drivel” because she was beginning to forget what kind of man her father was, beyond the kind that leaves. Every day, the image of his face grows foggier, the exact tenor of his voice more imprecise. But in these books is a piece of him that she can’t lose—not like the words of his songs or the meaning of the letters in his bible or the recipe for the spiced honey cake he’d make every fall.

The passenger door flies open, and a man—no, it’s Weston—steps out.

Worst of all, though, are his eyes. There’s no mischief that lights them, no humor. Just a hollowed-out exhaustion she recognizes from her own face.

“You would honestly give up this chance for your family’s sake?” “Every time.” What would it be like if people would come home when she asked them to? If love always outweighed ambition? “I see.”

It is an honor, though. Evelyn’s love is subtle and hard-won, and Margaret has learned how to see it in every small kindness, every rare gentle word. Her face burns with humiliation. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

She considers telling him that she’s sorry he had to make this decision in the first place, but it’s better to leave it at this, to let the cut be clean.

She looks so painfully out of place in his home, like she’s been cut out of Wickdon and pasted here. A sloppy collage of two lives he can’t fit together.

Misfortune has hardened them both. It’s roughened her, but it’s polished him to a sheen. If he lets the world believe he is all surface, then there is nothing to expose.

She wasn’t made for the city. Everything about it was tailor-made to overwhelm her.

A strange emotion grabs hold of her heart and squeezes. She feels suddenly like a spider in its web, watching herself from the darkest corner of the room. From here, Margaret sees herself for what she is. A dour, inkblot stain on the brightness of this home. She doesn’t belong with these people. She doesn’t deserve their kindness or their attempts to fold her into their easy rapport with one another. No, it’s more than rapport. They love each other. It suffuses every kind gesture and sharp word.

“if you two want to brawl like drunks, then do it outside. But as long as you’re in my kitchen, you will talk to each other like reasonable adults.”

Golden-boy polish. Reckless confidence. Honeyed words. But he’s nothing but a liar, his pieces held together with cheap gilt.

“Exactly! Alchemy is supposed to be about change and progress, but everyone in power has forgotten that. None of them will change a damn thing as long as they benefit from how things are.”

You going to join the military?” “No. Not exactly.” She’d considered it briefly, but she isn’t willing to sign her life away to a country that holds no love for her.

“And then what?” “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it beyond that.” “That’s so … practical.” “Is it? It feels ridiculous to me.” “It’s not. It’s not ridiculous.” He’s trying for a serious expression, but the earnest, determined fire in his eyes makes him look younger, almost sweet. “Besides, dreams don’t always have to be practical. That’s why they’re dreams. And now ours live and die together.” “Together.” It’s such a foreign concept. He grins at her. “It’s you and me against the world, Margaret.” She doesn’t like the way that pronouncement makes her chest ache.

But his sense of time has always run a little differently from most people’s, and besides, it won’t do much good to worry about something he can’t control.

How much of himself has he really given to anyone? But if she’s already seen all of his wounds, how much more will it hurt to spill a little more blood for her?

Wes wonders what the two of them would boil down to—what he would boil down to—if alchemy could go deep enough. Maybe then he could see what he’s made of and what kind of man he really is. But there’s nothing in the flesh that can get at the soul. It’s nothing but a prison of oxygen and carbon.

He knows those looks well. They spark something dark and protective within him.