Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

Mistakes

“Chadwick! Shut the door,” Tajana whispered harshly.

“Why?” Chadwick retorted.

“The Shadows will see you!” Tajana said, obviously annoyed that he hadn’t listened.

Chadwick stepped off the toilet and came back out of the bathroom. His face was beet red. He stood looking at Tajana and Todd and Quentin, and finally, at Thea. Then he stepped up to Tajana and whispered something to her, so softly no one else could hear.

Tajana bit her lip. She shook her head and whispered back at him, but Chadwick shook his head too.

“Care to fill us in on what you’re discussing?” Todd said suddenly.

Chadwick rolled his eyes. “It’s none of your business, mate.”

“I disagree! We’re a team here. Anything you can say to Tajana, you can say to all of us.”

But Chadwick crossed his arms and refused to say anything.

“Chadwick is claustrophobic,” Tajana explained.

“Tajana!” Chadwick exclaimed, holding his hands out, as if he’d been betrayed by his best friend. “You didn’t have to tell them!”

“Yes, I did! Because you’re trying to change the plan, so you don’t have to go into that bathroom, because the room is so small it makes you lose your mind.”

“I didn’t lose my mind!” Chadwick said, walking away. “I just want to switch places with Talder, okay?”

“I asked you not to call me that!” Todd said.

“I won’t let you do that,” Tajana said at the same time.

“Why not?” Chadwick demanded.

Thea gasped as her Kundalini flared, rushing up her spine in a surge of heat and cold that burned her Chakras, which were already in pain from her last attack.

Tajana looked at Thea and turned back to Chadwick “You’re making Thea wait for no reason now. Get over yourself and go do your job!”

“Tajana,” Thea said around gasps for air. “He can’t … help it. Claustrophobia … is a real thing … you know?”

“Chadwick,” Tajana said in a soft whisper, sounding more like her old caring self again. “I’m only trying to protect you. You already touched that Protection Conversion once. Your head is killing you. Who’s to say that it won’t simply knock you out next time? You could give yourself a serious injury! Todd needs to do the signal on the Shield this time, and I need to be out here to heal him, and you need to go into that bathroom and erode the sand from the light fixture, and you need to shut the door while you do it, or the Shadows will see you, and the plan won’t work.”

Chadwick sighed heavily and nodded. He walked away, but he got to the door and stopped.

“Come on,” Todd said. “Don’t be a wuss.”

“Don’t call me a wuss, you prissy plank,” Chadwick retorted.

“Don’t start, you two,” Thea said.

Chadwick scoffed and Todd tisked, but they both shut their mouths.

“Chadwick,” Tajana said in a calming whisper. “Try activating your Heart Chakra to slow your heart down and keep yourself calm.”

Chadwick nodded and closed his eyes to do as she suggested. Then he went back into the bathroom and stepped up on the toilet. He turned back and took a big breath. Then he stretched out his arm toward the door to the bathroom and shut himself inside.

Todd stepped toward the library exit. He looked back at Thea and Tajana, took a big breath, and exhaled slowly. Then he swung the bookshelf at the red door.

The explosion was even louder this time. Todd and Tajana flew backwards as the wooden shelf shattered into pieces that shot all over the library like little bullets. One of the shards hit the bookshelf next to Thea and Quentin; it burned a hole in the wood, right by Quentin’s head; he yelped with surprise.

Todd hit the floor with a thump, right on his back. Tajana landed closer to Thea, a large splinter protruding from her chest like a knife. Thea crawled toward them. Tajana grabbed the shard of wood and gasped for air. The splinter must have hit her lung. She spluttered, and a splotch of blood appeared on her lip.

Thea realized that Todd’s body had blocked most of the wooden shards. And Todd wasn’t getting up. He lay motionless on the floor.

“Tajana!” Thea grabbed her arm. “Can you heal yourself?”

She nodded. “Help me … sit up,” she whispered.

Thea pulled her up and held her as she gasped and coughed. More blood painted her lips crimson. She touched the wound with a trembling hand and tried to draw the Conversion Circle, but she was shaking too hard. Thea realized she would have to help her, and she took Tajana’s hand in hers and together they drew the Sigil on her collarbone.

“Confervo,” Tajana gasped, and then she grabbed the splinter and pulled it out with a shudder. The Circle pulsed a deep, almost black, violet, and the wound slowly closed before Thea’s eyes. Tajana sighed with relief and then jerked out of Thea’s arms. “Todd!?” She scrambled up to Todd and frantically started drawing the healing Conversion Circle on his shoulder.

“Confervo!” she said forcefully, and the Sigil sparkled darkly, but the gaping wounds all over Todd’s chest didn’t heal. Tajana put her ear against his chest. Thea started to crawl after her, but her heart stopped as she watched Tajana’s face wash out with dread. She sat up, and Thea saw that her face was red with Todd’s blood.

“No!” Thea said, but Tajana shook her head. Thea half crawled, half dragged herself across the library to her Mentor. Todd’s eyes were closed and his chest was covered in gushing wounds from the shards of wood. The tile floor grew dark with his blood. “What happened?” she asked Tajana. “Why couldn’t you heal him?”

Tajana shook her head. “He was already gone, Thea.”

“Try again!” Thea said through clenched teeth. As an afterthought she choked out the word, “Please!”

Tajana stared back at Thea, the small blossom of blood trickling down her cheek. With her jaw set, she turned away from Thea to stare at Todd. He was obviously not breathing, but Tajana dipped her hand in the ever-growing red pool surrounding Todd’s body and drew the Conversion Circle on his upper arm, where the shards hadn’t cut into his skin and he didn’t already have a Conversion Circle tattoo. “Confervo,” she said again, and a tear dripped off her eyelashes and landed on Todd’s face.

The Sigil flashed deep purple, but nothing happened.

“I’m sorry Thea,” Tajana said. “The Conversion only works when the Focus is still alive.” Her voice cracked on the word Focus.

Thea’s eyes clouded over with tears, and she knelt on the floor and grabbed Todd’s hand. Unable to hold back the sobs, Thea leaned forward and put her forehead against Todd’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she choked out around the sobs. “Oh Todd, I’m so sorry!”

The door to the library burst open, and Thea realized the red Protection Conversion had been cancelled. Thea automatically thought of Chadwick, and she wiped the tears off her face and choked down the last of her sobs. She was not about to put Chadwick in danger as well. She needed to follow through with the plan.

The Nightmare walked into the room and stared at Todd’s lifeless body. “What have you done?” he demanded.

Tajana and Thea looked away in shame.

“You fools have no idea what you’ve done!” He brushed Thea aside and knelt down next to Todd. Without a moment’s hesitation, the man lifted Todd’s bloody body up into his arms and carried him out of the library. He exchanged words with a few other Shadows out in the hallway, and then he disappeared down the mansion’s hallway. Two Shadows entered the room and set about cleaning up the blood with a handful of Alchemy Conversions. Finally, one of them handed C.C. to Thea.

C.C. pulled Thea’s Kundalini up through each of her Chakras, filling Thea with a sense of peace. Her Spiritual Essence swirled around her hand. C.C. looked up at Thea, her orange eyes round with sadness. Thea inhaled shakily and blinked away tears as her Kundalini receded back into her body and went still within herself.

The Shadows took C.C. away and shut the library door, setting the walls aglow with red.

Thea stared at the linoleum where her Mentor had just died, and she shuddered as a sharp pain sliced into her heart.

Chadwick opened the door to the bathroom and came out with a pile of sand in his hand. He went to the bookshelf and let the sand slip through his fingers onto the top shelf. Then he turned and looked first at Tajana and then at Thea. For a second it looked like he was going to try to say something, but then he thought again and kept his mouth shut.

Quentin hesitantly came over, sat down by Thea, and gave her the smallest of hugs.

If only she could have done something. Anything! She could break the laws of Alchemy, but with Kundalini Syndrome, she was powerless. The realization was enough to make her pull her knees up to her chest, hide her face in her arms, and cry.

Thea fell into a fitful sleep on the floor with tears still in her eyes, only to wake an hour later when her Kundalini Syndrome started to flare up again. At this point, Thea was so emotionally numb that she just continued to lie there on her side staring into the glowing red light covering the wall. Everyone else had also decided to try and get some sleep, so nobody noticed Thea as she suffered in silence.

Eventually, the hallucinations came back, and Thea fell in and out of sleep in between the feverish visions. She saw herself waking up to find that Tajana, Chadwick, and Quentin had all disappeared and left her alone. She saw herself running from the Shadows through an unending maze of impossible staircases that always took her back to the library, which was bathed in blood-red light. And she saw herself wearing the black robes of a Breaker’s Shadow again, with a wicked smile on her face as she stood over the lifeless body of her Mentor.

Thea woke to strong hands shaking her shoulder, and she looked up into a Shadow’s black-masked face. She felt C.C. in her hand and gasped with relief. C.C. calmed the raging Spirits within, and Thea sighed as her pain diminished to a dull ache.

Then she realized that the Nightmare was also in the room, standing over by the bookshelf. Too late, Thea sat up and watched in sullen silence as the Nightmare brushed the pile of sand into his hand and tucked it into the large side pocket of his trench coat. The other Shadow took C.C. back, and then they left the room, setting the walls and ceiling aglow with that same red light.

Chadwick swore under his breath and crumpled to his knees. He covered his mouth with his fist and tucked his chin into his chest. Tajana stood off to the side, obviously conflicted with what to do. Should she comfort him or chastise him for leaving the sand out in plain sight? Finally, she sank down to the floor too, a blank look on her face.

So much for their plan, Thea thought. She lay back down with a hitch in her breath. As she fell back asleep, she couldn’t help but wonder if Todd had died for nothing.

Thea woke suddenly a few hours later with an involuntary groan. Her back was ablaze, her skin was crawling, and her hands were stiff with smouldering heat. Most alarmingly, her whole body was shaking so hard that she had shimmied along the floor in her sleep, and she was now less than a foot away from the Protection Conversion, which was rippling up and down the wall.

Thea tried to cry out, but her lungs seized up. With a jerk, she managed to roll away from the wall, onto her side and then her stomach. Her head was spinning violently, but she pushed herself up onto her elbows and dragged herself another foot away from the wall. Then she collapsed on her face and tried to breathe.

Thea hadn’t felt this much pain since Guru Ellhorn had forced her Kundalini to return to her body. She knew she was about to pass out again, and somehow, she knew that she wouldn’t wake up this time. She fought for her life with every fiber of her being.

She felt someone roll her to her back. Something touched her hand, and she opened her eyes to see the Nightmare staring back at her, and she realized she was holding C.C. She inhaled and sighed with relief. More slowly than usual, her Kundalini began to rise, sending a blinding hallucination with each activated Chakra.

Thea could hear the sound of hooves galloping. Then she saw a vision of Cecelia, running wild and free through her parents’ ranch, while she sat on the tallest branch in her favorite tree and drew a picture of her horse in a sketchbook. Thea felt an overwhelming sense of peace.

Then suddenly she was on the floor of the Chamber of Trials, swearing her Alchemical Oath to the Keeper’s alepus. The cute little Chimaera wiggled his rabbit-like nose and scratched his floppy ear with his hind leg. Thea felt a laugh bubble up inside, the kind of deep belly laugh that warms your insides.

In the next instant, Thea was floating on a cloud Conversion in her domicile, meditating while C.C. flew around her head. Thea felt an overwhelming sense of calm come over her.

Then she saw herself sitting at a table in the Great Hall under that marvellous ceiling of stars, enjoying a cauldron of spaghetti with her parents. They all laughed happily together, and Thea finally felt safe again.

In a flash, Thea was in the library, studying a thick book under the multi-faceted floating lights, with Chadwick beside her, wearing his ridiculous antique spectacles. Thea felt a strong sense of connectedness, and somehow she knew this was where she belonged.

Then she was with Tajana in the alley, underneath the bright warm sun, with hundreds of smiling children reaching out to her. She smiled back and handed each child a loaf of bread that she materialized from thin air. She was overwhelmed with a sense of purpose that left her feeling completely fulfilled.

Finally, Thea had a vision of herself swimming under water. She was diving down, down, to the bottom of a blue lake. She reached the bottom and saw a light, and then she realized she was in the fjord above the Keeper’s office; looking down through the glass to the office below, she saw the Keeper sitting in his magnificent chair. Thea felt her lungs start to burn from holding her breath, but instead of trying to swim to the surface, she tapped on the glass. The Keeper looked up and saw her, held up his arm and waved his hand. Then the glass disappeared, and Thea fell through into the Chamber with a rush of water.

Thea opened her eyes and gasped for air. She found herself looking up into Tajana’s beautiful brown eyes. “Keep breathing, Thea,” she said. “Don’t give up now.”

Then Thea realized her hand was holding Tajana’s hand. C.C. wasn’t there, and the whole thing had been a dream. Except that her Kundalini wasn’t surging inside her body anymore. In fact, she couldn’t feel it at all.

Thea coughed and took another ragged breath. Then she realized that Chadwick and Quentin were screaming their heads off and jumping up and down, stomping on the floor. Probably trying to get their captor’s attention so that they would bring C.C. to Thea.

“Just hold on, Thea. Please,” Tajana said, and Thea fought to catch her breath. Then she felt an airy feathery wisp of power flow over her shoulders and caress her face, and she realized that somehow, she had pulled her Kundalini up through each of her Chakras and out of her body through her Crown Chakra, all on her own. Without the constant surges of heat and cold, and without the hallucinations, Thea sighed with relief.

She pulled herself up to a sitting position, and Chadwick and Quentin both stopped jumping and looked at her in shock. “Are you alright?” Chadwick said.

Thea nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m okay now.”

Quentin dropped to his knees and hugged Thea. “I thought you were going to die too,” he said in a small voice.

Thea’s throat went tight, but she forced herself to hold back the tears. “I think I’ve got my Kundalini under control now,” she said.

Tajana squinted sceptically. “You think you’re cured?”

Thea reached out for the warm breeze of her Kundalini, which was drifting around above her head and shoulders. It was back where it belonged. Back where it had always been. “Well, maybe not cured, but my Kundalini is outside my body where it can’t hurt my Chakras anymore.”

Tajana hesitantly reached out above Thea’s head. Her eyes went big. “I think you’re right.”

Chadwick got down on his knees beside them. “Now what do we do?”

“I think we need to move forward with the plan,” Tajana said.

“How can we? The sand is gone,” Chadwick said. Everyone looked at the bookshelf where Chadwick had left the sand. Chadwick obviously blamed himself for losing the Component, but Thea didn’t want him to feel bad.

“We only needed the sand to remove the glass in the window,” Thea said. “We can get through the window some other way.”

“What do you have in mind?” Tajana asked.

Thea clenched her jaw and tried to think.

“How about we smash it with a shelf?” Chadwick asked.

“We’d have to wait until the Protection Conversion is cancelled,” Tajana said. “They’d hear us, and we’d get caught again, or worse. It’s too risky.”

“Shh!” Chadwick said. “You hear that? Someone’s coming.”

He was right. Thea could hear footsteps coming down the hallway.

“Lay back down, Thea,” Tajana whispered. “We don’t want them to know you’ve recovered.”

Thea inhaled heavily and did as she was told. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw.

“Good acting, Al. You look like you’re in pain,” Chadwick whispered, and Thea smiled, then forced herself to wipe the grin off her face. All she had to do was think about Todd, and she was instantly frowning.

There came a sudden silence as the Protection Conversion deactivated, and three men walked into the library. Thea squinted at them through her teary eyes. A Shadow stood watch with a Component at the ready, while the Nightmare handed C.C. to Thea. She shut her eyes in mock relief, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

C.C. ruffled her feathers and sent a warm fuzzy feeling to Thea’s brain. She opened her eyes then, and found herself face to face with the blond-haired Nightmare, the one who had kidnapped them and taken the sand. The man knelt beside her, his blue eyes dark with concern, and somehow Thea got the impression that this man really wanted to help her. Then she saw something up the man’s sleeve that made her do a double-take. Two tiny pinpricks of golden light. Glowing eyes.

It reminded her of something … She wasn’t quite sure what. It was an odd sort of familiarity that left her wondering why she felt this way toward someone who worked for the Code Breaker.

Somehow, it made Thea think about her first few days at Blackthorn and Burtree. She thought about how she arrived at school and was ushered into the Keeper’s Chambers. How she met her Mentor and had her first Alchemy lesson. And her Trial and her birthday party with her aunt and uncle and cousin.

Then she thought of her first lesson, when she beat Todd’s record. And the private lesson with creepy professor Charu, who taught her how to make floating clouds, and then lied to her about the first Alchemist. Then her thoughts wandered to old professor Keegan, who gave her a lesson that wasn’t for beginners, and nearly killed her with the Augmentation Conversion.

She thought about Pethboc, who had made her schedule float through the air without even a Word. One of the first things Thea’s mother taught her was how to levitate objects. Now that her Kundalini was back to normal, Thea knew she could levitate the sand out of the Nightmare’s pocket, but she was reminded of her father’s warning to never perform Alchemy without a Conversion Circle and Code Word.

Thea knew what she was about to risk if she got caught, but she just knew she had to try.

She clenched her other hand and focused as hard as she could on the Nightmare’s bulging side-pocket. A rush of Energy swirled down her arm, and she knew that her Kundalini was responding. Back on the ranch, she used to make things levitate all the time, but it always took a while to finally work, and she didn’t have much time now. The best she could do was to think hard about making the sand float out of the Nightmare’s pocket and into her hand. Like Charu had said, Think hard, and it will move.

Finally, just as the Nightmare was about to take C.C. away, Thea saw a trail of sand float up out of the man’s pocket. The sand slowly surged toward her and gathered in her hand.

The Nightmare reached for Thea’s Chimaera, and Thea let her Kundalini drop the rest of the sand. Most of it was still in the Nightmare’s pocket, but Thea might have enough. She closed her hand around the sand and watched as the Shadows all filed out of the room.

When the walls flared red, Thea sat up with a smile and held up the sand for her friends to see.