The Secret City

Book 2: The Alchemist Chronicles

by C.J. Daugherty, Carina Rozenfeld

Genres: YA Action & Adventure; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

A boy with seven days to live.  An ancient curse. And one girl with the power to stop it.

Hunted by Dark Alchemy and forced to leave their homes to protect their families, Taylor Montclair and Sacha Winters have arrived at Oxford’s St Wilfred’s College. Surrounded by Alchemists sworn to protect them, they are safe for now.

But time is short. In seven days Sacha will turn 18, and the ancient curse that once made him invincible will kill him. And unleash a wave of destruction on the earth. Sacha and Taylor need answers – fast.

When the safety of the college is breached, the alchemists are faced with a terrifying possibility. Could the source of the darkness be one of their own?

Sacha and Taylor’s only chance is to go to where the curse was first cast - the medieval French city of Carcassonne. There they will face the darkest alchemy the world has ever seen, armed with only the power of their bloodlines.

In Carcasonne, this will end.

 

Release date: September 1, 2016

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 327

Sample

‘Don’t be such a baby. Try it again.’

Louisa lifted another heavy rock towards an already teetering stack. The stone was nearly as big as her head; her muscles bulged from the effort as she carried it across the dark, wet sand of the river bank, sending her elaborate tattoos rippling.

Once it was in place and balanced on the other rocks, she backed away rapidly, as if she feared the stack might explode.

Her arms crossed, Taylor watched this display in the glare of the bright afternoon sun. The old boathouse was the only building within sight. Beyond it, meadows shimmered green.

They were alone. A few rowers had sped by earlier – skimming across the water. But it had been a while since anyone had passed. The only sound was the wind, hissing through the grass, and bees buzzing among the wildflowers.

It was the perfect place to practise.

The afternoon had grown hot; blonde curls clung to Taylor’s damp cheeks as she squinted at the stones dubiously.

‘Come on, Lou. Why so many?’

Leaning against the wall of the boathouse, Louisa shot her a withering look. ‘If I got paid every time you complained,’ she goaded, ‘I wouldn’t be standing here stacking rocks. Now, are you going to focus, or what?’

Her blue hair caught the sun and converted it into bright azure sparks.

Giving up the fight, Taylor closed her eyes.

In the darkness behind her eyelids the alchemical world sprang to life. Molecules of energy danced around her, translated by her mind into tangible objects – waving golden strands of power from the high grass in the meadow behind the boathouse, silken copper cords from the molecules of light in the air.

It was the river that held the most potential – seen this way, it was a molten stream of amber lava, rolling slowly through the flower-strewn field.

Molecules are invisible to the human eye, but she’d taught herself to see them. She had to see what she was about to touch. To manipulate. To change.

Taking a deep breath, Taylor carefully selected one of the finer strands from the water and directed at the stones.

Lift. 

When alchemy worked, she could sense it. A dizzying rush of energy filled her veins. A starburst of power.

She opened her eyes.

The tall stack of heavy rocks bobbed light as balloons, high above the slow-moving river, each rock neatly aligned with the one below it. A multi-layered stone cake.

Taylor surveyed her work with satisfaction. ‘Did it.’

‘Brilliant.’ Louisa sounded unimpressed. ‘Now set them down gently on the water.’

This was the bit Taylor had been struggling with all day. Picking them up was one thing. Putting them where she wanted them was much harder.

Frowning with concentration, she clung to the strand of energy and tried to lower the rocks gently towards the slow-moving waves.

Float. 

She could almost feel the weight of the heavy stones. They seemed to fight her power. The pull of gravity was relentless.

Sweat beaded Taylor’s forehead; her hands tightened into fists at her sides as she struggled for control.

For a second, the stack did as she demanded, wafting, light as rose petals, towards the grey-blue water. Then, without warning, the golden strand of molecular energy sprang free, dancing at the edge of her vision like a sprite.

‘No!’ Taylor reached out with her hands as if to physically stop what happened next, but it was too late.

The rocks shot out in all directions.

One heavy stone soared straight towards Louisa, who cursed and flung up one hand.

The rock seemed to hit an invisible wall above her. It bounced hard, before landing with a soft thud at the edge of the meadow.

Two other rocks splashed in the water far upstream. One disappeared on the opposite shore.

After that, even the birds fell silent, like they needed a second to marvel at Taylor’s incompetence.

‘Bollocks.’ Taylor wiped the sweat from her forehead. ‘Stupid rocks.’ She turned to Louisa. ‘Can’t we light candles again? I love candles.’

The other girl shook her head. ‘This is about control, Blondie. You’ve got this crazy natural ability. Now you’ve got to learn how to harness it before someone ends up dead.’

‘Oh thanks, Lou.’ Taylor pushed her hair out of her sticky face with a weary swipe of her hand. ‘I feel so much better now.’

Before the other girl could zing back a tart reply, her phone rang. She gave Taylor a ‘just a minute’ signal and walked over to the boathouse to take the call in private.

Taylor watched her receding back with contemplative eyes. There were still things she didn’t know – things Louisa hadn’t told her. St Wilfred’s College Oxford held hundreds of years of mysteries. And Taylor was at the heart of it.

With a sigh, she lowered herself onto an old bench, the rough wood worn smooth by years of wind and rain. The intense concentration involved in her training was hugely draining. She felt as if she’d run miles. Sweat streamed down her face, and her body felt weak. Her white t-shirt – with the slogan ‘I like big BOOKS and I cannot lie’ – clung to her torso.

Taking a swig from a bottle of lukewarm water, she looked back across the meadow. In the distance, St Wilfred’s soaring stone spires rose high into the sky. It looked for all the world like a white castle glimmering in the sun.

She still couldn’t believe this was her home, now. Every morning she woke up in her unfamiliar dorm room and looked around at the plain white walls and old-fashioned furniture, wondering where the hell she was. Then the memories would come flooding back. The fight in London. The Bringers surrounding her on the street, crushing her. Sacha roaring towards her on a gleaming motorcycle. The overwhelming surge of power when the two of them joined hands, and destroyed the demonic creatures together.

Her own phone buzzed in her pocket, disrupting her thoughts. When she pulled it out, a message from her mother glowed up at her.

Missing you, honey. Call tonight?

Something in Taylor’s chest tightened and she held the phone close.

Louisa and the other alchemists had taken them to Oxford for their own safety. And maybe they were safe here. As safe, at least, as they could be. But it didn’t feel like home.

She missed her mum more than she was willing to admit to anyone. She texted back:

Yes! I’ll call before dinner.

She missed her home so much. She even missed her little sister, Emily. And she really missed Georgie. Her best friend messaged her constantly but they were miles apart now in more ways than one. Georgie was back in Woodbury, taking her exams and dreaming of the summer trip to Spain with her family that awaited her when it was all over.

Taylor was learning how to fight monsters.

Shooting a surreptitious glance at Louisa who was still talking on the phone, she took a deep breath and pushed the melancholy away. She couldn’t let anyone know how she felt. They had to believe Taylor could do this. They all had no choice but to believe that.

Over by the boathouse, Louisa shoved her phone into the pocket of her cut-offs and strode back towards her.

‘We have to head back,’ she announced. ‘Jones wants to see me.’

‘Jones’ was what everyone called St Wilfred’s dean, Jonathan Wentworth-Jones. There wasn’t much of a power hierarchy at the college, but when the dean called, you jumped.

Secretly thrilled to leave the rock-lifting behind, Taylor followed Louisa to the footpath stretching across the water meadow to the school.

The path was narrow, and crowded by tall grass and wildflowers that pressed in towards them, tickling the sides of her legs. As she walked, she twisted her unruly blonde curls up into a knot, letting the soft breeze cool the skin on the back of her neck.

It was the hottest July she could remember. Every day a scorcher. Like the world was about to end.

She was so lost in her own thoughts, they were halfway across the meadow before she noticed Louisa hadn’t said a word. Normally, she’d have been insulting her for what happened with the rocks, and threatening hours of extended training. But she was silent; her face taut and thoughtful.

Taylor studied her curiously. ‘What’s going on?’

Louisa glanced up. In the bright sunlight, her eyes were the colour of warm toffee.

‘It’s nothing.’ She shrugged, looking away. ‘Jones is always worrying about something or other.’

Taylor could tell she was hiding something, but she let it go. She had problems of her own.

With every passing overheated day, her alchemical abilities strengthened. Maybe she couldn’t control the stupid rocks, but there was no question she was getting better. Even now it was hard to focus on the solid path ahead because molecules of energy seemed to pursue her. Golden orbs of it got in her way. Fat, honeyed blobs and streams of it surrounded her. It was a constant distraction and made her dizzy if she looked at it directly while trying to walk, so she was teaching herself to focus on seeing the world as normal people saw it. Blue and pink flowers. Silky green grass. Sunlight.

At the end of the path, a weathered wooden door was set in the middle of a stone wall, dotted with deep-set windows. Ancient symbols had been carved deep into the stone above the door. When she’d first arrived, Taylor barely noticed them. Now she was constantly conscious of them – they were everywhere at the college. The sinister power of the ourobouros – a snake eating its tail. The simplicity of a perfect circle entwined with a triangle. The perfection of the all-seeing eye. There were dozens of them. Each represented an element of ancient alchemy – copper, mercury, tin – with corresponding power that repelled Dark energy. Gold, symbolised by the sun, and silver, by the moon, were the strongest symbols of all. Sun and moon carvings topped every doorway, every window, every wall.

Together they formed a protective barrier around St Wilfred’s. Normally, this would be enough to keep the school safe. But things were changing.

Nothing was safe anymore.

The door had no handle. Louisa pressed her fingertips against the scarred wood. Seconds later there was a metallic click, and the door swung open.

On the other side, students and professors hurried across a grassy quadrangle, bounded on all sides by tall stone buildings. Above their heads, elegant towers and spires soared upward. It looked like a perfectly ordinary Oxford College. And in a way it was.

They stepped into the flow of students.

‘Look, don’t sweat the practice.’ Louisa spoke so suddenly Taylor jumped. ‘You’ll get it. You’re making progress.’

‘I know,’ Taylor said. ‘I just wish it was faster.’

Louisa’s smile was grim. ‘It is fast. It just doesn’t seem that way because we’re in a hurry.’

A group of girls clustered together by a stone column and stared at Taylor. They made no effort to hide their interest, and the hiss of their whispers seemed to ring in her ears.

‘Is that her?’

‘I don’t see anything special about her.’

This happened so often Taylor knew she should be getting used to it, but it still bugged her. Her cheeks flushed red, and anger swelled inside her.

Rumours about her and Sacha had swirled ever since they arrived at the college. They didn’t know the whole story – Jones was keeping it quiet to avoid panic – but everyone knew the troubles they faced were connected to the two of them. And they weren’t happy about it.

Before she could think of an appropriately cutting response, though, Louisa swung in front of her and faced the girls, arms folded, eyes blazing.

‘What the hell has happened in your life to make you act like this? This isn’t high school. Get going or I’ll report you to Jones.’

The girls wilted in the heat of her glare. In seconds, the group had melted into the general hubbub of the quad.

‘What morons,’ Louisa grumbled. ‘Come on.’

Grabbing Taylor’s elbow, she pulled her down the stone walkway.

When they reached the steps of the tall, gothic admin building, shadowed by lizard-like gargoyles that leered down at the crowds below, Louisa paused.

‘You could wait here, if you want, but I don’t know how long I’ll be.’ She thought for a second. ‘Why don’t you check in with Alastair and the others?’

‘Sure.’ Taylor shrugged.

Louisa’s expression grew stern. ‘Go straight there, OK?’

Taylor bit back a sharp reply. She and Sacha were constantly guarded even on the college grounds, and they were both tired of being treated like children.

Keeping her expression smooth, she nodded. ‘I promise.’

Once the other girl had gone inside though, she didn’t head to the lab, where the researchers were still experimenting on the bits of the dead Bringers they’d brought back from London.

Instead, she turned in the other direction, and headed off with purpose.

St Wilfred’s Library was a round columned building, built of the same golden limestone as most of the buildings in Oxford. Its domed, copper roof gleamed green in the hot sun as Taylor slipped through wide doors encrusted with alchemical symbols into the cool dimness of the main reading room.

Inside, tables arced out from the front door in symmetrical semi-circles, each topped with two brass reading lamps, and surrounded by leather chairs. Most of the tables were empty. This wasn’t because St Wilfred’s students didn’t study, but because this entire room was mostly for show. The workaday parts of the library stretched out beyond the decorative structure for more than a city block. Stacks of books were layered on thousands of shelves across four storeys, and there were more levels of books beneath the ground. It was a massive labyrinth of reading.

Despite the sheer size of the place, she still had a pretty good idea where she’d find Sacha.

With quick steps, she made her way across the hushed room, past carved marble columns thick as tree trunks, and headed straight for a set of towering double doors. These opened into a vast atrium. She could smell coffee brewing in the student cafe downstairs and for a second she thought longingly of their lush, chocolate chip cookies, but she didn’t stop, turning instead towards the main staircase, which twisted up around a statue of four leaping horses.

They’d barely been at St Wilfred’s three weeks, but already every part of this felt normal to Taylor. Faced with a complex new world in which everyone was older than them, more assured, and not, as far as they knew, facing immediate death, she and Sacha had quickly developed daily routines they followed with almost religious strictness. Every afternoon Taylor trained with Louisa. And Sacha buried himself in old French books in the library. Looking for answers.

Barely glancing at the lunging stone beasts, she sped upwards, passing loitering students and shuffling professors.

As soon as she reached the next floor, she turned right, heading straight into the stacks, where bookcases towered high above her on all sides.

In his usual black t-shirt and blue jeans, Sacha sat alone at the last table in a corner. He was bent over his books, his head resting lightly on the fingers of one hand. Strands of straight brown hair fell forward, hiding his face. His long legs were stretched out into the aisle.

If the alchemists’ energy was warm and bright, Sacha’s was entirely different. His was an oasis of cool blue calm, edged with darkness. There was danger in him, and Taylor was drawn to it.

Ever since they’d killed the Bringers together they’d been connected somehow. They’d never talked about it, but she knew he felt it, too. She could see it in his face – a kind of thoughtfulness in his eyes.

But he didn’t look at her now. He was so engrossed in his reading, he jumped when she dropped without ceremony into the leather chair across from him.

‘Merde, Taylor. Don’t sneak up on me like that.’

His silky French accent made each word sound so amazing that Taylor smiled involuntarily.

‘Sorry.’

His gaze swept across her face, taking in her flushed cheeks and tangled hair. The irritation faded from his expression.

‘How was training?’

She sighed. ‘Pants.’

He frowned, sweeping a confused look down to her bare legs. ‘Trousers? I don’t know what you mean.’

She was teaching him the important bits of English – the parts they didn’t teach you in school. Swearing. And things like ‘pants’.

‘Pants. As in underpants. It means rubbish.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘Basically, I’m the worst alchemist in history. Rocks keep beating me. It’s embarrassing.’

‘You’re good enough to kill Bringers,’ he pointed out. ‘Which is better than everyone else.’

She gave him a grateful smile.

‘I wish you’d been out there to say that to Louisa.’

‘Is it the same problem?’ he asked. ‘The control part?’

She nodded. ‘Louisa says I’m a nuclear missile with no sense of direction.’

His lips twitched. ‘Harsh.’

‘Right?’

Sacha’s face grew serious again. His fingers tapped the heavy book still open in front of him – the only sign he gave that he was concerned.

‘What do you think it is? What’s holding you back? I mean, I’ve seen you control your power and make it look easy.’

His voice betrayed no judgement, but Taylor hesitated. She was reluctant to say ‘I don’t know’ to him. His life – everything – depended on her figuring out how to be a brilliant alchemist. And right now, she wasn’t.

‘It’s hard to control it when there’s no one standing there trying to kill me… I mean, us,’ she said after a long pause. ‘I’m better than I was, but I still lose control, and I don’t know why. Louisa says I just need practice. But we haven’t got much time.’

‘You’ll get there,’ he said. ‘Just keep trying.’

If he was nervous – afraid she’d fail and let him die – he was hiding it well.

Not wanting him to see how worried she was, Taylor picked a book up from the stack on the table. The title was in French, and it took her a second to translate it.

‘The Burnings of Carcassonne.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Cheery.’

‘Yeah… Uh, Taylor, I really don’t…’

He reached out as if to take it from her, but she’d already flipped it open. The first page held an engraved image of a blazing pyre. A woman stood atop it, hands tied behind her back. Even in the rough lines of the engraving, her face was contorted with fear and pain.

Sacha said quietly, ‘That book is quite disturbing.’

Taylor didn’t reply. She didn’t need to.

They didn’t know much about the curse that threatened his life, but they knew it started with Isabelle Montclair, one of Taylor’s ancestors. An alchemist who lived in France in the seventeenth century, Isabelle had rejected her upbringing and the beliefs of her own people and turned to demonology – which alchemists called ‘Dark practice’. Like many alchemists of her time, she was burned as a witch. But two things made her execution different.

The person who burned her was Sacha’s ancestor.

And, as she died, she’d used some unknown Dark practice to curse his family for thirteen generations.

Because of that curse issued long ago, over the centuries twelve first-born sons in his family had died.

Sacha was the thirteenth.

Taylor turned pages restlessly as if clues might leap up and offer themselves to her.

‘Is there anything in here? About the curse?’

‘Nothing new. The burning of Isabelle Montclair is mentioned, but the information is limited. It’s never what we need.’

He slammed the old book shut so suddenly, Taylor had to yank her fingers out of the way.

‘There must be more information somewhere about how to undo a curse like this. There are thousands of books about alchemy and Dark practice in this library. The information we’re looking for has to be here. It just has to be.’

Taylor could hear the frustration in his voice. She wished there was something she could say to make this better, but the simple truth was, they had to understand this curse if they were going to stop it from killing him. And the alchemists at St Wilfred’s had been researching it for years without success. Sacha’s birthday was seven days away.

It was all starting to feel hopeless.

‘It’s here,’ she assured him, reaching for another book from the stack in front of him. ‘We’ll find it. I’ll help you.’

Sacha didn’t argue. But as she flipped through an old French book she could only barely understand, he didn’t pick up another book. Instead he stood up and stretched, his black t-shirt riding from the top of his jeans to expose the tawny skin of his flat stomach.

‘I’ve been looking at these books all day,’ he said. ‘I need to get out of here.’ He glanced at her, a rakish glint in his eye. ‘Let’s go throw some rocks.’

Ten minutes later, they were walking rapidly across the courtyard in the afternoon sunlight. Sacha slid his sunglasses on, ignoring the curious looks from the students they passed. Unlike Taylor, he very much liked the feeling of being watched and whispered about. He thought it was funny.

There goes that French boy who knows the day he’s going to die. 

What a ridiculous thing to be famous for.

‘Louisa will flip when she realises we’re gone.’ Taylor looked as anxious as if they’d just stolen a car.

Sacha tried not to smile.

She obeyed all the rules, all the time. It was adorable and frustrating in equal measures. The world was literally ending and she still wanted to ask permission to go outside.

‘If we solve your control problems, Louisa will forgive us,’ he reminded her.

‘I doubt that,’ Taylor muttered. But she kept walking.

Blonde curls had sprung free from the clip holding her hair back, tumbling down to surround her face in a golden halo. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat.

She glanced up, catching him looking.

‘What?’ she asked, lifting a hand to her hair self-consciously.

Quickly, Sacha looked away. ‘Nothing.’

As they left the quadrangle and turned into a shadowed archway leading past the science building, Sacha hurried his steps. He was eager to get out of here, even for a few minutes.

He didn’t mind the stares but he didn’t like this college. He didn’t fit in at St Wilfred’s at all. It wasn’t really about the language – his English was good. It was simply the fact that he wasn’t an alchemist and everyone else was.

He was out of place.

Reminders of his normality were everywhere. The professors conducting research in the library pulled books down without reaching for them. Earlier that day he’d watched one of them heat a cold cup of tea, as far as he could tell, just by glancing at it.

He knew there was more to alchemy than that, but he couldn’t see it. Taylor had told him about streams of energy and molecules but these were invisible to him. All he saw was how different he was from everyone else here. How ordinary.

His otherness mattered. It made him feel left out, even when he was right in the centre of things.

When they came to a door hidden in the shadows at the edge of the quad, Sacha reached for the door handle automatically be. . .