Anna Stasia's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The next morning Anna Stasia mopped green sludge off the floor while Bella set up a new batch. The alchemist's cottage looked like something from a picture book, all curling wood and warm little windows, but inside it smelled like burnt copper. On the crowded worktable, tubes bubbled and vessels ticked. Anna Stasia wanted to ask about magic. She waited until Bella straightened up. "You said magic comes from inside," Anna Stasia said. "How? Show me where to start." Bella frowned at her running batch. A blue liquid climbed a coiled tube. She should not have stopped. Anna Stasia saw her decide to stop anyway. Bella picked up a small glass vial of pink liquid, thick with rising bubbles, and turned to face her. "Fine. Magic is a channel," Bella said. She turned the vial in her fingers. "You reach in. You pull. It flows. Elves do it without thinking." She rolled the vial across her palm. "You want. You focus. It answers." The bubbles spun inside the glass as she talked. "I've wanted," Anna Stasia said. "Nothing answers." "Then you're doing it wrong." Bella tapped the vial against the table to make her point. "Feel the pull like a rope. Grab it." Tap. "Don't beg. Take." Tap. Anna Stasia closed her eyes and reached for anything inside her. She found nothing. No rope. No heat. Just her own breath. Behind her, glass cracked. The stopped batch had run past its point. The blue liquid in the tube had turned black. Bella spun toward it and dropped the pink vial. It shattered on the stone. Pink liquid hissed across the floor and mixed with old sludge. A sharp smell rose. "No," Bella said. "That was the last of the base." She grabbed a rag and killed the flame under the black tube. The batch died with a wet gurgle. She stood over the ruined worktable, breathing hard. The three-headed blue hound backed into a corner. All three heads watched the spreading pink stain. Anna Stasia knelt and touched the wet floor. The pink liquid had eaten a pale mark into the stone. "I'm sorry. You stopped for me." "I don't stop." Bella's voice was flat. "I stopped. That's the last time." She looked at the dead batch, then at Anna Stasia. "The base took me three months to distill. I can't make more without a moonflower. They grow deep in the forest." "Then I'll get it," Anna Stasia said. She stood. "I broke your work. I'll fix it." Bella studied her. "You can't read the rune markers. You'll get lost." "The hound reads them." Anna Stasia looked at the three heads in the corner. "It brought me here. It can bring me there." Bella wiped her hands. "Fine. Bring back a moonflower, whole, roots and all. Then I'll believe you're worth teaching." She turned back to the table. "Go before the light drops."