The alchemy table Esor used to teach Ilare was four thousand years old. It was one solid piece of wood sung into shape by an artisan and the curved working surface was more generous than a king’s bed. Its journey began as a gift from Magistrate Amalen’s father. Later, Amalen gave it to his eldest son Navar?; Corvin claimed it after his death. Shipping a table from Set during Dwarrow siege had been no small matter. It had been swaddled in blankets and lifted by hexant servants using straps. A swoop’s crew quarters had been dedicated to its safe transport.

  When the alchemy table arrived in Esor an Amen’s classroom, it was in flawless condition.

  Doctor Xeta had made himself responsible for furnishing the glass pieces, many of which also appointed his surgery. He installed them wearing gloves that ensured no smudges would be left behind. “You’ll have to take care to break nothing for a few months,” Xeta warned. “It will take time to train the local glass artisans to sing similar quality.”

  Esor bowed deeply and mumbled his thanks for the help.

  When Xeta left, Esor sagged against the alchemy table. Strength drained from his body. He used to get strength by clutching the Eternal Cross, even when it was concealed underneath his shirt. Now his fingers curved over the hard edge of the Heartbox before reaching the Cross, and it made his bones colder.

  ~

  THERE WAS A CERTAIN scent to Lady Kit?anve’s tea which Esor could not identify, but it had little taste, and it went down easily. He learned after the first Night that he should only drink it when he was already in his chamber. Esor became too fatigued to work by the time he finished the cup. Sleep was deep, absolute, and dreamless, if the winds of ?elasdur allowed him to sleep at all. His empty Nights left him feeling as lonely as though he had left his mother’s hearth again.

  The screaming drafts and shaking walls continued jolting him awake frequently. More than once, Esor woke up on the floor of his chamber in a tangle of sheets, shivering at the sounds of the storm but too tired to rise, until he collapsed back to the oblivion of sleep where he had fallen. It was the only benefit to the tea. He didn’t need to wander anymore.

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  ~

  ESOR BECAME CLOSE COMPANIONS with the alchemy table and often worked through the fall of Night. He unraveled throughout the process: cravat dropped to the windowsill, collar plucked open, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He kicked his shoes underneath the desk so he could grip the uneven grain of sung wood floor with his toes. His feet had lost muscle after so long without mujan to climb. The glow of burners, distorted through alembic and flask, gleamed on the underside of his features and darkened gray-blue shadows under his eyes to black.

  Esor drank the tea from Lady Kit?anve later and later each Night.

  Alchemy was convoluted, but the secrets of turning one substance into another had never been secrets: the mechanisms that could transform bark into bone and meats into minerals occurred naturally in the world long before alchemists understood how to replicate it. The àlvare had a right to apply Order to Chaos. Alchemy meant learning to step into that command.

  Or so the books claimed. Esor was not especially commanding, whether with his student or alone with simmering elixirs. No matter how closely he followed books from the College of Ralen, his results were never what he hoped. He examined and reexamined star charts. He tried using correspondences from foreign calendars as well as those of the àlvare. Fresh ingredients, stale ones—all failures.

  Salts which should have become flax transformed into copper fibers finer than hair. Brews that should have filled the air with sedating fog instead smelled of benign flowers. When he tried to turn sand into fertile soil, he found his beaker brimming with seawater.

  The results were also fleeting. Everything he created dissolved into glittering black powder as soon as he whistled conclusive tones. That powder vanished into acrid smoke if he set it over flame. “Is this because of you?” Esor asked the storm outside his windows, quieted by the shutters. The smell of rainy Chaos was trapped in the hairs of his nose.

  Ilare’s had no trouble with alchemy. Esor successfully taught the methods he performed to failure. She sang wordless notes that brought fire to the proper temperature without burning a thing, and if he whistled too low, she would find the correct disharmony to remedy the issue.

  “Well done,” he said. “You’re progressing superbly.” As if he could somehow bestow approval upon someone who so effortlessly commanded new flax to grow from old maiden’s tongue.

  Alone with the table on such long, exhausted Nights, Esor took notes of his progress, filling staff paper with melodies that got him nearest proper potions. He wrote a new book of alchemy that spoke to his results, one strange experiment at a time. He described the rules he observed with his own eyes. He created new charts. He designed harmonies that sounded like dying cats.

  Slowly, bit by bit, unaware what he was doing, Esor mapped a land none had yet to explore.