And then, of course, there was the most difficult ingredient of all to procure: pure sunlight (1 cup).
That had been tricky. Very tricky and troublesome indeed. He had nearly given up on several occasions; it was very hard to bottle pure sunlight, and over the years the alchemist had had to suck and bleed and wheedle the sky dry, until the sun shriveled up entirely and the world turned to gray.
But he had done it. After five long years, the alchemist had done it.
And now the Lady Premiere would acknowledge his genius and celebrate his masterpiece, and he would become the Official Alchemist of the State, or the First Alchemist of the Highest Order, and he would attend state dinners and distribute thick cream-colored business cards with his name and title printed neatly on them—but not his number. It would be for him to decide whom he wanted to contact, and when. And he would have a real laboratory for his experiments, and absolutely no one would dare call him Magician anymore.
At last they had reached the tall wrought-iron fence that encircled the Lady Premiere’s six-story town house. Beyond the gates a rising mist made it impossible to see the Lady Premiere’s vast residence clearly. But various lit windows smoldered there beyond the fog, and made the alchemist think of rich upholstered furniture, and gold, and dark wood. He was very eager to get inside. The Lady Premiere was a princess in her native country—was it Austria or Russia? The alchemist could never remember. No, no. Perhaps it was Germany. Difficult to know. He had heard different things at different times. In any case, she was wonderfully and fabulously wealthy, and as a favorite of the mayor’s, she was also extremely powerful.
At the gates a guard halted their progress. The alchemist could barely announce himself, he was so excited.
“And who’s that?” the guard asked, nodding toward Will.
“Nobody,” the alchemist said. “He’s just my apprentice.” He was annoyed that the guard had reminded him of the boy’s existence—he had almost managed to forget him entirely. It was necessary that someone be there to witness and record his meeting with the Lady Premiere, but the alchemist wished it could have been otherwise.
There was a curious, rattling sound coming from the boy now. The alchemist frowned. The boy’s teeth were chattering—that was it—bouncing off each other with a noise like a bunch of dice rolling around in a wooden box. The alchemist squeezed his fists together and breathed heavily through his nose, trying to stay calm. When he became Official, he would get a real assistant, not some scrimp of a shrimp of a boy who couldn’t even keep his teeth from knocking together in public.
“It’s awfully late for the boy to be out,” the guard said thoughtfully. The alchemist could tell he was slow.
“He’s fine,” the alchemist snapped.
“He looks cold.” The guard now sounded reproachful. “He should have a hat, at least. His ears is as purple as a rib steak.”
“He’s no concern of yours.” The alchemist was losing his temper. “Your concern is to announce us, and escort us inside. We are expected, and we are already late, and I doubt you can afford to upset the Lady Premiere.”
The guard shot one more look at Will, who was trying very hard to keep his teeth from bouncing together, having stuffed a corner of his coat sleeve in his mouth, and then stepped back inside the small stone guard hut. He began cranking a lever; slowly, the iron gates groaned open.
“Go on, then,” the guard called out to them, and the alchemist and his apprentice passed into the mistenshrouded courtyard.
Chapter Six
THE GUARD’S NAME WAS MO, SHORT FOR MOLASSES, as in slow as molasses or thick as molasses. The nickname had been his since he was so young he no longer remembered what his real name was. And it was true that from his earliest infancy, although his heart was as big and as warm and as generous as an open hand, his brain had seemed just a tiny bit small.
Once Mo had closed the gates, he returned to his little stone hut, and his half-eaten sandwich of butter and canned sardines, and his mug of thick hot chocolate, which every night he poured carefully into a thermos labeled COFFEE. The other guards had made fun of him for preferring hot chocolate to coffee, and called him a wimp and a child, and so this was his solution: He had become a secret sipper.
There was a slapping sound, and then a low mewling in the corner. Lefty, Mo’s black-and-white-striped tabby cat, had just come swinging through the large cat door Mo had fitted carefully into the back wall of the guard hut, so the cat could go directly out into an alley where she could play and sniff and roam at will.