Midnight Alley

And then it did, a smooth metallic slide of levers and pins, and the door swung open.

On the other side was her own living room, and Shane was sitting on the couch with his back to her, playing a video game.

Claire paused, utterly off balance. That couldn't be real, could it? She couldn't be seeing him, right there, but she could hear all of the computerized grunts and punches and wet bloody sounds from whatever fight game he had on. She could smell the house. Chili. He'd made chili. He still hadn't taken some of his boxes back upstairs. They were piled in the corner.

"Shane — " she whispered, and reached out, through the doorway. She could feel something there, like a slight pressure, and the hair on her arm shivered and prickled.

Shane put the game on pause, and slowly stood up. "Claire?" He was looking in the wrong place, he was looking up, at the staircase.

But he'd heard her. And that meant she could just step right through and she'd be safe.

She never got the chance.

Myrnin's hand landed on her shoulder, dragged her back, and as Shane started to turn toward them, Myrnin slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.

She didn't dare move. He was crazy, she could see it, there was nothing in him that recognized her at all. Amelie's warnings screamed through her head, and Sam's. She'd underestimated Myrnin, and that was what had gotten all the other would-be apprentices killed.

Myrnin was shaking, and his broken hands were crunched into fists. His blood was dripping on an open copy of an old chemistry textbook that lay by his feet.

"Who are you?" he whispered. The accent she'd noted the first time she'd met him was back, and strong. Really strong. "Child, what brings you here? Do you not understand your danger? Who is your Patron? Were you sent as a gift?"

She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them and looked right into his eyes and said, "You're Myrnin, and I'm Claire, I'm your friend. I'm your friend, okay? You should let me help you. You hurt yourself."

She pointed to his injured fingers. Myrnin looked down, and he seemed surprised, as if he hadn't felt it at all. Which maybe he hadn't.

He took two steps backward, ran into a lab table, and knocked over a stand that held empty glass test tubes. They fell and shattered on the dirty stone floor.

Myrnin staggered, then sank down to sit against the wall, his face covered by bloody hands, and began to rock back and forth. "It's wrong," he moaned. "There was something important, something I had to do. I can't remember what it was."

Claire watched him, still scared to death, and then sank down to a crouch across from him. "Myrnin," she said. "The door. The one I opened. Where does it go?"

"Door? Doorways. Moments in time, just moments, none of it stays, it flows like blood you know, just like blood. I tried to bottle it but it doesn't stay fresh. Time, I mean. Blood turns, and so does time. What's your name?"

"Claire, sir. My name's Claire."

He let his head fall back against the wall, and there were bloody tears ru

"I — no sir. I won't."

"How long have I been your friend?"

"Not that long."

"I don't have friends," he said hollowly. "You don't, you know, when you're as old as I am. You have competitors, and you have allies, but not friends, never. You're too young, far too young to understand that." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he looked mostly sane. Mostly. "Amelie wants you to learn from me, yes? So you are my student?"

This time, Claire just nodded. Whatever the fit was, it was leaving him, and he was empty and tired and sad again. He took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in the pocket of his coat.

"You won't be able do it," he said. "You can't possiby learn quickly enough. I nearly killed you tonight, and next time I won't be able to stop. The others — " He stopped, looked briefly sick, and cleared his throat. "I'm not — I wasn't always like this, Claire. Please understand. Unlike many of my kind, I never wanted to be a monster. I only wanted to learn, and this was a way to learn forever."

Claire bit her lip. "I want to learn, too," she said. "I —Amelie wants me to help you, and learn from you. Do you think I'm smart enough?"

"Oh, you're smart enough. Could you master the skills, given enough time? Perhaps. And you'll have no choice in the matter; she'll keep you coming until you learn, or I destroy you." Myrnin slowly lifted his head and looked at her. Rational again, and very steady. "Did I remind you not to trust me?"

"Yes sir."

"It's good advice, but just this once, ignore it and allow me to help you."

"Help — ?"

Myrnin stood up, in that eerie boneless way that he seemed to have, and rummaged around through the glass jars and beakers and test tubes until he found something that looked like red salt. He shook the container — it was about the size of a spice jar — and opened it to extract one red crystal. He touched it to his tongue, shut his eyes for a second, and smiled.

"Yes," he said. "I thought so." He recapped it and held it out to her. "Take it."

She did. It felt surprisingly heavy. "What is it?"

"I have no idea what to call it," he said. "But it'll work."

"What do I do with it?"

"Shake a small amount into your palm, like so — " He reached out for her hand. She pulled away, curling her fingers closed, and Myrnin looked briefly wounded. "No, you're right. You do it. I apologize." He handed her the shaker and made an encouraging gesture. She hesitantly turned the shaker upside down over her palm. A few red chunky crystals poured out. He wanted her to keep going, so she did, quick jerks of the container until there was maybe half a teaspoon of the stuff piled up.

Myrnin took the shaker back and set it back where he'd found it, and nodded at her. "Go on," he said. "Take it."

"Excuse me?"

He mimed popping it into his mouth.

"I — um — what is it, again?"

This time, Myrnin rolled his eyes in frustration. "Take it, Claire! We don't have much time. My periods of lucidity are shorter now. I can't guarantee I won't slip again. Soon. This will help."

"I don't understand, how is this stuff supposed to help?"

He didn't tell her again, he just pleaded silently with her, his whole expression open and hopeful, and she finally put her hand to her mouth and tentatively tasted one of the crystals.

It tasted like strawberry salt, with a bitter after-flavor. She felt an instant, tiny burst of ice-cold clarity, like a strobe light going off in a darkened room full of beautiful, glittering things.

"Yes," Myrnin breathed. "Now you see."

This time, she licked up more of the crystals. Four or five of them. The bitterness was stronger, barely offset by the strawberries, and the reaction was even faster. It was like she'd been asleep, and all of a sudden she was awake. Gloriously, dizzyingly awake. The world was so sharp she felt like even the dull battered wood of the table could cut her.

Myrnin picked up a book at random and opened it. He held it up in front of her, and it was like another burst of light in the darkness, brilliant and beautiful, oh, so pretty, the way the words curved themselves around each other and cut into her brain. It was painful and perfect, and she read as fast as she could. The essence of gold is the essence of Sun, and the essence of silver is the essence of Moon. You must work with each of these according to its properties, gold in the daylight, silver in the night ... It all made sense to her. Total sense. Alchemy was nothing but a poet's explanation of the way matter and energy interacted, the way different surfaces vibrated at different speeds, it was physics, nothing but physics, and she could understand how to use it now.