The two guards hauled Mikhail up through the Guild until they arrived at a rich, oak door in the south tower. Mikhail knew it by reputation alone. The Grand Master’s door. One guard rapped on the door.

  What the depths had he done to earn being dragged here?

  “Enter,” a voice called.

  The guard opened the door and ushered Mikhail into the huge room. Bookshelves overflowing with books lined the high walls, luxurious carpet adorned the floor, and a giant wood fire roared at the rear of the room. Mikhail gawked at the extravagance. Burning wood!

  Between the fire and an oak desk two men stood. Grigory Yusupov, the Alchemist Grand Master, a tall, bald man with mismatched eyes, one green and one black. Beside him was the head of Alchemist enforcement, Master Alchemist Anton Voronin, a pock-faced man with slick black hair and precise sideburns. They both wore grey trousers and long-sleeved woollen roll-neck shirts. Neither man wore their Alchemist coat.

  The guards shunted Mikhail into one of the two chairs facing the desk and retreated.

  “Mikhail Koskov?” Yusupov asked, his voice soft.

  Mikhail licked his dry lips and nodded to the Grand Master.

  “I assume you’re wondering why I brought you here today?”

  I’m wondering why my lab is trashed, but… “Yes,” he said.

  Anton Voronin strolled to the fireplace and pulled a poker from the stand beside it. He stoked the fire, coaxing fresh flames from the glowing wood.

  “Well,” Yusupov said, taking a seat across from Mikhail, “there comes a time at the end of every apprentice’s journey that their loyalty must be assessed.”

  Mikhail’s brow crinkled. “Loyalty? I’ve always been loyal to the Guild.”

  “So it appears. However, Elana Koskova does not share your sense of fealty.”

  “What do you mean?” The back of Mikhail’s neck prickled. “What have you done with Mother?”

  “Mikhail, Mikhail. We have done nothing. We simply wish to find your mother and retrieve what she has stolen.”

  “Mother would never steal.”

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  From his place by the fire, Voronin snorted and smacked a log, sending red-hot embers crackling into the air. “Your mother,” he said, his sing-song voice sending shivers down Mikhail’s spine, “most certainly has stolen.”

  “What has she stolen?” Mikhail asked.

  Yusupov opened a drawer and removed a tattered, leather-bound journal from the drawer and slid it across the table. “Read.”

  Mikhail tentatively reached for the journal and opened it. His breath caught as he recognised the thin scrawls lining the pages. His mother’s handwriting. “It’s in code,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I can’t read it.”

  Yusupov pinched the bridge of his nose with his left hand. Only his thumb and forefinger remained, the other three long since lost. “Then you are useless to us. Voronin, dishonour him.”

  What? The blood drained from Mikhail’s face as Voronin removed the poker from the fire… except it wasn’t a poker. A glowing red brand lit the end.

  The dreaded broken beaker—the mark of the dishonoured Alchemists.

  Voronin approached Mikhail, a cold, dead glint in his silver eyes.

  “Hold on!” Mikhail yanked the journal back and flipped through the pages, landing on what appeared to be the last entry. “I’ll try to read it,” he said, scanning the page. In truth, he knew exactly what it said, but perhaps he could discover what she was hiding and use it to bargain. His eyes fell on the last line and he read:

  Do not trust the Guild, they’re murderers. Find Dominik Pozharsky, he knows the truth.

  “You found something,” Yusupov said. “Tell us.”

  Mikhail looked up, meeting Yusupov’s gaze. Yusupov was a murderer? What happened, Mother?

  “Tell me!” Yusupov yelled, launching to his feet and slamming his fists on the desk.

  Mikhail jerked back and shook his head. “I-I can’t decipher it.”

  Yusupov’s lips curled up in a snarl. “Lock him away. Let him… contemplate his choice.”

  Boots thudded behind Mikhail and hands clamped around his arms as the guards hauled him from the seat.

  Where was his mother? What happened to her? What had she done that was worth dishonouring him to discover? Questions continued to flood his mind as the guards escorted him to the Guild’s underground cells.

  Five minutes later, he landed on his hands and knees on rough, damp stone and the heavy cell door slammed shut behind him. A single gaslamp lit the tiny cell, casting stark shadows. Mikhail crawled over to a lone mattress lying against the back of the cell and collapsed onto it.

  He’d left for a few months, and the world had gone mad, apparently. Mikhail let a long sigh hiss past his lips. He needed to get out, and he needed to uncover what happened to his mother. A pit of fear opened in his stomach. Was she even still alive?

  Stop that! He pushed the thought down. She was a tough woman, of course she was alive.

  Mikhail studied the cell. Stone walls, a mattress, a door, a gaslamp, and a bucket which—judging by the foul odour emanating from it—was for relieving oneself.

  “Not much to work with,” Mikhail muttered.

  Or was it?

  A smile crept across his face as he pulled the crawling pronzat root from his pocket.