The Red Tincture, Prologue

“And this is my son, Mordrid.”

A boy with perfectly-cropped blond hair and devious, perceptive blue eyes stepped out of the shadows and moved to stand beside his mother.  He was indeed dressed the part of a medieval prince, in a tunic, pumpkin hose, and cape, all of a rich purple fabric accented with gold.

Dante’s cool, studying smile grew just a hair.  So this was Morgan le Fay’s little treasure.  It was his impudent little face that made Dante’s smile grow.  Like all immortal children, he would be trouble, but Dante had been reading people for enough centuries to know that this little imp might be more trouble than he was worth.

“Hello,” came the child’s voice, cool as his piercing blue eyes.  “You must be Dante. Mother’s told me much about you.”

“I’m sure she has, Monsieur Le Fay.”  The warmth of her smile failed to reach her stolen violet eyes.

“I believe you mentioned a proposition of mutual gain?”  Le Fay’s voice, calculating, chilling, and ominous enough to raise hairs on a normal person, only worked to make Dante’s empty smile grow even further.

“Indeed I did.”  The alchemist’s tone bordered on drawling; she was taking her time, as if she wasn’t aware of the slight growl of impatience in Morgan’s tone.

“Wrath,” Dante called towards the door to her left.  “Come here, please.”

The soft pat-pat of bare footsteps on cold hardwood announced the arrival of the inadequately-clad, shaggy-haired child.  The mismatched color of his skin—flush, peachy flesh on his right arm and left leg contrasting sharply with the corpse-grey of the rest of him—immediately marked the boy as unnatural and inhuman, even before le Fay and her son could get a good look at his eyes:  large, amethyst, and chillingly serpentine.

Those eyes trawled up and down Mordrid as the black-haired boy regarded the other boy with an air of unimpressed impatience.

Mordrid, on the other hand, regarded Wrath’s ghoulish visage with undisguised disgust.

“Wrath, please show Mordrid the way to the library,” Dante instructed coolly, never taking her analyzing eyes or smile off of Morgan le Fay.  “I need to have a word with Madame le Fay in private.”

Wrath and Mordrid each looked up at their respective guardians with identical looks of incredulity and disgust.

“Mordrid, why don’t you ask Wrath to show you some alchemy?” le Fay told her son, nudging him towards the undead child in a clear, dismissive tone of, ‘go and play while the adults talk.’

The blond boy’s interest instantly piqued.  He moved to join the reanimated child.  “You can do alchemy?”

Wrath’s disdainful look morphed into a proud, devious grin.  “I’m the only Homunculus who can.”

The two boys crossed the entry hall together, moving towards the door Wrath had come out of.  “I didn’t know golems could do magic.”  Mordrid’s look was clearly impressed, though he managed to pull off a condescending grin at the same time.

Wrath instantly scowled.  “I’m a Homunculus, not a golem,” he shot back, his tone adding, ‘Stupid.’  “And alchemy isn’t magic, it’s science.”  He closed the door behind the two of them, leaving Dante and Morgan le Fay alone in the hall.

“Now, your ‘proposition,’ Dante.”  Morgan le Fay crossed her arms, as if her tone didn’t already convey copious amounts of impatience.  “I’ve come to understand that you’re searching for the—”

“Philosopher’s Stone.  Yes.”  Dante interrupted the witch smoothly and without even the courtesy of meeting her gaze.  She had already crossed the hall into the front sitting room, and only looked up at le Fay again once she was comfortably seated in one of the large, plush lazy-chairs.

It was difficult to tell with the mask completely obscuring her face whether or not Dante’s dismissive demeanor and cool, impudent smile managed to irritate Morgan, but while the mage moved into the sitting room to join the alchemist, she remained standing.  Dante’s smile curled a little farther up her face to see the powerful sorceress so ill at ease.

“So.  What do you know of it?”  Le Fay’s tone strained not to growl with impatience and irritation at Dante’s impudence.

“I have held its completed form in my hands,” Dante answered smoothly.

“As have I,” le Fay countered, unimpressed.

“Doubtful,” the alchemist returned.  She propped an elbow on the arm of her chair and casually supported her cheek with the back of her wrist.

“I beg your pardon?”  Morgan’s tone froze the air of the room, though Dante seemed impervious to the chill.

“I’ve done a bit of research on your so-called Stone.”  The alchemist did not bother to hold back the undertone of disdain in her voice.  “It was nothing more than a lifeless piece of rock compared to the true Stone.  A complete Philosopher’s Stone cannot simply be shattered, Morgan le Fay.  It cannot be destroyed by normal means.”

The witch fell silent.  Her gaze weighed heavily on the alchemist, even from under the golden mask.

“Tell me more about this stone of yours.”

Dante’s cool smirk blossomed into a smile, a grin almost too wide for a human face.  Her lavender eyes grew hungry, predatory.