"Come back!"
The shout roused Grimalkin from his doze. Amoretta's familiar was a minor devil, a creature of sorcery in the shape of a cat. She hadn't summoned him in the usual way of familiars; Dr. Chartreuse had been the one to call him, but Amoretta who had adopted him when she was new-made. It was strange, he thought, how she'd touched him. Just being nearby to her felt oddly fulfilling; being held by her made him feel relaxed and safe, as if all was well with the world and nothing could ever be wrong.
He was aware that this effect most likely stemmed from the presence of the angel within Amoretta, that it's holiness called to his own nature. This was only logical; the purity of an angel's spirit encased in a physical, mortal existence vulnerable to the added temptations thereof was itself a temptation almost beyond bearing to devils. What was not quite so logical was the effect her presence had had on him over the long term. Yes, grimalkins were like dragons, creatures drawn from the fringes of the underworld, more of chaos than evil, tainted rather than corrupt, but even so...
Grimalkin yawned. If he was associated with a deadly sin, it was probably sloth.
"Oh, darn it, don't run under there."
It was the voice that had awakened him, the same voice as his mistress's but coming from a different person. There was no angel in this one, only a natural spirit not too far from humanity for all that their bodies were identical. Suddenly a black mouse bolted from under a coffee table straight towards Grimalkin; obviously this was what she was chasing and the cause for his interrupted nap. Irritated, he raised his paw and unsheathed his claws. Then, he furled the claws again and he slapped the paw down, pinning the mouse's tail and holding it, unable to run.
"'Tis here, Tahlea. I have your mouse," he said.
As he'd been thinking...the effect Amoretta's presence had on him.
"Oh, thank you!" Tahlea scampered over and retrieved the frightened mouse. "Naughty Petey! Just think what would have happened if this had been a real cat?" she chided it.
"A pet?" Grimalkin asked curiously.
"Yes. He's one of the experimental mice Father and Lillet have been working with. Once they're born and verified healthy, though, they aren't needed and would just live out their lives in the lab, so I adopted a couple as pets. Thanks for catching Petey...um, what is your name?"
"Grimalkin."
"I know you're a grimalkin, but what's your name?"
"No, my name 'tis Grimalkin."
Tahlea raised an eyebrow.
"Really? Are you the first of your kind or something?"
He shook his head.
"No, 'tis not such a prideful thing. Indeed, 'twas only that your sister 'twas very young indeed when she named me."
"Well, it's a better name than 'Spot' or 'Whiskers,' even if it is kind of obvious," Tahlea allowed. She slipped the mouse into a tunic pocket. "Thanks again for your help."
Grimalkin waved a paw dismissively.
"It was no trouble. Am I not part of this family?"
He realized with some surprise that he was speaking the truth.
"Another failure!" Lillet exclaimed. For a moment it looked as if she wanted to hurl the test tube across the laboratory, but she seemed to master the impulse and placed the tube in the appropriate rack.
Since his fairly dramatic inability to resolve things properly with Amoretta, Chartreuse had sought to move past it by throwing himself into the work. Alchemy he understood; it was clear-cut, with precise rules to follow that could be deduced from experimentation. Human relationships were so variable, so dependent not just on the individuals involved but also on time, place, and circumstance.
"That's five times," Lillet said, "with three separate semen samples from two different sources. Something is wrong somewhere."
Chartreuse nodded.
"I agree. Impurity in the sample or an accident in our execution of the process is highly unlikely."
"Let's take it from the top. It worked fine with the mice. We took a blood sample from female black and brown mice and the seed from male white mice. Through glamour, we preserved the seed and verified that it was still viable, capable of engendering life. Then through alchemy we overwrote what was in the seed with the qualities of the blood sample, then impregnated female white mice with it. The result was healthy, baby black or brown mice, which could not have come naturally from two white-furred parents."
"Thereby proving the viability of your theory."
She shook her head.
"But it doesn't work for humans. Every time we try to make human seed conform to Amoretta's blood sample, it becomes inert, unable to engender life."
"There must be a reason for it. Humans and mice are not so different."
Lillet's head snapped up and around.
"Say that again."
"Humans and mice are not so different? Both are, after all, animals, differentiated not so much by our physical beings as by our minds, our souls."
"But that's it. Humans and mice are different. Here, give me two more semen samples, human."
Chartreuse divided and measured it into two more test tubes, which he passed over to Lillet.
"What are you going to do?" he wondered.
"I'm going to correct an experimental flaw. We did tests with the mice to make sure it worked, but we never tested on human samples."
She took a pin and pierced her fingertip, then squeezed a few drops of blood out with a pipette.
"If you'd do the honors, Doctor?"
He nodded, accepting her courtesy. This particular Rune was his own innovation, the product of several days of research into which he'd thrown himself after Amoretta's rejection. Chartreuse sketched it out with clean, crisp movements, making it blaze with golden light on the laboratory floor. It was a difficult challenge, to make the elements of heredity, a biological construct he had only the barest understanding of, within the seed comport to those contained in the sample of Lillet's blood, all without damaging or disrupting the physical structure of the semen itself, which was a second process they only sketchily understood. That he'd made it work was a remarkable achievement, but one that brought him cold comfort. Mere intellectual glory could not satisfy a need driven by human emotions.
It had been more comfortable, he thought, to be a child of intellect.
No, not comfortable. Just...easier.
"There. It's done."
Lillet nodded, then took the tube. The Rune that she conjured was the pale green of glamour, the magic of natural spirits, the expression of life as it existed in the world. What better magic to determine if seed was fertile, capable of getting a woman with child?
"It's fine," she said with a sigh. "It's not the process, which leaves only one possibility that I can think of."
They understood each other perfectly; there was no need to articulate it. The test to verify was easy, too; they merely repeated the experiment with the second sample, but using mouse blood rather than Lillet's. As they'd expected, it failed.
"That's it, then," Lillet said with a sigh. "It's not going to work for Amoretta."
Chartreuse nodded.
"She's not human," he agreed. "She appears human, externally, but her biology is of a completely different species--more than that, a completely different order of life. The elements of heredity in her are simply not compatible with those of a person."
Lillet sagged, then sat down on one of the stools.
"I can barely believe it," she said quietly. "I was so sure that it would work." Tears were forming in her eyes; he could see the glint of wetness in them. "But it won't, will it?"
"Miss Lillet..."
His stomach began to quiver. Emotional scenes, human suffering, these confused and terrified him.
"I've always been able to rely on magic," she said. "So many of the good things in my life it's brought me--my chance to better myself and my family, being able to protect everyone from the Archmage and Grimlet, helping people through my job, or just making my life easier. Magic even created Amoretta." She sniffled. "I thought...I just assumed that magic could solve this problem for me, too. But it can't, can it?" She looked up at him with tear-stained eyes, and he had no idea what to do. Haltingly, slowly, he went to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he said plainly. "I wish that there had been something more I could have done."
"I know you tried your best," she said.
"Shall I...call for Amoretta?"
Lillet sniffled again, then nodded.
"Please."
He rang the bell, summoning a servant whom he sent for the homunculus. She came quickly--very quickly, given the size of the house--but each moment still felt like an eternity as he sat with a woman who teetered on the edge of a full-blown emotional breakdown. She held on, though, until Amoretta burst through the door.
"Lillet? Creator? Lillet, what's wrong?" The last burst from her as she saw Lillet's shaken condition. The sight of her lover seemed to serve as a trigger; the magician flung herself into the other girl's arms and buried her face against Amoretta's shoulder.
"It's all gone wrong, Amoretta!" she wailed. "We thought--we thought we'd figured it out, and it--it does work, but not...not for..."
"Not for us?" Amoretta said softly. Her arms had closed around Lillet, one at the small of her back while her other hand stroked the crying woman's hair in smooth reassuring strokes.
Any further responses were rendered unintelligible by the storm of choking sobs that followed. Chartreuse stood back, unsure of what to do, whether he should try to edge past them or if that would be more disturbing for Lillet than his remaining there. It was astonishing to him how the normally controlled and calm Lillet--a woman who did not quail in the face of devils--had been so affected, as if consumed with grief. He was also shocked by how Amoretta's presence had seemed to set off the complete breakdown. He'd sent for Amoretta out of the belief that Lillet would need her support, but it seemed to have just made things that much worse.
Only belatedly, as he watched how Amoretta cradled and comforted Lillet, did Chartreuse realize that he had things backwards. It wasn't that the emotional storm had been triggered by Amoretta's arrival. Rather, it had been present all along, and Lillet had been holding it back. She'd just stopped fighting it when her lover had arrived, because she trusted Amoretta to be there to support her.
Love again. There seemed to be nothing of late that did not center around it, and the look Amoretta gave him over Lillet's shoulder told him frankly that she felt he had failed again. When the homunculus was finally able to draw the weeping Lillet from the room, Chartreuse decided that he should follow the example they'd set.
He went in search of Tahlea.
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