Page 22 of Tidal Creatures

Isabella’s expression cools, eyes shuttering, like she’s stepping back from the conversation without actually stepping away. “And what materials would those be?”

Kelpie feels as if the floor has suddenly fallen out from beneath her, and she needs to scramble to hold on to something or she’ll fall too. “There are … recipes, standard components you use when you want to create a human life, and … some of them are human? I guess? Or were, once? They’re not working with really … raw materials most of the time, once you get to Reed’s level. They don’t harvest the way really junior alchemists do.”

Isabella makes a noncommittal noise, neither approving nor disapproving, and says, “Meaning they don’t usually murder people for their science projects. I don’t think that’s the free pass you want it to be.”

“I don’t…” Kelpie stammers and stops, looking at her hands. Her throat doesn’t burn anymore, and she can feel herself swallow, so she supposes the nerves weren’t really cauterized, no matter what it felt like at the time. But her stomach, so full of those delicious enchiladas, is starting to feel unsettled, its contents roiling in a seasick way that makes her feel less orange than green. “I’m trying to answer your questions, but I don’t know what you mean half the time, and if you keep looking at me like I did something wrong, I won’t be able to tell you what you want to know.”

“Sorry. I’ll back off.” Isabella sits, finally, and leans back in her chair, trying to look as harmless as possible. It’s not working as well as it did before she got up to fetch the bottle, before Luis went away. “Why are the alchemists rushing for the City?”

“James Reed managed to successfully embody the Doctrine of Ethos in two constructed human creations. He called them his cuckoos, because they were placed in the nests of other birds. The early success of the cuckoo project led to multiple other attempted embodiments using the same base materials and rearing standards. The resultant cuckoo-children were raised in normal human families, exposed to conditions beyond those that could be easily synthesized in a laboratory setting. This was all before the Doctrine became manifest, you understand: once they manifested, that technique was abandoned, since it came with certain unanticipated complications.”

“Meaning when you raise something to consider itself a person, it’s going to act like a person even when that isn’t what you want,” she says, and laughs. “Oh, his little science project told him to go fuck himself, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” says Kelpie. “The Doctrine became manifest and came into its strength, and in the ensuing conflict, James Reed and Leigh Barrow were both killed. The cuckoo programs were discontinued, although some of the base materials are still in use.”

“You keep saying ‘base materials’ like that means it’s not human remains. If Reed started this project, you’re talking about bits of Asphodel Baker, aren’t you?”

Kelpie nods, that sick feeling in her stomach getting even stronger. She knows what she’s supposed to think of Asphodel Baker—she may not be an alchemist in her own right, but no one works around alchemy for any length of time without knowing the woman who created James Reed, the one who betrayed the Alchemical Congress by releasing the Up-and-Under into the public consciousness without congressional oversight. When Baum rewrote and replaced as much of her creation as he could, he had worked with full approval and editorial review from the Congress. He had been able to understand that the City was to be taken for all of them, not only for himself.

Still, Asphodel touched the City, more than once, when she was alive. It was natural that her bone and tissues should remember the resonance of those streets, should encourage those they inhabited to strive to return. That was part of what made Reed’s cuckoos so dangerous. Their power was immense, something that should never have been allowed to exist outside the proper hands. But their inherent need for the City, their almost-instinctive migration toward those hallowed streets … that was where the true risk came in.

“So the Congress is in disarray because Reed’s cuckoos are trying to fly home to roost,” says Isabella. “They can’t stop something as big as the Doctrine. Those kids are probably unkillable through mortal means at this point. Unless they have a keyed-in weakness.”

“If they do, Reed didn’t document it where the rest of us could find the information.”

“Okay. So you have two unstoppable, unkillable forces of the incarnate universe trying to find their way home to the City that Baker’s people spent centuries establishing as, essentially, the control room of creation, and you’re trying to catch a Lunar so you can get there before they do?”

“Basically.”

“Oh, man.” Isabella starts to laugh, clearly delighted. “You people are fucked.”

Kelpie tries to smile, even as her stomach, filled by an unfamiliar mixture of spices and alcohol, gives a final lurch and she loses her dinner all over the table.