Alchemy is a practical art for people with no magi, and art that was taught in every school in the Kingdom of Arlinshill. The art is taught in 7th grade, and it was one of the student’s most hated subjects besides math. As long as you know what is made out of what, as well as how things are designed and made, you can bend them into another inanimate object by concentrating the flow of your energy into the element available. That is exactly the reason why Alchemy is so hated in school—the children find it hard to remember and to recognise what something is made out of and how it was designed as well as assembled.

People describe the feeling of the energy flowing from their shoulder to the tip of their fingers into the object differently, but for Seth, it feels like unravelling a complicated knot. It’s hard and frustrating, but satisfying when it’s over.

Born to an alchemist household, Seth learned the art earlier than most of his friends. His parents are both blood alchemists, a special unit of alchemists to fight in the frontline of the battle, transmuting terrains to their advantage, as well as metal into weapons. In a more desperate scenario, blood alchemists would transmute their own blood into weapons—after all, blood contains metal too.

There were times when Seth dreamed of becoming a blood alchemist just like his parents, but when his parents came home from war behaving like a completely different person, he realised that it was the war that changed them. So, Seth gave up on that dream, opting to be a researcher instead, unable to completely let go of his love for the art.

The girl in front of him reminded him of his parents. Other than the fact that the girl has been eating plates and plates of food for the last hour without a break, her stare, her speech, and her behaviour, all remind him of his parents after they’ve come home.

They are now sitting inside the interrogation room. The girl sits in front of him, inhaling every single food put on the table while he watches her quietly. Behind him, Frans leans on the two-way mirror, also watching the girl as she eats like she hasn’t eaten for days. Neither of them has the heart to stop her from eating and start the questioning, but when the door opens and a young Magus enters, both Seth and Frans know that the questioning has to start right away.

Sylva Han, a young Magus whose specialty is truth spellcasting, a spell to coerce the truth out of people using magic, has been appointed to assist the two. He may be young and new to the job, but he was one of their best. Still, the truth spell would only be used on the suspect if they refused to cooperate, and should the suspect fully cooperate, his job there is to watch and record everything into a memory orb.

The girl stares at the new person in the room, her eyes watching him intently as he takes the seat beside Seth and smiles at her, to which she nods in reply. The Magus takes out a small orb from his jacket and floats it in the air, light shines from the orb for a couple of seconds, then it blinks, the light dims steadily. She glances at the orb, and puts down her eating utensils, pushing the remaining of her food away from her.

“Is it time for medicine?” the girl asks, shoulder hunching at her own question.

The three investigators look at each other with a confused look on their face. Sylva looks at the two and they both shrug at him, so he looks back at the girl and starts the questioning.

“The date is zero-two twenty-two three-zero-two-zero, ten-thirty AM,” Sylva announces to be recorded by the memory orb. “Do you need medicine? Are you sick?”

She shakes her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then, why would you ask if it’s time for medicine?” Seth asks.

“I don’t know, Father used to use that orb every time he made us take medicine or practice. He gave us medicine to take every day, whether we’re sick or not.” she pauses and then asks again, “Is it time to practice, then?”

Seth was about to ask her again when Sylva raised his finger to ask him to wait. “Can you tell us your name, age, and where you came from?”

The girl blinks at Sylva for a few seconds before answering, “I’m from Kenia, Alkemi, my name is Number Eight, and we’re all fifteen years old.”

“Your name is Number Eight?” Seth asks, aghast. “Surely you have a name?”

The girl stares at him. “That’s my name.”

From behind, Seth can hear Frans cursing and mumbling under her breath, and though he can’t hear her clearly, he agrees. Beside him, Sylva shifts uncomfortably, glancing at Seth and Number Eight before nodding, telling him to carry on.

“Well then, what do you mean “we are 15 years old”? Who are “we”?” Seth asks again.

“My siblings, of course. Everyone from the school.”

But the diapers— his mind immediately protests.

“Though, I think Father made a mistake. Some of us are so tiny, they can’t possibly be fifteen.”

“How tiny?” Frans asks after a moment. Seth’s heart hammering in his chest.

“Could barely walk-tiny,” she answers and immediately looks crestfallen.

The room feels like it’s lacking in oxygen at her answer. Frans, who now sits on the right side of the table visibly tenses. Seth feels like walking out of the room but he doesn’t, the gruesome image of the gargoyles lying on the ground and the knowledge that some of the gargoyles are toddlers refuse to click together, his mind going frazzled from the denial. He doesn’t check how Sylva is faring, but the uneasy feeling coming from the unpleasant energy that he’s leaking might be a big clue as to what’s inside Sylva’s mind.

“Father isn’t my father,” she says without being asked. “He told us to call him Father, so we did. My siblings are not mine, either, except for San—I mean Number Four. But even he then turned into someone else.”

“Turned into someone else?” Frans repeats slowly, and Eight nods. “What does it mean?”

Eight takes a deep inhale and looks at Frans in the eye. Her blank stare is now replaced by a mixture of anger and sadness. She looks hopeless and frustrated, her fingers are curled into fists and her breath is slow and deep.

She says, “I am old enough to remember some things on the last days of the war,

“I saw my father taken by people in blue uniforms to the town square. My brother, Sana, or—or Number Four, whatever you choose to call him, was with me that day amongst the crowd. They took our father up to some kind of stage, and I remember my father forcing a smile on Sana and cocked his head to the side. Sana nodded at him, and my hand and ran,

“We ran for a very long time, but I didn’t know why; I just ran with him. We ran until we reached our father’s office, but the people in blue uniform were also there and there were a lot of them, surrounding his office. So, Sana took my hand again and we continued to run until we reached Auntie’s house,

“She’s not really my aunt, you see, she was the wife of my father’s friend,” Eight looks down and smiles fondly at the memory, “Auntie took really good care of us from that point. I was too small to understand back then, but when I got older, I finally understand why he was taken, and why my brother took my hand and ran away,

“My father was a diablery master. He participated in the war, and he was executed for it,” she pauses, then quickly adds, “I may be Alkemian, but I don’t have a magi, so I can’t do any magic. I’m not a diablery master like my father, I swear,

“Father—not my father—was one of the diablery masters who managed to escape,” the girl taps her finger as she searched for the right word before continuing, “he was trying to, trying to create new art that was supposed to best diablery,

“And he, and he tried to use a real human body as the vessel for the soul,” Eight hesitates, she looks at the three alarmed adults in front of her and immediately looks down again. “He succeeded, just once, using Sana’s body.”

“What!” Frans yelled, jumping down from the table and paces around the room. Gone is the sympathetic face she had on her when she listened to her story, it is replaced by an angry, panicked look. “Damn Alkemians and their art!”

Sylva’s eyes widen in shock and his body leans on his chair with arms behind his head, paralyzed. Seth’s mind is buzzing loudly inside his head. He’s not sure what to say, but he needs to know the full story.

“Did he kill your brother to get a vessel?” Frans asked, still unable to stop pacing around the room.

To their surprise, Eight shakes her head. “There were two souls inside Sana’s body.”