The Alchemist of Souls

hung over his left shoulder. At barely twenty he was the youngest adult actor in the company, a former boy player who – unlike most of his kind – had successfully made the transition to male roles.

“Aren’t you a bit old for such ambitions, Jacob?”

“Sir?” “An apprenticeship. A little late to make a lady of you, I fear.”

“Y-you mistake me, sir. I have no desire to be a player, nor ever did.”

“Really? Why not?”

“I have not the art for it, sir. Pretending to be someone else… I cannot imagine how it is done.”

She looked away, afraid he would see the lie in her eyes, but she could not tell him the real reason: that if once she put on women’s clothes, walked and talked in her true nature, everyone would see she was Jacomina Hendricksdochter, not Jacob Hendricks as she had long pretended.

“A pity,” he said. “You have the fairness of complexion for women’s roles, even at your age.”

That was true enough. Though not as fair as Parrish, she had long been able to rely on her pale colouring to explain her lack of a beard. All the disguising in the world could not put hair on her cheeks, at least none that would bear close examination. Actors, of all people, knew what false whiskers looked like.

He stepped closer and put a hand under her chin, lifting it until her eyes met his own. His breath smelt of violet comfits.