The Flamels' equipment arrived two days after they moved into the shop.
Rowan was upstairs repairing the ceiling plaster when Clara called up the staircase. "There's a carriage outside. I think something's pulling it, but I can't see what."
Thestrals. Rowan could see them, had been able to since first year, though he'd never told anyone why. The carriage was a plain black affair hitched to a single thestral that stood patiently in the square, its skeletal flanks rising and falling with slow breaths, its blank white eyes fixed on nothing. A large crate sat in the carriage bed, and a short wizard in travelling robes was already levitating it toward the front door.
"Delivery for Ashcroft," the wizard said, consulting a tag on the crate. "From N. and P. Flamel, Devon. You'll want to be careful with it. I was told the contents don't like being jostled."
The crate was larger than a wardrobe. It took both of them and a sustained Levitation Charm to manoeuvre it through the front door, and even then they had to remove the hinges to make it fit. Rowan signed the delivery receipt, the wizard climbed back onto the carriage, and the thestral turned and trotted silently out of Carkitt Market, its hooves making no sound on the cobblestones.
"What's pulling it?" Clara asked again, watching the apparently horseless carriage disappear around the corner.
"Thestrals. You can only see them if you've seen death."
Clara looked at him for a moment, absorbing both the information and what it implied about him. She didn't ask the obvious question.
The crate itself was warded. Rowan could feel the enchantments layered into the wood, preservation charms and cushioning spells and something deeper that hummed against his fingertips when he touched the lid. A small envelope was tucked into a groove along the top edge.
Rowan,
Inside is everything you'll need for the initial production run. The athanor is self-regulating but temperamental in cold weather. Keep the room above fifteen degrees or it will sulk. The crucibles are on indefinite loan from an associate of Nicholas's in Bern, a goblin named Vorzak who owed him a favour from 1743. Don't ask what the favour was. Nicholas won't tell me either.
The formulae notebook contains the simplified lead-to-silver transmutation process we discussed. Follow the steps exactly. The margins between success and a crucible full of worthless slag are narrow, and the planetary timing matters more than you think.
The Expansion Charm you need is Capacious Extremis. The incantation is straightforward but the wand movement is not. I've enclosed a diagram. Practice on something small first. A drawer or a cupboard. Attempting it on the room itself before you've got the motion right will give you a headache that lasts a week. I speak from experience.
Perenelle
Inside the crate, packed in layers of enchanted straw, Rowan found the components of a proper alchemical laboratory.
The athanor was the centrepiece. He'd used Nicholas's during his summers in Devon, a massive furnace built into the wall of the Flamels' workshop. This one was the same design scaled for transport, but Perenelle hadn't skimped on capacity. The calcination chamber could handle a full pound of lead at once, enough for three or four silver disks per cycle. Brass casing etched with self-regulating runes that would maintain temperature within a degree of the target.
The crucibles came next. Six of them in ascending sizes, goblin-forged, their interiors polished to a mirror finish. Whatever favour Nicholas had called in to get them, the quality was worth it. The alloy would resist the corrosive acids that the dissolution stages demanded, conditions that ate through standard iron or copper in hours.
Then the alembic assembly, measuring instruments, stirring rods in different metals for different stages of the process where the rod's own composition could contaminate or catalyse the reaction. Rolls of lead sheeting. Starting supplies of powdered moonstone in Perenelle's careful hand. Bottles of reagents sealed with preservation charms. And at the bottom, wrapped separately in velvet, a leather-bound notebook in Nicholas's handwriting containing the simplified lead-to-silver transmutation process and refinements to the luminaire production formulae.
Rowan spent the rest of the morning cataloguing everything. Clara helped him move the heavier pieces into the back room, which was still cramped and unmodified.
The Expansion Charm took four attempts. Perenelle's diagram showed a tight spiral wand movement that reversed direction halfway through, and the incantation's timing had to match the reversal exactly. His first attempt produced nothing. His second cracked a kitchen drawer he'd been practising on. His third sent the drawer's contents flying across the room. On the fourth try, the drawer's interior stretched until he could reach in up to his elbow and feel only empty air where the back panel should have been.
Applying it to the back room left him with the headache Perenelle had warned about. But when the spell settled, the space had tripled. Enough room for the athanor, a transmutation station, a workbench for inscription and assembly, and the empty space where the runic press would eventually go.
He set up the laboratory that afternoon with the same organisational logic Nicholas had taught him. Athanor against the far wall. Crucibles at the transmutation station in ascending order. Alembic assembly adjacent, positioned to receive material directly from the crucibles. Reagent bottles on upper shelves, organised by stage of the process. Lead sheeting and raw materials within easy reach of the workbench.
By evening, the workshop was functional.
A tap at the window made him look up. Athena sat on the outside sill, looking windswept and thoroughly pleased with herself. She had a letter in her talons and an expression that suggested she expected praise for having found him at an entirely new address without any difficulty whatsoever.
Rowan opened the window and she swept in, landing on the workbench and holding out her leg. The letter was from Sirona.