The Potion Diaries (8 page)

I swallow hard. I hadn’t considered the possibility that someone wouldn’t want to cure the Princess. But if the Princess dies . . . then Emilia would be the next Queen. And life in Nova would never be the same again.

I’m not sure if I’m cut out for this. Joining the Hunt would mean going out there . . . into the Wilds. The untamed lands outside of the major cities and towns. The Wilds are carefully protected sanctuaries of nature, where streams of magic can flow unchecked. Access to the Wilds is strictly controlled. Grandad thinks the regulations around the Wilds are a joke – once the entire world was Wild, of course, but towns and cities have spread like fungus until only comparatively small acreages of wild land are left. There are reasons for this, of course. This is a modern world. Magic is unstable out in the Wilds, and cities are much safer places for Talenteds to live. Something about the more people pulling on the stream of magic, the stronger and more stable it gets. Like a rope made up of many twisting strings. Out in the Wilds, those threads get spread further and further apart, and become more likely to fray – or even break – with violent consequences. The magic in the Wilds is just too powerful for most Talenteds to control. In some places, it would be like turning on a tap and expecting a stream – but instead getting an ocean.

Of course, the Wilds are dangerous for the ordinary among us too: full of creatures waiting to bite your head off. And plants that might do that too.

The Wilds are for the adventurous people of the world, like Kirsty. They’re not for people who would rather live their adventures through characters in books. I like staying home, thank-you-very-much, where I know I can always find a plug point for my laptop, I’m never ten steps from a kettle to boil for tea, and I can go to sleep wrapped up in the comfort of my own duvet.

‘Alchemists belong in the lab,’ Grandad says, and he only leaves the building to play pétanque with the other old folk. Everything else he needs is here.

Sometimes we’re more alike than I care to admit.

You’ve got the Kemi gift.
Kirsty’s words ring in my ears. Maybe I do. And I can’t keep holding onto these dreams, without at least trying to make them come true.

I jump up from the bed, feeling more confident than anyone should in their pyjamas. Adrenaline floods my system: it’s impulsive, it’s rash, but if I take any more time to think about it, I’ll talk myself out of it. ‘Okay, I’ll do it. First thing tomorrow morning,’ I tell Kirsty.

‘Do it now,’ she says. ‘We need to plan for the first ingredient.’

The clock on my bedside table reads 11.09 p.m. ‘It’s late . . .’ I say, but then I know the Royals won’t be sleeping. ‘Okay, give me a second.’

‘I won’t move a muscle,’ she says with a grin.

I tiptoe out into the hallway. The house is deathly quiet. When I was younger, Grandad used to make mixes deep into the night, but now he takes a sleeping draught at 10 p.m. on the dot, so I know he won’t waken.

When I reach the shop floor, I take a deep breath. The shop has an eerie appearance at night, the muted light from the street reflecting off the innumerable glass jars that line the back wall. The air is still. There’s a dark screen in the corner, our Summons, and I place my palm on the glass. It’s cool to my touch. I’ve never done this before, so I hope it works.

‘Renel Landry,’ I say to the glass.

Renel’s face appears beneath my hand, and I have to bite down on my tongue not to yell out in shock.

‘Cutting it close, Samantha Kemi.’ He reaches his hand through the glass. I take it and brace myself. He pulls me hard and within a blink of an eye I’ve arrived in the Palace. It’s not nearly as hard as last time.

The surprise must show on my face as he tuts at my ignorance. ‘Once you’ve visited a place, it’s much easier to transport there again. You left an imprint of yourself along the magic streams.’ He walks briskly over to Auden’s Horn, which appears to breathe in the flickering candlelight of the Palace room.

‘You know what to do,’ he says.

I step forward and place my finger on the screen. Just like it did with Zol and Zain, smoke pours from the mouth of the Horn as if it is on fire. I feel heat on my face. ‘I’m in . . . but my grandfather isn’t,’ I say.

Renel raises an eyebrow. ‘No Ostanes? I will have to talk to the family about this.’ For a moment I think they’ll refuse to let me enter on my own.

But then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a scroll. ‘Your Wilds pass, and the first ingredient,’ he says, then he turns me round and I fall sideways into the wall behind me. The wall bends and breaks, then I’m back on the shop floor, skidding on the stone slabs, panting heavily. The Summons screen goes dark.

I take a few deep breaths, then run my finger along the edge of the scroll to break the seal. My heart stops.

I might have already missed my shot.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Samantha

‘
A
T LEAST WE DIDN’T WAIT UNTIL tomorrow.’ Kirsty looks down at the scroll. ‘I guess anyone who has to think too hard about whether to join the Hunt is going to be out without a hope. This stuff is impossible to buy.’

‘Are we too late?’

Her watch is a complicated device with several different interlocking faces showing time zones and moon phases and tides. ‘We should just make it. If we leave now.’

‘What’s going on here?’ Mum stands in my bedroom doorway in her purple dressing gown. Dad is behind her, a beat-up paperback in his hand. I wasn’t exactly discreet, running upstairs from the shop floor. I would have woken the Sphinx with my stomping.

As they stare at Kirsty and me, I know they’ve figured it out. But to my relief, they don’t look mad. Only tired.

‘Oh honey,’ says Mum.

‘I’m sorry. But I want to do this. I need to do this. This is my chance to . . .’ I run out of words.

Dad reaches out to me. ‘It’s your choice, Sam. But we can’t pay to help you get any of these things. Kirsty’s fees, your transport out into the Wilds, anything you might need along the way . . . Any of it.’

‘Kirsty will help me out. Help
us
out.’

Thankfully, they seem to come to a mutual agreement. ‘You’ll have to break it to Grandad tomorrow morning.’

‘I might not have time for that.’ I hand over the scroll.

Dad reads the name of the ingredient and draws in a sharp breath. ‘My goodness.’

‘What is it?’ asks Mum.

‘Full moon oyster merpearl. Crushed. 30g.’ I recite, already having it memorised.

‘Do we have it in the stockroom?’ Dad asks.

I shake my head. ‘I just checked before coming upstairs.’ The jars had skipped straight from
Merlin’s Beard
to
Merrimack plant
. No merpearl in stock – I’m not that lucky.

‘But the next Rising is tonight!’ Mum says. ‘I saw it on the news.’

‘I know.’ I knew it as soon as I read the ingredient.

‘You don’t have any time to lose then,’ says Dad. He hands back the scroll. ‘Kirsty – you keep her safe.’

‘I will, John.’ She chucks me my backpack from the floor. ‘Meet me outside in five.’

I nod, grinning and darting around my bedroom, throwing anything I can find into the bag, barely stopping to think about where I might be going. What do you pack to go fishing for merpearls? I change into my most Finder-like gear: cargo trousers, a black T-shirt and warm hoodie. I throw in my waterproof jacket and a torch. Then I pack my most important item: my potions diary. It’s a thick, string-bound notebook with a sturdy brown leather cover. It’s by far my most prized possession. In here are all my recipes, all my notes about ingredients, all my dreams of new and different mixes. It’s my brain in paper form.

In our library we have potion diaries belonging to almost every Kemi going back nearly five hundred years. There are a few key ones missing: my great-grandmother Cleo’s, for example, and the journal of Thomas Kemi, the founder of the store. But the remaining journals form the great archive of Kemi knowledge, and it is by far our biggest asset.

I slot mine in the front pocket of my backpack.

I kiss Mum and Dad goodbye and race downstairs and out the side door. I swing my backpack up onto the floor of Kirsty’s 4×4 and climb in the front.

‘Ready?’ she says.

I bite my lip and nod. We have two hours to do a two-and-a-half-hour drive, plus find a boat willing to take us out to the Rising at the last minute. I sense that our chances aren’t good, but what else can we do?

Before another thought can enter my brain, Kirsty slams down her foot on the accelerator, her fingers reaching out and flicking a switch on the dashboard that sends a surge of heavy metal music into the night air. If anyone opened a window to complain, we wouldn’t know it – already we’re around the corner and bombing down the twisted side streets, aiming straight for the highway heading south: to the Wilds of Nova.

I chew at the edges of my fingers, the buzz of Kirsty’s subwoofer not helping my nerves.

Some parts of the Wilds are more accessible than others, like where we’re going – Syrene Beach. It’s the closest Rising to Kingstown and the only one in Nova. No one will have time to get anywhere else. You have to have a pass to get in, but it’s one of the easiest to acquire. Syrene Beach is always featured in any guidebook or tourism advert for Nova: ‘Come witness the only Rising visible from the shore!’ ‘See the beauty of Aphroditas and her mermaid clan!’ ‘Go wild in the Wilds: the hottest party beach in Nova!’

No one is quite sure why the mermaids rise in the middle of the night during the full moon. They might bear many physical similarities to humans, but researchers haven’t been able to communicate with them in any meaningful way, at least not enough to give us any insight into their traditions. They’re exhibitionists though, that’s for sure. They rise up out of the sea and show off the beautiful pearls they’ve cultivated during the past month. They’re competitive too, spending the month preparing for the occasion, which has all the pageantry of a beauty contest, and performing for all the people who crowd on the beach to watch them.

The most beautiful mermaid is called Aphroditas. If my guess is right and other teams from the Hunt will be at the Rising, whoever gets the pearl from her will instantly have the most potent ingredient. That’s the gamble the teams are going to have to take: compete for the attention of Aphroditas and potentially gain the most powerful pearl, or lose out and risk not getting a pearl at all.

Merpearls are the most popular engagement ring stone, even more so than diamonds or sapphires. In fact, Princess Evelyn has a merpearl tiara, the ultimate in extravagance. A vision of her picking her tiara apart to get one of the ingredients for the love potion plays out in my mind.

‘Maybe we should have dragged my dad along.’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Kirsty.

‘Don’t mermaids respond best to male voices?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I read . . . a lot.’

‘Nerd.’

I punch her on the arm and she laughs. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. If necessary, I can teach you a few tricks to change the timbre of your voice.’

‘And that works?’

She nods. ‘Rule number one of being a Finder: you work with what you’ve got. Never count yourself out.’

Kirsty barely takes her foot off the gas, and since the highway is deserted – and there are no signs of any police – we make good time. With a few minutes to spare, we pull up to the Wilds border, little pillbox sheds standing like sentries on guard in the middle of the road. I wonder how busy the beach will be. Packed for the Rising, most likely.

I stare down at the paper in my hand, the neat line of printed text.
Full moon oyster merpearl. Crushed. 30g.

The guard checks over our papers, and flicks my shiny new pass with his fingers. Kirsty’s pass is old and battered, even though she has to get it renewed every year she continues as a Finder. ‘You’re late,’ he says with a smirk.

‘Then stop stalling us,’ says Kirsty.

‘Maybe I should take a closer look at these.’

Kirsty leans out the window, grabs at the guard’s shirt and yanks him down towards the window. ‘Let us through.’

I swallow down a dense ball of alarm at Kirsty’s brazenness, but the guard laughs and tosses the passes back through the window and onto my lap.