The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) (15 page)

Blood Sports

A shock of flames flew across the room no sooner than Lily was in it. There were subtle hints of what the Council Hall should have looked like here and there, for example in the golden portrait frames that hung on the vast, curved walls of the oval chamber. Those pictures had been covered with the same black drapery as the staircase in the foyer, and even the windows were garbed in shadowy, spider-like nets. The flames were the only real light in the room, and they blasted to and fro sporadically, as Novel’s family members threw them at one another for fun.

There were easily fifty people dotted about the room, reclining on fine furniture, or standing at small tables where they conversed over drinks. None of them seemed to mind the wild flames that were flying all around them and, when one such fireball shot straight towards the new entrants at the doorway, Pascal leapt straight through the middle of it with a gleeful shout. His sons looked less than impressed with the older man’s playful attitude, and Lily wondered, as she had with Novel some months ago, whether Theophile and Remy ever had occasion to smile with genuine joy.

“Uncle,” Novel pressed, stepping forward just a little to catch Pascal’s slim sleeve. “I confess I didn’t come to Pendle for celebrations. I wonder if I might seek your council on an urgent matter?”

Lily wanted to protest at once. She wasn't sure she wanted Pascal to know that she’d been cursed by a djinn, lest it should spark another bout of cruel laughter, this time with fifty other shades joining in the hilarity. Pascal seemed interested in the look of worry on Novel’s face, and he licked his lips thoughtfully.

“I’ll make you a deal, nephew-mine,” Pascal began, “win a challenge here today, and you’ll have my help in any matter you desire.”

Novel’s cool gaze narrowed over the older man.

“And your discretion?” he said.

“That too,” Pascal confirmed.

The illusionist spared one look into the congregation, who had fallen into a lull and noticed his arrival, then he gave a curt, somewhat regretful nod.

“One challenge, then,” Novel agreed.

“A challenge!” Pascal repeated with a shout.

The House of Novel erupted in a sharp cheer, but Lily found herself shrouded by worry. Novel turned to her and removed his greatcoat, followed by the pinstripe jacket of his suit. Lily held onto them tightly as she watched him rolling up the sleeves of his bright white shirt, and she marked the way his teeth were gritted, either in fury or reluctance.

“What are challenges?” Lily demanded in a whisper. “Are you going to fight them?”

She wanted the answer to be no, and when Novel nodded, her heart sank so low she felt as though it had fallen out of her body.

“It’s always this way,” Novel said ruefully, “violence first, sensibilities later. I might have known they’d show up here to scupper our plans.”

Lily was relieved, at least, that Novel seemed as unhappy as she was about their situation. When he was prepared for combat, the illusionist turned to find that a great circular space had been cleared in the centre of the room. At the opposite position on the circumference of the ring, either Theophile or Remy had stripped down to the waist. The broad, muscular young man had fists the size of cannonballs, but Lily knew by the way her blood was humming that a magical bout was brewing, not a physical contest. Looking at Novel’s sleek form, it was just as well.

“Cousin Helene will take those for you,” Pascal said.

Lily felt Novel’s things being lifted from her grip, and she turned to see a thin woman waving her arms in a gravity cast. Novel’s coat and jacket arced through the air of the dark, vast room to some unknown place, and Lily inclined her head to the cousin with thanks. Cousin Helene didn’t seem to care about being thanked in the least. She looked Lily over with narrow, beady eyes, and left without a word to find a space to watch the challenge.

“So rude,” Pascal said with a chuckle. “Come here, my dear. You’ll sit with me to watch the fun.”

There was no choice in the matter, but at least sitting with Pascal afforded Lily a marvellous view. Two huge seats, which looked more like regal thrones than armchairs, were raised on a platform to one side of the room. They had been quickly vacated by whoever had used them last, and as Pascal led Lily by the hand towards the raised area, a young woman came to stand behind one of the seats. She had pure white hair, the same colour as Novel’s, which was plaited with impossibly fine precision all the way to her waist.

“My beloved daughter, Océane,” Pascal said as he approached his throne.

Océane had a delicate beauty, with a porcelain face that looked as though one touch would shatter it. Unlike her father and brothers, she seemed frail and quiet, but she smiled when Pascal took his seat, and put one hand over the back of the chair to rest it on his shoulder. Her father reached up and took hold of it lovingly, and Lily felt a sick twinge of jealousy at such a paternal act.

“Océane,” Pascal said briskly, “Lily is a bastard child of Maxime Schoonjans.”

It wasn’t the remark that cut Lily deep, so much as the cruel amusement on the young woman’s face as she beheld her. Océane nodded, as though she understood something Lily didn’t, then spoke in a whispery, ethereal sort of voice.

“My father took your father’s eye,” she explained proudly. “He wrestled it from the socket with a rip of magic.”

The gleeful description of such violence made Lily feel sick. Pascal held out his other hand with a palm-up gesture.

“Now, now,” he crooned, “Maxime took my eye first. It was only fair, dearest.”

Lily found herself watching that swirling golden mass in Pascal’s left socket as Océane leaned in, her cruel smile diminished.

“Yes, Father,” she answered softly. “Sorry, Father.”

“No matter now, child,” Pascal said, giving her hand a squeeze. “Lily, take your seat. The first match is due to begin.”

A jaundiced man with a round belly announced the fighters, and Lily learned that Remy was the one to take on Novel. For his part, the illusionist seemed more irritated by the whole thing than nervous about fighting, and Lily felt calmer when Novel rolled his eyes in exasperation. Remy stamped the ground no sooner than the match had begun, sending an earthquake of gravity through the room that shook the Council Hall violently. As dust emerged from the high and ancient rafters of the building, it was only Novel who seemed unsurprised by the attack. His feet were already floating several inches off the ground.

Remy looked a little younger than Novel, but there had probably been decades of history between them, and Lily fancied that Novel had fought him before. Judging by the determined frustration on Remy’s face, Novel had bested him before too. Remy clearly favoured gravity as his cast of choice, and he was in the swift and endless process of lifting furniture and portraits to hurl at Novel. Though the speed of Remy’s massive casting arms was intense, Novel was sharp and precise as he had ever been on stage at the Imaginique. He flew through Remy’s obstructions without even bothering to deflect them, ducking and diving past each projectile, until he was close enough to strike a shock of lightning straight down the boy’s cheek.

Remy cried out, and Lily saw the red, veiny marks of a Lichtenberg figure forming on his face. The bout was child’s play for Novel, and as Lily watched him soar gracefully into the echelons of the usurped hall, she felt a gloat coming on. She allowed a proud smile to creep onto her face, eyes darting everywhere to follow Novel’s swift attacks. A groan emanated beside her, and she turned to see Pascal shaking his head wearily.

“I can’t watch, it’s simply embarrassing,” the uncle moaned. “Tell me Lily, were you acquainted with your father?”

With Remy struggling pointlessly again Novel in the corner of her vision, Lily mulled over the question.

“Not at all,” she replied coolly. “I knew him for a day, maybe less, before your big sister snapped his neck in front of me.”

The air of casual violence was such that nothing Lily said shocked Pascal or Océane. The senior shade simply rolled his eyes and patted his daughter’s hand, which was still placed dutifully on his shoulder. Pascal craned his neck up to see his daughter’s pale eyes.

“Your Auntie Evangeline always went for the neck,” Pascal told her, “choking, snapping, beheading. I believe she had quite a fixation.”

When Pascal looked back to Lily, the joviality had drained from his voice entirely.

“And,” he continued, “I believe we have you to thank for my sister’s death.”

Mother Novel had been a darksider of extreme proportions. She had trapped Novel in the Dreamstate – the world where your mind left your real-world body – and tried to choke the life from Lily by filling her lungs with unstoppable torrents of water. And yet, when Lily looked into the one good eye of Pascal Novel, she saw real grief there. Whatever Evangeline Novel had become in her many years on Earth, she had once been someone’s sister, someone’s aunt, and someone’s mother.

“Salem made a choice,” Lily said plainly. “I had no part in it.”

“But it was because of you,” Océane snapped.

Pascal tapped her hand chidingly, and she was silent, looking upset again.

“You’re a highly outspoken young woman, Miss Coltrane,” the senior shade surmised. “It’s unsurprising to me that my sister deemed you unsuitable to join this family. We always thought Lemarick would marry Aurélie eventually, you see, but when she disappeared, well…”

Lily didn’t want to ask. She had sometimes considered that Novel couldn’t possibly have lived the last two-hundred and seventy years of his life alone, but the prospect of discussing his former lovers wasn’t one that she relished. She fancied that Pascal knew just that, for the cruel amusement was back in his good eye as he continued to speak.

“Aurélie was quiet and obedient,” he explained pointedly. “She knew her place, and didn’t fancy herself better than those around her.”

Lily felt every jibe as it hit her, every barb that Pascal threw bouncing off her ever-thickening skin. With cheers rising in the background and the house chanting Lemarick’s name, Lily felt a swell of pride rush to her chest, and she did her best to look glib as she answered:

“She sounds like a terrible bore, if you ask me.”

It surprised her when Pascal laughed. If he had been baiting her to get her measure, then the older shade had succeeded in finding it. He reclined in his throne-like chair, rubbing his chin as he grinned. Lily felt a shiver, as though the mass of gold in one eye was slithering all over her.

“Still,” Pascal began in a low rumble, “I can see exactly why he likes you.”

Océane looked livid. Her pale face turned pink at her father’s complimentary words, and Lily might have shot her a gloating look too, if that hadn’t been the moment Novel chose to throw Remy straight at his father. Lily had looked away from the fight’s grand conclusion, but she saw, when the young man landed at her feet, that he’d been shocked so many times his dark hair was standing on end. Remy panted, giving his father an apologetic look before he threw his head back on the platform and passed out.

Pascal rose from his chair, stepping over his son as he made a sucking sound with his teeth.

“Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” the senior shade concluded.

When Pascal entered the circle, Lily looked back to Novel, whose expression was suddenly fearful again.

“You said
one
challenge!” he called to Pascal, and there was genuine fright in his voice as he shouted.

Pascal merely shrugged, and answered:

“Well, I lied.”

Spectrophobia

It would have been a horrendous lie to say that she liked Pascal, but up until moments ago, Lily had thought they were starting to get along. But when the senior shade erupted into the challenge circle in a ball of crackling, forked lightning, Lily felt the burn of the presence of an enemy all over again. Novel was panting lightly from his bout with Remy, and he looked more alert than ever as he flew around the blinding ball of energy that was his uncle. Outside the sphere of flashing, snapping light, it was impossible to see what Pascal was casting next, and Novel’s anticipatory advantage was gone in a snap.

Lily reasoned that that had to be why Novel was lowering himself to the ground. He stood opposite Pascal, hands cupped together at the wrists, like a fielder ready to receive a stray ball on a cricket pitch. He was paler than ever by the light Pascal had cast, and when the lightning was at its most intense, the ball exploded with a flash that blinded everyone in the room. Lily heard a violent force like a rush of air, but it took several seconds before her vision returned enough to see what had happened.

Novel was on the ground, casting a shield of fire around himself as he tried to get to his feet. Pascal stood over him with a masterful sort of glee, pressing down with a bolt of lightning so thick and heavy that he could hold it like a sword. Lily had never imagined that such control over the elements was possible, and she saw the precise tip of the lightning bolt as it hovered in the flames over Novel’s heart. She wanted to intervene at once, to send some wild flash of energy that would smack Pascal in the face and give Novel time to get up again.

“Don’t you dare,” said Océane’s whispery voice beside her. “The men of Novel are proud. Lemarick would never forgive himself if someone had to step in on his behalf.”

Lily realised that Océane had spotted her hands, already raised instinctively for a cast, and she lowered them carefully. Aside from the bitter truth in what the pale girl had just said, if Lily were to attack Pascal now, it was entirely possible that the whole House of Novel would turn on her in that instant. The dark figures crowded around the fight gleefully, cheering and jeering respectively as Pascal forced his bolt against the fire shield, which was starting to fail. They looked like animals, hungry for the bloodletting that was to come.

And, to Lily’s horror, so did Novel.

He was grinning where he lay trapped on the floor. His hair was astray in wild, sweat-soaked tendrils, and he held up his shield with visible strain in the veins of his forearms. Yet, Novel was enjoying the test, and perhaps the violence too. When Pascal made another stab with his lightning bolt, Novel let his shield down entirely and rolled in that moment, so that Pascal’s magic hit the ground and sent a reverb through his own body in a shockwave. It did not deter the senior shade for long, who spun into the air with as much grace as his nephew, and wiped a fleck of spittle from his chin.

“That’s my boy!” Pascal cried cheerfully. “I knew you were still in there somewhere, Lemarick.”

Lily hated everything that she was hearing, but the fire in her own heart still urged Novel to win. As much as he looked terrifying in his joyful display of airborne violence, Lily knew that the wildness within him was just what he needed to win the fight. Unfortunately, that same wild streak ran through Pascal, and the older man had powers to equal his nephew’s. Blow after blow of air and lightning raged, until the two men were caught up in the centre of a hurricane that spun on and on in the centre of the hall. The other members of the house were complaining that they couldn’t see the fight going on within, and all Lily could hope was that, when the storm cleared, Novel would be on top of matters at last.

He wasn’t. The cyclone came crashing to the ground in a burst of sudden fire, and many furnishings caught light to illuminate the men in their landing position. Pascal was on top of Novel again, one hand securely fastened around the other man’s neck. If there was any magic at all involved in the fight now, then both sides were balancing one another out. All that remained was Novel’s slim, pale throat, being crushed beneath Pascal’s reddening grip.

“Do you yield, nephew?” Pascal asked. His voice was strained and quiet, but the contents of the house were silent enough for all to hear him speak. “Yield, and live.”

Novel wasn’t yielding, and Lily couldn’t stand the way his eyes were fluttering, like he was losing air within his body that he couldn’t recover. Though she tried to be thankful that she had been returned from the very brink of death, seeing Novel’s life choked away by another senior of his family sent her head reeling with memories and furies. Her blood boiled with the need to retaliate, and she feared that any moment her instincts would take over, and Pascal might be battered by some unknown force that Lily could only cast at the height of her rage.

In the very moment before Lily would have raised her hands again to cast, a wall of water shot straight through the space between Novel and Pascal. Though it did absolutely nothing to stop Pascal’s hand from gripping Novel’s throat, the senior shade found himself looking at a perfectly clear panel, which reflected his own rage-consumed features straight at him. And, to Lily’s surprise, Pascal shrieked fearfully at his reflection, and leapt away from Novel at once.

It was all the time the illusionist needed to recover. His chest expanded in a surge of magical air, and Novel’s breathing was visibly laboured as he squared up a punch on the other side of the waterwall. Pascal was still in shock when the smack of air hit him like a fist to the gut, and the patriarch of the House of Novel went flying head over heels. He tumbled out of the double doors and into the foyer, where he crashed with the cry of an injured child.

“Father!” Océane screamed, and she was off like a shot to tend to the injured party.

Lily took that as her cue to rush to Novel, who had got to his feet and begun readjusting the sleeves of his fine shirt. As she sped on the air towards him, Novel’s greatcoat and jacket came flying into Lily’s grip, swatting the heads of the stunned onlookers in its path. Lily caught it with a flourish and she and Novel rose into the breeze whipping up around them. He took her hand, inhaling deeply when they touched, and Lily thought she felt a twinge of her wild energy passing into his body. When they flew into the foyer, Pascal was still gasping on the ground, and Novel lowered himself to call out.

“Outside, now,” he demanded, “I want my questions answered.”

When the pair touched down in the stark daylight of the hidden town, Lily felt a wave of relief overcome her. She hugged Novel close and he squeezed her for a moment, before she helped him back into his formal clothes as they stood waiting for Pascal to re-emerge.

“What happened with that waterwall?” Lily asked. “Why did he freak out like that?”

Novel leaned close with a heady grin.

“Pascal has spectrophobia,” Novel explained. “It’s a fear of mirrors and reflections.”

Lily couldn’t help an ironic little giggle.

“Getting a bit of that myself,” she mused.

“Not like him,” Novel assured her. “I was lying there choking, and I thought of you, and that waterwall you made when we argued, the last time I nearly got myself killed.”

“Russian Roulette,” Lily said, beaming.

Novel took her hands in his, and kissed her fingertips.

“Thank you for the loan of the technique,” he said with a chuckle.

What might have been a tender moment was smashed by the arrival of Pascal. Despite the beating he had taken, the senior shade was powerful as ever, carried on a fierce breeze that pushed Novel and Lily apart when he landed between them.

“You learned water casting and didn’t tell me,” Pascal spat bitterly. “Low move, nephew-mine. Dirty fighting becomes you too well.”

Novel did not rise to his uncle’s bait, but simply cleared his throat and asked his question.

“How do I lift the curse of a djinn?”

Lily was starting to learn just how changeable Pascal Novel could be, for his seething rage slipped back to amusement so swiftly that you would never have known he was angry a moment before. Pascal grinned, looking over the pair of them again until his one eye settled on Lily. That frozen orb glittered as brightly as the gold in the other socket.

“There’s only one way I know of,” Pascal crooned darkly. “Confront the djinn, and make negotiations.”

“You mean a bargain,” Novel retorted, “a deal with devils?”

“It’s what your mother would have done,” Pascal reasoned, still grinning.

“Well I won’t,” the illusionist replied. He grabbed for Lily’s hand again. “It’s far too dangerous.”

Pascal made a little scoffing sound.

“It’s a long time since I’ve heard you say that,” the senior shade mused.

“I’ve changed,” Novel answered, and there was pride in his words.

“So I’ve noticed,” Pascal observed, his eye flickering to Lily once more, as if she were to blame for everything wrong with the world. “I don’t like it.”