The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) (27 page)

Aftershock

The djinn had distracted her long enough that Lily missed Baptiste’s cry that the ground was coming upon them too fast. When she next opened her eyes, Lily jumped at once, looking around for the plane and the horrid red eyes that were staring at her out of its windows. What she saw instead were two narrow, dark eyes, and a pair of rough hands that pushed her back onto her mattress.

“What?” Lily stammered, hissing with sudden pain all over. “Where?”

“I guess you could call it a field hospital,” Jeronomie quipped with an irate sneer.

The sky was bright and blue above her, and Lily felt the tickle of long grass at her feet. The mattress she was lying on was inflatable, and sure enough, she really was in a field. When she got up more slowly for the second time, Jeronomie allowed her the luxury of looking around properly, and Lily realised that she was nowhere near the site where the plane had crashed. There was a huge black car in the field, a rover with American registration plates, and all its windows were painted over in black, save for a small gap in the front windshield. Lily felt like she had been asleep for quite a while, and the strangeness of trying to move her sore limbs seemed to suggest the same conclusion.

“Lily, thank the stars!” Novel cried from somewhere nearby.

He was all over her, in a mass of long lean limbs, and it took Lily’s addled mind several moments to focus on Novel’s concern-filled features. He was alive, safe and well, which registered with Lily as most important of all, and he was kissing her gently and holding her body steady as he knelt at her side.

“You need water, and food,” he urged, “Salem! Bring the water! You’ve been out cold for two days. How do you feel? What happened with the plane?”

It was clear that Novel had spent two days in frantic worry whilst Lily had been lost to her own exhaustion, but his questions helped her mind race back to the dire matters at hand. She rubbed at her temple, noticing the splint and bandages over her pre-supposed broken hand, and frowned at the illusionist in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘what happened with the plane’?” she asked. “It crashed. It hit the ground and… is everyone all right?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Novel assured her, “and all the humans were fine too, though we had to flee the crash site before any authorities pulled up.”

He moved to let Lily lean on him when her spine gave a shudder, and grasped her non-bandaged hand in both of his.

“What I mean,” the illusionist continued, “is how did you land it by yourself?”

Lily blinked.

“I wasn’t aware that I had,” she answered truthfully.

“Well,” Novel said, looking a little sheepish, “when Baptiste said the ground was closing in, I tried to pull the plane up a bit and… I discovered I wasn’t flying it. You were. I was just sort of steadying it, I suppose. I had to craft an air cushion to try and counteract your magic but – and it’s a wrench to admit this, believe me – your power was greater than mine. We took a rough landing, but the plane handled most of the damage.”

“He was there,” Lily said suddenly, grasping the front of Novel’s shirt. “The djinn was there in the plane window, and I guess I just didn’t want him to hurt all those people.”

“Whatever you did, it was marvellous,” Novel said warmly.

He kissed Lily at her temple, and she winced with pain again. This time, the bright summer sunlight of Massachusetts sunk into her skin, and she noticed that she was covered from head to toe with bruises and contusions. The shock of seeing her own body so battered was gut-wrenching, and Salem arrived just in time with the bottle of water to stop her being sick. Lily gulped at the water and shut her eyes tightly, soothed a little by the feel of Novel’s gentle hand brushing her arm.

“It’s all surface damage,” he told her, “from the amount of magic that must have been coursing out of your blood. I’m surprised you didn’t get your glamour from a feat like that.”

“Unless the bruises
are
the glamour,” Salem mused from somewhere overhead, “but don’t sweat it, kiddo. You look good purple.”

All Lily could be sure of was that her magic was still throbbing within her sore, tormented veins, and that the people who mattered most to her could be heard talking all around her. She lay on her makeshift sickbed in the middle of nowhere, free of mirrors and glass, and breathed a deep and thankful sigh that they were all still alive. The power of the djinn’s curse was ever increasing, and this last disaster had almost been too great for her to handle. Lily tried her best not to imagine how things could get worse, but her fearful mind was already conjuring the next catastrophe, even as it forced her back to sleep.

*

The Dreamstate looked different to the cave it had been last time, and Lily only knew that she was in it because the intense pain from her bruises had vanished completely. She looked clean and shiny in her bright white gown, which seemed to be the regular dress code for her trips into the Dreamstate nowadays. Around her, a dusty old hall echoed in a wide oval, and though Lily found its bright windows and curling staircases strange to behold, she was certain that she had visited this place in the real world before.

“Just in case you’re wondering, seeing me here doesn’t mean I’m your true love.”

The voice cut through the air like a knife, serrated and sarcastic. Lily knew the place where her dream had taken her at once, remembering how, in reality, it had been decked out with black veils and filled with dark people and the crackle of dangerous magic. She turned on toes that were light as air in the Pendle Council Hall, to see a figure seated at a familiar-looking throne. There was an empty seat beside him, reserved for her, and Pascal’s quip hung in the air as Lily glared at him across the wide space.

“I came here to talk to you,” Pascal said plainly, “I’ve been trying for several days. I thought you were dead.”

“So did I, I think,” Lily answered unsurely. “What do you want?”

“Sit with me and find out,” Pascal retorted.

He patted the other throne, and Lily shook her head. The Dreamstate quaked all around her, and a flurry of fluttering noises filled her mind. Lily felt as though the pages of a book were being flipped behind her, but when she turned to see them, the book wasn’t there.

“Nobody gets hurt here,” Pascal crooned, still grinning. “You’ve no need to fear me.”

“I don’t,” Lily replied at once, though in truth that was a massive lie.

“Then you’ll be wise enough to reconsider my offer,” the senior shade answered.

Pascal rose to his feet, and the dream carried him slowly across the hall with the swiftness of a breeze. He stood before Lily in every inch of his dark glory, save for that gleaming golden eye that never seemed to stop watching her. Lily’s face remained a picture of resilience, and she could see the patriarch of the noble house of Novel losing his cool. Pascal’s frustration was etched in the lines around his eyes, and in the tension of his lip as it curled with a snarl.

“Do you honestly think you’re going to have a tea party with this djinn and everything will suddenly be better?” he challenged.

“We’ll make a deal,” Lily said firmly.

“The djinnkind know far more about deals and contracts than the likes of us,” Pascal retaliated. “Haven’t you been reading your stories?”

Lily felt a stab in her heart, her mouth falling open.

“How do you know about that book?” she demanded.

“Novel announced to the whole of Pendle that you were coming,” Pascal replied, “it wasn’t hard to persuade an idiot like Baines to give you a welcome present.”

Lily felt the fluttering of the pages again, though the invisible book eluded her sight once more. Knowing that Pascal had constructed so much of the information she’d discovered was an unnerving sensation, one that sent the very pit of her stomach reeling, like a vat of acid had been poured straight in. Though his dream-self flickered in that unstable way that Dreamstate beings often did, Lily still flinched when Pascal stepped ever closer. His face was a picture of fury.

“You’re not some girl who just happened to be born a shade,” Pascal urged, “you’re
it
, Lily. You’re the one who can wipe the djinnkind off the face of this world and the next, and the Glassman knows it.”

Lily felt the flutter again, and a cyclone of wind picked up around her that made it hard to see the Council Hall beyond Pascal. His face was the face of a murderer, cold and furious, and Lily hated every word that he had spoken, yet there was one word that stopped her from wishing to wake up.

“The Glassman?” she repeated. “What do you mean? He’s just a fairy-tale, just a figure in a book.”

“And that’s what most shades will have you believe,” Pascal replied, “but I
know
he’s real. And only he would have the power to bring on the kind of destruction you’ve suffered. He’ll kill everyone you love, Lily Coltrane, unless we kill him first.”

“I won’t be a killer,” Lily shot back, “I won’t be anything like you.”

Pascal blinked with his one good eye.

“We shall see.”

The cyclone of air took a dizzying spin, and Lily felt her tired mind returning to a painful slumber as the sight of the golden-eyed murderer faded from her view.

June

Old Enemies

“This really isn’t way to see America,” Salem groused as he peered out of the strip of windshield that wasn’t painted black.

It was early morning, and he and Lily were the only two occupants of the huge car that were awake, sitting in the front seats with only a band of brilliant golden sunlight to illuminate their way. The windows were blacked for the courtesy of the bloodshade, Baptiste, who was lying across the floor of the second row of seats, with Novel’s feet resting on his stomach. Lily found it hard to look at the way Baptiste’s hand was resting on the tip of Novel’s shoe, despite the fact that the illusionist had fallen asleep first, with no idea that Baptiste was going to climb down in the car to hide from the bright slash of the sun.

Jeronomie took up the other seat in the car’s second row, her large limbs curled into a coil, like a sand-snake waiting to pounce, and beyond her Jazzy was propped up in the far left corner with what seemed like hundreds of pillow that Lawrence had adjusted to keep her comfortable. The voodoo boy was a little too tall for the roof of the vehicle, and he had eventually fallen asleep with his head on Jazzy’s pillow. Their faces were close and peaceful in slumber, and Lily hoped they’d still be like that when they woke up, gazing at each other.

“If you could find the place we’re looking for and get this deal over with, then maybe some partying in Boston might be in order,” Lily told the showman at the wheel.

“That’s easy to say,” Salem groused, “but I was flown there on someone else’s magic. You know how hard it is to find a really small, specific pond in this state? There’s water everywhere.”

Lily suspected she knew exactly how hard it was, since the seven of them had spent the last two weeks driving around looking for the place Salem claimed the Gifter would be hiding out. They had explored the urban metropolis of Salem City as their first port of call, and tried every patch of water in its surrounding suburbs to uncover the portal, with no luck whatsoever. Then, they had ventured into an area called Peabody, of all things, and done exactly the same recce there, again with no results. Now, the travellers were moving westwards, but tensions were running higher with every day that produced no clear results.

Lily thought it was unfair to blame Salem entirely for their lack of progress, but had she known that the showman really had very little idea where Gifter’s portal was, she might not have been so insistent that Novel organise their expedition. Still, as every day went by that they spent searching for the djinn in the mysterious water, Pascal’s words of warning in the Dreamstate travelled further from Lily’s mind. She didn’t want to believe that someone as ruthless and uncouth as Pascal could be right about her purpose as a killer, and the more time she spent planning the negotiation with Novel and Jazzy, the better she felt.

“We’ll find it,” Lily told Salem reassuringly, hoping she was right. “If another shade flew you there, it can’t have been much further into the country than we are now.”

“I don’t know,” Salem huffed, “Evangeline was pretty powerful. She threw me across the whole of Moscow once. Now that was a fun date.”

“Wait a minute,” Lily said, the pit of stomach suddenly heavy. “When you say Evangeline…”

Salem glanced at her for a moment, then nodded.

“Lemarick’s mother,” he confirmed.

“Mother Novel was the one who introduced you to Gifter?” Lily asked, still not wanting to believe this new information.

“Sure,” Salem answered glibly. “You know first-hand that she liked to make alliances with unsavoury types: your dad and those hunters, for example.”

“And
you
,” Lily quipped back bitterly.

The pair fell into silence, with Salem squinting again to see outside as he spied for signs of water and countryside. Lily felt the trepidation rising inside her again, with a powerful, fearful instinct that told her she shouldn’t be seeking out someone that had once been pals with the woman who broke her friend’s spine and actually did end Lily’s own life, at least for a few minutes. But the other option, Lily realised, lay with Pascal and his furious offer to turn her into a djinn-killer, chasing fairy-tales in his quest for blood. She was stuck between the ghost of one deadly Novel and the reality of another, and her only comfort was that at least her friends thought looking for Gifter was a good idea.

“Oh well,” Lily sighed, “I suppose it’s too late to turn back now.”

“Good,” Salem said, suddenly fumbling for the gearstick, “because I just found a new patch of wildland for us to explore.”

*

“You woke me up for this,” Jeronomie raged, “you useless son of a-”

“Temper, temper,” Novel cut in, stepping between the potioneer and Salem. “You agreed to help us on this search, Miss Parnell, and I’ll gladly remind you that you’re free to leave at any time.”

They had been traipsing through the mire for three hours since Salem stopped the car, and Lily, Novel and Jeronomie were soaked up to the waist in water. Salem was the only one of the group who had yet to wade into the centre of any of the ponds they’d been exploring, and that fact had not escaped the potioneer’s narrow eyes. Now, Jeronomie found herself face to face with Novel, and her dark resolve slunk back towards petulant compliance.

“I’m just saying,” she griped, “he ain’t found us this portal in fifteen days, and-”

“And if it takes fifteen more, I shall continue looking,” Novel interjected sternly. “Once again, Miss Parnell, I’ll be happy to drop you off at a bus stop somewhere, if you’d rather start making your way home.”

Since landing in the States, Lily had to wonder why Jeronomie
was
still with the group. She had offered to lend a hand in the search for Gifter’s pond readily enough, but now every day was filled with barbs and bitter complaints, which were all directed at Salem. The man that the potioneer had seemed so keen to help and heal was now the ultimate source of her displeasure, and she was the only one of the group who was totally free to leave. Yet, she hadn’t, and judging by the way she raised her palms and gave in to Novel’s warnings, Lily reasoned that Jeronomie was still going to stick around.

“Salem,” Novel said, sounding exasperated, “does anything here look familiar at all to you?”

Salem nodded, but it was without enthusiasm.

“Trees, water, pondweed,” he listed, “except there aren’t any frogs here, though I guess frogs could have moved on. It has been three hundred years since I saw this place, you know.”

“I can’t believe you wouldn’t pay attention to a location so important,” Novel bit back.

“Hey,” Salem said, raising a warning finger. “I had a lot going on. I got this girl pregnant and then she called me a witch, and I was gonna get hanged. Geographical landmarks were not the first thing on my mind, okay?”

“Pregnant?” Lily asked, looking sharply to Novel. “Not…?”

“No, no, no,” Salem answered swiftly. “Not him. That was later. I only met Evangeline that day, when she brought me out here.”

“So you left this pregnant girl for someone shiny and new?” Jeronomie cut in bitterly.

The potioneer’s look ought to have been enough to wither any normal deadbeat man to shame, but Salem only shrugged.

“She was a human girl,” he replied simply. “Besides, I wasn’t ready to be a father.”

“You never have been,” Novel added in a low tone.

As all of this conversation unfolded, Jeronomie was leading the bedraggled explorers back towards the car, which was easily another mile away. The summer sun baked the back of Lily’s neck and, though her bruises from the plane landing had finished healing a few days ago, she was pretty sure the damage was still rife under her skin. She felt like flying on a cooling breeze, but Novel had warned all of them against using magic in a place where humans were driving by every few minutes, and her blood tingled with that tempting urge to go against the illusionist’s rules yet again.

“So you don’t care at all that there’s some shade kid out there without a father, for the last three centuries?” Jeronomie said accusingly.

“I figure if they haven’t come looking for me by now, they don’t need me,” Salem surmised.

Jeronomie stopped dead in the middle of the expanse, and Lily let out a pettish sigh. She just wanted to get back to the air conditioning of the dark little car, and not have this pointless argument unfolding whilst the sun was beating down hard on her sweat-soaked face.

“What if the kid couldn’t find you?” Jeronomie asked, her voice strangely choked. “What if that kid’s spent their whole life wondering who you are?”

“If that’s the case,” Novel chimed in, “I’d say that’s one very lucky shade. Believe me, he never did me any good in my formative years.”

The small crowd began walking again, and Lily found herself wishing that Novel’s words would bring an end to the tiresome quarrel, but Salem had more to say on the matter.

“Lily,” he said in a pleading tone, “you didn’t have a father growing up. You didn’t need one, right? You were fine on your own.”

Lily made no reply, save for an exasperated sigh as she kept on walking. It was true that Lily had been left with only her fearful, emotionally damaged mother to raise her, and she had always felt that she had to do things more or less alone to succeed in her life. That hadn’t been so bad for the first eighteen years, but Salem’s questions did make her wonder how different life might have been if Maxime Schoonjans had taken ownership of his fatherhood and raised Lily as a shade.

She might have been darker than she was, for a start, and much more accomplished in her magic for her years. But Lily had a suspicion that any kind of relationship between her and Novel would have been a massive no-no in that other reality. She might have even looked upon him as her enemy by now, and she certainly never would have smashed a powerful enchanted mirror for his sake. Which, Lily realised, would mean that all her friends wouldn’t be in such terrible danger now.

“I don’t know,” she answered Salem eventually, “it might have been better, in some ways. But there’s no point in wondering. You have to make do with what you’ve got.”

Jeronomie gave a grumble at that, and huffed on ahead.