The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) (7 page)

Seven Years To Go

It was another round-table gathering, though the mood in the kitchen was nowhere near as curious as it had been when Jazzy had revealed her Second Sight gifts. After the October show at the Theatre Imaginique, it was as if nobody wanted to know what had caused the mammoth light to crash, or the widespread panic and fleeing of the audience that followed it. In the wake of the theatre’s major disaster, everyone around Lily looked exhausted, and Lily herself was fairly certain she was only breathing because shock was still powering her brain.

Like the choking fit in the cafeteria, and falling down the stairs in Bradley’s first lecture, Lily’s heart was hammering with the fear of near misses. The more of them that happened, the less it felt like a coincidence, and now she was pacing the space between Eva’s stove and the fridge, her feet striding sharply, as if she was merely waiting for the next bout of chaos to occur. The eyes of the entire assembled troupe – minus Salem, yet again – were fixed on her, as if she could provide the answers they sought for the unprecedented calamity the light had caused, and Lily felt the weight of their expectancy even when she looked away.

Novel should have been there to explain. He had promised as much, no less than an hour ago, but Lily hadn’t seen him since he’d given the order for them all to gather in the kitchen. To Lily’s intense displeasure, Baptiste was also missing from the group. When she could stand the silent, inquiring stares of the Imaginique’s performers no longer, Lily changed her spritely pace, and bolted right out of the room. She strode down the corridor, intent on climbing the stairs to seek Novel out, but the briefest glance down the hallway froze her in her tracks.

The illusionist was standing in the foyer, just visible through a two-inch gap in the door that marked the corridor as
Private: Staff Only
. And he was crying. Novel’s shoulders shook with the kind of intense sadness that Lily had never even pictured him feeling, and his pale face – now devoid of stage makeup – was shimmering with salt water. One hand covered his brow and eyes, the other clutching at his stomach with tight-fisted tension, crushing the soft black fabric of his fine waistcoat between strained fingers. His lips, the lips that Lily had kissed not long ago, were turned in a raw grimace, half panic, half sorrow, as he began to speak in the dimly-lit space.

“I just…” Novel stumbled over his words. “Is it enough? I don’t feel like I’m doing enough for her.”

Lily padded closer to the gap in the doorway, watching as a hand rose to rest on Novel’s shoulder. Its long nails and the wrist-bracelet filled with tiny, grey bones made her freeze once again, as if a stone had dropped into her stomach. Baptiste’s grip on Novel was strangely gentle, and the illusionist let go of his face to throw his head back, sucking up the tears his wracked sobbing had produced.

“It’s all you can do for now,” Baptiste replied, his voice as low and serene as ever it had been. “Get in there. She’s waiting on you.”

And Lily wished that Novel hadn’t found his resolve so quickly, because she really didn’t want to be standing there when he suddenly pushed the staff-only door wide open. But the dim golden light from the foyer’s chandelier bathed her in its glow, and Novel’s tear-stained skin was cast into shadow as their mutually-shocked expressions met. Lily stood, open-mouthed and quite incapable of changing that look, breathing so hard that she could see her chest rising in the very limits of her vision. Novel stepped closer, taking hold of her hands in that wordless moment, and Lily saw the bright flame of their matched souls as it sparked into life.

It gave her hope, and the strength to smile. And that was all Novel seemed to need to dry the very last of his tears.

*

“I trust you all recall Lily’s account of the events of last August,” Novel said, his stern features fully replaced as he addressed the kitchen full of performers. “When Maxime Schoonjans used the enchanted mirror in my dressing room to pass a message to us all?”

Lily nodded along with the others, now seated beside Jazzy and holding fast to her friend’s hand. Novel’s intense sorrow still hung in the back of Lily’s mind, but the strength he had found by the time they re-entered the kitchen was inspiring enough to keep her rapt with hope.

“Lily smashed the mirror,” Lawrence interjected, his expression one of fascination. “That’s how we heard it.”

“Indeed she did,” Novel answered, biting his lip for one small, tense moment. “Many of you know how I feel about superstitions, but not all of you know the reason why. Where most beings can get by if they step beneath a ladder or knock over a shaker of salt, the shadeborn are rather more susceptible to such instances of-”

“Bad luck?” Dharma interjected. “That’s why you won’t let me have peacock feathers in-”

“I do
not
believe in luck,” Novel spoke over her, his tone louder, but quaking a little more than before. “Luck has nothing to do with breaking a mirror.”

“Seven years,” Lily murmured, and she met Novel’s eyes with a tremor of worry returning to her own. She could remember Salem saying something about shades and broken mirrors, and how ‘seven years bad luck’ was more than a throwaway phrase when you belonged to the caste of the shadeborn.

“Lily’s actions with the mirror have resulted in a curse being laid upon her,” Novel surmised. “I’ve been watching the situation carefully in order to confirm it, but I think we can all conclude that, after tonight, the state of affairs needs attention.”

There was a murmur of voices, but Novel let one pale hand rise until he had silence again.

“It is time to take action, and lift the curse as best we can. Baptiste will deliver a message to-”

“What am I, your carrier pigeon now?”

The MC’s interjection might have sounded like a joke in any other circumstance, but in the tense air of the theatre’s kitchen, his words cut like a challenge. Novel met his eyes with a frost-filled glare, and any compassion that Lily had mistakenly witnessed between the two men seemed to die in the space between their eye-lines. Baptiste bowed his head and let out a long, tense sigh.

“To whom do I send this message?”

“To London first,” Novel continued, his glare abating, “and then to the other Great Cities, should we receive no reply. We are in dire need of a potioneer, one skilled enough to lift the curse before…”

The illusionist cut his own words short, his eyes meeting Lily’s. A shiver ran straight up her spine, like he’d shot her with only a look.

“Well,” Novel stumbled, holding her gaze, “as soon as possible, shall we say?”

Novel and Baptiste left at once to compose the request for a potioneer, and the remainder of the troupe slowly filtered out of the kitchen. Lily wasn’t thrilled at the sight of their half-satisfied expressions, nor was she inspired by the way each of them looked sharply about their surroundings, as though they might be next to catch some of Lily’s rotten luck. It was only Jazzy and Lawrence who stayed with her, Jazzy still clutching at her hand in her defiant best friend style. Lily exchanged a grateful smile with Jazzy, but she was more than a little disturbed by Lawrence. His dark features were suddenly gloomy, half-captured by his inner thoughts.

“Oi,” Lily said, snapping her fingers before his eyes. “Cut that out. I can only handle one brooding figure per theatre right now.”

Lawrence’s focus slowly returned to the room, and he spared Jazzy a thoughtful glance before his big brown eyes fixed solely on Lily.

“Novel said a curse had been laid upon you,” the voodoo boy reiterated.

“Right,” Lily answered, cocking a confused brow at him.

Jazzy squeezed her hand an instant later, and Lily switched her gaze to her friend’s bright face. Jazzy was staring beyond them both again, but this time her eyes were rapt with imagination, not visions.

“
Laid upon you
,” she repeated, “his exact words. A curse was laid upon you…”

Her glasses slipped down her nose as she quirked a fearful, inquisitive brow.

“So
who
laid it?”

November

The Quiet American

Salem was finally free from his confinement. Lily discovered this by accident, when she burst into the attic space of the theatre with a loud, childish huff. In a flurry of air magic, Lily had the old wooden door flying open with a bang, and inside the dark, wide space, a shadowy figure jumped. At the sight of him jumping, Lily jumped too, and the force of her magic treated her to a hard
crack
where her head connected with the lintel. As her feet shot down to find the ground once more, Lily looked sourly towards the other end of the room, where Salem’s familiar shape came into view among the shadows.

“You frightened me to death,” Lily scolded, rubbing at the crown of her scalp viciously.

“Lucky you,” came Salem’s flat reply.

In just a few weeks of the older shade’s confinement, he’d managed to make himself look more ragged than ever. A black and silver beard had sprouted in full from his proud chin, sprawling up to match the hair above it, now shaggy and in dire need of a cut. Only Salem’s cobalt blue eyes shone through the rangy mess of hair and frowns, and Lily found her anger fading almost as quickly as it had come upon her. When she closed the attic door behind her – by hand this time, just in case – Salem continued to sit motionless on the battered old sofa opposite her. Even when Lily flicked the switch that bathed the room in light, the once-great shade still looked like he was surrounded by darkness somehow.

“Sorry,” Lily sighed, “it’s been a hell of week.”

She crossed the grubby floorboards of the rehearsal space and sat down at the other end of the sofa. A little cloud of dust rose in a mushroom from the space between the cushions, and Salem turned his head to watch it form, and then vanish into the air. He looked older than Lily had ever seen him, and she wondered if the lack of magic in his blood had done that, or if that was simply the way people looked when they didn’t care about anything anymore.

“It’s not your fault anyway,” she said, trying yet again to break his reticence. “I’m cursed, in case no-one told you.”

“
I
told you,” he replied, and finally, there was a spark of something more than sorrow in his gaze. “I told you the moment you broke that damned mirror.
He
didn’t want to believe me, of course.”

Lily knew exactly who Salem was referring to, and she merely gave a nod.

“Well, it looks like Novel believes you now,” she offered.

Salem made a little scoffing noise, and an empty grin graced the gap in his beard.

“What’s he decided to do about it?” he asked.

“He’s calling a potioneer, whatever that is,” Lily answered.

“From London?” Salem added sharply.

He studied Lily’s face for a careful moment and, when she nodded in reply, Salem broke into the first genuine laugh she’d heard in a long time. He pointed a finger into the air, eyes gleaming, and shook it with authority as he spoke.

“See, this is what happens when you don’t consult important people about your plans,” he explained. “I have a particularly nasty history with the potioneer circle in London, and they’re not going to want to help anyone even remotely associated with me, let alone my blood kin.”

“A circle,” Lily repeated with interest. “So, it’s like a business?”

Salem shook his head.

“Don’t be fooled, honey. Every potioneer is out for themselves. The accumulation of their power is far more important to them than the things they do to help others. Novel will have to pay big time to lift a djinn curse from your pretty little head.”

“Djinn curse?” Lily repeated, and it was her turn to study Salem’s serious face. “What’s a djinn?”

“Creatures that dwell within enchanted glass,” Salem answered, quirking a dark brow. “Doesn’t he teach you anything important?”

In five minutes with Salem Cross, Lily learned more than Novel had told her in as many weeks. She learned that potioneers were humans who practised many different kinds of magic for a very high price, and she learned that the mirror she had broken in Novel’s dressing room had most likely awoken one of the creatures Salem had referred to as the djinnkind.

“Of course, there’s no way to know which djinn you’re dealing with,” Salem surmised, “but if your luck’s been as bad as you say, then it’s probably a powerful one.”

“And what does Novel think a potioneer can do about that?” Lily pressed, all her curiosity from the last two months rolling out with abandon.

“Probably hide you from their gaze,” Salem replied with a shrug, “or maybe create some good fortune to counteract the bad. He ought to have tried the Irish magic folk, really, lots of shamrocks going on there. Of course, if he’d asked
me
…”

Salem wagged that finger again, and Lily could already see his mood deflating. It was hard to watch him descending back into the sense of his own uselessness, and she reached out a hand to his shoulder. Salem looked at her, his eyes already faded back to their usual dull sadness, but there was a faint light in their depths, like he was thinking intensely despite his forlorn feelings.

“Right now, you’re the most helpful person in this whole theatre, Salem,” Lily said.

“Well you’re sure as hell cursed if that’s true,” he answered grimly.

“I’m sorry that you feel the way you do,” she began, “and that I interrupted you up here.”

The older shade shrugged his broad shoulders and raised his hands, running them back through the strands of his overgrown hair.

“He had Gerstein keeping watch on me when I was locked in my bedroom,” Salem explained. “That’s why I came up here. No faces in the walls.”

Lily looked around the room, which performers so often used for their rehearsals, and she found that Salem was right. There were no pictures on the walls here, no portraits, posters or tapestries for a simulacra to inhabit. Short of the off-chance that a face-like fold might appear in the curtains, or the creases of the old leather on which she sat, Lily was fairly certain that Gerstein couldn’t reach the attic room with his powers of observation.

“Why did you come up here?” Salem asked.

“Novel asked me to meet him here,” Lily answered, “I guess he’s not out of bed yet.”

It was just after sundown outside the attic’s small windows, and as Lily checked her watch, Salem dragged his sullen form onto its feet.

“That’s definitely my cue to leave,” he surmised.

Lily watched the sad figure padding barefoot towards the door, and she saw the heave in his shoulders as he pulled it open. Salem looked back as he stood in the slice of white light from the corridor, and tried his best to give Lily a smile.

“You know, maybe you and I ought to talk more,” he suggested, “you might be good for my recovery.”

Something proud stirred in Lily’s heart. She was pretty sure that this was the first time Salem had even talked about the future, or getting better at all, and she nodded fervently at his idea. He smiled again, warmer this time, and then he left the attic. Lily let out a deep breath, and it echoed all around the empty space as her eyes drank in the faceless room, looking up to its dark, raftered ceiling.

“Salem!”

She shouted suddenly, as a thought hit her mind. There was a rumbling of footsteps, then the creak of a door, and Salem’s shaggy face was back in the room.

“What do they look like?” Lily demanded. “These djinn things?”

Salem was clearly thrown by the question, and he wet his lips in thought as he answered.

“They’ve got skin like glass,” Salem answered, his brow shifting into the twisted focus of a distant memory. “It looks kind of blue from a distance. And their eyes – well, if you can call them eyes – they’re red like coral.”

It felt as though a fist of ice had wrapped its fingers around Lily’s heart. The vision in the lecture hall came back to her, clear as day, of the creature looking in on the high glass roof. Blue skin and red eyes, Lily was certain that that was exactly what she’d seen.

“Anything else?” Salem asked, and Lily jumped out of her thoughts as quickly as the memory had sucked her in.

“Not right now,” she answered, “but it’s like you said, Salem. You and I ought to talk more.”

The older shade grinned, and his eyes were shining again.

“Count on it.”