by Raquel Lyon
“Maybe. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home now.”
Sam stood and smoothed down his jeans. “I’m on the night shift tonight and your place is on the way. I’ll drop you off.”
Chapter Ten
IN A VAST, STONE ROOM draped with tapestries and lit by sconces, an imposing figure swirled his robes around with anger as he turned to face his general.
“Why was I not informed of his escape?”
“Your Majesty, as you are aware...”
“Do not tell me what I am aware of. I am well aware of what I am aware of.”
“My apologies, Your Majesty. What I meant to say was, it should have been impossible. His cell was in the deepest catacombs. It is inconceivable that he would have been able to escape without assistance. We needed to be sure he had not merely been misplaced.” The general dragged a bedraggled man forward and threw him on the ground. A bunch of keys tied to his belt jangled as he fell. “This piece of lowlife scum was in charge of that section.”
The king scowled at the gaoler cowering at his feet.
“It was not me, Sire,” the man pleaded. “I swear on my life and that of my family. I would never—”
“You know the punishment for treason.”
The gaoler whimpered, twisting his tunic in his hands. “I beg you to believe me.”
“Silence.” From the king’s outstretched hand, a crackling, green ray of light shot towards the man and wrapped around his mouth and body. “I will not listen to your piffling excuses,” he said, as the man flew into the air and his skull slammed against the hard surface of the wall. “If I find out you are lying to me, I will make orphans of your children.”
Tears fell from the man’s terrified eyes as he struggled to shake his head in denial.
The king turned back to his general. “Find out who is responsible... and find him. I am relying on you, Septamus. Do not let me down. And whatever you do, do not let the queen discover what has happened.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I will dispatch the guard immediately. Have no fear. The traitor will be found.” The general glanced up at the gaoler. “And him?”
“Install him in one of his own particularly repugnant cells,” the king said, waving a hand to unbind the gaoler’s bonds, who then dropped to the floor in a clump. “I shall enjoy dealing with him later.”
The gaoler scrambled to his feet and was immediately caught around the neck by the general and shoved out of the door.
King Oban sat heavily in his chair and stared into the flames licking the logs in the fireplace. The prisoner could not have gone far. He would be caught. He had to be caught before the Resistance discovered his existence. The knowledge he possessed endangered the realm far more than a few disgruntled subjects.
It had not been his intention to cause upset amongst his people. He had thought his marriage might bring peace to their lands. Instead, it had stirred up more anger. Why could they not love their queen as much as he did? He had waited too long for her to become his, and an heir would restore the balance. It had been foretold, and he trusted the knowledge of his ancestors to make this so. He would not let one headstrong boy cause him to lose that dream.
Chapter Eleven
AFTER A VERY DISTURBED night’s sleep, the following day didn’t bring Piper any form of relief. As usual, customers were in extremely short supply, and the lack of a more rewarding way to occupy her time had allowed her too many hours to relive the previous evening’s events. Her intermittent dreams of monsters, during the night, hadn’t helped matters, either, and now, she was beginning to think it possible she could have imagined the whole thing.
Before the afternoon drew to a close, she turned the open sign to closed and retreated upstairs.
Dumping her bag into the dent of the sofa where her father always used to sit, she went to pour a glass of water. Habit made her open the kitchen cupboards to search for food, but for once, she felt no disappointment at their shortage of contents; she wasn’t really hungry, anyway.
She took her drink back to the sofa, turned on the television, and flicked through the channels, but the usual round of afternoon chat shows and quizzes held no appeal. She threw the remote onto the cushion at her side and sighed. Maybe she should call Maddie and ask her to come over to keep her company? Or maybe not. Maddie would know there was something on her mind and insist upon knowing what it was. Then what was she supposed to say: ‘I came to meet you at the club the other night and met a witch instead—oh, and by the way, she thinks my mum was one, too’?
She lifted her medallion from her chest and stared at it, trying to remember if her father had said anything else when he gave it to her, but came up blank. Was it possible her mother could have been a witch and her father never knew it? It seemed too impossible to comprehend. Who could keep a secret like that for over a decade? And then there was the cabinet full of strange items downstairs...
Feeling restless, she took a cloth from the kitchen drawer, went to her parent’s bedroom, and ran it over the surfaces. The work was supposed to take her mind off things, yet all it succeeded in doing was to make her think how much easier it would be to wave a wand and magic the dust away. If only she could.
She sat on the bed, and her eyes were drawn to a photograph on her father’s nightstand—a picture of her perched high upon his shoulders. It had been taken on a visit to the zoo, in happier times. When he went to bed at night he always placed his wallet next to it and put the shop keys in the drawer beneath. She leaned over to pull it open and stared inside. Exactly like the one in the shop, this drawer was also full of an assortment of items and... an identical piece of parchment. Another letter. Piper leaned against the pillow to read it.
Rodigan,
I must write quickly.
The king is dead, and the prince has taken the opportunity to retrieve that which he has most desired. I had hoped it would bring the longed-for peace we all crave, but it has not sat well with the people. There are rumours of an uprising. Every day, homes are raided and men dragged away from their families for questioning. We all live in a state of fear that our loved ones will be next, but I have accepted a new post at the palace and hope it will afford us some security.
The messenger is knocking. I will write again when I have more news.
The letter wasn’t signed. Piper turned it over to check the back. No. That was it. She stared at the parchment in the fading sunlight. The new queen...? Piper’s knowledge of the British monarchy wasn’t comprehensive, but she knew enough to know the details didn’t match any Queen of England she’d ever heard about. Why had her father kept the two letters addressed to the same man, and why had he stored them in two different places? Were there more? Did it matter?
A sudden wailing filled the air and interrupted her thought process as the shop’s alarm sounded. She hoped it wasn’t on the blink again. The alarm company charged a small fortune to come out and fix it.
Dropping the letter back into the drawer, she hurried back to the lounge and grabbed the shop keys before heading out of the door and stopping with a jerk at the top of the stairs. Lambert was kneeling at the bottom with his hands over his ears.
Her nostrils flared. What the...? “What are you doing here?” she shouted.
Her question garnered no response as she stormed towards Lambert’s gently rocking form. When her feet hit the bottom step, Lambert looked up at her, wide-eyed.
“Were you trying to break into the shop?” she asked. “Have you come to steal the box?”
His face contorted with confusion, and he winced as he searched the ceiling without losing grip on his ears.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. It’s only an alarm.” Piper opened the shop door and reached around to the alarm box on the wall to disarm it before turning back to Lambert. He rose to his feet, slowly uncovering his ears. “Now, I repeat,” she said, “what the blazes are you doing here?”
“What was that infernal noise?” Lambert gasped.
“Stop changing
the subject. How did you get in?”
“I-I...” he stuttered, fumbling for the handle behind him and pulling on it. “The door is open,” he said.
“So you just thought you’d come in? Without knocking?”
“I-I apologise. You were not in your shop.”
“I closed early, but that doesn’t give you the right to waltz in and try to rob me.”
“I assure you I am no miscreant.”
“Then what do you want this time?”
“I’ve been thinking about... about everything. There is little opportunity to do anything else in my predicament.”
“Which is what?” She’d had about enough of him stalking her and would love to know why the heck he was doing it.
“I would like to tell you if you are willing to afford me some of your time.”
Piper considered telling him she had better things to do, but in all honesty, she couldn’t think of a single plausible excuse. After all, an explanation was long overdue, and she needed something to divert her mind from witches and angels and whatever else was hiding out there. But she wasn’t sure she could trust him. She studied his eyes, looking for any hint that he might have an ulterior motive, and found nothing. But just to be on the safe side, she accumulated mental pictures of household objects to utilise as potential weapons as she invited him upstairs.
“Your lodgings are most pleasing,” he said, entering the living area.
Piper’s brows knotted. If he thought her home pleasing, his must be a complete dive. “It’s a roof. Can I get you a glass of juice? I’ve not much else. It’s been a while since I’ve entertained.”
“I thank you, but... no. I have no need of sustenance.” He gestured to the sofa. “May I sit?”
Piper perched on the arm at the other end, readying for a quick sprint to the knife drawer, if needed. “Go ahead.”
Lambert picked up a cushion and plumped it.
Piper waited.
After a moment, he spoke. “I have much to tell you and only a short amount of time.” He swallowed and brushed an invisible piece of fluff from his trouser leg before looking back to Piper. “My story may be difficult for you to believe, but it needs to be said. My name is Lambert Croft and I am a warlock.”
Chapter Twelve
PIPER’S CHEST TIGHTENED. Oh, jeez, not again. Was anybody in this town actually human? Still, he was here now; she might as well hear him out. “Go on.”
“You are not surprised?”
“Surprise is overrated. Please... continue.”
“As you wish.” He cleared his throat. “I hail from a land many moons from this one, where I was raised single-handedly by my mother. You see, my father had been sent on a mission—one, as it turned out, which has lasted my whole life. Not long ago, I discovered where he had been sent, and I requested to be allowed to search for him. My request was denied, and I was tried as a traitor for it.”
Feeling a small twinge of empathy, Piper decided to play along. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“No. And even less fair was the Genicerem that was ordered to be carried out on me.”
“What’s that?”
“A harsh punishment, reserved for murderers and cat killers.”
Piper struggled to stop an involuntary smile developing into a full-blown laugh. “Cat killers?”
Lambert’s face was serious. “I assure you, taking the life of our most sacred animal is one of the worst acts of depravity in Chimmeris.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Yes. And where I was imprisoned indefinitely.”
“But you escaped?” Clearly, or he wouldn’t be sitting on her sofa.
“No.”
What he was saying didn’t make any sense. “Then how are you here?”
“Every day at sunset, my prison allows me a small amount of freedom, but it always sucks me back, and I feel its pull as we speak.”
Piper stood up to stretch her legs and turned away from her visitor. He was confusing the heck out of her. “What do you mean... sucks you back?” she said, rotating to face him again.
She let out a gasp.
He wasn’t there.
Where had he gone?
She peered around the end of the sofa and searched the room. If this was some kind of sick hide-and-seek game, he was very good at it. It wasn’t as if her home was huge.
“Lambert! Lambert!” she called.
There was no reply.
Piper ran to the door to search the stairwell, but found it deserted. She ran to the bottom and scanned the street. Still nothing. Returning to the flat, she methodically checked every nook and cranny of it, then satisfied that he wasn’t hiding under the beds or lurking in any of the cupboards, she secured every door and window and spent the rest of the evening paranoid he was about to jump out from the shadows.
*****
Lambert stared around the four walls of his prison lit by one measly candle and stomped his foot with frustration. How long had he been free? It had seemed like only a few minutes. The curse was unpredictable. He knew that. But it would be nice to get some warning over whether he had five minutes or five hours. One thing was certain; his recent allotted time consisted of far more short slots than long. The candle burned low, and it did not bode well. It would only be a matter of time before the inevitable happened and his prison consumed him completely. He kicked the wooden post of his bed, infuriated to be forced back into solitary when he was just beginning to get somewhere. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to enjoy the company of another human being, and for all her bristles, there was something intriguing about the Piper girl. Somehow, he knew she could be the key to his release.
*****
The following morning, Piper couldn’t face another day of wall staring and left the shop unopened. Instead, she wandered around the town looking like a prospective shoplifter, casting sideways looks at shop workers and customers as she pretended to be interested in the items on the shelves. How many of these people were hiding their true identities under a human guise? Ten percent? Fifty percent? All of them? What she needed was more information, and she could only think of one place to get it.
She set off at a sprint, and half an hour later, she lifted her hand to pull on the iron door knocker at Lovell Towers. A few foot taps and thoughts of there being no one at home later, the door creaked open.
“Oh, hello, Piper. I wasn’t expecting you,” Sophie said.
“If it’s not convenient...”
“No. No. It’s nice to see you. Come in. You weren’t looking to see Beth, were you? She’s not here, today. It’s only me, I’m afraid,” she said as Piper accepted her offer.
“Actually, I was hoping I could utilise your library. Beth mentioned it was quite extensive.”
Sophie smiled. “It’s my favourite room.” She gestured to the left-hand corridor. “It’s this way.”
As they walked between the panelled walls, Piper sensed Sophie’s scrutiny. “I’m glad we didn’t scare you away the other night,” she said.
“You almost did, but too much has happened, and I need to try and make some sense of it all.”
“Then you’ve definitely come to the right place.” She smiled again.
The door opened into a vast, cylindrical room, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. More shelving curved around the middle of the circular floor area. Piper followed the beams of sunlight, illuminating the prodigious leather-bound volumes weighing down the wooden cases, and found they originated from a high, glass-domed ceiling. “Wow. I can see why you love it,” she said.
“Fabulous, isn’t it? Jo worked really hard to restore it after the... earthquake.”
Piper ran her fingers along the shiny surface of a walnut writing desk. “The one a couple of years ago? I remember that. Dad made me hide under the bed and not come out until the all-clear. Thankfully, the shop didn’t suffer too much, but I had friends who lost their homes.” She turned to Sophie. “Was Lovell Towers terribly damaged?”
“No?”
“No.” Sophie shook her head. “It was an invasion.”
“An invasion? Who by?”
“Creatures from another world who decided they wanted to inhabit ours instead. There was a huge battle, and a lot of good people died that night. Seb lost his father.”
“How awful. But... how come everyone thought it was an earthquake?”
“A little—actually, a lot of—memory modification can work wonders, but I’m thinking you’re not here to research the earthquake.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If it helps me to find out what on earth is going on in my life, I’m pretty much open to anything.”
“You said too much had happened. What did you mean by that? Were you just talking about the dinner party revelations or something else?”
“Something else.” Piper bent to sit in the chair beside the desk.
Sophie’s hand shot out to stop her. “Don’t!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it valuable?” Piper had her suspicions, but couldn’t quite place the chair’s era.
“I wouldn’t know. It’s just that Jo doesn’t like anybody else sitting in it, and you don’t want to get on his bad side. He knows every book in here, and we might need his help. So... where would you like to start?”
Piper straightened up as she considered the question. She debated asking whether she should start by meeting the mysterious Jo, then decided against it. “Do you think we could find out anything about a place called Chimmeris?”
“Do you think that’s where your dad is?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. But it’s a start.”
“Then we’ll need the Book of Demur,” Sophie said, walking to one of the central sections. “If Chimmeris is in our dimension, it will be referenced in there. Ah, here we are,” she said, heaving the biggest book Piper had ever seen from a shelf. “So does Chimmeris have anything to do with the something else?”