The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3)

by K. C. Finn

  The blue air around Lily grew brighter, gathering to her form like a starlight aura as she felt a dull stabbing sensation in her chest. The Dreamstate made it easier to feel her emotions, and she knew that every ounce of betrayal she felt was showing on her face.

  “How long will you be gone?” she breathed, staring at the man who had promised to protect her.

  “As long as it takes to find him,” Novel answered.

  There was a bright flash, and for a moment Lily felt the heaviness of her body return, as though she was waking, back in her bed in Piketon. But the Dreamstate remained once the bright light had dissipated, and the blue hue now hung over a scene very different to the blurry nothingness that had been there before. Lily and Novel looked around them, taking in the sights of a dark cave that must have been deep underground. Tiny circular lights emanated from the walls, given off by fireflies that seemed entirely too big to be real.

  Lily heard the sound of trickling water, and saw the quiet rumble of a subterranean stream at her feet. The water was full of reflections, and none of them were Lily’s own. In the fast-moving water the images shifted too quickly to be fully taken in, but Lily was certain that she saw a golden eye swirling in their depths. There were others faces too, one smile that could have been Salem’s, and a pair of dark, narrow eyes she thought she knew, but could not place. Then, there was the one reflection she hadn’t banked on seeing. The one with the blood red eyes and the skin that shone like polished glass.

  “He’s here,” Lily whispered, feeling the dream shake all around her. “The djinn’s here.”

  “He can’t hurt us,” Novel said at once, “we’ve no form here.”

  The illusionist leapt to Lily’s side, looking down into the underground spring. Novel furrowed his brow, crouching closer to the water, and when Lily tried to pull him back, she found her hand slipped against his shoulder like it was made of melting butter.

  “I don’t see him,” Novel confessed with a frown.

  Lily still did, and the creature’s watery red eyes were everywhere at once in the flowing stream. She had never considered that perhaps her way of viewing the Dreamstate could be different to Novel’s and she tried to ignore the presence of the watchful, bloody eyes as she looked up again into the darkness around her.

  “You see this cave, though, right?” she asked Novel.

  “I do,” he replied. “Do you recognise it?”

  Lily shook her head, and the motion of the dream brought a wave of sleepy dizziness to her body.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” she mused. “How can it be in my dreams if I don’t know where it is and I’ve never been there?”

  Novel’s lip curled as he frowned with thought. He was about to speak when the whole world seemed to rock to the side a little, and Lily heard the whistle of the train again. In the bluish glow of the cave, there was another rush of air, as though she was standing on a platform and feeling the train shoot past her. The air brushed her face, and she felt another heaviness overcome her from the real world her mind had left behind.

  “The dream’s breaking up,” Novel said, his voice already fading to an echo.

  “You’re waking,” Lily concluded, “I think I am too.”

  “Remember this place, Lily,” Novel told her. “Look around. Remember every detail.”

  Even as the last words left his lips, Novel’s pale face descended into shadows. He was gone, and though she knew it was little more than a dream, Lily felt fearfully alone in the cave in the darkness. She looked at those strange firefly-bugs on the walls, lighting up the chamber with their spherical bodies, and she saw the winding passages and carved-out hollows in the rock. Everything seemed to suggest that someone had made the cave on purpose, but whoever dwelled within it wasn’t present in the dream.

  Unless, they are present, Lily thought with a shiver.

  She looked down into the water again, and the djinn’s shining face was clearer than ever in the ripples. The stream had calmed since Novel vanished, and the creature in the reflection bore a grin so wide that Lily was repulsed by his prideful pleasure. She didn’t know if he was only a part of the dream, or if he was as real as Novel’s consciousness had been, but his smugness riled Lily to the very depths of her soul.

  “What is it you want with me anyway?” she challenged, her shout echoing dully into every nook of the dark cavern. “This can’t just be about one stupid old mirror, can it?”

  A rumble of laughter met Lily’s ears, and she knew the deep, scratching voice of its owner well. She hadn’t heard it since her fall from the lecture hall ceiling, yet recognition set in mere seconds after it began to speak.

  “Wise beyond her years, and bold beyond all realms of sense or dignity,” the djinn remarked. “Your resourcefulness surprises me, daughter of shades. I rather thought you’d be dead by now.”

  Lily felt her fears swell like a tumbling ocean wave. The dream was stretching ever-closer to reality, and she could almost feel herself lying in her bed at the theatre, like waking was only a heartbeat away. Yet the sensation of the djinn’s words continued to grip her mind, and her dream-body folded its arm with defiance.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, mate,” she jibed.

  “Cheeky,” the djinn hissed, still chuckling. “Harming you doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do, and you have a nasty habit of saving the others that I try to bring misfortune upon.”

  Lily felt her heart ache at the thought of Jazzy, and the swish of the guillotine hurtling towards Novel raced past the back of her mind.

  “I’ll keep saving them,” she insisted. “You’ll never win.”

  The Dreamstate was fading, and Lily could no longer see the cave, or the stream. She knew her eyes were closed, and that she was lying in a tangle of black, sweat-soaked sheets on an unusually warm spring morning, yet there was one thing that lingered in her mind whilst the last tendrils of sleep held her thoughts in their grip. The djinn’s voice, and his laughter, still echoed, even when Lily opened her eyes. She sat bolt upright in bed, certain that she could still hear his final sentence in her head.

  “Well then, shadedaughter, it’s time I found a new way to break your heart.”

  Is This A Dagger

  With Novel away on the hunt for his marginally sadistic uncle, Lily found she no longer had to hide the little white book of fairy-tales she had acquired at Forrester and Baines. The djinn’s new warning had stirred up a fire in Lily’s heart, and all the advice she had to go on was Forrester’s words about instinct, the Book Of Shade, and a children’s tome about the djinnkind. On one rainy Tuesday afternoon, Lily came to relieve Lawrence from his constant watch over Jazzy, with a satchel of books slung over one shoulder and a determined, studious attitude that she hadn’t felt since her very first week of university.

  “She’s sleeping again,” Lawrence told Lily in a whisper. “It’s like she’s had a transfusion or something. Jeronomie says it’s traumatic for the body to take.”

  Lily nodded, and peered beyond him into the converted prop store. Though it made her sad to see Jazzy, unconscious and weak beneath a brand new Avengers duvet set, all Lily could think was that it was better than the alternative. Had she not found the power within her to stem the bleeding, there would be no trace of that button-nosed girl, sleeping somewhat fitfully beneath her covers. Lawrence reached out and held Lily by the shoulder with one huge hand for a moment.

  “Don’t thank me again,” she warned him. “Save your puppy dog eyes for the girl that fancies you, right?”

  Lawrence glanced back at Jazzy and swallowed at a lump in his throat.

  “I don’t think she’s got dating on her mind,” he jibed weakly.

  “Don’t you believe it,” Lily answered, giving him her best smile. “There’s nothing more romantic than a bloke sitting vigil at your sickbed. Novel taught me that one this year.”

  And, though Lawrence was placated by the joke, Lily felt the stab of her own pathos. It was a terrible shame that there had be
en so much injury and recovery in these last few months. Nobody should have had to sit by anyone’s sickbed, and nobody would have if it hadn’t been for Lily smashing that stupid mirror all that time ago. Six and a half more years of bringing trauma to everyone she loved simply wasn’t an option any more. Lily patted her books and let out a little breath.

  “Go on, get to class and catch up on some stuff,” she told Lawrence. “I’ll do my reading here.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on Bradley too,” Lawrence replied with a keen nod, “see if I can get into his computer again.”

  “Good man,” Lily said with a grin.

  The voodoo boy closed the door gently on his way out, and Lily rounded Jazzy’s bed and sat in her empty wheelchair to begin her own little reconnaissance mission. The first volume that she pulled from her satchel was the antique crimson tome of the Book of Shade. Lily splayed the old volume across both her knees, letting it settle on a random blank page as she felt its presence begin to grow before her. She knew now that the booksmiths in places like Pendle imbued each page with tons of their own magic, and Lily poured over the ancient brown leaves as she waited for them to spring to life.

  But they didn’t.

  “Come on,” she whispered, glancing warily to Jazzy for a second. “You must know things about the djinnkind. Don’t hold out on me now.”

  The book vibrated ever so slightly, and turned one or two of its pages over slowly. Lily felt an eager grin creeping onto her face, but it faded to a frown again when only half a page of information unfurled itself in the usual curling, black script. The title caught Lily’s eyes first:

  Defensive Procedures For Deflecting Mirrors

  “You’re as bad as Novel,” she chided the book, giving its corners a rough shake. “No more defence. I want advice on locating them, and fighting them, and if you think I’m not ready for it, then you’re wrong.” Lily found the unexpected heat of tears brimming beneath her eyes as she whispered to the book. “I have to be ready. Don’t you see what’s happening all around me?”

  Lily didn’t know to what extent the Book Of Shade could think for itself, but it seemed to be persuaded by her argument. The tension in her heart loosened as the pages began a proper scan, flickering fitfully back and forth until they settled on a new location towards the very back of the book. New script appeared, and this time Lily read it all with her mouth growing dry in the thirst for information.

  The djinnkind can only inhabit mirrors and glass crafted by windowmakers, a fact that was unfortunately only discovered by the shadeborn in very recent times. As such, as great many glassware products exist throughout the shade and human world which seem quite ordinary, yet possess the ability to become weapons of the djinnkind. Every pane that breaks reduces the strength of the walls which separate Desiderium, the djinn world, from our own.

  If enough of the mirrors are broken, it is believed that a true passage between the worlds may come into existence. This prophecy is named as the Day of Breaking. Some of the shadeborn desire this outcome, believing it would enable them to enter Desiderium and destroy the djinnkind once and for all. Others fear, however, that the djinnkind have their own plans of a similar nature, and that the breaking of the glass would signal the end of shade and human life as we know it.

  “So, if we end the curse, we might end the world too?” Jazzy asked.

  Lily looked up suddenly, surprised to see her friend peeking out from under her covers.

  “You were reading out loud, dopey,” Jazzy added, trying to smile.

  “Sorry,” Lily said at once.

  “No, it’s interesting,” her friend protested. “Carry on.”

  Lily looked back to the book, flipping through a few pages.

  “That’s all it’s giving me,” she said with a sigh.

  Jazzy wrestled with her covers until her arms were free, and Lily could see her start to push with her palms to get her lifeless legs into a sitting position. She clambered onto one side of the bed to help Jazzy up, propping her on pillows and fluffing them until the petite Indian girl had to physically stop her from fussing. The two friends smiled at each other with a warmth and strength they had not shared in many weeks, and Jazzy reached out to squeeze Lily’s hands tightly.

  “Oi, book,” she said over Lily’s shoulder. “What about blood magic? What have you got to say about how Lily saved my life?”

  Lily hadn’t so much as thought to ask the Book Of Shade about the strange new power she’d discovered. As far as she was concerned, it seemed very similar to her water casting, though both Gerstein and Novel had said it was something they’d never laid eyes upon before. Lily held out a hand and summoned her powers of gravity, and both girls watched as the old leather-bound volume floated towards them. Its pages were a wild flurry of activity, and it skittered about on the bed for several moments before settling on a brand new page of information.

  “Read it out,” Jazzy said, giving Lily a kitten-weak nudge.

  Lily knew that Jazzy couldn’t see the barely-forming words, so she leaned over the book closely and cleared her throat to speak.

  “Blood casting is an ancient shadeskill…”

  She had begun the sentence with enthusiasm, but Lily balked at the words which followed. She and Jazzy shared a glance, and it was clear the other girl was waiting with great impatience for the end of the sentence. Lily didn’t want to give it to her, but she read on all the same.

  “… practised by darksiders,” Lily completed. “Last known instruction of the technique ceased in the eleventh century, and no known examples of the practice exist today.”

  “Except for what you did,” Jazzy added.

  “Did you miss the bit about it being darksider stuff?” Lily urged, a panic rising in her chest.

  Jazzy looked her friend over, and reached out for her face. Lily furrowed her brow with confusion and irritation as Jazzy held and pinched her cheeks, pulling her features around whilst she scrutinized her through narrowed eyes.

  “Sorry, I just don’t see you going all wrinkly and evil,” Jazzy concluded. “Maybe it was dark casting back in the eleventh century, but what you did saved my life. You couldn’t be more of a goody-goody if you tried.”

  It sounded logical, and Lily broke into a small grin as she freed her face from Jazzy’s hands, yet a twinge of painful doubt remained lodged somewhere in the back of her mind. She found herself thinking of Maxime Schoonjans, the man who she’d never really thought of as being her father, and she remembered what Pascal had said about them tearing each other’s eyes out for the sake of settling a score. Maxime had mixed with the dark, macabre House of Novel and, whether she liked to admit it or not, Lily was actually dating their most precious and respected son. The presence of darkness hovered all around her all the time, and her very best magic had always been angry in its nature.

  “Will it give you any more words?” Jazzy asked, poking at the Book Of Shade.

  It shut itself with a loud thump, as if in reply. When Jazzy began to frown, Lily crawled down the bed to retrieve her satchel instead.

  “I have something else,” she confessed. “I wanted to show it to you before, but Novel doesn’t know I have it and it seemed too risky.”

  The little white book passed from Lily’s hands to Jazzy’s, and the smaller girl read its cover with interest.

  “Who’s the Glassman?” she asked.

  “A djinn,” Lily explained. “He’s a character in all these stories, causing trouble and frightening the heck out of people.”

  “So basically exactly like the djinn following us around now,” Jazzy mused.

  She opened the book to its contents page in true nerdy fashion, pushing one finger down the list as her eyes flew over the titles of the fables.

  “I’ve read the Tale of Little Brother,” Lily explained, “and I tried to read the Day of Breaking, but it’s a poem and it makes no sense. I was hoping you’d-”

  Jazzy wasn’t listening, and she spoke right over Lily’s explanation as h
er hand stopped on one title in particular.

  “The Blood Caster!” Jazzy exclaimed. “I guess these stories were written in the early medieval times, if blood casting was still a thing for them. Let me see now…”

  Lily watched as her friend returned to full research mode, and she couldn’t help her mind from wandering warmly to thoughts of Jazzy’s recovery. It would be wonderful when they could be out on campus together again, watching the spring rain turn to summer sunshine and picnic weather. That was provided, of course, that Lily could put an end to her bad luck before the summer came. Jazzy had turned to the tale of the Blood Caster, and was reading it quickly to herself.

  “Hey, I had to read to you,” Lily whined. “Come on, out loud.”

  Before her friend could even lift her eyes from the page to reply, Lily and Jazzy heard a wild scream echoing above them. Lily was on her feet at once, and Jazzy gave a hiss as she too jumped despite the soreness of her body. The bedroom door flew open with a wave of Lily’s hand and she was racing out into the corridor with Jazzy shouting something behind her. It was the middle of an ordinary afternoon, yet the scream curdled Lily’s blood like Dharma’s siren cry had, not too long ago.

  The difference was that this scream had come from a man’s throat, and Lily thought she knew exactly who that throat belonged to. She was thundering up the stairs in a wave of air, gravity and flames, already racing to the second floor box room as the second cry rang out. This one was full of words, most of them curses, and Lily couldn’t make any sense of what the apparent victim was shouting until she was battering down his massive wooden door.

  “Salem! What’s happened?” Lily shouted as the door flew clean off its hinges and smashed against the wall.

  Salem was lying flat on his back on his bed, staring up at the air before him as though he could see something that others could not. Lily had, admittedly, been ignoring him a little since he’d finally gotten over the suicide idea, but now the former shade looked as pale and terrified as ever where he lay. His cobalt eyes were wide enough to make Lily shiver, and he pointed with a long, shaking finger into the air, before he sat bolt upright and stared at Lily instead.