The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3)

by K. C. Finn

  Lily’s instant reaction was not to encourage Salem in any way, but then she realised that she did have a human who needed teaching a lesson.

  “Mr. Cross,” she said with a mischievous grin, “I’d like to take you out on the town tonight.”

  “Sweetheart,” Salem answered in the very same tone. “I’d be delighted.”

  Defence Against Demons

  Lily had not set foot in Guttersnipes nightclub all year. The dingy student haunt had uneven floors and staircases that weren’t suitable for Jazzy’s wheelchair, and Lily had no other friends at university that she would have enjoyed partying with half as much. She realised how much her preferences had changed as she and Salem descended into the club’s loud depths, decked out in their finest party-wear to blend into the crowd. Lily wore a top that shimmered with white sequins under the coloured disco lights, and Salem had salvaged a pair of black slacks – from Poppa Seward’s younger days in Haiti – to go with one of his pristine shirts.

  The thrum of a popular song beat out its rhythm all around the pair, and Lily felt Salem take her by the hand, yanking her at once towards the dancefloor. She shook her head, trying to tell him no, but the music drowned her out and Salem seemed keen to ignore all her protests. They were supposed to be spying for signs of their target, Michael Sampson, but as Salem spun Lily out onto the crowded dancefloor, she lost all sense of the people around her.

  It was good to see the cocky showman back on his feet. Much as Salem’s persistent melancholia had been a pain in the backside for months on end, Lily had always felt that twinge of guilt when she saw him looking so small and powerless. Once again, someone else’s ill fortune was all her fault. Salem had lost everything trying to save Lily’s life and stop the darksider who threatened it, so the least Lily could do was let him dance for a while. She rested her hands on his shoulders and he took her by the waist, his grin a mile wide as they moved to the music.

  “I can’t wait for this,” Salem said, leaning close to her ear to be heard. “You tell me as soon as you see this guy. I’ll make him cluck like a chicken and try to lay an egg on the dancefloor.”

  “Easy tiger,” Lily chided with a smile. “I don’t want to ruin Michael’s reputation forever. He just needs to be convinced to stop pestering us for good.”

  Salem shook his head with a knowing gleam in his gaze.

  “You sound more like my son every day,” he groaned, “only do what’s necessary. Prevention is better than cure. Blah, blah, blah. Go back to being you, Lily, savvy and impulsive. You’re better that way.”

  Lily continued to scan the faces of the club as Salem turned them on the spot, and his words echoed in her head amid the thudding of the music’s baseline. There was a war within her that the djinn’s curse had only exacerbated, between the overwhelming desire to fight the beast who mocked her, and the promises she’d made to hide away and protect herself from danger. Now, in the spectrum of lights amid the human race, she felt powerful and free, her blood pumping with the anticipation of seeing a pest laid to rest. She knew what Salem was getting at with his teasing, and it was hard not to be drawn into his bright, eager grin.

  “How’d it go when you told Novel about my gift from the djinn?” he asked her.

  Lily banged her head dramatically against Salem’s chest for a moment, and he nodded in understanding.

  “He said no immediately, of course,” she replied, “but then he said if anyone was going to seek out this Gifter of yours, it’d be him.”

  “I guess that means he’s thinking about it,” Salem mused, still close to Lily’s ear. “That’s a start.”

  Lily nodded, but she could feel the mother of all frowns coming on. Salem was one of very few people that she could vent her frustrations with, largely because he was always on her side, and rarely ever repeated anything she said because no-one else bothered to talk to him. She pulled him closer on the dancefloor so he’d hear her properly, leaning on his shoulder as her irritation grew.

  “Everything’s always in consideration,” she moaned. “He considered the potioneer, and Jeronomie came, but that’s barely made a difference to anything. Then Novel wanted to find Pascal, but wouldn’t take his advice. Now we’ve got a lead on a djinn we could actually speak to, but he won’t do anything about it. Nothing’s getting done, Salem. I’m stuck in this town with disaster at every corner and a ton of unexplained events.”

  “So leave,” Salem offered. “Come to Massachusetts with me and find the Gifter yourself.”

  When Lily stepped back to look at him, the former shade had stopped dancing. Salem looked sincere, which was strange to see on his newly-recovered form, and once again he was offering her the option that no-one else ever did. He had told her about the djinnkind in the first place, when Novel had kept her in the dark. Now, he’d told her exactly where to start the search that would end her problems. And the war was back in her mind, those two halves of herself fighting against one another as she really considered what he was suggesting.

  “We couldn’t do it,” Lily said, though she wasn’t certain she was right. “I mean, I’m a half-trained shade with a curse on my head, and you’re-”

  Powerless, useless, helpless. She didn’t want to say any of the words that flew to the front of her mind. If Salem had guessed what they were, he didn’t care. He was grinning again, and he stood with his arms wide open and shook his head.

  “Not anymore,” he answered, adding: “Cover your ears.”

  Lily did as she was told at once, blocking as much of the lurid baseline out of her head as she could. She watched, still standing in the centre of the dancefloor, as Salem weaved his way through the throng of party people, heading towards the DJ’s booth at the very end of the room. In seconds he was holding a microphone, and Lily heard the vague low rumble of his voice amid the music, though she couldn’t make out his words. She simply observed the way the DJ suddenly noticed Salem’s hijacking stunt, but stopped just a few inches shy of ripping the mic from his hands.

  Salem was singing along to the song that played, and the DJ had frozen on the spot to listen to him. Lily felt a strange tingle of some otherworldly force playing at her head, and she pushed her fingers more firmly into her ears to block out the sound. Soon, all the half-drunk dancers around her had come to a standstill, and they too were rooted to the spot, all eyes focused on the man with the microphone. Lily felt the sudden absence of the vibrating baseline when all the music stopped, and she saw Salem waving at her through the crowd to unblock her ears.

  “All right then,” Salem was saying as Lily began to hear properly again. “How about you all go outside and take in some night air, huh kids? Oh, except for Michael Sampson. If you’re here, come see me.”

  Lily gaped in wonder as the silent students turned on their heels and began to leave Guttersnipes. The club’s own staff were following them, including the DJ, who had first tried to walk away whilst his headphones were still connected to the console behind him. Salem lifted them gently from the young man’s head, and the man thanked him absently as he followed the crowd up the dark stairwell that led out onto Piketon’s midnight streets.

  “You’re the Pied Piper,” Lily said in amazement.

  Salem met her on the dancefloor again, navigating the stream of exiting people, and gave a little shrug.

  “I don’t think it works on rats,” he replied, “although, I haven’t tried.”

  Salem’s face shone amid the turning coloured lights he was standing under, and Lily saw his full pride return at the display of such an incredible power. For one blind moment, Lily really did believe that she and Salem could find Gifter together, but her guilt came crashing back when Novel and Jazzy settled their weight on her mind. Salem must have seen the way her expression dropped from awestruck to guilt-ridden in seconds, because something in his face fell too, and he gave her a little nod. Then, he was glancing over her shoulder suddenly, and grinning anew.

  “Well, we’d better do what we came here to do,”
the showman surmised.

  When Lily spun to see Michael Sampson, his absent-minded fingers were still clutching the corner of his copy of Defence Against Demons. He was looking at Salem with wide, bright eyes, but even in his stupor, Michael still knew that Lily was standing there. He made an empty scoffing sound, like half his mind was somewhere else entirely, and said in a disparaging tone:

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Now, now,” Salem chided at once, “you’re gonna be nice to Lily from now on, you hear me?”

  Michael blinked, his expression shifting at once to a picture of diligence.

  “Yes, Sir,” he said, “um… sorry, Sir?”

  “That’s better,” Salem replied with a grin. “Now listen, kid. Tonight’s kind of a big deal for me, and you’re gonna help me make it good. Whatever this lovely lady tells you to do, you do it. At once. Am I clear?”

  “Very clear, Sir,” Michael replied.

  And all at once he was looking at Lily, with a kind of conflicted obedience on his face that suggested there was another part of Michael in there somewhere who knew exactly what was happening to him. Lily liked that thought very much, and she hoped it would be enough to finally make the tiresome boy back off, and return to his normal human life for good. Lily stood before her former boyfriend, hands on hips, and cocked her head thoughtfully to one side. She squinted at him for a long moment, then said:

  “Chicken dance. Go!”

  And Michael did. He didn’t look terribly happy about it, but his limbs were out of his control as they flapped to and fro in true funky chicken fashion, despite the lack of music. Salem laughed and clapped out a beat for the poor boy, until Lily changed the command to the Macarena, Single Ladies, and finally a good old fashioned twerk. When she could see that Michael had built up a sweat from the hazing she’d delivered, Lily held up her hands, and Salem stopped clapping and giggling, as best he could.

  “All right, stop,” she said with a laugh, “I guess I’ve embarrassed you enough. But Mikey, don’t tell me there isn’t a little diva part of you that enjoyed your dance mashup. I want the truth.”

  It was a casual remark that Lily made through her laughter, but those last four words were something she couldn’t take back once they were spoken. The instant that Michael stopped dancing, his lips began to move, and Lily was so surprised by the tirade of words that she didn’t even think of urging him to stop.

  “I was too boring for you,” Michael said, his cheeks flushing pink as he spoke. “I was kind, and I wanted to have something real with you. I was falling in love with you, but I wasn’t enough. You wanted him, with the magic and the danger and the serious personality disorder, and I keep trying to break you up, because I’m afraid you’ve made the wrong choice. I think loving that man is going to hurt you, Lily. I don’t want to see that happen.”

  Michael Sampson looked utterly horrified that he had let so much truth slip from his lips. Salem leaned close to the boy and turned him by the shoulder. The showman’s expression was suddenly stern as he gazed deeply into Michael’s awestruck eyes.

  “Go home, and go to sleep,” Salem told him. “When you get up in the morning, everything will be back to normal. Pretend this was a dream.”

  The college boy swallowed hard and nodded. Lily heard his sneakers slapping on the empty dancefloor, but her eyes were too unfocused to see Michael run away. His words had wounded her deeply, and she felt ashamed of the way she and Salem had acted. The former shade was reckless – Novel was always warning her about him – and now Lily could see that letting the wilder side of herself out just kept leading her back to pain and guilt afterwards. Michael had been a pain all year long, but his motives were pure. And Lily, no matter how she tried, couldn’t quite convince herself that his suspicions weren’t correct as well.

  “Well,” Salem said with a little sigh, “one way or another, he’s gonna be too red faced to look you in the eye for a long time now.”

  Lily just nodded, and she felt Salem rest a hand on her shoulder.

  “Come on, kiddo, let’s go.”

  She was ready to move, ready to leave Guttersnipes empty and silent and pretend that she had never gone there in the first place, except for one thing. It wasn’t noiseless in the club anymore.

  “Do you…” Lily began quietly, starting to look around the room again. “Do you hear that… tinkling noise?”

  There was no other word to describe it, for the sound was like the faint clink of thousands of glasses being pushed together in a mighty toast. Salem nodded, and soon he too was rotating on the spot to find the source of the sound.

  “Like a chandelier in a breeze,” he mused in a low tone.

  His suggestion made Lily look up, into the spotlights of the club. Somewhere during Michael’s dance-based torture, those lights had stopped surging and rotating across the dancefloor, and what Lily beheld when she looked into their bright beams was a very strange occurrence. The lights were vibrating. Every light in the club was facing her, bathing her in a spectrum of colour, and all of them were tingling and making a hum of noise that grew louder with every passing second.

  “No…” Lily whispered as the old familiar fear set in. “Salem, please tell me these lights aren’t made of glass.”

  The showman turned to face the spotlights too, but even as he opened his mouth to answer Lily, she let out a gasp that quickly evolved into a shriek. Deep in the brightest blue light above her head, two red eyes were slowly emerging from the glass bulb. Lily had perhaps half a second to see a grinning jaw accompany those eyes, before every light in the club suddenly exploded. Glass shot everywhere with a deafening sound, and Lily felt Salem leap in front of her to grab her and push her out of harm’s way.

  “Go!” Salem demanded as he shoved Lily, then he let out a cry of pain as though something had stabbed him in the back.

  Lily tried to lean over to see what had hurt him, and a shard of glass caught her straight across the forehead with a wide, slashing motion, like the strike of a sword. If Salem hadn’t pushed her back already, Lily fancied that that shard of glass might have embedded itself straight into her head. The force of the explosion was unnaturally large, and Salem had six or seven small pieces of glass protruding from his back as he and Lily ran out of the dark and suddenly dangerous club.

  Lily was much less injured as she fled the scene, though the blood pouring from her forehead was running down into her eyes, masking her vision with a great red veil as she ran through the night. Yet, even as she ran, the instinctive magic that so often lay untapped within her blood began to stir. She was casting with blood again, this time her own, and as she and Salem raced back towards the safety of their theatre home, the drops of crimson liquid in her eyes shot away into the shadows.

  Open Sores

  “I’m not entirely sure that Salem-fixed is any better than Salem-suicidal,” Novel mused.

  He dabbed at the wide gash on Lily’s forehead and she winced, letting out a little hiss. The wound was more painful than she was willing to let on, because the worry on the illusionist’s pale face was bad enough, without Lily having to admit that she’d gotten herself into another bad luck situation. When the djinn in the Dreamstate had warned her that he would find a new approach to gaining his vengeance, Lily had never imagined he had the power to do something so spectacularly violent. Now, she was putting every last drop of her energy into trying not to tremble as Novel raised a glowing blue starlight stone over her head-wound.

  “I know Salem still irritates you no end,” Lily replied, “but it must have been so hard for him this year. I can’t imagine losing the thing that makes you who you are, the thing most important to you in the world.”

  “No, you can’t,” Novel answered solemnly, “and that’s why you’re in this state now. If you had a better idea of the risks at hand…”

  Lily bristled at that, and Novel put his palm firmly on her shoulder, as if he could sense she might have wanted to storm off, or begun to argue with him. They w
ere both sitting cross-legged in the centre of the four poster bed, and Lily had barely opened her mouth to answer back when Novel began talking again.

  “I’m running out of options to keep you safe, Lily,” he cut in, his voice tense. “Do you think I want to spend the next seven years wondering if every day I spend with you will be our last?”

  Any argument Lily might have had a moment before was gone in a heartbeat. She felt that guilt again, the one that was constantly eating away at her soul, and when Novel cast his eyes down towards the black sheets, she was glad. She knew she couldn’t meet his eye after a question like that, not when there was still a part of her mind considering Salem’s plan to betray him. The illusionist’s lips twitched at the corner, every part of him taught, like a spring stretched to its maxim.

  “I saw you laid out lifeless once,” Novel mused in a quieter voice. “If it happens this time, I don’t know if I can bring you back. Seeing Aurélie again has brought a great deal back to my memory, things I refused to face the last time around. I can’t go through this again, not a third time.”

  “Third?” Lily repeated at once, and Novel’s head sank even lower.

  He was toying with the pocket of his waistcoat in a fidgety, childlike way, and Lily reached out to still his hand, forgetting where the other one was raised. The starlight stone connected with the cut on her head and she winced all over again, belated tears rushing to coat her lashes. Novel let the stone drop at once, his eyes observing the wound with a whole new concentration. His features turned hard again, like they so often did when Lily was on the verge of seeing that deep, raw person he kept locked inside the pale façade.

  “What sort of man would I be if I lost my mother and didn’t grieve about it?” he said simply.

  I believe we have you to thank for my sister’s death.

  Pascal’s words came to Lily’s mind as quickly as Novel’s left his lips.

  “Of course,” Lily answered, “I mean-”