by K. C. Finn
“Something’s going on,” Lily said warily.
“And how do you feel about it?” Novel replied with a question of his own.
He placed Lily before the double doors that led into the theatre proper, and she took a deep breath as she felt around for her instincts. There was a tremble in her nerves, but it suddenly felt as though all her suspicion had fallen away, and a kind of excitement had replaced the trepidation she’d been feeling for so long. She stepped forward, waving an enthusiastic hand to push the doors open wide with her magic, and the sight she beheld was enough to make a little gasp escape her lips.
“What we’re embarking on may be dangerous,” Novel said, close to her ear, “I thought something like this was appropriate, to help us forget, for tonight at least.”
The words HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIAMONDCHILD were daubed in fine golden ink on a banner that was raised across the whole height of the Imaginique’s stage. Beneath it, on the boards themselves, the ragtag troupe of performers gave a cheer when they saw that Lily had arrived to discover them. A spontaneous chorus of the birthday song broke out seconds later, and Lily saw that even Baptiste was singing along to the traditional words. Each face that Lily recognised was bright and merry, from Jazzy and Lawrence at the stage’s edge, to Dharma and Zita, who sat father back in the cavernous space, shouting to make their shrill voices heard.
Tables and chairs were laid out on the stage for a kind of party, and the smell of Lady Eva’s cooking soon wafted across the room to enter Lily’s nose. Everything was cheerful and perfect, perhaps most especially the man who took Lily’s hand again to lead her towards the one good surprise she’d had that year. Novel was a picture of happiness, and when Lily noticed exactly where he was leading her, she gasped again. She spotted the structure when she and Novel were just a few steps shy of it, and pointed.
“This is the arch!” she exclaimed. “I remember this.”
It was a simple wooden arch decked out in white petals, and it had been laid very carefully over one aisle that led up to the stage. With another glance, Lily could see that everyone up on the boards was dressed in all their finery, for even Jeronomie’s beige waistcoat had suddenly turned a brilliant shade of green. The arch was one that Lily had stepped through before, at the unusual funeral of her relative Edvard Schoonjans, and now she would step through it once more for a much happier occasion.
“I may have made one or two modifications,” Novel admitted, even as he led her through the archway.
Lily felt the little white petals fall upon her as she and Novel paused. A moment later, she found herself looking at Novel in a suit she hadn’t seen him wear for a while, one which the arch had turned garnet red by its enchantment. A top hat had joined the ensemble from one of the illusionist’s modifications, and it wasn’t the only piece of clothing that appeared in those magical few seconds. Lily looked down at herself to see her dress – the shimmering white dress of the Diamondchild – and looked back into her true love’s eyes with a sheen of tears.
“Sorry,” she said at once, “it’s stupid to cry about a party, isn’t it?”
Novel shook his head, then leaned in to kiss her cheek softly.
“It’s been a hard year for all of us,” he told her, “and I feel like we haven’t danced in centuries.”
There came music, and food, and plenty of dancing. When Lily felt Novel’s arm cradling her back, and his fingers tightly wrapped around hers, it was as though a moment of impenetrable calm had fallen into place on the stage of the grand old theatre. The illusionist merely gave a nod of his head, and the instruments collected in front of the Row Below sparked themselves into action. Lily felt their magic, now hundreds of years old, as it coursed into her limbs and lifted them into the effortless rhythm of a formal dance. There was nothing to concentrate on when her feet moved by that magic, save for the deep, warm swirl of Novel’s oceanic eyes as he watched her, smiling still.
“What the-?”
The exclamation came seconds after the dance had begun, and it was from Jazzy. Novel turned Lily with a flourish and she came face to face with her petite friend at her once-full height. It seemed the music was working on everyone who had graced the stage, and Jazzy and Lawrence were no exception. The tall voodoo boy craned his neck down as his hands and arms took up their proper positions at Jazzy’s back and waist, and Lily’s best friend looked utterly stupefied as she watched her own legs moving with grace and strength. She sunk her head into Lawrence’s chest, where no-one could see her face, and Lily felt her own chest welling with a strange combination of happiness and woe as she watched the other pair dancing to the strains of violins.
“Whatever happens after this,” Novel said, his cheek resting softly against her temple, “remember that I love you.”
Lily swallowed hard, her tears threatening to burst free once more.
“I love you too,” she answered, “and that’s exactly why nothing’s going to happen. We’ll be all right in the end. You’ll see.”
They twisted to the music, and the lift in the bridge of the song took them both a few inches into the air. Novel held Lily tighter, their bodies closer than a hair’s breadth, and simply said:
“I hope you’re right.”
*
Lily was not the only one to cry that night, despite all the wonderful laughs and surprises of her party. It was nearing four in the morning when she stepped out into the foyer to catch some air, and found a small, sobbing figure sitting in a chrome and pink wheelchair beside the double doors. Jazzy was near to silent in her tears and motionless as a statue, the silver streams pouring down her cocoa skin like trickling brooks with minds of their own. Lily knew that Jazzy had felt her presence by the way she let her head droop just a little, and by the tiny, pitying smile that crept into one corner of her lip.
“I can’t dance with him like that,” Jazzy said quietly, “not on my own. And I want to, Lily. I want to so badly.”
“I know,” Lily whispered, slowly crossing the room. She bit her lip, her chest tight with guilt where she placed one hand over her suddenly shuddering heart. “If I’d known what that monster would do to you… I should have fought harder, I should have-”
Jazzy shook her head, and Lily broke into the proper tears that seemed to have been waiting to emerge all night. She fell to her knees beside her best friend’s chair, resting her chin on Jazzy’s knee as she sucked up a shaking sob. Jazzy put out a hand, patting Lily’s auburn hair before she too inhaled deeply.
“Salem’s been telling everyone about this Gifter you’re off to see,” Jazzy mused thoughtfully. “She gave him that songspinning power. It sounds incredible.”
“It is,” Lily agreed, remembering the sight of Michael just before the djinn had invaded Guttersnipes. “It’s magic like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
The hand in Lily’s hair slowly moved back to Jazzy’s own thigh, where she poked at her flesh, like she was trying to feel something there.
“I want to come with you to the States,” she said.
Lily looked up, finding her friend’s sorrowful face suddenly resolute, if terribly fearful. Jazzy reached down the side of her wheelchair and pulled out a little white book which Lily recognised at once. The Tales of the Glassman rested on Jazzy’s lap, and she tapped at the cover thoughtfully before she spoke.
“You remember I was going to read the story of the Blood Caster in here?” Jazzy asked. Lily gave a nod. “Well, I did. He made a deal with a djinn too, the Glassman, to get the power to craft magic from blood. The legend says the skill was passed to his descendants, but the catch was how it inspired them to do dark things. It was a powerful skill, but a wicked temptation too.”
“It’s like a deal with the Devil,” Lily said, nodding again. She wasn’t sure if she ought to be trying to dissuade Jazzy from her line of thinking, or supporting her decision purely out of her own sense of guilt for causing her disability. “You could get a lot more than you bargain for if you ask the Gifter to give you your movemen
t back.”
“I don’t care,” Jazzy replied, shaking her head. “There’s so much I was going to do with my life, and I can’t do any of it stuck like this. Tell Novel we’re coming with you, Lawrence and I. I’ve made up my mind.”
It was the most certain Lily had ever seen her friend, and there could be no arguing with her. Lily took back her book of fairy-tales, with the promise that she’d tell Novel they’d be needing a wheelchair seat on the long flight over the Atlantic, and she made a silent wish that any deal Jazzy could strike with Gifter wouldn’t see her any worse off than the small, broken girl she was now.
May
Finality
Lily wrote like a woman possessed, and she was fairly certain most of it was nonsense, but she reasoned that if she just kept writing, the exam time would suddenly come to an end, and she’d be free of the lecture hall at last. It wasn’t usual to host an exam in such a place, but Bradley Binns’s history contingent was so large that no other single hall could house all the students who had shown up to take their final paper for Modern History. That meant that Lily found herself sitting directly beneath a certain pane of glass in the lecture hall ceiling, and hoping desperately that her coroner’s report wouldn’t end up listing ‘History Exam’ as her cause of death.
She had been good for the last three weeks. She had avoided mirrors at all costs, just like she’d promised Novel she would, and she hadn’t even dared to read the Tales of the Glassman, in case that somehow influenced her to tempt fate again. Lily had been so well-behaved at the theatre, in fact, that if she hadn’t been preoccupied with arranging flights and accommodation in America for seven people, she might even have been able to study enough to pass the wretched exam she was currently struggling with. Still, the five minute warning had been given, and that meant her academic torment was almost over.
When she found herself amid the throng of shattered and worried students leaving the hall, Lily felt a wave of relief overcome her. She spotted Lawrence a little farther ahead of her in the crowd, just as he seemed to stop to converse with someone much shorter than he was. When Lily reached the place where the voodoo boy was standing, she veered off out of the crowd to find herself face to face with Bradley Binns. The warm weather of early summer had finally persuaded him to ditch his hideous collection of knitwear, and his plain white shirt was as pale as his face.
“Lawrence says you’re leaving?” Bradley urged no sooner than his eyes met Lily’s.
“Tomorrow,” she confirmed with a nod. “Not for good, but I don’t know for how long. Judging by my performance in there, I’ll be repeating this year anyway to stand any chance of a decent degree.”
Bradley shook his head ruefully, adding: “But what about Novel’s promise to me? You said you’d help me find the man who killed my parents.”
The young professor spoke entirely too loudly in Lily’s opinion, but the students rushing by to escape their exams didn’t seem interested in his words.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Lily began, uncertain of how much to tell the orphaned shade. “We think we know who he is, but exacting judgement would be… difficult at the moment.”
Bradley’s mousy brows knitted together, that half-dopey look of anger forming in his lips.
“You know, and you won’t tell me,” he griped.
“Trust me,” Lily said soothingly, “he’s not a guy you want to go after on your own. When we get back from the States, we’ll help you find a way to get justice. I’d like to see this guy get his comeuppance too, I promise you.”
The young professor still seemed unconvinced, but it was Lawrence who rested a large hand on his shoulder to reassure him.
“You should listen to this girl,” he said gently, “she’s got some seriously good instincts.”
“Perhaps we can even help you find out what house you belong to,” Lily offered with her best smile. “Novel found a way to do it for me.”
Bradley’s resolve softened visibly, and his young face sank back to a complacent smile.
“I guess I’ve waited this long,” he mused, “a few more months won’t hurt.”
“That’s the spirit,” Lawrence said, clapping him so firmly that the professor wobbled a little on the spot.
Lily and Lawrence were about to bid him goodbye when Bradley called to them again on the now empty corridor.
“There’s one thing I meant to ask you, that night in the theatre,” he began.
“What’s that?” Lily pressed.
“Why didn’t your boyfriend know I was a shade?” Bradley asked. “I mean, experienced shades are supposed to be able to sense others, right? But he mistook me for a hunter.”
Lily paused, and she could think of no reply. It was true that Novel had spotted her at once, the autumn before last, when she’d been sitting in the audience for the first time at the Imaginique. He came looking for her, and lured her to the stage to confront her about her magic, because even with all those people around her in the audience, Novel had sensed her dormant powers. Even Lily was beginning to feel the presence of the other shades around her, as she had when she’d been watching for Pascal before he even arrived on the street corner. It was strange that Novel had never been able to tell what Bradley was, and Lily could offer no explanation for it at all.
“I’ll have to ask him about that,” Lily answered. “Take care of yourself for now, all right? And go to the Imaginique if anything bad happens whilst we’re gone. They’ll look out for you there.”
Bradley smiled warmly at that last remark.
“Well, wherever you’re going, good luck,” he said simply.
She took the professor’s good wishes with a grateful nod, but Lily wasn’t sure that she believed in luck anymore.
Take Off
Baptiste led the way through Charles De Gaulle airport, Paris. He and Novel were the only ones in the party of seven who appeared to be fully awake, after hanging around Manchester International for several hours before flying out to the continent to connect to their main flight of the evening. It was five in the morning and the airport was still dark, filled with quiet business types who were regretfully stuffing a too-early breakfast into their mouths as the strange collection of people passed them by.
The Indian girl in the wheelchair was perhaps the least strange of the group, though the boy who pushed her, covered head to toe in tattoos, was a sight for sore eyes. Baptiste and Novel had done nothing to alter their usual vintage style of dress, looking like two Victorian street performers who had fled the city of Paris in a hurry, and Salem’s lurid violet suit was drawing (and blinding) the eye of every tired traveller he passed. Strangest of all, Lily thought, was Jeronomie Parnell, who travelled in the very same outfit she’d worn when she first burst into the Imaginique in a fit of golden sparks. The potioneer donned her wide-brimmed hat and massive brown travelling cloak, which billowed as she carried various cases and parcels beneath her arms.
“Your European Customs people are a joke,” the American woman barked, disturbing several sleepy patrons who were passed out at a nearby flight gate. “Can you believe they wouldn’t let me take powdered Marula Root through the baggage check?”
“I will compensate you for every loss of property, Miss Parnell, I assure you,” Novel said over his shoulder.
Trying to get even half of Jeronomie’s potion-making supplies through the barriers of both airports had been one of the many difficult tasks of the evening already, and it had taken a few bars of Salem’s singing to resolve the issue after many heated arguments. The night had been a long one already, and Lily’s patience was wearing ever-more thin as the minutes ticked by before the direct flight for Logan International, Boston was due to commence boarding.
“I’m so tired,” Lily griped as she caught up to Novel’s quick paces. “Stupid night flights all the way.”
“We didn’t have another option,” Novel replied quietly.
His eyes were trained on the MC still leading their little party, and Lily gave th
e back of Baptiste’s head a good glare.
“If you say so,” she answered bitterly.
“I have no idea how long it’s going to take us to find this portal Salem knows about,” Novel reminded her. “It could be weeks, months even. If Baptiste hadn’t come with us, he might have died. Between travelling by night and finding wheelchair seats, this was the best option.”
Novel squeezed Lily’s hand tightly, and ahead she saw the boarding gate they’d been looking for. She supposed it wasn’t just the stress of flying overseas that was bothering her, but the whole journey, and the frightening prospect that perhaps these awful night flights were only the very beginning of a greater ordeal. Even when she was shown to her seat by a smiling American steward, Lily still felt the crippling pressure of the quest ahead pounding at her temples. Her nerves were taught like barbed wire, and her blood was pumping with a strange excess of magic that she didn’t understand.
It was some minor comfort to Lily that Novel looked as riled as she felt inside. He was squirming in his seat when the air hostesses shut the doors and braced them for take-off, and all through the flight safety video, the illusionist kept checking his seatbelt and testing its tension. Salem was in a seat on the opposite aisle, his bright blue eyes watching his son with interest. When the plane began to taxi down the runway and get into position, the showman reached one long arm across the way to pat Novel on his slim shoulder.
“Humans do this all the time, and they don’t die,” Salem said plainly.
A few humans in the surrounding seats gave him some very strange looks when he spoke those words, but Salem was his usual unabashed self about that. Novel, at least, seemed pleased with the brash comfort his father had offered him and, though he flicked Salem’s hand off his shoulder at once, he did turn and thank him for the reminder. Lily realised then that, travelling by window for so many years, Novel had probably never suffered the enclosure of a human aeroplane. She leaned in her seat to rest her head on his shoulder, careful not to let their skin touch and ignite a flame that the stewards might see.