The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3)

by K. C. Finn

  “I came here to talk to you,” Pascal said plainly, “I’ve been trying for several days. I thought you were dead.”

  “So did I, I think,” Lily answered unsurely. “What do you want?”

  “Sit with me and find out,” Pascal retorted.

  He patted the other throne, and Lily shook her head. The Dreamstate quaked all around her, and a flurry of fluttering noises filled her mind. Lily felt as though the pages of a book were being flipped behind her, but when she turned to see them, the book wasn’t there.

  “Nobody gets hurt here,” Pascal crooned, still grinning. “You’ve no need to fear me.”

  “I don’t,” Lily replied at once, though in truth that was a massive lie.

  “Then you’ll be wise enough to reconsider my offer,” the senior shade answered.

  Pascal rose to his feet, and the dream carried him slowly across the hall with the swiftness of a breeze. He stood before Lily in every inch of his dark glory, save for that gleaming golden eye that never seemed to stop watching her. Lily’s face remained a picture of resilience, and she could see the patriarch of the noble house of Novel losing his cool. Pascal’s frustration was etched in the lines around his eyes, and in the tension of his lip as it curled with a snarl.

  “Do you honestly think you’re going to have a tea party with this djinn and everything will suddenly be better?” he challenged.

  “We’ll make a deal,” Lily said firmly.

  “The djinnkind know far more about deals and contracts than the likes of us,” Pascal retaliated. “Haven’t you been reading your stories?”

  Lily felt a stab in her heart, her mouth falling open.

  “How do you know about that book?” she demanded.

  “Novel announced to the whole of Pendle that you were coming,” Pascal replied, “it wasn’t hard to persuade an idiot like Baines to give you a welcome present.”

  Lily felt the fluttering of the pages again, though the invisible book eluded her sight once more. Knowing that Pascal had constructed so much of the information she’d discovered was an unnerving sensation, one that sent the very pit of her stomach reeling, like a vat of acid had been poured straight in. Though his dream-self flickered in that unstable way that Dreamstate beings often did, Lily still flinched when Pascal stepped ever closer. His face was a picture of fury.

  “You’re not some girl who just happened to be born a shade,” Pascal urged, “you’re it, Lily. You’re the one who can wipe the djinnkind off the face of this world and the next, and the Glassman knows it.”

  Lily felt the flutter again, and a cyclone of wind picked up around her that made it hard to see the Council Hall beyond Pascal. His face was the face of a murderer, cold and furious, and Lily hated every word that he had spoken, yet there was one word that stopped her from wishing to wake up.

  “The Glassman?” she repeated. “What do you mean? He’s just a fairy-tale, just a figure in a book.”

  “And that’s what most shades will have you believe,” Pascal replied, “but I know he’s real. And only he would have the power to bring on the kind of destruction you’ve suffered. He’ll kill everyone you love, Lily Coltrane, unless we kill him first.”

  “I won’t be a killer,” Lily shot back, “I won’t be anything like you.”

  Pascal blinked with his one good eye.

  “We shall see.”

  The cyclone of air took a dizzying spin, and Lily felt her tired mind returning to a painful slumber as the sight of the golden-eyed murderer faded from her view.

  June

  Old Enemies

  “This really isn’t way to see America,” Salem groused as he peered out of the strip of windshield that wasn’t painted black.

  It was early morning, and he and Lily were the only two occupants of the huge car that were awake, sitting in the front seats with only a band of brilliant golden sunlight to illuminate their way. The windows were blacked for the courtesy of the bloodshade, Baptiste, who was lying across the floor of the second row of seats, with Novel’s feet resting on his stomach. Lily found it hard to look at the way Baptiste’s hand was resting on the tip of Novel’s shoe, despite the fact that the illusionist had fallen asleep first, with no idea that Baptiste was going to climb down in the car to hide from the bright slash of the sun.

  Jeronomie took up the other seat in the car’s second row, her large limbs curled into a coil, like a sand-snake waiting to pounce, and beyond her Jazzy was propped up in the far left corner with what seemed like hundreds of pillow that Lawrence had adjusted to keep her comfortable. The voodoo boy was a little too tall for the roof of the vehicle, and he had eventually fallen asleep with his head on Jazzy’s pillow. Their faces were close and peaceful in slumber, and Lily hoped they’d still be like that when they woke up, gazing at each other.

  “If you could find the place we’re looking for and get this deal over with, then maybe some partying in Boston might be in order,” Lily told the showman at the wheel.

  “That’s easy to say,” Salem groused, “but I was flown there on someone else’s magic. You know how hard it is to find a really small, specific pond in this state? There’s water everywhere.”

  Lily suspected she knew exactly how hard it was, since the seven of them had spent the last two weeks driving around looking for the place Salem claimed the Gifter would be hiding out. They had explored the urban metropolis of Salem City as their first port of call, and tried every patch of water in its surrounding suburbs to uncover the portal, with no luck whatsoever. Then, they had ventured into an area called Peabody, of all things, and done exactly the same recce there, again with no results. Now, the travellers were moving westwards, but tensions were running higher with every day that produced no clear results.

  Lily thought it was unfair to blame Salem entirely for their lack of progress, but had she known that the showman really had very little idea where Gifter’s portal was, she might not have been so insistent that Novel organise their expedition. Still, as every day went by that they spent searching for the djinn in the mysterious water, Pascal’s words of warning in the Dreamstate travelled further from Lily’s mind. She didn’t want to believe that someone as ruthless and uncouth as Pascal could be right about her purpose as a killer, and the more time she spent planning the negotiation with Novel and Jazzy, the better she felt.

  “We’ll find it,” Lily told Salem reassuringly, hoping she was right. “If another shade flew you there, it can’t have been much further into the country than we are now.”

  “I don’t know,” Salem huffed, “Evangeline was pretty powerful. She threw me across the whole of Moscow once. Now that was a fun date.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lily said, the pit of stomach suddenly heavy. “When you say Evangeline…”

  Salem glanced at her for a moment, then nodded.

  “Lemarick’s mother,” he confirmed.

  “Mother Novel was the one who introduced you to Gifter?” Lily asked, still not wanting to believe this new information.

  “Sure,” Salem answered glibly. “You know first-hand that she liked to make alliances with unsavoury types: your dad and those hunters, for example.”

  “And you,” Lily quipped back bitterly.

  The pair fell into silence, with Salem squinting again to see outside as he spied for signs of water and countryside. Lily felt the trepidation rising inside her again, with a powerful, fearful instinct that told her she shouldn’t be seeking out someone that had once been pals with the woman who broke her friend’s spine and actually did end Lily’s own life, at least for a few minutes. But the other option, Lily realised, lay with Pascal and his furious offer to turn her into a djinn-killer, chasing fairy-tales in his quest for blood. She was stuck between the ghost of one deadly Novel and the reality of another, and her only comfort was that at least her friends thought looking for Gifter was a good idea.

  “Oh well,” Lily sighed, “I suppose it’s too late to turn back now.”

  “Good,” Salem said, su
ddenly fumbling for the gearstick, “because I just found a new patch of wildland for us to explore.”

  *

  “You woke me up for this,” Jeronomie raged, “you useless son of a-”

  “Temper, temper,” Novel cut in, stepping between the potioneer and Salem. “You agreed to help us on this search, Miss Parnell, and I’ll gladly remind you that you’re free to leave at any time.”

  They had been traipsing through the mire for three hours since Salem stopped the car, and Lily, Novel and Jeronomie were soaked up to the waist in water. Salem was the only one of the group who had yet to wade into the centre of any of the ponds they’d been exploring, and that fact had not escaped the potioneer’s narrow eyes. Now, Jeronomie found herself face to face with Novel, and her dark resolve slunk back towards petulant compliance.

  “I’m just saying,” she griped, “he ain’t found us this portal in fifteen days, and-”

  “And if it takes fifteen more, I shall continue looking,” Novel interjected sternly. “Once again, Miss Parnell, I’ll be happy to drop you off at a bus stop somewhere, if you’d rather start making your way home.”

  Since landing in the States, Lily had to wonder why Jeronomie was still with the group. She had offered to lend a hand in the search for Gifter’s pond readily enough, but now every day was filled with barbs and bitter complaints, which were all directed at Salem. The man that the potioneer had seemed so keen to help and heal was now the ultimate source of her displeasure, and she was the only one of the group who was totally free to leave. Yet, she hadn’t, and judging by the way she raised her palms and gave in to Novel’s warnings, Lily reasoned that Jeronomie was still going to stick around.

  “Salem,” Novel said, sounding exasperated, “does anything here look familiar at all to you?”

  Salem nodded, but it was without enthusiasm.

  “Trees, water, pondweed,” he listed, “except there aren’t any frogs here, though I guess frogs could have moved on. It has been three hundred years since I saw this place, you know.”

  “I can’t believe you wouldn’t pay attention to a location so important,” Novel bit back.

  “Hey,” Salem said, raising a warning finger. “I had a lot going on. I got this girl pregnant and then she called me a witch, and I was gonna get hanged. Geographical landmarks were not the first thing on my mind, okay?”

  “Pregnant?” Lily asked, looking sharply to Novel. “Not…?”

  “No, no, no,” Salem answered swiftly. “Not him. That was later. I only met Evangeline that day, when she brought me out here.”

  “So you left this pregnant girl for someone shiny and new?” Jeronomie cut in bitterly.

  The potioneer’s look ought to have been enough to wither any normal deadbeat man to shame, but Salem only shrugged.

  “She was a human girl,” he replied simply. “Besides, I wasn’t ready to be a father.”

  “You never have been,” Novel added in a low tone.

  As all of this conversation unfolded, Jeronomie was leading the bedraggled explorers back towards the car, which was easily another mile away. The summer sun baked the back of Lily’s neck and, though her bruises from the plane landing had finished healing a few days ago, she was pretty sure the damage was still rife under her skin. She felt like flying on a cooling breeze, but Novel had warned all of them against using magic in a place where humans were driving by every few minutes, and her blood tingled with that tempting urge to go against the illusionist’s rules yet again.

  “So you don’t care at all that there’s some shade kid out there without a father, for the last three centuries?” Jeronomie said accusingly.

  “I figure if they haven’t come looking for me by now, they don’t need me,” Salem surmised.

  Jeronomie stopped dead in the middle of the expanse, and Lily let out a pettish sigh. She just wanted to get back to the air conditioning of the dark little car, and not have this pointless argument unfolding whilst the sun was beating down hard on her sweat-soaked face.

  “What if the kid couldn’t find you?” Jeronomie asked, her voice strangely choked. “What if that kid’s spent their whole life wondering who you are?”

  “If that’s the case,” Novel chimed in, “I’d say that’s one very lucky shade. Believe me, he never did me any good in my formative years.”

  The small crowd began walking again, and Lily found herself wishing that Novel’s words would bring an end to the tiresome quarrel, but Salem had more to say on the matter.

  “Lily,” he said in a pleading tone, “you didn’t have a father growing up. You didn’t need one, right? You were fine on your own.”

  Lily made no reply, save for an exasperated sigh as she kept on walking. It was true that Lily had been left with only her fearful, emotionally damaged mother to raise her, and she had always felt that she had to do things more or less alone to succeed in her life. That hadn’t been so bad for the first eighteen years, but Salem’s questions did make her wonder how different life might have been if Maxime Schoonjans had taken ownership of his fatherhood and raised Lily as a shade.

  She might have been darker than she was, for a start, and much more accomplished in her magic for her years. But Lily had a suspicion that any kind of relationship between her and Novel would have been a massive no-no in that other reality. She might have even looked upon him as her enemy by now, and she certainly never would have smashed a powerful enchanted mirror for his sake. Which, Lily realised, would mean that all her friends wouldn’t be in such terrible danger now.

  “I don’t know,” she answered Salem eventually, “it might have been better, in some ways. But there’s no point in wondering. You have to make do with what you’ve got.”

  Jeronomie gave a grumble at that, and huffed on ahead.

  The Right Water

  It was almost the end of June before Salem proudly stated that he’d found the pond they were searching for. It was up north near Danvers, in an offshoot where the Danvers River split into three strands which, on Novel’s map of the area, looked like the talons of a witch’s hand, reaching out to grasp at the countryside. It had trees, water and pondweed, just as the showman remembered, and it also had hundreds of frogs. Lily, having lived in Colchester, which was decidedly frog-free on the city’s streets, hadn’t realised how much she disliked the slimy little hoppers, until they were plopping to and fro in the dark water all around her.

  “They’re nocturnal, right?” Lily asked, flinching as the horrid little things made another leap towards her. “Can’t we come back and do this pond in the morning?”

  “Salem may never find it again,” Novel said dryly, “besides, it’s good for Baptiste to get some air.”

  Lily folded her arms and grimaced, watching the lithe figure of the MC as he crept about in the rushes. Baptiste’s eyes glowed just a little in the pitch darkness, ringed in yellow like those of an owl, and Lily supposed that was part of his vampyric side showing. He was not remotely perturbed by the frogs, who appeared to be frightened of the way he ploughed through the water. It was for this reason that the hoppers were flocking towards Lily through the ripples, and if she hadn’t already had reasons to dislike Baptiste Du Nord in the past, she definitely would have had them now.

  “This is futile,” Novel sighed.

  “I’m telling you, this one really looks like the right place,” Salem urged.

  “Recognise the frogs personally, do you?” Lily snapped.

  “I don’t see you wading in to prove me wrong,” the showman replied.

  “Oh let’s not start arguing again,” Novel interjected, “you two are getting as bad as Jeronomie.”

  As the barbs flew back and forth in the darkness, Lily suddenly realised that the frogs had stopped leaping towards her. The reason for this, she discovered a moment later, was because Baptiste Du Nord was nowhere to be seen. One minute he’d been wading through the water, and the next, he was gone.

  “What on earth’s happened?” Novel asked.

 
There was a splash, and Salem stamped the water with excitement.

  “He’s done it!” the showman exclaimed. “Baptiste has found the portal!”

  Lily made to step forward into the water, but Novel put out a hand to hold her back.

  “I’ll go,” he suggested, though it didn’t sound as though he wanted anyone to contradict him. “I can levitate us back up, if indeed he has fallen through this hole in the water that Salem described.”

  Novel began making his way into the pond, his tailcoat floating up to the surface to enshroud him like the wings of a great wet bat. Lily watched with trepidation as he approached the centre of the deep water and, as swiftly as Baptiste had vanished, she saw Novel suddenly fall, like he’d found a trapdoor in the fluid.

  “Do your thing with the water,” Salem urged, splashing over to nudge Lily in the side.

  “What thing?” she asked.

  Salem made a motion like he was swimming the breaststroke.

  “Part it,” Salem explained. “If we’re in the right place, there’ll be a column in the middle that doesn’t move.”

  “And if we’re not in right place?” Lily asked.

  Salem gave a playful grin, his silver tongue glittering by the moonlight.

  “Then those two just fell down one heck of a sinkhole,” he answered. “Go on, do your thing.”

  Lily did as instructed, her fingertips tingling from the moment she let them reach for the water ahead. Her veins felt thicker and stronger than ever, pulsing hard against the muscles of her arms as the magic within them began to emanate. She laid her palms flat out, facing the pond’s surface, then let them slowly tilt outwards as the water began to ripple and bend to her will. Water had always been easy for Lily, and she watched with a small smile as the families of frogs were swept along in the parting tide, collected neatly against the rushes and weeds on either side of her. Just as Salem had supposed, a central column of water remained in the space straight ahead.