A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

  “It’s true, the Ancients focus their attention on cities. It costs them more effort, but the reward is greater. And, of course, Brimthorn falls under the protection of Sorrow-Fell lands, which makes it difficult for our enemies to access.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Sorrow-Fell was a great magical estate and the seat of the Blackwood family, a line of powerful sorcerers. We kept Lord Blackwood in our daily prayers, though we’d never seen him. “Do you know the family?”

  “The earl boards at my house, for his studies. He’s about your age, actually.” I started, surprised that a young man of sixteen could be so distinguished. Agrippa smiled. “Shall I tell you of London society? The balls and parties, the fashion and intrigue?”

  “No, thank you. I’d rather hear more about the Ancients.” Agrippa made an incredulous noise. I blushed. “Knowledge of them is useful. I want to be useful.”

  “You’re a teacher. What’s more useful than educating young minds?”

  “I’m no good at a charity school. My strengths are history and mathematics.” I sighed to recall my teachers’ displeasure at my obvious gifts in those more practical areas. I was practical, indeed, but like a man, not a woman. My thoughts were orderly, but I was unyielding. I wanted to argue my opinions, not conciliate others. “Most of the girls here require only reading and sewing, while the more promising ones study French so they may become governesses. And when they’re governesses, they teach girls to play other people’s music and copy other people’s sketches. It sometimes feels as though young women are trained from birth never to contribute anything original to a conversation.” I flushed with embarrassment. My tongue had got the better of me, and Agrippa was regarding me with a look of some interest. “I shouldn’t have bored you with my thoughts.”

  “They’re not boring. You remind me of a young lady I used to know.” He gave a sad smile.

  Colegrind returned, soaked to the skin. “Your carriage is ready,” he said with somber dignity, then turned and walked from the room, his shoes leaking with every step. Agrippa chuckled and shook his head.

  I liked this man. I wished I didn’t have to fear him.

  —

  THE RAIN HAD STOPPED BY THE time we walked outside. Agrippa and I waited by the doorway while the men brought the carriage forward, careful not to get its wheels trapped in the mud. As we stood there, I found myself humming a soft singsong tune.

  “What is that?” Agrippa asked.

  “An old schoolyard chant about the Ancients. I suppose our conversation brought it back to me.” It took a moment to recall the words, and then I sang,

  “Seven are the Ancients, seven are the days,

  Monday for R’hlem, the Skinless Man,

  On-Tez on Tuesday, the old Vulture Lady,

  Callax is Wednesday, the Child Eater,

  Zem the Great Serpent crisps Thursday with his breath,

  On Friday fear Korozoth, the Shadow and Fog,

  Never sail on Saturday says Nemneris the Water Spider,

  And rain on Sunday brings Molochoron the Pale Destroyer.”

  When I’d finished, Agrippa applauded.

  “Very nice,” he said. “Not much of a rhyme, though.”

  “It was less about the song and more about chasing each other,” I said. Agrippa laughed and was summoned to his coach. He kissed my hand.

  “Farewell, Miss Howel. It was a pleasure.”

  Though I should’ve been glad to see him depart, a queer sort of sadness descended on me. I watched until his carriage vanished up the road into a bank of fog. Only then did I go down to the kitchen to prepare Rook’s paste.

  As I struggled to remember ingredients and mash herbs, I cursed my subpar potion making. Most witches were skilled herbalists. If I must live in fear for my life, why couldn’t I have helpful magical powers? I wished I’d had a mother to teach me. Bother that, I wished I’d had a mother for anything. Finished, I ran outside and down the lane toward the moor.

  Even weighted by my stays and heavy skirts, I loved racing through the pale purple-and-white heather. The hills rolled and crested around me, and I soon arrived at the meeting place, an outcropping of dark gray stone on the heath. Rook and I had discovered it years ago, during a failed attempt to run away.

  Rook sat beneath an overhang of rock, rubbing his eyes. His left arm hung limp in his lap. Damn. His suffering must’ve been worse than he’d let on.

  “I have the paste. How bad is it?” I knelt beside him.

  “Oh, I’d call it bad,” he said. His voice didn’t break, but I could tell by the tense line of his jaw that he was in terrible pain. He attempted to slide off his jacket without upsetting his left arm.

  “Let me help.” After removing the jacket, shirt, and cotton vest beneath, I inspected a body that was lean and hardened from work.

  A body covered in scars.

  Rook was Unclean, wounded by one of the Ancients. Great circular scars like suction marks, still an angry and swollen red these many years later, covered the left side of his chest. They decorated his collarbone like some obscene necklace and ran down his back and left arm. Sometimes, when the pain was extreme, his hand would go rigid and his fingers would curl into his palm. Korozoth himself had mutilated my friend during an attack on a camp of brick makers. The soldiers who’d rescued Rook brought him to shelter at Brimthorn, thinking he’d be dead by morning. Eight years later, and that morning hadn’t come.

  I rubbed the paste into his palm, kneading the skin until his fingers loosened. I straightened them out, ignoring his hissed intakes of breath at the pain. Within a few minutes, his hand relaxed. Rook closed his eyes in relief.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, clasping my hand in his. Slowly, I twined our fingers together.

  “Your grip is still strong,” I said, smiling. When I reached to touch his chest, he flinched.

  “You needn’t help me more than necessary. I’m in your debt enough as it is.” He often shied from my touch these days. It made me feel clumsy and perverse, as if I should be repulsed by his scars when I wasn’t at all.

  “Let’s look at your back,” I grumbled. Dabbing at the paste, I sat behind him and gasped.

  Besides the scars, long red welts blazed on his skin. Someone had struck him with a birch cane.

  “Bastard,” I hissed as I tried to soothe the wounds.

  “It was my own fault,” Rook said. “I wasn’t able to help with the horses. Colegrind had to come out and see to it himself.”

  “Of course you’re slow when the scars flare up. He should know that by now.”

  “I don’t want special treatment,” Rook said, his voice firm. I held my tongue and worked quickly. Finished, I laid my hand on his back.

  “Movement should be easier now,” I said.

  “Oh yes.” He sighed, shifting beneath my hand. “God knows what I would do in this world without you, Nettie.”

  “Stop calling me Nettie, Rook.” I smiled. This was an age-old battle. A terrible childhood nickname, Nettie made me sound like an old lady or a hen.

  “Have to call you Nettie, Nettie.” I felt him laugh. “You can’t break with tradition, as Colegrind tells us.” Rook leaned away from me and took up his vest. With a grunt, he began to pull it over his head. I held back, knowing he’d be cross if I tried to help now. “The sorcerer’s gone?”

  “Yes. That was far too close.” Unladylike as it was, I flopped onto my back and stared up at the sky.

  “Even if you are a witch, it’s not as though you’re Mary Willoughby herself.” Rook sighed, lying down beside me. “She’s dead and gone.”

  “Her legacy isn’t, though.” For thousands of years, witches had existed on the fringe of society. They were known as strange women, a bit dangerous if you weren’t careful, but they’d mostly lived in peace. That all changed when a witch named Mary Willoughby opened up a portal between worlds and summoned the Ancients, starting this long, bloody war. I remembered a book I’d had when I was ten, A Child’s History of the Ancients. In it, t
here was a picture of a lady with wild black hair and insane eyes, her hands raised to a stormy sky. Mary Willoughby, the worst woman in the kingdom, the caption read.

  “She was burned,” I said. “All witches are burned.” If Agrippa had found me out…well, I actually couldn’t be burned, could I? He would have to be creative with my death. Lord, what an unsettling thought.

  “Seems un-Christian, don’t it? Burning people alive.”

  “Especially when you consider she had help,” I said.

  “Yes, from the magician.” Rook smiled as I sat up in surprise. “You taught me to read with that old Ancients book, remember? Howard Mickelmas. He helped open the gate. Never caught him, did they?”

  “No, magicians are tricky by nature.” Magicians were filthy beasts, full of deception. Everyone knew that. At least witches had an air of tragic nobility about them.

  “Why d’you think they burn one kind and not the other?” Rook said. “Why aren’t magicians killed, too?”

  This conversation was doing nothing for my nerves. Brushing the whole topic aside, I stood and walked around the rock, clutching my shawl. Rook joined me.

  “I don’t want to worry about magic any longer,” I said, standing in the road. All around us was silence, except the wind sighing through the heather. Awful as Brimthorn was, one could never match Yorkshire for moments of grand solitude. Rook and I were alone, save for a traveler on horseback in the distance. “I want to think about the shop we’re going to open.”

  “It’ll be in Manchester, or maybe Canterbury,” Rook said, going along with the old game. “We should open a bookshop, with all the books bound in old leather.”

  “I think that’s the most glorious smell, a library of old books,” I said. Apart from Rook, my only good memories of Brimthorn consisted of hours reading in a favored window seat. Colegrind, bad as he was, had at least been generous with his personal library. One summer, I’d gone through Le Morte d’Arthur three times. My favorite moment had to be when Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, transforming from commoner to king in one instant.

  Rook shook his head. “Granted, we can’t move to Canterbury. The Vulture Lady lives on the cathedral.” He was right. On-Tez, one of the Ancients, had ruled the city for the past three years. She was a large, hideous beast with the body of a filthy carrion bird and the head of an insane old woman. The name Vulture Lady suited her rather well.

  “One day she’ll be gone, and we’ll sell books and anything else we want. Now, what shall we call our shop?” I asked. Rook didn’t respond. I nudged him. “Don’t say you can’t think of anything.” Rook moved away from me down the road, hands in his pockets. Surprised, I walked beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  “The shop is a story we told ourselves when we were younger,” he said, looking at me. “You could have been a governess in a good house by now, with better food and pay. Why haven’t you tried for a position yet?”

  Lord, not this argument again. “I’ll apply when I want to, but I don’t want to right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I might set fire to the master’s drapes,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Besides, I can’t just…” I bit my tongue, but Rook caught on.

  “Can’t what?” His jaw was set, his eyes hard.

  “Leave you,” I said, wincing as I waited for his reaction.

  He stopped us in the road. “Nettie, I don’t want you to ever keep yourself low because of me.”

  “You’re being silly,” I snapped, wrapping my shawl tight around my shoulders. “I’m going home.” With that, I turned and walked off the road at a brisk pace, tramping across the moor. I waited to hear Rook’s footsteps, but he didn’t follow me. I stopped, exasperated. “Are you planning to live out here?”

  Rook remained on the road. He faced the traveler on horseback, who was only about a half mile away now. Something about Rook’s stillness was unsettling. I hurried back to him.

  “Are you all right? Do the scars still hurt?” I asked, gripping his shoulder. Instantly, he crumpled to the ground, groaning in pain. When I touched him, he shuddered. Panicking, I hooked my arm with his and tried once, twice to get him back on his feet. I pulled so hard I lost my balance and fell beside him in the dirt.

  Had the paste I’d given him been bad? There was no response when I shook him.

  “Rook?” I whispered. The sound of hooves brought up my head. The traveler had arrived. Relieved, I started to ask for help.

  When I glimpsed what had found us, the words died in my mouth. Terror made me mute.

  The traveler didn’t ride a horse at all. The creature was a black stag with thick, gnarled antlers and glowing red eyes. As it snorted, sparks flew from its snout. The stag opened its mouth in a hideous cry. Its teeth were jagged, designed for tearing flesh.

  The rider wore a hooded, mistlike cloak that whispered about his body. He stank of the grave. Slowly, the hood peeled away from his face. I gasped and shrank back.

  A young woman, not a man. She was scarce older than I. Her once-fair hair had thinned and gone nearly white, clinging to her scalp in filthy clumps. And her eyes—dear heaven, her eyes—had been sewn shut with a crude black thread. But even without sight, she appeared to know where I was. She stopped her stag right before us. Licking her lips with a thick, wolfish tongue, she leaned down toward me.

  “Death,” she croaked, scenting the wind like an animal. “Death tonight.”

  The air exploded with the sound of hooves.

  Three more shrieking riders on black stags plummeted from the sky, landing in a circle around us. The monsters closed in, unsheathing black daggers. Rook sat up straight, mercifully coming back to his senses. He shoved me behind him, away from the creatures.

  The eyeless girl leaned toward him from her stag, yellowed teeth bared in a grimace.

  “The Shadow’s chosen,” she whispered to her brethren. “He is ours.”

  The Shadow had to be Korozoth. These were Familiars, humans transformed into servants of the Seven Ancients.

  Rook lifted his head so I could see his face. His eyes had gone pure black. When he opened his mouth to speak, all he emitted was a terrible screech. It was the sound a damned soul might make in the fires of hell. I covered my ears, shaking as I listened. When the shadowy Familiar reached to pull him onto her mount, my palms grew boiling hot.

  I thrust my hands forward, and fire billowed out of me. The girl managed to pull away before I could scorch her. She growled and reached for Rook again.

  “Don’t touch him!” I cried. Panic set me in full, furious motion. They would not have us. Screaming, I thrust my hands out, blasting again and again. This time I caught one of the other riders as it tried to rise into the air. The rider and stag fell to the ground, hissing and screeching as they burned. Their screams died with them, and charred bits of the monsters floated away on the wind.

  It was like opening a cage in my chest to free some wild creature. The power rushed out of me. The harder I pushed, the more it gave. I closed my eyes in one moment of pure joy.

  I was so blissful that I forgot to protect my back. A Familiar gripped me by my hair. Rook grabbed my waist and tore me out of the creature’s grip. I grunted in pain as Rook shielded me with his body, his arms raised to the sky. The eyeless girl hovered there like a phantom, snarling, with her long dagger poised to strike.

  “We have to go.” Rook pulled me to my feet.

  We ran, and the monsters gave chase. They raced through the air, cackling as they spurred on their mounts in the hunt. When I felt them get too close, I risked a glance back and launched a volley of fire behind me. The flames did not come as quickly as before; sometimes there were only sparks. I’d used too much. My breath sounded ragged, and I tripped on my skirt. All we needed was to make it to Brimthorn. The men in the stables would be enough to hold the monsters while we got the children to safety.

  We were almost there. One last hill and we’d be within sight of the school, but the riders were at our heels. A
s we neared the top, Rook lost his footing and slammed down, taking me with him. I howled as my shoulder caught the ground and pain knifed through me. When I rolled onto my back and summoned the fire, there was nothing.

  I tried once, twice, but my hands were numb. I couldn’t even draw breath for a scream as the Familiars leaped out of the sky, daggers prepared for a killing blow.

  A cold wind blasted out of the west, scattering the riders. Master Agrippa stood at the crest of the hill, cape billowing in the breeze, his sorcerer’s stave held out before him. He jerked his head, ordering us to move.

  “You came back! How did you know?” I gasped as we staggered up the hill. I wanted to fall at his feet in relief.

  Agrippa nodded toward the horizon. The dark clouds boiled in the air. “This is no ordinary storm. Get to the school. Now.”

  The riders regrouped and shot toward us, forcing Agrippa to attack. The sorcerer moved more quickly than I’d have thought possible for a man his age. He slashed toward the monsters, using his stave like a sword. Wind battered the creatures until he’d forced them down the hill. Agrippa made a fast, whipping motion and slammed his stave to the ground. The earth itself rose up, formed a wall several feet high, and sped toward the Familiars. They fell beneath the muddy onslaught and rolled to the bottom, lying so still that I prayed they’d died.

  I watched, transfixed, as Agrippa advanced slowly. I’d always wanted to see a sorcerer fight. I looked over at Rook, who had his hands pressed tight to the sides of his head. His eyes remained a terrifying black. My stomach tightened, and I put my arm around him.

  “We should get to shelter,” I whispered.

  Agrippa’s yell made me look down the hill. He lay on his back, arm shielding his face. He’d dropped his stave, and one of the Familiars had kicked it out of his reach. The eyeless girl stood over him, cocking her head at different angles. Agrippa seemed frozen. He wasn’t fighting. With a grunt, the Familiar lifted her dagger into the air while her two companions held back and bobbed around her. They were letting her have this kill.