Broken by Magic

by Rebecca Danese

  “At least you’re eating and sleeping,” Jer says, trying to make me feel better.

  “So, er, Tilly,” Lou starts uncertainly, looking around the room for something to focus on, “you live here by yourself?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. Rather lonely at times, as you can imagine,” she replies, sitting at the head of the table between myself and Ella. The bowl of salad is lifted and moves over to the space where she’s sitting. It’s weird watching food and drink disappear into nothing, but I do think that in a certain light I can almost make out an outline of her hands when she picks up an object.

  Then again, maybe I’m imagining things.

  “You’re all famous,” she says, and only then do I turn to the TV in the corner of the room, which is now showing the news.

  “Here’s our London correspondent now to give you all the latest on what people are calling both a spectacular and terrifying event earlier today,” the news anchor says before the picture cuts to a blonde woman standing outside Hampstead Hospital.

  “Thank you, James. I’m here with witnesses who were evacuated some time earlier after an earthquake shook the area of the hospital. A group of Augurs from what we can now confirm are the Magic Circle had the building under siege in the hopes of flushing out what we understand to be another Augur.”

  The camera focuses on a crudely painted Magic Circle emblem, a ragged M hastily circled in red spray paint, on a wall of the hospital. The reporter stands between the wall and the crowd as if for dramatic effect. I reckon they must have one member that just goes around vandalising the places they attack, and if I weren’t so worried, I’d laugh at the thought.

  “Their objective is still otherwise unclear, but after months of silence, the fact that the Magic Circle have come forward just as Augur laws have been instituted city wide, the question has to be asked, ‘What are they hoping to achieve?’

  “Here’s one witness now. Madam, what did you see happen here today?”

  “They saved us. The Augurs. They came and evacuated us and made sure that we got to safety while some of them went back in and fixed the building. If it weren’t for them, I don’t know what would have happened.”

  “That’s my Mum!” I exclaim, allowing myself a moment of pride before quickly repressing it. This is not a situation where I can celebrate, but it’s nice to see her on the TV nonetheless. I catch a sympathetic glance from Ella before we continue to tuck into our food in silence, while the news anchor only confirms our fears that people are on the lookout for all of us. Pictures and video footage, although blurry and shot from a distance, expose us all, but particularly Ella.

  “This is just great,” I say sarcastically, finishing my food and pushing my plate away. “Where are we going to go that we won’t be recognised now?”

  The question is rhetorical, and no one ventures an answer. After several minutes of silence, Tilly clears her throat. “Tea or coffee, anyone?” she asks with false enthusiasm, trying to lift the mood. There are vague nods from everyone at the table, and her chair scrapes back as she begins to collect the plates, mine sailing past my head in an invisible hand.

  “I’ll help,” Ella adds quietly, beginning to clear the table. I notice Lou giving me a look from where she sits, and I raise an eyebrow in question.

  “Who is she?” she mouths at me. I shrug, but I’m only answered with a lot of pointing and gesturing that I should be doing something more useful about finding out.

  “You want me to just out and ask her?” I whisper.

  “Yes! How do we know if we’re even safe here if we don’t know who she is or why she brought us here?” Lou hisses.

  “She’s got a point mate,” Jer adds under his breath.

  I look at Marco for some kind of help, but he nods in agreement with them. “I don’t want to scare her off. She seems kind of... fragile.”

  “At this point I don’t think you offending someone is at the top of our list of worries,” Marco smirks, and sadly I agree with him. The only way we’re going to find out is if I just go ahead and ask the awkward questions, even if she did just save our lives to some degree. I groan and stand up, picking up what dirty dishes are left on the table as I do.

  “So, Tilly,” I say as lightly as I can, making my way over to the kitchen end of the room, “I have to ask, why did you help us? I mean, we’re grateful, but I don’t even know how you know my name.”

  There’s a tangible pause. She’s at the sink, the only sign of which is a plate being washed by invisible hands. From the other end of the kitchen counter, Ella gives me a quizzical look, but I ignore it, waiting to see if I’ll suddenly be attacked or worse.

  Instead, she ignores me and says, “How’s that tea coming along, Ella?”

  “Aren’t you going to answer my questions?” I insist, feeling three pairs of eyes from the table watching me.

  “Yes, I think I will,” she replies mildly, “but first we need to have tea. The answer is sadly more complicated than you’re going to like.”

  Figuring that I’m not going to get more out of her until everything is in its place, I help to dry dishes and take tea things over to the big table while Ella brings over everything else. We wait as patiently as possible, shooting each other glances until Tilly is settled back in her spot at the head of the table between us. She doesn’t speak again until everyone has something to drink in front of them when finally, without prompting, she takes a deep breath.

  “My father was an Augur, but after he died young, my Normal mother remarried and had her own Normal family. I was five when it happened, and before you ask, no, I wasn’t invisible. My abilities were limited to what you could probably call teleportation. I could disappear and reappear whenever and wherever I fancied. But I didn’t.

  “My mother, despite having originally married an Augur, decided that powers were far more trouble than they were worth, and so I was forbidden to use them.”

  I open my mouth to ask a question, but Ella shakes her head quickly. Let her talk, otherwise we might not get the whole story.

  “She had more children, all Normal of course, and I became less and less of interest to my family. My younger brothers were as ordinary as they come and had no idea of what I was. Sometimes I wondered if Mother even told them that they were only my half-siblings. If they ever knew, they never mentioned it, and my stepfather was kind enough about it. Mother sent me to a private school in the country when I was thirteen, where I decided to take my life into my own hands rather than hide.

  “I met a few Augurs, made friends, fell in love, the usual story. My boyfriend and I were married right out of school, and one thing led to another, so I ended up pregnant and starting a family far younger than I had anticipated.”

  I try not to look surprised at this revelation but fail, my own expression mirrored in the faces around the table. Tilly chuckles wryly.

  “You all look shocked, but I suppose you can’t age me when you can’t see me, can you? Well, anyway, my husband I didn’t last, sadly. Our relationship had been entirely based on the fact that we needed each other. He introduced me to a friend of his who had a... peculiar ability. They had been experimenting with powers and wanted access to a lab late at night, which of course I could help them with. I would teleport them in and out of trouble so that they were never caught, all the while not realising that my contact with my husband’s friend was draining me, in more ways than one.”

  “What do you mean, draining you?” Marco asks.

  It’s impossible to know what Tilly is thinking or even to read her expression to tell if she’s annoyed or not, but when she replies her tone of voice is soft and a little sad.

  “I mean that every time I touched him and used my powers, I became weaker. I didn’t realise that was possible until Johnny— my husband, that is— lost his almost completely.” She sighs heavily and takes a deep sip from her cup.

  Something about that is familiar to me, and I stare into my mug for a moment, frowning. There’s only one person
I know who had their power drained from them, and it’s too unusual for it to be a coincidence, surely. It takes me a few moments for things to click into place but when they do, I almost leap out of my chair.

  “Wait, you said ‘Johnny’. Are you Jonathan Clarence’s wife?” I accuse more than ask. Suddenly, everything she has said starts to fall into some semblance of a pattern. Jonathan married Tilly out of school. He was friends with Carlton Munday who drained him of his powers and almost succeeded in doing the same to her.

  “You’re Edward’s mother?” Ella asks, more gently than I did.

  “Yes. I wondered how long it would take you to work it out. You’re a sharp lot. My son inherited his father’s abilities, but sadly he also inherited his temper and his stubbornness. I tried to take Edward with me several times, but after the accident that left me like this, well, it didn’t make sense for a boy to be raised by a mother he couldn’t even see.”

  I feel a sudden pang if sympathy for her, having to give up her baby for the sake of him having a normal childhood. Well, as normal as possible in the presence of the Duke.

  “So, you and the Duke divorced?”

  “We separated first. We... disagreed on so many things, and it just didn’t work for us. In the end, Johnny gave me a roof over my head and told me it was best to stay away. He gave me all the money I could ever need and a house far too big for me to do anything with.” I think about the empty floors above, and how she probably only ever uses the ground floor by the looks of the place.

  “It must be lonely,” Ella says, putting a hand out and somehow instinctively finding some part of Tilly to rest it on. To my discomfort, Ella’s fingers seem to become slightly transparent where she makes contact with her, but Ella doesn’t seem to notice.

  “So, what now? You realise that your son runs the Magic Circle and is currently trying to hunt Ella down to create some kind of World War III in London?” Lou’s empathy button is a bit broken, but even I expected her to be more tactful.

  “Yes, Louise. I realise that,” she replies impatiently. Lou raises an eyebrow at the use of her full name, which no one ever does. “I blame myself as much as my husband for Edward’s selfishness. I’ve watched over him constantly for years, trying to guide or steer him, but what good has it done anyone?”

  “Does he know you’re, well, alive?” Jer asks, probably to avert any further questions from his girlfriend.

  “Yes, but the last time I spoke to him was before Carlton flew off the handle. I told him to warn you, Ella, about the Duke and the Magic Circle. I knew that Jonathan would be up to something, and I was right.”

  I detect bitterness in her voice. My head hurts a little with all the information and the implications of it all, but now we’ve got her talking I don’t want to stop until I’ve got all the information I can get out of her.

  “So, you knew that Edward was Magic Circle and, I guess, that he was working under Munday but was also working for his dad?”

  “Yes. I encouraged him not to trust Carlton completely and not to turn his back on his family entirely. There are at least a few things he learned from me over the years, and he gets his sense of self-preservation from my side of the family, I’d say.”

  I’m not sure what she means by that, but Marco interrupts.

  “So, what’s your game? I mean, you probably don’t want your son destroying the city, but why’d you help us to stop the Magic Circle if you know that Edward is running it?”

  I’m guessing that she’s offended by this, but if she is, she disguises it well.

  “I didn’t know he was planning to destroy the city until you mentioned it. In fact, it was one of Carlton’s long-term plans for years, and I’m surprised that Edward is even entertaining the idea. Why do you think that’s what he’s trying to do, might I ask?”

  “My sister saw it,” Ella volunteers. “She has visions... of the future. She saw that Edward would somehow use my abilities, along with his own, to turn most of the city into a fiery hell. He kills Curtis too...” She swallows, and I see that the memory of what Mumbe and Gino showed her still stings. It makes my chest hurt to see her sad, and I shake my head.

  “I doubt that any of that is Edward’s intention. Unfortunately, I think that his girlfriend has more control over him than even he realises.”

  “Cassie? The mind-controlling girl?”

  “Mmm,” Tilly makes a thoughtful sound. “When they split up briefly last year, Edward seemed… more himself, I suppose. I wasn’t sure if that was because of her or the fact that he was no longer living under his father’s roof, but Carlton always had it as his big plan to make London the first Augur-only city and to accumulate as much power as he could in the process.”

  The weight of what she says is almost tangible. Munday wanted an Augur-only city, and one of the biggest and most well-known cities in the world at that. Talk about ambitious.

  “We don’t want to let any of that happen though. I was planning to get Ella away as soon as I had helped my Dad, and I still think that’s our best course of action. If Edward or the Magic Circle doesn’t have access to her abilities, then maybe they’ll be limited as to what they can do.”

  Although I can’t see it, I think Tilly is studying me. I feel her eyes on me, and I shift uncomfortably in my chair. “I’m afraid to bear the bad news, but Edward has a number of people looking out for you and possibly even a seeker at his disposal. You’ll never be able to stay in the same place for long.”

  “What’s a seeker?”

  “Someone who can find stuff,” says Lou. “You know, missing keys, lost cats, people on the run from secret Augur organisations. The Duke was trying to recruit a guy out of the Circle’s ranks for years but never succeeded. I guess he must still be working for them. Seems he preferred to be on the dark side.”

  “Damn, that’s bad news,” I say, running my hand over my face. “I thought I could handle Cassie brainwashing people into finding us, and I figured that was how she found us at the hospital, but if they’ve got someone who can just point to a map every time we move, then we’re screwed.”

  “Only to the general area. He wouldn’t be able to say, ‘They’re in that house,’ but he could point to the village or possibly even the street if we were unlucky,” Lou says.

  “So, that’s how he found us in St. Albans and at the hospital too. No matter where we go, he’ll be able to find us?”

  “I’m afraid so, Curtis. I can help you in so far as I could teleport you around the country, but I’m landlocked when it comes to where I can go, and I’d only be able to give you a head start on him. A few hours, maybe a few days at the most if I took you up to Scotland.” I feel a weight on my arm and a slight tingle as Tilly rests her hand on my shoulder.

  “This is so much worse than I expected. I thought that we’d be able to just become invisible—“ I stop short at my poor choice of words but quickly try to recover, “—I mean, er, disappear, figuratively speaking. At no point did I think we’d actually have to face them down. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “I realise that your sister’s vision shows us one possible outcome of the future, but it is more than likely that there’s more to it than that,” she says, pushing back her chair to stand again.

  “But if you knew that Munday was planning this all along and that he was leader of the Magic Circle too, I’m guessing, why didn’t you do anything to stop him?” Marco is the one to voice the question, and there’s an uncomfortable silence. I shoot him a look that’s supposed to say, ‘What the hell, dude?’ but he’s staring intently at the patch of space where Tilly should be.

  “I don’t expect you to understand, and I won’t explain myself to you. I’ve done everything I could to warn Jonathan and Edward and in turn, Ella, of what might happen. I’ve watched over you all and rescued you, when right now you would either be in the hands of the Magic Circle, the police or worse, if there is such a thing.” She speaks levelly, almost unemotionally, but it makes me feel bad for dou
bting her.

  “I’m not going to sit idly by while you children risk your lives for us all, and I will help you in any way that I can. But don’t speak to me as if you know what I’ve been through or understand my reasoning.”

  I hear her footsteps pad away back to the kitchen and the kettle flick on. Tea appears to be the solution to all problems in her house.

  “Bloody hell,” Lou rasps, looking around the table at the rest of us.

  “Yep, pretty much sums it up,” Marco says, looking at me. “What do you reckon, Cur? Think she’s trustworthy?”

  “As much as anyone connected to the Clarence’s and Carlton Munday can be,” I shrug.

  “So not at all then,” Marco murmurs, which gets him an angry look from Lou.

  “Guys, I want to trust her. Everything she said seems to have been true anyway. You’ve been quiet, Jer. What do you make of it all?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something familiar about her for sure. I must’ve picked up her magic at some point but can’t work out where,” he pauses, scratching his stubbled chin for a moment as if trying to remember something but soon shaking his head. “Nope, can’t think of it. Anyway, the important thing right now is to work out our game plan. We can’t very well be running back to London shouting ‘We’re over here!’ and hoping that we come face to face with Edward. No doubt that’ll attract some seriously unwanted attention from the authorities anyway.”

  “And if we try to run, we’ll have no life left to live,” Marco adds.

  “Neither will a few million other people if he turns London into a raging inferno,” I say bitterly.

  “I’d just like to say that if my brother and cousin knew what you were thinking, they’d amass an army to get you out of the country,” Marco sneers.

  “Yeah, and Agnes would be leading the troops,” I add.

  “But what are we actually going to do?” Lou says, resting her elbows on the table. “We need some kind of actual plan and to find out how Edward is really planning to pull this off.”