Probably, I thought. Or maybe she’ll decide it doesn’t matter.
I forced myself to stand and walk around the room, despite the growing tiredness in my arms and legs. The ghosts had definitely left their mark on me. I stumbled over to the window and forced open the shutters, peering out into the darkening sky. It wasn’t evening, I thought; it was merely yet another thunderstorm, blowing in from the mountains. Rain started to splash against the window as lightning flashed in the distance, reminding me that I should be glad to be inside. And that Uncle Ira hadn’t been too angry …
The thought nagged at my mind. Uncle Ira should have been beyond furious. I’d defied him and Callam … Callam had threatened his reputation as well as mine, although I supposed that Uncle Ira’s reputation was beyond saving anyway. I should have been sentenced to chop vegetables or clean rooms or something for the rest of my life. Uncle Ira would have been well within his rights to kill or mutilate or even enslave Callam. And yet, he’d taken the news very calmly. It worried me more than I cared to admit. I’d practically given him a blank cheque.
I promised him anything, I reminded myself, again. And that could be … anything.
I turned as I heard the door open. Morag stepped into the room without knocking. I had to bite my lip to keep from glaring at her. Even Mother wouldn’t have come into my room without knocking, unless she had some reason to think I desperately needed help. I was entitled to a little privacy at home, wasn’t I? There was so little outside my suite …
“Get into bed,” Morag ordered, as she held out another vial. “You need to build up your strength before you start building a new treehouse.”
I flushed. Clearly, Uncle Ira had asked me - or Callam - about more than just his way in and out of the wards. Callam had probably been subjected to the compeller too. I wondered, bitterly, if he wanted to return to the grounds. Uncle Ira could have scared him … or used the compeller to insert a command not to return without permission. And yet, Uncle Ira had told me that Callam was free to return.
“It’s his treehouse,” I said, remembering the one I’d smashed. “I just … I just helped expand it before I knocked it down.”
Morag looked as though she’d bitten into a lemon. “I hope you remember to behave yourself,” she said, as she pushed me towards the bed. “You do have a hope of returning home one day.”
“Not much of one,” I muttered. I made a mental note to check if my escape bag was still hidden in the gatekeeper’s cottage. If Uncle Ira had found and removed it, I’d have to make a new one. “You have more of a hope than me.”
“Perhaps,” Morag said, stiffly. “And perhaps you should stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
I climbed into bed and pulled the duvet up to my neck. “Morag … why do you stay here?”
Morag’s face went blank. “I believed, at one point, that I would eventually be allowed to return,” she said. “Now … I stay because I have nowhere else to go.”
I winced at the pain and loss in her voice. Morag no longer had any hope. No wonder she was so snappy with me. She thought I had hope, a hope she lacked. And she might even be trying to do me a favour when she tried to protect my reputation. Mud stuck, particularly when someone wanted it to stick. But I couldn’t see myself being invited back to Shallot in a hurry.
And if a grown woman doesn’t want to leave, I asked myself, what will happen to me later on?
“Get some rest,” Morag ordered, as she headed to the door. “Tomorrow will be a very busy day.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Morag, unsurprisingly, was right.
My magic took several days to recover, but neither Morag nor Uncle Ira seemed inclined to let me rest. I spent the mornings preparing potions ingredients for Uncle Ira, including a number I’d only read about in textbooks, and the afternoon chopping up vegetables for Morag, who seemed determined to cook as much food as she could before the next group of visitors arrived. The only upside was that Callam did seem to be able and willing to enter the grounds. We spent a few happy hours each evening working to rebuild the treehouse.
“So tell me,” Uncle Ira said, after I’d chopped up a few hundred black beetles. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine any potion that needed quite so many ingredients … I couldn’t even think of one that called for most of the ingredients. There were a handful of possibilities, but most of them were either too advanced or too rare for me to know enough about them to be sure. My father would probably have looked at the small pile of ingredients and known exactly what Uncle Ira was doing. I simply couldn’t guess.
“Among other things, I’m trying to find substitutes for unicorn hearts and phoenix tears,” Uncle Ira told me. “Have you heard of the man who killed the golden goose?”
“Yes, Uncle,” I said. It had been one of the tedious stories with morals that Father had insisted I study when I was a child. The goose laid golden eggs, but the man who’d been fool enough to kill the goose wound up with neither the gold nor the goose. “I know the story.”
“It isn’t easy to collect phoenix tears, let alone unicorn hearts,” Uncle Ira said. “It’s very difficult to keep a phoenix in captivity, as you probably know, and any charms that might induce them to cry also ruin the potency of the tears. And yet, they have so many uses that even contaminated tears go for a very high price.”
He shrugged. “Unicorns have the same problem,” he added. “They’re rare, so capturing and killing one is almost impossible. And yet, again, they have remarkable value to the right person. You could buy and sell a dozen halls like mine” - he nodded to the walls - “for a single unicorn heart. If we could discover a way to substitute something else, something a little easier to procure, we could revolutionise the art of potions brewing and save thousands of lives …”
I looked at him. “And studying the Dark Arts helps?”
“It can,” Uncle Ira said. He cocked his head in contemplation. “But we should be careful not to take the books the warlocks wrote too seriously. Some of their research was quite promising, I feel, but other pieces were little more than maddened ravings written by lunatics. I don’t think you can actually perform frightful spells on a chicken’s egg and get a cockatrice when the magic has finally run its course. But common sense hasn’t stopped a number of idiots from trying to do just that.”
He snickered to himself, then turned to face me. “In any case, it is time for you to start repaying your debt,” he told me, bluntly. “Sit down, please.”
I swallowed, then sat down at the desk and crossed my legs. If he wanted me to do something … I cursed under my breath as I saw the potions vial in his hand. He’d been chattering to me simply to lure me into a false sense of security. I opened my mouth to object, then closed it again. I had promised him anything, hadn’t I? In hindsight, that might have been rather stupid of me.
“You want me to drink that,” I said. “Right?”
“Correct,” Uncle Ira said. One hand dropped to his pocket. “Do I have to compel you?”
“… No,” I said, quickly. I’d drink the potion myself, rather than be subjected to that … that thing again. I tried to think of a way to steal and destroy the compeller before Uncle Ira used it on me, but nothing came to mind. I didn’t think I could slip a hand into his pocket without being caught. “I’ll drink it.”
“One big swallow,” Uncle Ira said, as I unsealed the vial. “Just put it to your lips and drink.”
I took a sniff, but smelled nothing. I hesitated, then opened my mouth and swallowed the liquid in one gulp. It tasted … it tasted of nothing. If I hadn’t felt the cool liquid running down my throat, I would have wondered if I’d actually drunk anything. I sat back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest in a way I knew annoyed Mother. Uncle Ira didn’t seem to notice, as far as I could tell. He was more interested in watching me and waiting for something to happen.
It felt like hours had passed before he spoke. “Well?”
My head started to spin. I felt as though I was running in circles, even though I was sitting at the desk. The room was moving under my feet, the ground shifting as if we were on a boat … I felt a sudden wave of seasickness that nearly had me throwing up. It was all I could do to remain stable as the room lurched, again and again. And then the desk came up and hit me …
I awoke in my bed, feeling wretched. My throat hurt, as if I’d retched and retched again until my stomach was completely empty. Morag eyed me with stern disapproval as I tried to force myself to stand up, my arms and legs feeling oddly dead. My magic felt as though it was wrapped in a cloud of fog. I needed Morag to help me use the chamberpot, then take a bath. My legs simply refused to support me.
“You blacked out,” Uncle Ira said, when he entered the room. “Your body rejected the potion.”
I glared at him, not bothering to hide my feelings. If he hexed me or hit me or did anything to me … at least I’d feel something. I had never felt so ill in my life, even after the ghosts had nearly killed me. It was all I could do to sit upright without falling over like a doll.
“Interesting,” Uncle Ira said. “Very interesting indeed, don’t you think?”
“So you invented a knock-out potion,” I said, in a tone I knew would have angered Mother to the point where I would have been grounded for years. “I can do that without having to waste so many expensive ingredients.”
Morag cleared her throat, loudly. Uncle Ira ignored her.
“We know the potion did something,” he said, as he produced something from his pocket. I nearly panicked before realising that it was an odd-looking spellcaster. But then, a compeller was a spellcaster too … of sorts. “We just have to figure out what it did and why.”
I frowned. “What is the potion meant to do?”
“Better you don’t know,” Uncle Ira told me. “Stand up, please. I need you to stand in the centre of the room.”
I shrugged and did as I was told. Uncle Ira ran the spellcaster over me, waving it randomly over my body before walking around behind me and running it down my back. I could feel my magic giving little sparks of power in response, as if he was gently simulating it with the spellcaster. The sensation wasn’t exactly sore, but it started to grow unpleasant as he repeated the process again and again. I gritted my teeth, then stepped forward after a particularly nasty jolt. Uncle Ira didn’t follow me.
“What happened?” His voice was very calm. “What - exactly - did you feel?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, stalling while I tried to think what to say. I didn’t dare lie to him, not while he could simply compel me to talk. “I just … the room started spinning, like I was on a ship, and then I blacked out. And that was it.”
“I see,” Uncle Ira said. He was studying the spellcaster with a thoughtful expression. “I want you to stay inside for the rest of the day. If Callam comes to visit, you can entertain him in the old dining hall.”
“Yes, Uncle,” I said.
Callam wasn’t due to come for a couple of days, but that didn’t stop Morag popping up at random intervals to check on me. I didn’t know if she wanted to make sure I didn’t leave the hall or if she wanted to chaperone me, yet it was immensely annoying. I gritted my teeth and did my best to ignore it as day slowly turned to night, joining Morag for dinner before heading up to bed. Uncle Ira seemed to have vanished. I didn’t see him again until the following day.
“I’ve got another potion for you to drink,” Uncle Ira said, after giving me another medical check. The process was slightly less uncomfortable this time. “Here you are.”
He held out a vial. I eyed it as if it were a poisonous snake. If the last vial had knocked me out, what would this one do? The liquid looked bright against the glass, a shimmering multicoloured potion that seemed to hum with power. And yet, I was wary. I didn’t even know what the experiments were intended to achieve.
“Drink it,” Uncle Ira said. “Please.”
I sighed, uncapped the vial and swallowed it in a single gulp. It tasted of fruit, I thought; something citrusy, something that was almost pleasant to drink. I sat back, wishing I’d thought to suggest I drank the potion while lying in bed, and waited. Nothing seemed to happen for a very long time. And then …
My hand started to shake, just slightly. I felt a surge of energy, as if my magic was pressing against my skin and demanding release. My body was on fire, but … a good kind of fire. I wasn’t burning so much as I was wrapped in magic. My hand was glowing with light. I found myself smiling in joy. My magic wanted out.
“Cast a spell,” Uncle Ira said, quietly.
I shaped a spell in my mind, then cast it. A glowing light ball, easily two or three times the size it should have been, materialised in front of us. My power seemed to grow, not diminish, as the ball of light grew brighter. I giggled like a little girl - I couldn’t help myself - and stood, casting another spell as I practically danced around the room. And another. And another … it felt as if I was trying to expend the power before it exploded out of me. I ran through a whole set of spells, one after the other, as my power grew and grew. It should have exhausted me. Instead, I felt euphoric.
“Very good,” Uncle Ira said.
I giggled and cast a spell at him. It splattered out of existence against a hastily-raised shield, but … I laughed, helplessly, and threw another. My spells were starting to grow out of control as I pushed more and more power into them. I was giggling constantly now, as if someone had fed me a happiness potion, as the power grew ever stronger. I was dimly aware, at some level, that something was terribly wrong, but I didn’t care. The magic was growing stronger …
… and then it just snapped off, as if someone had turned off the tap.
I stumbled, then collapsed to the floor. My body was suddenly so weak I couldn’t move at all. Even breathing was difficult. I aware, on some level, of Uncle Ira walking towards me, but I couldn’t even roll over. Fear ran down my spine as I remembered the hexes I’d thrown at him, when I was in the grip of the power. If he wanted to punish me, I couldn’t even run.
“Yes,” Uncle Ira said. It took me a second to realise that he was talking to himself. “That looks far more satisfactory, does it not?”
I felt him roll me onto my front, then run the tip of the spellcaster down my spine. I tensed, expecting to feel another jolt or two, but there was nothing. Instead, he put the spellcaster on the desk and helped me to my feet. My legs were so weak that I could barely stand. I needed his help to sit down on the nearest chair.
We’ll have to put an armchair in here, I thought, tiredly. My thoughts were spinning out of control. And maybe a bed …
Uncle Ira put a glass of water to my lips. “Drink this,” he said. “It’s safe to drink. I promise.”
I wondered, sourly, if I’d given him a scare. The hexes I’d shot at him posed no threat to an adult magician, but they had been more than a little overpowered. I sipped the water slowly, looking down at my hands. They looked limp, utterly listless. The power that had blazed through them was gone.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Uncle Ira told me, as I finished the glass. He refilled it and put the water on the desk next to me. “For the moment, just relax.”
I tried, but it wasn’t easy. I’d made a fool of myself. I’d heard stories about magicians who’d become drunk on power, allowing their emotions to contaminate their spells and eventually drive them mad, but it was something I’d been taught to avoid. Father had been careful to teach me how to handle my growing powers before they could grow out of control. But now … my power had peaked, just for a few minutes, and I’d lost control. I’d allowed my emotions to drive my magic …
My head ached. I rubbed it gingerly as strength slowly returned to my muscles. My hands felt odd, as if they weren’t quite responding to me as they should. My skin felt oddly ashy, even though it was unmarked. I eyed my hand nervously
, wondering at the pain below the skin, then forced myself to concentrate. It would fade soon, I was sure. The alternative was unthinkable.
Uncle Ira paced the room, muttering to himself, as I slumped on the chair. I wanted another glass of water, or perhaps a restoration potion or two, but I couldn’t muster the energy to reach for the former or ask for the latter. What was Uncle Ira doing? He’d clearly had some success, but … why? What did he hope to achieve? A permanent power boost or something else, something darker? I wished I believed he’d give me an honest answer.
“You should go to bed early tonight,” Uncle Ira said. “You can take tomorrow off, although” - he jabbed a finger at my head - “you are not allowed to leave the grounds. Are we clear on that point?”
“Yes, Uncle,” I managed. My body felt tired. My throat was dry. It was all I could do not to fall off the chair. “What … what was in that potion?”
Uncle Ira gave me a wry smile. “Most people are happier not knowing what goes into their potions.”
I scowled. It was true enough, I supposed. No one wanted to think about the precise quantities of frogspawn, or bat eyes, or snail jelly, or something else equally disgusting that might have gone into their potions. I’d been reluctant to drink a number of common potions after discovering what went into them, even after brewing them myself. Father had told me off for it, one of the few times he’d ever raised his voice to me. I must have been a right little brat.
“I already know what goes into some of mine,” I said, although I suspected it was already useless. Uncle Ira wasn’t going to share his secrets and that was that. “If you told me, I could brew them for myself.”
The Family Shame Page 31