by Finn, K. C.
“I’m sorry I frightened you.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. She looked up at the conjurer to find him leaning on one fist, staring at a spot on the floor between his knees. He ran a long-fingered hand up into his pure white hair, that wayward curl escaping just a little down into his face.
“It’s just I’ve never had to do this before,” he rambled with agitation. “I’ve never met a shade who didn’t know they were a shade.”
That creepy sensation that she was talking to a madman slowly forced Lily’s heart-rate up, but she cleared her throat as calmly as she could.
“I don’t understand you, I’m sorry.”
Novel looked up at her, one side of his mouth curling downwards as he bit the inside of his lip. He suddenly put his hands on his knees and reclined in the chair, letting out a short breath.
“Do you ever dream about being buried alive?” he asked.
“Well yeah,” Lily answered, her fingertips quivering where they gripped her own shoulders, “but it’s a very common fear.”
“It’s one hundred percent common among shades,” Novel replied.
That word again.
“And tell me,” he continued, “do you have much luck getting electronic things to work for you?”
“Not really,” Lily mumbled.
“Neither do I.”
Lily could hardly imagine the man before her ever having picked up a mobile phone. The malevolent insistence he’d had at the theatre wasn’t present now as they sat together in the empty room, there was just a quiet authority to Novel that reminded Lily of the first time you meet a new librarian. He leaned forward again and held out his hand, his palm pointing up to the ceiling. In the blink of an eye, tiny flickers of fire began to grow just above his skin, slowly transforming and twisting until they formed a full sphere of little dancing flames. Lily studied his hand carefully, looking for an indication of where they had been generated.
“This isn’t an illusion,” Novel explained quietly. “Put your hand out.”
Lily obeyed before she had even really thought about it. She was about to snatch her hand back again when Novel flicked his wrist. The ball of fire lifted from his grip and landed squarely in hers, where it shrank and grew for a few moments before settling once more. Lily stared into the fire floating just above her palm, then back into the illusionist’s face. His eyes were serious, but his mouth twitched nervously.
“I’m not controlling it anymore,” he said, “so if you want to put it out, or make it bigger, smaller, it’s up to you.”
It was absurd, but Lily did feel as though the veins in the arm that held the flames were sort of humming. As she looked back to the sphere she imagined it shrinking to the size of a penny. The blood flushed inside her forearm, bringing blue veins to the surface of her skin, and slowly the ball of fire started to shrink. It didn’t quite make it to the size of a penny, but she knew by the tingle in her own blood that she had made it change. As the prospect sent a major freaked-out shiver through her limbs, the fireball extinguished itself with a pop.
“Tell me about your parents,” Novel said. “Your mother, she’s human?”
Lily gave him a horrified look. “Of course she is.”
“And your father?”
Lily looked beyond Novel to the open door of the common room. The corridor outside was still void of activity.
“He left before I was born,” she revealed.
“That’s it then,” the illusionist said, slapping his knee with a nod. “Your father must have been a shade.”
“Okay,” Lily said, holding out her hands suddenly, “you keep saying ‘shade’, but you don’t actually tell me what it means.”
Something flashed behind Novel’s eyes as he caught her gaze again.
“My apologies,” he began. “A shade is a being with the ability to generate and control the natural elements of this world.”
She didn’t want to believe it, but everything pointed to his words being true.
“So that makes me what? A half shade?” she asked.
Novel shook his head.
“There’s no such thing,” he countered. “It’s about blood, you see. You either have shadeblood or you don’t. And you most certainly do.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing his sharp chin. “I felt it when you came to the show in September. I really ought to have done something sooner, but I didn’t expect you not to know what you are. I had to rile you, you understand, to see if the powers would surface. I really am sorry if it upset you.”
He didn’t actually look sorry, but his voice was sincere enough to keep Lily in her seat. She fumbled over her words until the right ones came to mind.
“Say that this is all true,” she began slowly, “then what happens next?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Novel answered, his hands returning to smooth out his hair. “I suppose it would be prudent for someone to teach you how to use your abilities.”
Lily shook her head. “How come I haven’t noticed them before? Why can’t I just shoot lightning out of my hands like you?”
“Overexposure to humans is very bad for shades,” Novel said. “I would imagine it’s been keeping your powers hidden, especially since no-one told you they were even there.”
Lily processed the information very slowly.
“Are you saying I’m not human?” she asked, her sharp breaths making her clip the end off each word.
“Yes, I am,” Novel replied.
There was talk of arrangements that Lily couldn’t fully take in, but when she got back to Room 13, Jazzy was waiting at her desk and cradling a cup of tea that had long-since gone cold. She leapt up as Lily re-entered the room, chucking the cup down where its contents splashed over her notes.
“It was the Monsieur,” Jazzy said with wide eyes. “I saw him when you started off down the corridor. What did he want?”
Lily bit her lip, remembering the alibi he had suggested.
“He offered me a job.”
Disco Inferno
“Why on earth do you want to work in a dusty old theatre?” Michael asked as he refilled Lily’s drink from the pitcher. “I mean it’s a cool show, but restoration work? It’s sounds so boring.”
“Restoration’s what historians are all about,” Jazzy said over the thrum of the dance beat all around them.
“Besides, I need the money,” Lily added.
Michael seemed to understand that concept better. He had finally persuaded Lily to give Guttersnipes a try, and going on a weeknight turned out to be pretty nice. The rest of the Illustrious Minds had swiftly become the Inebriated Minds after deciding it was a good idea to start the night with Vodka and end with lemonade instead of the other way around, but Michael, it transpired, was much more of an encourager than a drinker. He explained gleefully that he liked everyone else to be much more wasted, so that he could be the one to take all the pictures and embarrass them on Facebook the next day. Since Jazzy was drinking a mix that was ten percent Sex on the Beach and ninety percent sparkling water, she wasn’t in any danger of becoming a Facebook victim, and Lily didn’t particularly want to get hammered and start spilling the beans on the fact that she wasn’t actually human after all.
It was hard to accept that, much harder than the idea of having supernatural powers, a prospect that she actually quite liked the sound of once she’d passed through the initial phase of shock. Novel had left her with an open invitation to return to the Theatre Imaginique should she want to begin exploring her powers, so long as she arrived between the hours of 5p.m. and 5a.m.. She didn’t like to ask about the unsociable time, but at least it didn’t interfere with any classes.
“Come on then, let’s see you dance,” Michael insisted, setting Lily’s drink down for her and dragging her to the floor.
Lily quickly beckoned for Jazzy to follow so that they would be in a group. She wasn’t sure what was stopping her from pursuing anything with Michael, but the instinct was there and so she had followed it. S
he definitely fancied him – how could anyone not, with his model looks, floppy hair and muscles sneaking out everywhere under his clothes – but his personality required more investigation. Lily hadn’t really got under his skin, or seen anything about him that was deeper than his daft college boy charm, so there was no sense in getting involved until she knew more. Lily wasn’t about to make the fatal mistake of having a quick fling with a guy she’d have to spend the next two years making awkward conversation with afterwards, even if he was a Grade A stud.
The three of them went out to join the crowd of people dancing, avoiding a section of violently drunk twerkers that now included Bianca and Jess. When they found a good spot, Lily let the Katy Perry song take her back to a less complicated time, hardly listening as Michael and Jazzy remarked on how wasted the others were and started the process of committing their images to digital memory forever more. In her musical reverie, Lily started to wonder if all the tension with her mother had something to do with this shade thing. Though she loved her mum in that automatic, dutiful way that all good kids did, they had never really gotten along, always bickering and butting heads on every little issue, even when Lily was tiny. And then there’d been the silent treatment: those times when her mother would come in from work, shut herself in the living room and just plain avoid conversation with her daughter.
It made Lily a little queasy as she remembered how it felt, that iron weight in the pit of her stomach, making her feel like she had done something wrong, even though nothing had really happened. She swayed a little slower as the club song changed, starting to feel warm as other people closed in around her. Maybe I didn’t have to do anything wrong. Maybe I am wrong. The throng of thrashing bodies filled with alcohol was starting to get on her nerves. Somebody nearby starting jumping and moshing and soon the whole floor was doing it. Lily took an elbow to the shoulder that gave her a sharp cracked of pain. She turned angrily to find the owner of said elbow, the music now impossibly loud and irritating her every sense.
Then she saw the flames around her fist.
Quickly putting her hand back down into the cover of the crowd, Lily shook it out frantically until the embers died. It had left a few faint pink marks along her knuckles which she rubbed, surprised to find them as warm as if she’d been holding a hot tea mug against them.
“You all right there?” Michael shouted over the swarming clubbers.
Lily turned to him and shook her head rapidly. “No, it’s too busy here,” she yelled back. “I’m going out for air.”
With Jazzy at the bar, Lily took her chance to break out into the fresh night air. She sidled along from Guttersnipe’s main entrance until she was away from all the smokers, standing alone on the corner as she filled up her lungs with cool winter oxygen. It was a bad idea, she concluded, to come out without her jacket, which was still thrown over her chair in the club. She rubbed her arms as goose pimples bubbled up and pulled her dress down straight so that it warmed a little more of her legs.
“Would you care to borrow my coat, Mademoiselle?”
The smooth, exotic voice did not startle her the way it should have. Baptiste Du Nord was crossing the empty road in front of her, a cigar in one hand and his long velvety jacket in the other. The MC smiled and gave her a little bow as he arrived at her side.
“It’s okay,” she lied. “I’m going back in soon.”
“Good,” Baptiste replied. “It’s dangerous for young ladies to be out here alone.”
Lily glanced at the row of people smoking outside the nearby club. Someone rushed out and abruptly spewed their guts on the street, collapsing onto their knees.
“I’m not sure it’s much better inside,” Lily remarked.
Baptiste gave a little laugh, puffing away at his cigar. It had a strange smell of spices to it, almost like some food that had been cooking and was gradually starting to burn. Lily’s trembling skin was strangely calm on the side that was next to him, though the flesh on the opposite arm still reacted wildly to the cold.
“Lemarick tells me you are one of his kind,” Baptiste mused.
So they all knew at the theatre what he was. Lily pondered over the way the elegant MC had worded his statement.
“I wondered if you might be too,” she endeavoured. “If they all were, down at the Imaginique?”
Baptiste shook his head. “Novel always insisted he was the only one in this tiny town,” he explained, “but now there is you.”
It disturbed Lily that the MC had not really answered her question. He turned to her, throwing what was left of his cigar into the gutter. Those dark, foreign eyes sparkled, reflecting the gold chain of a pocketwatch as he raised it to check on the time. Baptiste put one warm hand on her shoulder, and Lily felt a strange serenity in her core.
“Just be careful with him, dear girl,” he warned. “Lemarick can be somewhat temperamental. That doesn’t always end so well for the rest of us.”
He released her from his touch, his warning made, and Lily found herself shivering again as Baptiste Du Nord retreated into a nearby shadow. She watched his long elegant form waltzing casually into the darkness. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Shadelore 101
It took Lily quite a while to work up the courage to see Novel, particularly after Baptiste’s enigmatic but ultimately vague and useless warning. She had seen for herself that the strange illusionist could get into quite a froth, particularly when he was trying to get a point across, but he had never deliberately done anything to hurt her. She reasoned with herself that not learning to keep a lid on her newfound abilities might result in more ‘fist of fire’ moments like she’d had in the club, which was going to produce some very awkward questions if it happened in a more obvious public setting.
Belnerg let her in at 6p.m., snorting his disgusting way to the private corridor as he showed her to the stairs. He pointed upwards and deserted her completely, but as she began to ascend them, she saw Novel’s white haired head above her. He was leaning on a banister some three floors up, turning when he heard the sound of her heels on the boards. She looked up again and tried to give him an eager smile, but he was frowning heavily.
“Sensible footwear in future,” he called.
“I don’t know if I own anything that you’d call sensible,” Lily answered, thinking how slippery her dolly shoes would be on varnished wood.
“Of course you don’t,” Novel sighed.
He was dressed in a plain shirt, with a black ascot tie tucked into its collar, which made him look positively funereal next to Lily in her pink skinny jeans. The strange pair stood together in the rehearsal space, which was actually a large cavernous attic filled with magic-show props. An ominous vanishing cabinet stared out at Lily from one cobwebbed corner.
“So, do you do real magic too then?” she asked. Novel raised a pale brow. “No,” Lily corrected, “I mean… I think I mean human magic? Tricks and things.”
He nodded, pouting his lip in thought. “It’s actually a much harder thing to perfect than my natural powers. I’ve been learning since Victoria was crowned.”
Lily froze. “That would make you two hundred years old,” she breathed.
“Two hundred and sixty nine next January,” he answered simply. Then, noticing her open-mouthed stare, he added, “I’m afraid you’ve got rather a long life ahead of you, Lily. Longer than you’d ever have imagined before.”
“But you look so young,” she stammered. She stepped closer to Novel, taking in his smooth skin, barely a line on it. He was old fashioned, but not actually old. If you put him in a tracksuit and dyed his hair blonde, he could have quite easily waltzed into Guttersnipes and demanded a student discount.
“Shades age one human year for every twenty-five they spend in this world,” he said, treading backwards to make some distance between them again, “after they’ve matured at eighteen, of course. Physically, I’m twenty-eight. But mentally, well…”
The history geek buried deep in Lily’s brain told
her that, if this was all true and not still some bizarre prank in the making, the man standing before her had lived through all the periods of modern history that had fascinated her ever since she was a child. She watched in awe as she took in his antique clothes again, imagining how he might have worn them proudly in the time that they were actually meant for. It was like how her mother still thought that 80s legwarmers were cool.
“I suggest you work on your concentration if you want to learn anything,” he said, his voice dropping into an irate rasp.
“Sorry,” Lily said quickly, realising she was staring at his trosuers. “Right. I’m here. Listening. Focused.”
“Good.”
Novel stepped around her in a wide circle, leaving Lily to face the half-open vanishing cabinet in the far corner of the room. Her skin prickled when she sensed that the illusionist was behind her, but he had stepped into her blind spot, presumably so as not to distract her. When she turned her head, he appeared to have vanished, save for the gentle sound of his breathing, but then she felt him move. He hovered his hands above her shoulders, not quite touching them, but acting like a guard, as though he could pre-empt whatever impossible thing was about to occur.
“The most important thing is to remain calm,” he said, his voice vibrating against the back of her head, “accidents tend to happen when we get upset.”
Lily didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
“It’s hardly a calming influence with you creeping up behind me,” she jibed.
“I was going to ground your power so you don’t blow yourself up, but if you’d rather I didn’t.” His hands slowly started to leave her shoulders.
“No, no,” she said quickly, “I’d rather not explode today, if that’s all the same to you.”
“Then don’t bicker, just listen,” he instructed, hovering closer once again.