The Lantern's Ember

by Colleen Houck

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. He’s too good, actually. You’re aware that they do much more than simply guard the crossroads; they are enforcers.”

  “I know,” Ember said. “But Jack isn’t cruel.”

  “I never said he was cruel. I said he was unbending. Now, if I may continue. Even those who are native born to the mortal world are warned from a young age to avoid all lanterns, but Jack in particular. Rumor has it he hunts down any who wander into his territory and returns them to the Otherworld. He doesn’t listen to their side of the story. He doesn’t judge them and decide. He’s uncompromising. Jack simply sends every creature that is not purely animal or mortal to the Otherworld. Even the young who’ve never known any other life are afforded no mercy.”

  Ember frowned. “That’s not the Jack I know. He could have turned me in and he didn’t. He watched over me all those years and never said a word.”

  Dev rubbed his jaw. “Yes. Well, it’s easy to understand why he would keep the knowledge of you to himself. I’m sure you were lovely even as a child.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “Just keep in mind, Ember, that the life of a lantern is unnatural. If even the most frightening creatures of the Otherworld are nervous around lanterns, there’s a good reason. I have personally witnessed the atrocities that occur when lanterns banish mortal-world-born, half-breed vampires to the Otherworld. In the Otherworld, full vampires exterminate them as if they were vermin.”

  “But surely Jack doesn’t know.”

  “They all know. How could they not? The irony is, lanterns were once mortal themselves. Perhaps if they weren’t, they’d show more tolerance for our kind.” He boldly lifted his hand to her loose ringlets. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, Ember.”

  Ember couldn’t help but recall that Jack had just left her side with the same words. She gave the handsome vampire a small smile. “I will,” she said. “May I borrow your cane? I have an idea I want to try out.”

  Dev hefted his steel-gray cane and handed it to her, raising his eyebrows.

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “I promise.”

  “You’d better not return it to me blemished,” he said.

  “I’ll have it back to you before the ball.”

  “Yes. About that…I do hope you’ll save me at least one dance. That is, if you can still bear to look upon me after all this.” He gestured his hand at the house around them.

  “I don’t blame you for anything,” Ember said. “It’s not your fault, Dev. I’m glad I came to the Otherworld. Truly I am. I’ve met so many interesting people and seen such amazing things. I’d be happy to save you a dance at the ball, but, Dev, I…I think you should know that I could never be the person you want me to be, or live with you in the way you hope. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed unhappily. “It’s my own fault,” he said. “I pushed you too quickly, behaved badly. I suppose I can hardly blame you for having a low opinion of me.”

  “I don’t have a low opinion of you. In fact, my regard for you is still quite positive.”

  Dev gave her a tight smile. “I’d hoped for a bit more than a positive regard, Ember.”

  “Still, I hope we can remain friends.”

  She extended her hand. He took it and pressed it to his lips. “Always,” he said, and his eyes still promised much more than simply friendship.

  Ember quickly withdrew her hand and left him at the door, closing it solidly behind her. Taking a deep breath, she headed over to her bag, checked the contents, and hefted it over her shoulder. She and Finney were going to have to be quick if they were going to do all she wanted to before the ball.

  Once they were back in the lab and had thoroughly checked the area for spy-ders, finding none, Finney set up the cauldron and opened her spell book.

  “What’s first on the agenda?” he asked.

  “You’re going to make our four most potent spells. It shouldn’t take more than two hours.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Ember headed over to the closet and yanked it open. The brooms and mops inside fell to the floor once again. Sucking in a breath, she grinned widely. “I’m going to figure out a way to make these broomsticks fly.”

  “Fly? Oh!” Finney’s face brightened. Then he whispered excitedly, “You mean you want them to levitate so we can follow Jack and his pumpkin out of this place!”

  “Exactly,” she said quietly.

  “But…why brooms?”

  “Well, they’re the only thing in this room that won’t be missed, I suppose. And they’re big enough to sit on. They’ll have to do,” she whispered back, then added in a normal voice, “Can you manage the spells?”

  “Yes. I can follow your recipes. You’ll just have to add your witch’s spark at the proper times.”

  “Great. Let’s get started, then.”

  She helped Finney gather all the ingredients, taking the fresh herbs from the doctor’s plants only when absolutely necessary.

  Finney began creating their four most potent elixirs—the acid spell, which they made stronger since Dev recovered from it so quickly; the immobilization spell; a sleeping spell; and a spell that rendered its victim temporarily sightless. Then Ember asked if he could work a new one. In light of the doctor’s invisible companion, Ember thumbed through her book and found one that helped “reveal that which is hidden in darkness.”

  Saying he’d try, Finney bent over the cauldron and proceeded to combine ingredients. His goggles quickly fogged and his copper hair frizzed in the steam. The work was slow but steady, and in just thirty minutes, Finney already had three dozen stoppered pipettes full of a sleeping spell. He moved on to the next one while Ember blew out a frustrated puff of air.

  “What are you trying to do, exactly?” Finney asked, watching her study Dev’s cane and riffle through the spell book.

  “I need to figure out how the witch who gave it to him infused her energy into the gemstone on the top. I don’t know if it needs to be a gemstone or if it could be any inanimate object. There’s nothing about storing a witch’s energy in the spell book.”

  “Sometimes the only way to know is to test out your theory and then slowly eliminate the variables. What have you seen so far that holds and/or channels witch power?”

  “My cauldron charm held a great deal of energy.”

  “What was it made of?”

  “Metal.”

  “Hmm. What else?”

  “Lights. The strange box that collected my energy so Dev could trade it for funds. The nets on the skyships. The signposts in town.”

  “What do they all have in common?” Finney asked.

  Ember snapped her fingers. “Conductors. They all have some kind of metal.”

  “Good. Now figure out what kind of metal it is, or if any metal will work.”

  Wandering through the doctor’s lab, she gathered up metal of various types and tried filling them with her energy. She quickly found copper to be the best conductor of witchlight. “Now I just need to work out a way to fasten copper wire to a broom.” Finding lengths of thin copper wire and a bolt cutter, she wrapped the wire around the base of the broom where the straw was tied on, and then, for good measure, she added copper strands to the straw base as well.

  When she was done, she wrapped her hands around it and drew out her power like Dev had taught her. Once the copper was filled with energy, she put on the witch hat and told it she wanted the object to levitate. The broom shot straight up until it hit the ceiling, brush end up. “That will never do,” Ember said while Finney laughed and moved on to the next potion.

  Searching again, Ember found a roll of copper netting, a finer, thinner version of the nets used on the Phantom Airbus. Carefully, she wound it around the length of the broom, infused it with energy, and gave it the same command as before. This time the entire broom lifted off the ground and stayed level. Sta
nding, she pushed down on it using just the power of her arms, and it didn’t budge. When she used her mind, however, the broom lowered.

  “Guess it’s time to try it with my weight,” Ember said. Awkwardly, she tried to find a good position to sit and found that the straw section in the back was the most comfortable. It was either that or lie across it.

  The broom lifted her easily enough, but she felt like she was going to fall off at any moment. She gave the command to lower back down again, and the broom set her on her feet.

  As Finney began on the third batch of potion, he said, “How about adding a saddle? Are you sure brooms are our best option?”

  “Probably not, but it’s not like we can ride cats around, can we?”

  “Shhh!” Finney said. “Remember to keep your voice down. You never know when one is nearby.”

  Ember bit her lip and searched the corners for gleaming eyes. “You’re right.”

  She walked around the broom, examining it from every angle. It glowed witchlight blue as it hovered, making her think of the Phantom Airbus. If only she had a balloon to sit on. Clutching her hands behind her back, she paced, thinking, and spied the doctor’s extra lab coat hanging from a hook. She remembered when Yegor put it on and it had suddenly filled out.

  Running her hand down the sleeve, she considered for a moment and then pulled it off the hook and tied it to the broom, making sure it was buttoned and the sleeves tied off. “How did the witch power fill the balloon on the ship?” Ember asked Finney.

  “That wasn’t magic. It was just hot air. The witch power heated the air and fans blew it inside the balloon.”

  “Oh!” She grabbed a bellows, opened one sleeve, and told the net full of witchlight to heat the air; then she began pumping. The coat started to inflate. “I think it’s working!” Ember said. When the coat had become as puffy as one of the doctor’s marshmallows, she tied off the end and clambered on top. “It’s much more comfortable this way,” she called down to Finney as she soared around the room. “The only problem is that we only have one coat.”

  “I’m sure we can get more,” he said.

  Once Ember was satisfied, she quickly went to work fashioning a broom or a mop for each of them. Escaping an island in the middle of the ocean on a mere broom was risky, but so was staying and playing the doctor’s games. Who knew how long it would be before they too were imprisoned in paintings? Once she was done, she stored the mops and brooms in the closet again, all of them tied together in a bundle.

  The doctor and Yegor entered the lab when Finney was preparing the final potion.

  “What’s this?” the doctor asked, leaning over the cauldron and sniffing the fumes.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Finney warned. “It’s a sleeping potion.”

  “Ah, and it must work well, because I’m feeling a bit sluggish now.”

  “It’s not quite done yet,” Finney said.

  “Lucky for me. And your weapons? Might I have an opportunity to examine them?” the doctor asked.

  Finney shrugged. “I have to keep stirring, but the guns are on the table.”

  The doctor picked one up and sighted down the barrel, then spent time loading a cartridge, locking it in place, and then taking it out. “Ingenious,” he said, his smile genuine. “And quite uncanny. I’m frankly very impressed with you, lad. For a mortal, you’ve made great strides.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you consider staying on here as my apprentice when all this is said and done?”

  Finney blinked, his eyes three times their normal size behind his goggles. “What…what about Yegor?” he asked.

  “Oh, Yegor assists. It’s true. But he has no mind for tinkering. Truthfully, he’s more of a bodyguard than a true apprentice. With you I could bequeath my stores of knowledge, my legacy.”

  “I-I’m honored that you would consider me,” Finney said.

  The doctor smiled. “Then we’ll speak of it later. Tonight all will be revealed, and you’ll have your chance then to determine your future. I do hope you’ll consider my offer. I’d hate to waste a mind such as yours.” When Finney merely nodded, the doctor asked, “Are the two of you nearly finished? I can’t have you missing the ball.”

  “Nearly,” Ember said, blowing back a strand of her tousled hair as she stoppered several pipettes and then reached for the cauldron with a towel. “We’re just letting this last one cool before bottling it, but it shouldn’t take more than a half hour.”

  “Excellent. Well then, I’ll leave you to it. Your costumes are waiting for you in your rooms.”

  Ember and Finney finished up and carefully loaded their bags to bursting with the new spells. “I might suggest you wear your guns tonight, Ember,” Finney said. “Even if they don’t go with your costume.”

  She looked at Finney’s sincere face and smiled at seeing the freckles on his cheeks and nose. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “No matter what happens, I want you to know how important you are to me. Your friendship means everything.”

  Finney hugged her back and sighed into her hair. He knew she didn’t feel the same way about him that he felt about her. Any fool could see how she lit up around the lantern. He also knew that Dev regarded Ember with a sense of avidity. How was a simple human boy to compete with two such eldritch, uncanny men? Even he had to admit he was a carrot while they were chocolate truffles.

  “Your companionship is dear to me as well,” Finney said. Drawing back, he continued, “Let’s head upstairs.” They’d left one bag, filled with the brooms, hidden in the closet. Finney hefted the other, filled with potions, on his slight shoulders. He staggered under the weight but managed somehow to escort Ember back to her room, where she asked him to return Dev’s cane to him.

  “I’ll see you at the ball,” Ember said, offering Finney a small smile. “Save me a dance?”

  “I’m sure my dance card will be empty,” Finney said in a slight tone of self-mockery.

  Ember looked back at him, noting the sloped shoulders and the lanky frame. “Thanks for coming for me, Finney,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

  His oval face reddened until his cheeks resembled polished apples. He nodded and turned after she closed the door, thinking perhaps his daunted heart might still have reason to beat after all.

  Finney was in good spirits as he strode into the room he shared with the other men. Dev was already dressed in his costume, which wasn’t much different from what he normally wore.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Finney asked.

  “I am apparently a count,” he said, playing with the lace cravat and adjusting the high, red-velvet-lined collar of his dramatic cape. His shoulder-length brown hair was loose. It fell sleek and luminous, framing his face and making the already-handsome vampire look even more striking.

  Finney returned Dev’s cane and picked up his own costume. Apparently, Finney was supposed to be some sort of jester or clown. His top hat had a red band with black feathers, and his vest was a whimsical combination of red, black, and white fabrics with varying stripes and patterns. His polished shoes were red, and the cane given to him was topped with a face covered by a mask. He also had jars of white, black, and red paint.

  “What am I to do with these?” he asked Dev, holding up a jar.

  “I assume they are to be used to disguise your face,” Dev said. Finney grimaced and was about to head into the washroom when Graydon emerged. He wore a blue naval jacket with gold epaulets and a tricorn hat. The gold buttons were tiny gears, and the trim that fastened across the chest made it look like he wore thin plates of armor. His hair was pulled back in a queue, and his steel-gray eyes flashed as he placed the hat on his head and sat to pull on a polished pair of boots.

  He hadn’t spoken since Dev had collected him from the dining room, and only the insistence that something worse might happen if he was to disobey the doctor’s orders a
gain made Graydon leave the painting with Delia trapped inside.

  Watching Graydon contemplate a world without Delia was difficult. Such thoughts cast a pall over Dev’s heart. He didn’t want to think about a life with anyone but Ember either.

  Glancing over at Jack and not even attempting to quell his antipathy toward the lantern, he said, “You’d better get dressed. They’ll be collecting us soon.”

  Jack ran a hand through his blond hair and then went to attach his pocket watches. He was pleased to see that the human-made watch was working once again. Finney had done him a kindness, even though he also had strong feelings for Ember. When Jack snapped it shut, he caught Finney watching him in the mirror. He smiled at the lad and nodded. Finney returned the gesture.

  Indicating the black fabric with white stripes, Jack said, “The doctor wants me to dress as a skeleton, but that seems to me a bit redundant. There’s an easier way.” Summoning his light, Jack made his skin transparent, and Dev winced at the grinning skull staring back at him. The lantern looked barbarous with his bones on display.

  “Yes, well, perhaps you could dial it back a bit. No one here wants to stare at your hip bones all evening.”

  Jack glanced down and saw his leg bones on display through the fabric of his trousers. He dimmed his light just enough that only the bones of his hands and head showed. It wasn’t what the doctor had in mind for him, but it would have to do. He refused to don the skintight costume. Placing a helmet-shaped hat with a rounded crown on his head, he ran his fingers across the ink-black brim and pulled it low over his eyes.

  “Finney, when you are satisfied with your makeup, then I believe we are ready,” Dev said.

  “Almost done,” Finney said. He emerged from the washroom a moment later. He’d painted his face white and drawn elaborate black swirls around his eyes and lips, filling in spots with tiny red hearts.

  Dev raised an ebony eyebrow, thinking perhaps the young mortal was also attempting to win Ember’s affection.

  The men, finally ready, headed downstairs. Yegor met them at the bottom. “If you will accompany me, gentlemen, I believe the doctor is eagerly awaiting your arrival.”