by Amy Alward
‘These are for me?’
‘They sure are.’
As Molly turns over the gloves, a note flutters to the ground. I pick it up and begin reading:
Dearest Molly,
I’m sorry that it’s taken so long for me to get these to you, but I promise they are worth the wait. These gloves are made from strands of unicorn tail that naturally shed throughout their lifetime. Only one or two pairs of gloves exist like these in the world. But you are one of the few in the world with a proven affinity to unicorns, and I know you will perform great magic with them one day.
I hope you accept these gloves as just a small token of my gratitude for your role in saving me.
Yours ever after,
Princess Evelyn of Nova
The wrapping paper falls to the floor as Molly brings the gloves out into the open. She slips her hands into them as quickly as she can. She flexes her fingers. ‘They’re perfect!’ she says.
I enclose both her newly gloved hands within mine. ‘I’m so glad.’
She smiles. ‘You know, you can’t distract me that easily. Even with the best present in the entire universe.’
I nod. ‘You’re right, I do know more about Grandad than I can tell you. I can’t tell anyone. But I do need your help. I need you to look after him while I’m away. Keep an eye on him. The gloves will help.’
Frustration and understanding flicker through her face. ‘But . . .’
‘Molly, I promise . . . if I could tell you, I would.’
Finally, she nods. ‘I can do that,’ she says, her voice soft.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘But as soon as you can, will you tell me first?’
‘It’s a deal. Now get some sleep,’ I say. ‘It’s been a long day.’
She pads over to her bed and lifts the covers. Just before getting in, she turns around to me. ‘Is Grandad going to be okay? I’m scared, Sam.’
I run over and squeeze her tight. ‘Of course he is,’ I say. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’
‘I know you will.’
I sit on the edge of her bed until she’s crawled under the covers and wait there until she’s fast asleep. It doesn’t take her long, and I envy that easy rest.
Back in my room, I sit at my laptop and, after opening a couple of tabs for Connect and OnlineCast to switch to in case Mum or Dad comes in, I search for aqua vitae recipes and legends.
I find one from Pays that involves a potion base of water from a magical waterfall, which you can only access if you are guided by lights from fairies known as will-o-the-wisps. Just acquiring the base is hard enough – no one knows where the waterfall is, or how to get the fairies to guide you. Next I read a Zhonguo legend that involves a phoenix living near a monastery, guarded by an ancient order of monks. Another Ruso legend says that in order to know the recipe for the water of life, you must first have been brought back from the dead.
It all seems to belong firmly in the land of myth. There must be a reason no one has discovered it before. Hating myself a little, I log in to www.WildeHuntTheories.com and search the forums. But there’s nothing new there except a bunch of posts speculating about why we’ve closed.
I shut my laptop with a snap and my head falls down onto my desk. I groan.
I’m never going to get anywhere without an actual lead.
There’s a soft knock on my door.
‘Come in,’ I say.
Mum’s head pokes around the edge of my door. ‘You all set for tomorrow?’
I nod. I’ve thrown my clothes into a suitcase. The top layer looks normal – a few nice sundresses (apparently jeans are not appropriate attire for a tour with the Princess of Nova), freshly pressed blouses and floaty skirts. But hidden underneath is a layer of Finder’s clothing for every eventuality: dark grey combat trousers with lots of zips and pockets, vest tops and thermal underwear – lots of layers in case we need to go somewhere cold. ‘Just need my ball gown now.’
‘Are you sure I can’t come shopping with you?’ Mum asks, coming into my room and perching on my bed.
I smile. ‘It’ll be a surprise!’
‘Even from your dear mother?’
‘You know I would show you, but it’s one of the Princess’s requests . . .’
‘Okay, okay, I understand. I can’t believe my little girl is going off to a Royal ball!’ Her eyes fill with tears.
I jump forward and hug her. ‘No crying!’
She waves her hands in front of her eyes. ‘I know, but it’s nice to have something good to cry about.’
I shift awkwardly, the tips of my trainers pointing towards each other. ‘He’ll be okay.’
‘Sometimes I wish for a crystal ball,’ says Mum. ‘But there’s no magic potion here – no centaur’s eye to help us see the future.’
‘Centaur’s eye?’ Something in my memory jogs. During my great-grandmother’s Wilde Hunt, it was the one ingredient that the Participants couldn’t find. According to the history books, Zoro – Zain’s grandfather – managed to create a synthetic eye, which helped him finish his potion and save the Queen. There’s even a model of a centaur’s eye in the centre of the ZA headquarters’ lobby. Except that’s just the public story. Zain told me the truth, when we were trapped on Mount Hallah. It had been my great-grandmother who had really created the synth.
Mum must see something in my expression, because she reaches out and grabs my hand. ‘Are you okay?’
I laugh it off. ‘Oh, I got distracted by thinking about Zain . . .’
‘Ah, young love,’ Mum says, clasping her hands beneath her chin.
My reply is a deep yawn. Mum pats my bedcovers. ‘Come on now. I know you’re sixteen but you still have to listen to your mother. Time for bed.’
I don’t argue. I crawl under the duvet.
‘Have fun tomorrow,’ Mum says, tucking me in like I’m six years old again. ‘I mean it. Don’t let what’s happening to Grandad and the store stop you from living your life. We will figure it out.’
‘I know.’ And I’ll figure it out too. I have a lead now.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Samantha
THE HOSPITAL’S VISITING HOURS ONLY run for an hour in the morning but I’m there from the moment they begin to the moment I get kicked out. For the majority of the time, I’m not alone – so when the nurse tells us that our time is up, I linger behind.
‘Grandad . . . if you can hear me, I’m going to do this for you. I’ll find it before she does.’ I squeeze his hand tightly, and I swear I spot his eyelids flutter. ‘If you remember anything that might be helpful . . . tell me straight away. But I’ll do everything I can. I won’t stop. I promise.’
‘Samantha, it’s time to go. No special privileges.’ The nurse pops her head around the door, her eyebrows raised. I give his hand another squeeze and reluctantly get up. Even though I’m determined to find him a cure, I don’t want to leave him. I wish I could tear myself in two, one part of me staying by his side and the other going off to find the diary.
My parents have gone to the bank for scary meetings that they don’t want me to worry about – even though their hushed conversations and deep frowns make me extremely nervous.
Outside the hospital, I call Zain.
He picks up almost immediately. ‘Hey! Everything okay?’
‘Are you at work right now?’
‘Uh . . . just arriving.’
‘Can I meet you?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be meeting Evelyn?’
‘Not for another few hours. Please? It’s urgent.’
‘I can probably come to Coffee Magic in, like, two hours?’
‘No, no, I’ll come to you.’
‘What, to ZA?’ The surprise in his voice doesn’t surprise me. I’ve only been to the ZA headquarters once, back before Zain and I were dating. I’ve avoided it – there’s enough speculation about a Kemi-Synth collaboration that I don’t need to add fuel to the fire.
‘Yeah, is that okay?’
&nbs
p; ‘Of course! Just buzz me when you’re here and I’ll let you in.’
Two buses and a train later, I arrive at ZA headquarters. Zain is already outside, ready to meet me. He’s leaning casually, one foot up against one of the tall pillars that guards the entrance. He’s more dressed up than I’m used to seeing him, in dark grey trousers and a light blue shirt that brings out the blue in his eyes. Only his hair is as wild as ever, black strands falling haphazardly across his face. How can anyone look so gorgeous doing absolutely nothing at all?
He smiles when he sees me, and chastely kisses me on the cheek. We are outside his place of work, after all – I guess a full-on snog wouldn’t quite be appropriate. ‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Do you have a lead?’
‘I do. But I need your help. Can we go inside?’
‘Sure.’
I follow him through the big main doors that open with a small whoosh as air-conditioned air rushes out to meet the summer heat. Goosebumps break out onto my arms as I walk in, although whether from the chilled air or from awe I’m not sure. The inside of the building is hollow, stretching up above me over eighty storeys high.
Zain stops by a set of sleek, modern black leather armchairs. But I walk past him to the centre of the lobby. Seemingly suspended in mid-air on a white marble pillar is a large, round orb. The colour is impossible to describe, shifting from amber to bright gold to rusty bronze as I stare at it. Looking closer, murky clouds seem to bubble beneath the surface, swirling in the unseen currents. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so mesmerising. Only the touch of Zain’s hand on my shoulder breaks the spell.
‘I find that thing really creepy,’ he says.
‘Your grandfather – he wanted to be an alchemist more than anything in the world, right?’
Zain stiffens. I probably should have started with some small talk but when I’m on the trail of a new potion I can only cut straight to the point. ‘Right, but what does that have to do with anything?’
‘Well, if he really wanted to be an alchemist then he must have kept a diary.’
Zain nods. ‘He did. It’s all been digitised and stored in the ZA archives.’
Hmm, digitising the family archives. That could be useful for us, I think. Then, Focus, Sam! ‘Don’t you see? Your grandfather knew Cleo. Maybe there’s a clue to her last known whereabouts in his journal.’
Zain’s eyes light up. ‘You could be right, you know. Come on, I can take you to the library now.’ He drags me away from the giant replica centaur’s eye and towards the lifts.
‘Will they miss you in the lab? I don’t want to take you away from your last day of work before the Royal Tour. You could just show me where it is . . .’
‘Nice try, Kemi. Don’t think I’m leaving you with our family secrets either,’ he says with a wink. We step into the lift and he presses a button close to the top: level 78.
The lift has a window and the view over Kingstown is breathtaking. I gasp in awe, looking out over the industrial zone where all the synth companies are based towards the city proper, the twisted streets leading up to the castle, perched high on the hill like an eagle’s nest.
No wonder Zol feels so powerful from his office at the very top of the building, inside a giant metal letter Z. From this high up, you could imagine you own the entire world.
The lift doors behind me open straight into the library. I spin, but then I frown.
There’s not a single book in sight.
Instead, an enormous painting stretches the entire length of the wall, the biggest piece of art I have ever seen.
‘Wait, is that . . . ?’
Zain nods.
‘And it’s . . .’
‘The original? Yup.’
‘Woah.’ I’m no art buff, but I recognise it straight away. Da Luna’s Grimoires of a Gergon Alchemist. Maybe the most famous painting featuring an alchemist in the world. We have a print of it hanging in our downstairs bathroom at home.
In Da Luna’s work, huge bookcases stuffed to the brim with thick, leatherbound tomes disappear into shadow at the edges of the painting so they look like they go on forever. Even the stools and the tables are made of books – it’s a book-lover’s dream. The only figure in the painting is hidden away in a corner – an old man, his dark skin lit by a single candle, hunched over an open book. Though the man is from the thirteenth century, I know that look of concentration all too well. An alchemist researching a recipe.
I scan the painting for something else I know is there. A mistake. In the alchemist’s hand is an ingredient, which the book in front of him labels as Feather of a South Unis Macaw. But the shape of the feather is all wrong – it curves inward where it should be straight; the colour is a murky green where it should be bright crimson.
Some critics derided Da Luna for his error.
But Da Luna was an ordinary painter. He used no magic to create his masterpiece, no glamour to smooth out the rough edges – the places where the paints didn’t quite mix, where a few hairs of his paintbrush came loose and lodged themselves in the canvas. Magic would have made it perfect.
But people are not perfect – not even Talented ones, Da Luna had said. Humanity exists in the flaws and imperfections. That is what I paint.
What a legend.
A cough from Zain makes me tear my eyes from the artwork. He’s sitting at one of the six laptops perched on a sleek, marble-top counter that runs beneath the painting. ‘Everything in our library is digitised,’ he says, switching on the computer. When he spots the (totally unintentional) grimace on my face, he smiles. ‘Just wait. You’ll love this.’ With a couple of clicks, he finds his grandfather’s diary. One more click and a projection pops up on the counter in front of me – a perfect hologram of the original thing. Except that when I touch it, my hand passes straight through.
‘Wow!’ I exclaim.
Zain laughs. ‘Yup. Cool, huh? And you can even turn the pages like an actual book. Try it.’
My fingers slide into the projection again, and I mime turning the page. It’s weird because although I don’t feel anything, the page obediently turns. ‘That’s epic,’ I have to admit.
‘And I can also do this.’ He types Cleo Kemi into the search bar.
After a few seconds, the computer says: Zero results found.
Zain frowns. ‘That’s weird.’
‘Try searching for centaurs.’
24 results found.
‘Bingo!’ I say.
The hologram flips forward to the first results page. Zoro Aster’s entries are much shorter than my grandad’s.
08:02 Arrived. No other Hunt Participants here yet, as far as I can tell. Cal Shackleton thinks we may have a chance with the centaurs yet.
‘Cal Shackleton was my grandfather’s Finder,’ Zain whispers in my ear. It might not be a real library, but there’s still something about the room that makes you want to keep the noise down. I carry on reading.
10:14
‘Wow, your grandad was precise, wasn’t he?’
Cal put off by rumours that the centaurs are suffering from some kind of plague. Don’t know if it’s catching, or how it will affect the mix if we do manage to acquire an eye. Doubled his rate and he agreed to continue. Damn greedy Finders.
10:21 Was wrong. Another Participant was here. Just seen the tyre tracks. Dragonfire and trollblood! Told Cal to step on it.
‘Another team!’ My eyebrows rise almost into my hairline. ‘That could mean Cleo, right?’
I don’t wait for Zain’s answer, just turn the page again.
‘Oh, dragons,’ I say, as the next entry appears in front of us.
Zain leans in closer. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘You mean you’ve never seen this before?’
He shakes his head. ‘No . . . I’ve never read his diaries.’
That shocks me into silence. I’ve read all the Kemi diaries – except the majority of Grandad’s, of course, but while he’s still alive, his are a work in progress and therefore off-limit
s unless by his express permission. I couldn’t resist reading them. If I had the opportunity, I’d read all the Aster diaries too.
‘Why would I read them?’ continues Zain. ‘He told us the real story on his deathbed. Whatever’s in here isn’t the truth.’
I think back to Grandad’s stories about Cleo, which I’d once taken completely as fact. But now I know better. ‘Memories aren’t fact,’ I say softly, putting my hand over his. ‘We’ve all changed a story to give it more impact, or to protect our loved ones. It’s not just your family, trust me. And his words can still help us.’
Zain stares at me for a moment, then nods. I focus back on the entry. The moment Zoro Aster ‘discovered’ his synth.
09:00 Mark this day. Today, the world has changed forever. Today, I have made history.
I eye-roll at Zain and he gives me a small smile. But in a way, Zoro Aster wasn’t wrong. He did change the world from that moment. He just left out the fact that he didn’t do it alone.
After meeting with the centaurs, I could never in good conscience use a natural eye. Their population decimated, their families torn apart by grief and disease, I could not be as ruthless as those other Participants, even for the sake of Queen Valeri II. I fired Cal on the spot when he suggested we continue on our Hunt. Those that did continue failed, and brought the wrath of the centaurs upon them.
But of course, I could not abandon my Queen in her time of great need. For years I have been working on a way to simulate an ingredient’s effect without the need to harvest it. A way to progress beyond our old, tired methods – that so often result in the harm, or even the destruction, of our most precious resources.
And now, history will show that I have done it. With my synthetic – but potent – centaur’s eye, I have mixed the anti-seizure potion the Queen needs.
I travel to the Palace from Lake Karst in Runustan, to deliver the mix – and to save the Queen’s life.
This is a new start for Zoro Aster. This is a new start for Nova.