The Family Shame

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  … Or had he?

  The thought nagged at my mind. Could he have taken a blood sample? It wouldn’t have been that difficult. He couldn’t have asked for a sample, not without a very good excuse, but I could easily see a dozen ways he could take one. A sleeping charm, cast over me as I slept one night, would have kept me unaware as he used a needle to draw out the blood, then healed the wound. I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea that he’d taken a sample. Or … I didn’t want to think about the other possibilities.

  I need to get out of here, I thought. I could go to the river, wade through the water and escape, assuming that Uncle Ira hadn’t found and closed the loophole. And yet, the tracking charm would alert him the moment I crossed the boundary line. I was morbidly sure that the charm included a spell to keep me from getting any further away from the hall. There’s no way to get out.

  I rubbed my eyes, feeling … odd. My body felt unusually tense, as if it was waiting for something to happen. I looked around, carefully. The air seemed very quiet. I reached out with my senses, as best as I could, but picked up nothing more than stray flickers of magic darting through the air. Uncle Ira didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. I was glad of that, even as I reached inward and touched my own magic reserves. We’d already established that he could do anything he liked to me …

  My power surged. I jerked, almost falling off the tree stump. My hands were prickling with potential, a sensation I’d felt once - when I used magic for the first time - and never again. I could feel every last inch of my body as my power expanded. The ground seemed to shake under my feet. I was suddenly very hot, sweat trickling down my back as I gasped for breath. My mouth was dry, my throat … my throat was parched. I needed a drink. I needed water, desperately. I’d have to take it from the stream.

  I forced myself to stand, somehow. The warmth was getting worse, as if I was standing in front of a fire. My hands were sweaty, yet prickling … I looked at them, suddenly unsure they were my hands. They seemed small and delicate, not powerful. And yet, I was sure I could see lights below the skin. My hands were glowing …

  … And then the world exploded into flames.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I threw back my head and screamed.

  The world was burning. I was burning. Flames were everywhere, raging everywhere. My magic was on fire … I was on fire. The pain was so intense I couldn’t think straight; I tried, somehow, to cast a counterspell, but nothing happened. I’d been poisoned, I’d been cursed, I’d been … I stumbled forward, dimly aware of the damp forest catching fire. The heat was so incredible that I could imagine firestorms sweeping down the valley to Kirkhaven and northwards to Caithness. What had Uncle Ira done?

  I stumbled forward, trying to find the stream. My vision was so blurred that I wasn’t sure if I was headed in the right direction, and I didn’t know if the stream was big enough to put out the fire, but … I tripped, landing face-first in the water. My clothes were instantly drenched in cold liquid, yet the flames refused to die. I could feel the fire turning my skin to ash, I could feel my bones starting to crack under the heat, I could feel … I was choking on boiling water. The heat grew ever stronger …

  Strong arms caught me. I struggled desperately, too maddened to care who’d found me or why. The flames were everywhere, burning me … they’d burn my rescuer too. I couldn’t understand how he could touch me. My skin was on fire. But, somehow, I was hauled out of the stream and held, tightly. The feeling was so gentle that I found myself starting to relax, despite the flames. And yet … my head started to swim. I was on fire and I wasn’t on fire and I was on fire and … it made no sense.

  “Isabella,” a gentle voice said. “What happened?”

  I blinked in shock. “Callam?” It was Callam. It had to be Callam. “What …” - I remembered that I was on fire and started to shake - “get away before you get burnt!”

  The flames surged again, as if they were trying to hurt us both. Callam didn’t let go.

  “You’re losing control of your magic,” he said, urgently. I could hear the alarm in his voice. His arms tightened around me. “You have to regain control!”

  I closed my eyes for a long moment and concentrated. The flames were burning through me, yet … they were part of me. I screamed again, helplessly, as fire raced along my thoughts, my concentration fading as the pain grew worse and worse until I thought I was on the verge of death. And then the flames exploded out of me and I sagged back into his arms. My eyes were so tightly closed that I couldn’t open them. I … I couldn’t think.

  “Isabella,” Callam said. “Can you hear me?”

  I forced myself to open my cracked lips. “I’m burning,” I said. My skin felt as if I’d scalded myself. “I …”

  “You’re not burning,” Callam said, reassuringly. His voice seemed to be calling to me. I welcomed it, even as my head started to pound. I was suddenly very hungry. “Can you open your eyes?”

  “I … I don’t know,” I said.

  My eyelids opened, just a fraction. Blinding white light stabbed into my eyeballs. I slammed them closed again, then lifted a hand to cover my eyes before opening them again. Someone was shining a light into my eyes … no, that was the sun. It was so bright that I was sure I was going to get sunburnt. I’d been sunburnt before, when I’d been playing on the beach as a little girl, but not here. The sun had never been so bright at Kirkhaven.

  I was suddenly aware, very aware, that Callam’s arms were wrapped around my shoulders … and cold water was washing against my bottom. He held me gently, his arms somehow reassuring despite the flashes of pain sparking randomly all over my body. I felt like I had swallowed poison, or something worse. What had been in that potion? I looked down at my sodden dress, so confused it was hard to focus my thoughts. I’d been burning. But there was no trace of fire.

  Callam looked down at me. I stared back, wondering why I was so surprised to see him. He was my friend, wasn’t he? And then I remembered that Morag had turned him into a rat … I’d thought he was going to die. I looked at him, trying to see if he’d been injured. But it looked as though he was unharmed. How long had it been?

  “What happened?” Callam said. “Isabella, what happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” I temporised. “Can you help me stand up?”

  He shifted position and touched my bare skin … and I screamed in pain. He’d touched me lightly, but it felt as if he’d stabbed me with a knife. I recoiled, nearly rolling out of his arms as he jerked backwards. My skin was so sensitive that even the slightest touch hurt. I couldn’t even touch the ground to push myself up and out of the water without hurting myself.

  “Don’t touch my bare skin,” I grunted, somehow. “Try to push me up.”

  It was probably the most undignified thing I’d ever done, but - somehow - we managed to get me to my feet. His touch didn’t hurt so much when there was a layer of cloth between his skin and mine, although it still felt as though my skin had been sunburnt. I inspected my hand as I stood, half-expecting to see a bloody stump. My skin was pale and unmarked - there wasn’t even a bruise - but I could feel the pain throbbing under the skin. I cursed Uncle Ira under my breath, savagely. What had been in that potion?

  I leant against Callam, fighting to catch my breath. I’d never heard of anything that set someone on fire … no, convinced someone that they were on fire. The potion had started me off and my imagination had done the rest. I would have died if Callam hadn’t come along. And yet, I couldn’t understand why Uncle Ira had forced me to drink the potion. If he’d wanted to kill me, and perhaps he’d grown sick of having me as a house guest, there were easier ways to do it. Callam would make an ideal scapegoat for my untimely demise.

  “What happened to you?” I managed. My mouth was still dry. I felt as though I’d retched out meals I’d eaten years ago, although I had no conscious memory of being sick. “I thought … I thought you were dead.”

  Callam shrugged, modestly. “I ran through the underg
rowth until I came to a clearing and waited for the spell to wear off,” he said. “It didn’t take that long. And then Dad wasn’t too happy with me. He thought I’d got you in trouble.”

  “I got myself in trouble,” I said. “Morag … doesn’t like me very much.”

  I frowned as a thought struck me. “How long did it take for the spell to wear off?”

  “Only an hour or two,” Callam said. “I was back home in time for tea.”

  “Interesting,” I said. Morag was a strong magician. She should have been able to turn Callam into a rat for a week, perhaps longer. The world record was two weeks, if I recalled correctly. She didn’t need a spellbinder to keep the spell in place for a week. And yet it had worn off very quickly. I felt a surge of hope, mingled with fear. If Callam was a Zero … what then? “What did your father say?”

  “He wasn’t happy,” Callam said.

  I winced. Callam’s father had probably grounded him too - or worse. I had the sudden mental image of him washing clothes and nearly giggled, despite the pain. Boys wash clothes? That would be the day. I’d once had an older cousin who’d been teased for washing his own armour, even though he’d insisted that it wasn’t the same thing. But then, a good magician always took care of his tools. Father had made that clear years ago.

  Callam turned me around, slowly. I stared in horror. The treehouse was gone. A number of trees lay on the ground, as if they’d been smashed down by an irresistible force. I didn’t want to look at Callam as I took in the splinters of wood and metal lying on the ground. It had taken him months to build the treehouse and now it was nothing more than sawdust. The ground below my feet was blackened and burned. I swallowed, hard. The fire had been real after all.

  And yet I wasn’t burnt, I thought. My dress was wet and muddy, but intact. My skin was pale, yet unharmed. What happened to me?

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Callam was going to hate me now. I knew it. “I …”

  Callam squeezed my shoulder, gently. I flinched, expecting another surge of pain, but this time it felt normal. “I heard the screaming,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Uncle Ira forced me to drink a potion,” I said, dully. I didn’t want to admit it, but I had no choice. Thankfully, Callam wouldn’t understand the implications of being forced to drink. A magician who appeared to be vulnerable to a compeller could expect to become a laughing stock in Shallot … I ground my teeth at the thought. I’d like to see everyone who laughed at those poor victims actually resist a compeller. “It … it did something to my magic.”

  Callam’s eyes opened wide. “He forced you to drink it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t want to go into details, but they came spilling out anyway. The ghosts, the potions experiments, the dark magic books … and the compeller. I wanted, I needed, to talk to someone. “I don’t know what he’s doing.”

  “I think you shouldn’t go back,” Callam said, when I’d finished. “What is he doing?”

  “He wasn’t quite clear,” I said. My head was still aching. I wasn’t in the mood for deep thought. “He said … he didn’t really say. He just claimed he’d been kicked out of the city for trying to make dark magic safe to use.”

  “And he forced you to drink a potion,” Callam said. “Are you safe there?”

  I glared at him. “I hope that’s a rhetorical question.”

  “He’s forced you to drink a potion that caused your magic to go haywire,” Callam said. “What will he do next?”

  I froze as a nasty thought occurred to me. What if … what if the potion destroyed magic? What if my magic had been burnt out of me? I’d told Uncle Ira about Cat … he knew, now, that a person without magic could be very useful. What if … I concentrated, despite the throbbing pain, and tried to cast a spell. My magic responded. Weakly, very weakly, but it was there. I nearly sagged against him in relief. Cat might have been very useful - she was very useful - but she was also uniquely vulnerable. The kidnapping had proved just how easy it was to catch her off guard.

  “I don’t know what he’ll do,” I said.

  “Then don’t go back,” Callam said. “Go somewhere else.”

  I looked at him, bleakly. “Where?”

  Callam hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted, finally. “My Dad might have an idea …”

  I shook my head. “He put a tracking charm on me,” I said. I couldn’t feel the wretched spell any longer, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I’d have to wait until my head was clear to feel it out. “If I cross the wall, he’ll know.”

  “You could just keep running,” Callam said. “Or … we could steal some horses and ride away.”

  “Hah,” I said. “Do you know how to ride?”

  “No.” Callam looked down at the scorched earth. “Do you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I don’t have a horse. And where would we go?”

  My mind raced. I didn’t know how to get to Caithness … and what would we do, when we got there? The family’s representative would probably refuse to even speak to me. I knew how they thought. They’d be too low on the family’s totem pole to risk challenging my exile, even by something as minor as speaking to me. I had no idea how to ride back to Shallot … and, even if I managed to find the right road, Uncle Ira would have no trouble sending a message ahead of me. I’d be grabbed by the armsmen and returned to Kirkhaven, without even having a chance to speak to someone who might take me seriously.

  And we don’t have horses anyway, I reminded myself, crossly. Walking was an even worse idea. And what will happen if I cross the line?

  “You could send a letter,” Callam said. “Is there no one who would listen to you?”

  I hesitated. The standard rules regarding exiles insisted that the exile was to have no contact with anyone back in Shallot. I was entirely sure that most of my former friends, my fair-weather friends, would simply discard any letter I sent them without bothering to read it. An exile has no friends or family, for fear it might rub off. Akin might read a letter, if I sent it, but would it get to him? A letter sent to the hall would be inspected by the Arbiters, of course; a letter sent to Jude’s might be redirected straight to the hall. If the Arbiters opened the letters …

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. What would the Arbiters do with a letter from me? “I don’t know anything any longer.”

  I slumped to the ground and sat in the mud. It was starting to look as if I had no choice, but to go back to the hall. Uncle Ira would have no trouble finding me, when he grew tired of waiting for me to slink back to him. He’d probably sensed the magic surge from miles away. He knew his potion had done something. I wondered, sourly, just what it had been intended to do. It seemed alarmingly elaborate for a torture potion.

  He could just have thrown me down the stairs if he wanted to hurt me, I thought, grimly. Or beaten me halfway to death with a chair. Or …

  “I need to plan an escape,” I said. The longer I stayed here, the greater the chance that Uncle Ira would do something I wouldn’t survive. If he was prepared to force-feed me an untested potion, where would he stop? “And that isn’t going to be easy.”

  “I’ll help,” Callam said, at once. “What do we do?”

  “I’ll need to think about that,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted Callam involved. Uncle Ira knew about him now. He’d be the first suspect when I fled, if only because he was the only person I knew in Kirkhaven. Uncle Ira would have no trouble grabbing one of Callam’s sisters and using her for a location spell. My heart sank as I realised he might not need to go to such trouble. Uncle Ira and I might be close enough on the family tree for him to use his - or Morag’s - blood to track me down. I would have to put a lot of distance between us if I wanted to escape.

  There are adoption rites, I thought. If I changed my blood …

  I swallowed, hard. Was I really that desperate? Yes, I was. Uncle Ira’s experiment had nearly killed me. It would have killed me, if Callam hadn’t been there. And yet, the thou
ght of giving up my blood was unthinkable. I might be an exile, barred from returning home, but I was still part of the family. I thought I understood, now, why Morag had stayed at Kirkhaven. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that she would never be welcomed back to Shallot. I didn’t want to admit it either.

  “Pack a bag of food,” Callam advised. He looked around for a long moment. “We could hide out in one of the cottages, couldn’t we?”

  “Not for long,” I said. The intact cottages were nice enough, I supposed, but Uncle Ira would have no difficulty tracking me down. I was definitely trapped. There were just too many problems for me to overcome before I could escape. “But you’re right. I’m going to need food and supplies.”

  I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. Clouds were pouring over the distant hills and sweeping towards us with a majesty that dwarfed any petty human concerns. Light pulsed through them, beaming down towards the ground. It was almost pretty. I remembered, years ago, stories about warlocks who’d tried to manipulate the weather. The stories had almost always ended badly. And yet, the Eternal City was supposed to have basked in eternal sunlight.

  They probably had an Object of Power that could control the weather, I thought, as I forced myself to stand. My hair was hanging down, my braids long gone … normally, it would have been an emergency, but I was too tired to care. Cat will make one herself, sooner or later.

  “What are you going to tell them?” Callam put a gentle hand on my arm. “About what the potion did, I mean. You’ll have to tell them something.”

  I frowned. “I’ll play dumb,” I said. If Uncle Ira had sensed the magic … I’d have to tell him everything, save for Callam’s involvement. I didn’t want him closing the gap in the wards before I had a chance to escape. “And you make sure you’re well out of sight until you’re through the wards and halfway home.”