Sweat broke out on my forehead although it was cool in the tower. ‘When I found out what I was,’ I said, ‘I read about Ragnarök and the new age meant to follow it. Are you saying that’s true? Something else will come afterwards?’
‘It’s a theory,’ said Raphael. ‘No one – not even the gods – can say what the regrowth of Yggdrasil will look like. It hasn’t happened for billions of years.’
‘But Akhen wants that for some reason. He must believe he’ll survive Ragnarök.’ Frigg’s prophecy played out again in my head. ‘Who else would want to trap you, Raphael, but him? Only you can destroy the amulet. Maybe he’s found a way to make you pass your knowledge to him. Then he can kill me. Then Ragnarök will begin.’ The thoughts inundated my mind. ‘Why would he desire such a thing? Does he believe that he will be the new Gatekeeper? Does he want to rebuild the Nine Realms to suit his vision?’ I threw my arms into the air. ‘Madness and ability…and opportunity. I’m on trial; he has the opportunity. There’s no way I’ll be found innocent. This is why the Praetoriani want the amulet; Akhen wants it. Yet if I run, they have cause to pursue me. It’s like the witch trials all over again.’
I spun around to face Raphael but he’d hidden in the vines. ‘I didn’t mean to raise my voice,’ I said. My stomach lurched; how was this eternal youth meant to cope with confinement, interrogation, and possibly torture? ‘What do you think he wants?’
‘He does not believe in our gods, Clemensen. I am not here for him. I am here for the Gatekeeper. The amulet is safe.’
‘Is it? Because it won’t be if Akhen has his way. What do I have to do to prove myself to you? I’m not evil, Raphael.’
I walked closer to the vines and parted them. ‘No one is evil from their own point of view,’ Raphael said, wrapping his wrists around the ivy. ‘Soon you will be tempted by darkness. I hope you will make the right choice. I hope you are strong enough to contain the Gatekeeper.’
‘What about the clue you left me?’
‘So you can find the amulet, in case I cannot return it. It must not be lost.’
I groaned. ‘Give it back to me, Raphael. It needs to be safe from Akhen. Who knows what he can do to you?’
‘I fear not for myself,’ he said, his amethyst eyes full of longing as he gazed up at the sky. ‘I will endure. If I am captured, decipher the clue and give the amulet to your uncle. Tell him to take it to the Fae Isles.’
‘Uncle Nikolaj has gone.’
Raphael uncurled his wrists and closed his eyes, listening to the wind swirling in the tower. ‘I sense him, Gatekeeper. Your uncle remains in Midgard. He isn’t far.’ His features smoothed out as if he was sleeping, his gentle sway supported by the vines. ‘Please leave now,’ he whispered, ‘I need peace. I must prepare.’
I touched his shoulder. ‘For what it’s worth,’ I said, ‘I’ll pray for your safety, and your happiness with Lorenzo at the solstice, if we make it that far.’
He opened a bright eye, just for a moment. ‘Always be the one who prays and never the god who answers, Clemensen.’
I nodded, unsure how to reply. ‘I’ll come back soon and check on you both.’
Raphael smiled. ‘Nikolaj’s clan, what is it they say? Go, and may the light of the Nine Realms be with you.’
The attic felt empty without Ava. I grabbed my phone, which I had left on the bedside table, and sent her a message.
Are you both okay? Xx
By the time I located Raphael’s clue, tucked away in the chest’s hidden compartment, she had replied.
We’re both tired. Visions come every hour. How did the meeting go? X
A bit weird but no major problems. See you soon? I unfolded the note. The screen lit up.
I’ll call you. X
I tapped the screen. I’m not very good at this boyfriend thing, am I? Then I deleted the message and sighed, tossing the phone on the bed. Ava was emotionally mature. She knew what she wanted. She’d dated, had boyfriends, while I had tended the vegetable garden with my uncle and filled up endless sketchbooks.
Ava was a lit match under my tinder, but we needed time to get to know each other again. She’s the only friend I had, I thought. In our childhood games, Ava had led, made the decisions. We’d argued over toys but dried each other’s tears. Now I was a man, I wanted to protect her, even though she was her own woman.
Akhen might use her to get to me.
What if I failed her?
I read Raphael’s clue again. He’d left it, shaped as a dove, leaning against the mirror on the dresser in my bedroom at Hellingstead Hall. ‘In the seed of Jupiter’s Acorn, life holds balance, let the pendulum swing, let the ancient fruit rot or bloom.’ It made more sense now after our conversation; the ancient fruit must be the Gatekeeper, and the pendulum probably referred to a judgement. Raphael had hinted he would return the amulet if I made the right choice – about what? I had so many to make. Or did he mean the outcome of the trial?
In the seed of Jupiter’s acorn…
I leant back and retrieved my phone, bringing up the web browser. The search results for Jupiter’s acorn consisted mainly of cocktail recipes, but at the bottom of the page I found a reference to walnut trees. It must be that. The seed must be the walnuts themselves. That was far too easy.
The note sat creased beside me. No one other than me knew what the script meant. I realised that Raphael didn’t intend to make it difficult. I needed to be able to find it. But he left the note before he was warned of Frigg’s prophecy, so why did he think he might not be able to return the amulet? He seemed so sure that temptation headed my way. Everything about Raphael contradicted itself. Does he sense future events like Ava? He could turn into wind – why not be clairvoyant too?
Besides, there were millions of walnut trees on the planet. And none of the English ones bore nuts until later in the year. Except in Hellingstead Hall, I thought, Uncle Nikolaj’s Elvish magic keeps them ripening. We had a black walnut in the south side of the garden, in the orchard. Not far from the redwood where Raphael had stayed. The amulet was safe behind Father’s wards; he’d used Gatekeeper magic to craft them over two decades.
‘Uncle Nik, where are you?’ He had lied to me as much as Father, but an uncle’s betrayal is easier to deal with. That, and I needed him. He needed to move the amulet if I didn’t make it through the trial. But I couldn’t ask for his help until he returned.
27
See You At Sundown
I found the coven in the basement. They’d been busy; the shelves that had groaned under the weight of supplies were empty. Carlotta and Penny were kneeling on the cold floor, sketching convoluted symbols in chalk. On the steps sat Fenrir, canine eyes focused on Strix, who was flapping around the room in owl form. ‘What’s going on?’
Penny dusted her hands. ‘We must move to the crypts of St. Michael’s to perform the spell.’
‘Why?’ I asked, hoping Raphael wouldn’t be discovered.
She stared at me like I was an idiot. ‘Hel will only come if we are surrounded by the dead. I presume old corpses are preferable to new ones, Liege?
‘Absolutely,’ I said, watching the servants wrapping up jars to put into boxes.
‘No one told me Clemensens have such sensitive stomachs.’
‘It’s called humanity,’ I said. ‘What about these drawings?’
Carlotta flipped the curls off her shoulder. ‘Practise.’
Are you really going along with this, Theo? I sighed. If Penny was right, I had no choice. ‘Do you still need those nail clippings?’ I asked.
The girls smiled. Lori summoned clippers from the air and slotted her slender hand into mine. ‘Come with me,’ she said. Fenrir trotted with us to the corner, where the altar table had been pushed aside. ‘While you were out, a contact – how do you say? – came good.’ The empty jars she’d assaulted me with before I’d left for the meeting with Menelaus were now filled with crescent-shaped nails.
I think even Fenrir’s lips peeled back. ‘Gross,’ I s
aid as Lori undid a jar lid. ‘Where did they come from?’
She clipped the first few nails from my left hand. ‘Old people need their toenails cutting. It is routine service.’
‘Ugh. No wonder they’re all yellowed.’
‘It’s necessary,’ she said.
‘Why do we need them?’
‘Naglfar is made of bones and nails, and the Hordes need a ship to travel through Helheim to Midgard,’ Lori explained, like it was obvious. It appeared I served a function, but the coven didn’t need me to plan the spell. That undermined my leadership, but I had so much to process if there was any hope of finding an alternative. Better they spend their energies making preparations rather than watching my every move.
I left Lori, Penny, Carlotta, and the others, who were distracted with packing and magically transporting boxes to the crypts. The same crypts I’d never heard of – an irritating theme started off by Father, who’d kept Hellingstead Hall’s undercrofts hidden from me for twenty-one years. Lest I undermine myself more, I decided not to query it.
‘I want to see my son,’ Michele said, intercepting me on my way to the attic and dragging me into the front room. ‘Make it happen.’
‘He said he needed time.’
‘We might not have time,’ he said, tightly. Back in his Armani suit, it was easier to take him seriously than in that sun-screen outfit. ‘Invite him to dinner. I must ensure his safety.’
I readied for the inevitable argument. ‘You’re not listening—’
The buzzing in my back pocket cut me off. ‘Hello?’ I said into the phone. I didn’t recognise the number.
‘It’s Menelaus.’
‘How’d you get—’
‘I’m your Guardian, remember? It’s in the paperwork you filled out.’
I glanced at Michele. I hadn’t given him permission to give the Praetoriani my private number. He must have wanted Menelaus to have it. I sighed; I couldn’t blame him – I should’ve filled it out myself. ‘Okay. What’s up?’
‘I can’t speak over the phone. Can we meet?’
Michele nodded frantically. Okay, I mouthed. ‘Yeah, come for dinner?’
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Here. The Old Vicarage. Michele is pretty keen to meet you properly.’
Static. The old vampire breathed down my neck. ‘Dinner sounds good. What time?’
Feeling dramatic, I said, ‘Sundown.’
I wasn’t sure if he laughed or the line had static. ‘Sundown it is. I have news.’ He ended the call. Not the chatty type, then.
‘Happy?’ I asked. Michele was straightening his tie in the mirror above the writing desk – someone had cleared the mess he’d made after our last confrontation – but he didn’t reply. ‘What do you think he likes to eat?’
I got a twinge in my heart thinking about Uncle Nikolaj’s home cooking.
The servants and I had finished laying the table in the dining room. I could have used magic, but after I’d summoned the ingredients for the meal, I had felt the Gatekeeper rumbling away, and realised I’d drawn on its power automatically, instead of using my innate abilities like Father had taught me. That, and the repetitive motions helped me think.
Michele was the one who actually cooked the meal, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tossing the frying pan like a pro. Malachi had been ordered to locate the best supplies of wine, and he’d complied, though his face was as sour as the lemon Michele used to dress the salad.
While we waited for Menelaus to show, I called Ava, who said she felt much better but nowhere near normal, and planned to start her job at Crystal Clear tomorrow. I told her to ring me if she spotted anyone – or anything suspicious. She started to argue but thought better of it when I explained about Akhen.
‘Fine,’ she agreed, at last. I apologised again for her taking the fallout of Frigg’s visit, not that I could’ve predicted that. She was the clairvoyant, right?
The doorbell rang. Everyone froze – even one of the servants, which was weird because they usually carried on whatever happened. ‘I’ll get it,’ I called down the hall.
It was a still a shock, seeing him. Now I knew we were related, I saw it, the shape of his ears and the unruly kink in his hair. The scar on his chin…I’d rather not see that. We shook hands, a little shyly. The anger threatened to bubble up again. We have bigger fish to fry, I thought, give him a chance. ‘Come in,’ I said. He barely fit past me.
I took his flight jacket and led him into the front room. Michele had already whizzed across the hall before I’d opened the door, and was already pouring a glass of decanted wine. ‘Red?’
Menelaus nodded. He took the glass from his father. ‘Thank you,’ he said, subdued.
‘I am…’ Michele eyed me. I stayed put. ‘I am sorry that I didn’t find out about you sooner,’ he said. ‘Your mother told me a story that veered from the facts, and I hurt too much to question her.’
‘Would it have made a difference?’ asked Menelaus. ‘Would you have come back?’
Michele hesitated. ‘I would have sent for you. I would’ve brought my son to his homeland.’
‘Funny, isn’t it? My first year was spent in this vicarage. Before the adoption went through. Your property, yet you never returned to find me.’
The atmosphere crackled, a few stray sparks stinging my forearms, as if I was drawing on their emotional energy. And it hit me: I – or the Syphon – probably was drawing their energy; they were Pneuma, after all. ‘You said you had news?’ I said, to diffuse the unsettling feelings.
Menelaus smelt his wine. ‘I found Jenny,’ he said. ‘It was awful.’ We listened to the loosely spun version of his tale, his downcast eyes suggesting a more gruesome narrative. ‘I haven’t informed Espen,’ he said, turning to me. ‘If he tells Toby, it will go badly.’
Father. Doomed to the sea like an injured shorebird struck from the sky. As much as he infuriated me, I had to see him and make sure he hadn’t lost all grasp of reason. ‘I’ll go with you in the morning. We’ll make a plan over dinner. How do you like your steak? You aren’t vegetarian, right?’
‘Bloody,’ he said.
Michele smiled – it ran in the family.
We’d removed the extraneous seating around the dining-room table and had set places for Michele, Malachi, and Lorenzo – although they didn’t eat – so that it didn’t feel like it was me and Menelaus on some kind of weird date. I had offered Penny an invite but she’d refused. ‘Someone has to oversee the coven,’ she had said, not a hint of bitterness in her voice.
Because of their history, I didn’t feel comfortable about Menelaus and Ava being in the same room, so I’d failed to mention it to her. Besides, Michele wanted his son’s attention.
Lorenzo arrived late, but he dressed up for the occasion. Michele gave him an approving nod for his outfit – but not his tardiness – as he entered the room. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘just wanted to catch the sun’s last rays. Evening.’
I snorted. Malachi emptied another bottle of wine into the decanter and chucked the empty bottle at the servant, who somehow managed to catch it. ‘I take it blood is off the menu,’ Lorenzo said, sliding into the chair next to me.
‘Only if you discount the steak,’ I said, handing him a wine glass.
‘As long as it isn’t the wooden variety.’
‘Vampire friendly.’ I grinned. ‘Everything okay?’
Malachi narrowed his honey-coloured eyes as Lorenzo leaned in towards me. ‘Everyone is where they should be,’ he said. ‘How’s the family reunion?’
I dug into the fried mushrooms and onions, skirting over the uneasy silence. ‘Michele is a great cook,’ I said, ‘so that helps.’
‘Do you only care about your stomach, Clemensen? When your cousin sits opposite?’ Michele had relaxed with the wine, resting back in his chair. His smile, a rare event, suited his tanned cheekbones. I imagined Elspeth meeting him, the mature older man, self-assured and collected. Perhaps after leaving her homeland, she craved th
e blend of danger and security the vampire offered her. Had they really fallen in love, or was it one-sided? Only Michele could tell us, but it didn’t feel right to ask – not yet.
I must’ve stared for too long because he said, ‘A joke, young warlock.’
‘I was thinking about my aunt,’ I said. Realising my mistake, I tried to steer the conversation back on track. ‘My uncle, Nikolaj, did you ever meet him? He’s a very good cook too.’
Fenrir growled from the corner. ‘Sorry, doggy, I’ll find you some scraps in a minute.’
Menelaus dropped his knife and fork onto an empty plate. ‘I don’t think that’s likely, between the two of us. This was just a starter, right?’
‘Uncle Nik bakes incredible treacle sponge pudding.’ My stomach growled louder than Fenrir had. Everyone laughed – except Malachi. He grimaced as his Pater Sanguinem’s foot kicked him under the table. I almost choked on my last fried potato.
‘I’ve had centuries to perfect my tiramisu,’ Michele said. He brushed Menelaus’s arm. ‘It was a favourite of your mother’s.’
The servants cleared our plates without being asked. We watched them move in their robotic way. I had warned Menelaus about them before we had sat down to eat but he shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. ‘They’re Enthraled,’ he said, directing his disapproval to his father. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘We have a purpose for them,’ he said, ‘they are quite safe.’
Are they? Are they really? I forced a smile for Menelaus. Is that why Malachi ordered one to sacrifice himself? ‘I won’t let anything happen to them,’ I said. ‘Once my trial is over, they will be freed for good.’
The chair scraped as Malachi stood up, scrunching the tablecloth. ‘These decisions don’t belong to you, warlock,’ he hissed, ‘this is my operation!’
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