by H. G. Parry
“Thank you,” Pitt said, with just a hint of a sigh. Any relief he betrayed was short-lived. “The Knights Templar won’t, though. They’ll be suspicious enough of our story as it is; they’ll say, I imagine, that three respectable members of the English gentry do not find themselves lost without connections in a disreputable hotel.”
“They don’t know us, do they?” Wilberforce said. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to follow it and at least get a glimpse of it, to see what we’re actually dealing with,” Pitt said. “And I’m afraid I have to ask you to come with me.”
“Into the streets, at three o’clock in the morning, to follow a shadow?”
“That is what I’m asking, yes.”
Wilberforce considered. The idea was terrifying, of course. But that was beside the point.
“Just us?” he checked. “Not Eliot?”
Pitt shook his head. “As I said, he wouldn’t take this very well. He’d come, out of loyalty, but he would never quite forgive me.” He hesitated. “There’s also the fact that he’s almost certainly going to marry my sister.”
Pitt’s eldest sister, Hester, had died in childbirth three years earlier, only a few months before Pitt’s younger brother had been killed in the service of the navy, and Wilberforce had never met her. Harriot Pitt, though, was part of their circle often: a dark-haired, graceful young woman, pure Commoner, with her younger brother’s cleverness and good nature but none of his shyness. Wilberforce liked her very much. Eliot had been besotted with her since their introduction.
“Well, yes,” Wilberforce said. “I think everyone knows that except him. Is that a problem?”
“Not at all, in the way you mean. I’m sorry, I really can’t explain. I can only ask you to accompany me.”
It made no sense at all. But that, after all, was what he had been warned of. “And if I said I thought this would be unwise, to say the least?”
“I would agree, and wish you good night.”
“And then go out alone.”
“Of course.”
“Let me get my coat.”
By the time Wilberforce had dressed hurriedly in his breeches and flung his coat over top, Pitt had ducked out of their rooms and come back. This time, he held two pistols.
“Take one,” he said. “In case we need it.”
Wilberforce looked at the weapon with a feeling of recoil. “Where did you get them?”
“Under the counter downstairs. I thought an establishment such as this would keep at least one close to hand while greeting guests, and it turned out they had two.”
“These lodgings are even more disreputable than I thought.” Wilberforce hesitated, then imagined the insubstantial press of cold shadow fingers against his chest and forced himself to wrap his own fingers around one of the pistols. He’d been shooting before, but only with a rifle, and he hadn’t exactly distinguished himself. His eyesight had always been poor.
Outside, the crooked street was silent, lit by only a few dim pools of lamplight. They had been out at night once or twice since they had arrived, and Wilberforce knew that if they took a shortcut down an alleyway and then turned a sharp left, they would find themselves in a far more populated area, where drinking and cards ran riot. Along the stretch of cobblestones where the hotel stood, and indeed down the others where Pitt led him, everybody seemed to be in bed. He wished fervently he was the same.
They walked for a long time, first one way and then another. There was no sign of the shadow. After a while, he began to hope… not that Pitt had been imagining things, because that would be like hoping Pitt could fly, but that he had been mistaken. Or, since he couldn’t quite make that fit with his idea of Pitt either, that the shadow had gone for the night. If it had walked the streets every night since they had been here, surely it would do no harm tonight if they failed to find it?
And then movement flickered in the corner of his eye, and he caught his breath.
In the glow of the lamplight, it was there: a shadow without a body to cast it, an elongated human form of black smoke. He had seen sketches of higher shadows in the newspapers, and in school; once or twice he had glimpsed them in houses that had summoned them as servants. But this was real. Suddenly, he knew without being able to put it into words why he had been so afraid of them.
“There,” Pitt whispered beside him. “I knew we were close.”
“We need to get away from here,” Wilberforce said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt. “Right now.”
Pitt didn’t answer, and Wilberforce glanced at him sharply. His friend’s eyes were fixed on the shadow, and they had a look that made his heart sink. It was not unlike the look he gave a rival politician in the House of Commoners before he got to his feet to tear him to pieces.
“Whatever you’re about to do,” Wilberforce said as calmly as possible, “please don’t even think about it.”
“It’s too late, I’m afraid. Don’t worry: you can stay here. I’m going to cross to the other side of the road and attempt to get it within range of my pistol. If it moves, toward you or toward me, run. Fire if you get a clear shot, but if you miss, I do mean it, Wilberforce: run.”
“And let it take you? Please, let’s go.”
“I don’t intend for it to take me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Wilberforce hissed, but Pitt was already gone.
Wilberforce made a strangled noise of frustration, then belatedly cocked his pistol and raised it.
The shadow stood across the road, directly in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pitt, blurred by distance and the darkness outside the circle of lamplight. Pitt raised his pistol, and Wilberforce closed his eyes instinctively as the report of the gun resounded in the quiet of the night.
The bullet didn’t miss. It also didn’t hit. Instead, the shadow turned at the last moment; the shot hissed harmlessly through the dark vapor of its arm. Its gaze fell on Wilberforce. He had thought that was impossible, since shadows had no eyes, but he was wrong. It was looking at him. His muscles tensed to run, or to fight—but just not to fire his pistol. The instinct simply wasn’t there.
Whatever he would have done was moot, for the shadow’s look didn’t stay on him for more than a single, horrible half second. Instead, it kept turning, head and body, to face Pitt.
Pitt had been reloading, quickly and expertly, but when the thing finished its slow revolution, he froze. His pistol lay half-loaded in his hand; then that hand dropped to his side. Wilberforce couldn’t make out what was playing over his face, not with the dark and the distance, but he wasn’t moving.
Strangely, for a second, the shadow seemed to return his stare. The two of them looked at each other in mutual stillness. Then, without warning, the shadow lunged forward.
Like most Commoners, Wilberforce had been instructed in how to defend himself from a rogue shadow. It had been at grammar school, back in Hull, and a class of ten-year-old boys had stood solemnly in a row while their schoolmaster had marched in front of them with a stake.
“If you have a pointed stick,” the master had said gruffly, “stick them with it and run. It won’t kill them unless you’re very fortunate, but it will delay them. If you don’t, just run. You might survive if you make for a crowded area.”
“What if you want to do battle with it?” young Wilberforce had asked.
The master had stopped directly in front of Wilberforce and given his frail, undersized self a long, hard look. “Just run, William,” he’d said.
Wilberforce thought about this advice as the shadow hurtled toward his friend, but only for a moment. He raised his pistol and fired.
The pistol sparked with an explosion of gunpowder, devastating in the quiet street. It was, unfortunately, far less devastating to the shadow. Pitt gave a startled cry, but the shadow only stopped stark still, then turned slowly toward Wilberforce. He fumbled for another pistol shot with shaking fingers. It was no use. The shadow, a deeper darkness over the gray light of st
reets that were no longer familiar, was focused entirely on him, and he realized he had never until that moment understood what evil was. It cut through to his marrow and left him hollow and formless.
“What on earth, Wilberforce?” Pitt’s voice came, and even though it sounded annoyed and scared, it instantly put the ground back under his feet. He was in France, and he wasn’t alone. “Where was that shot supposed to be aimed?”
“I left my eyeglass back in my room!” Wilberforce called back defensively.
“Oh, in the name of—!” Behind the shadow, Pitt raised his pistol and fired.
The shadow jolted, and Wilberforce at once felt the horrible pressure lift from his heart. For a second, the shadow remained still, and the world around them held its breath. Then, with a shriek that faded into a sudden rush of wind, it dispersed into vapor and blew away to nothing.
Wilberforce stood there. He wasn’t sure yet what it was that he was feeling, but it was the most important moment of his life.
Dimly, he became aware of his friend running across the road toward him.
“Are you hurt?” To anybody else, he would have sounded remarkably self-possessed. Wilberforce had learned by now that Pitt sounded at his most self-possessed when he was badly shaken. “How close did it get?”
“I’m fine.” His own voice came out faint, and he swallowed hard to clear it. Wilberforce, when he was badly shaken, simply sounded badly shaken. “It didn’t touch me,” he clarified, in something more like his usual tone. “You dispersed it in time. Are you all right?”
“Mm.” He put his hand to the side of his head, pulled it away, and managed a wry smile. “Your bullet clipped my ear, though.”
“Oh no,” Wilberforce exclaimed with a surge of horror. “Badly?”
“Not at all. As far as I can tell, I’ve had worse shaving.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, please, don’t be. I’m the one who should apologize: I shouldn’t have missed that first shot. It’s a good thing I didn’t come on my own.”
Wilberforce nodded. Now that it was over, he was shaking like a leaf in a high wind. “I need to sit down.”
“So do I,” Pitt confessed, and the two of them collapsed against the wall behind them and slid down to the ground. Wilberforce felt the stone snag his coat several times on the way but didn’t care.
They sat there for a minute or so, as their sharp, ragged breaths gradually slowed and calmed.
“It wasn’t marked,” Wilberforce said.
“No,” Pitt agreed. “It was either rogue or illegal. I hope it was rogue. I’d rather not have a dark magician coming after us.”
“It was looking at you. When you shot it the first time, and perhaps even before. It didn’t move forward at once; it stopped to look.”
“Well. I was looking at it as well. It seems fair.”
“Do you know why it would do that?”
“No,” Pitt said. “At least—I’ve never had it happen before.”
Wilberforce nodded and knew to let it drop.
“And what about killing a shadow in the dead of night?” he said instead, leaning his head back against the stone behind him. “Have you ever done anything like that before?”
“Of course not. If I had, I wouldn’t have missed the first time.”
“You seemed to know exactly what to do.”
“I read about it at Cambridge. Apparently the trick is to hit the center. I always secretly wanted to try it.”
Wilberforce shook his head. “You’re an extraordinary man, Mr. Pitt.”
“As are you, Mr. Wilberforce.” They were silent for a moment, and then Pitt began to laugh softly.
“What?” Wilberforce demanded, feeling his own mouth start to curve in response.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt said, shaking his head and making an effort to regain his composure. For once, it didn’t work. “It’s just… you really are a terrible shot.”
Wilberforce gave him his coldest look for half a second, then couldn’t hold back a laugh of his own. “That’s not fair! I didn’t read about how to banish shadows in Cambridge. I didn’t know where to aim.”
“So you were forced to decide between me and the lamppost.”
“Decide?” Wilberforce said with a perfectly straight face. “I just couldn’t tell which was which.”
Pitt was clearly in the mentally ticklish state much more common with Wilberforce, and that was enough to push him over the edge into helpless giggles. Wilberforce joined him there. The shock and fear had drained away. In its wake was an elation not unlike that of his first electoral victory at Hull, but deeper and sweeter.
The sky was beginning to lighten; soon, the sounds of voices and bread ovens would be stirring faintly behind the doors that lined the streets. Wilberforce rose stiffly and stretched.
“Come on,” he said, nudging his friend with his shoe. “We need to get these pistols back before the owners notice they’re gone, and before Eliot wakes up and realizes we’ve vanished. And then we have an appointment with the Templars.”
Pitt sighed. “Can we not just sit here until the sun rises, and then go back and sleep until late afternoon?”
“You are a lazy, unemployed pleasure-seeker when there’s no politics to be had, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. That is why I just gave my night to vanquishing evil from the world.” He got to his feet and stretched in turn. “I hope you’re not too sorry that I dragged you into it.”
“I’m very glad you did,” Wilberforce said. “I couldn’t feel its influence like you could, but when it went, it felt… right. As if something had lifted. I can see why the Knights Templar give their lives to the destruction of dark magic. Can’t you?”
“Quite honestly, no. It wouldn’t be my choice at all. But in this case, the streets are safer, and I feel much better on a purely personal level. It’s no real matter, but it’s nice to be warm again.”
“It’s going to be a beautiful day,” Wilberforce said. “Do you think we should tell the Templar official about this when Coustier introduces us?”
“I think,” Pitt said, “whoever the poor man is will have enough difficulty comprehending us as it is.”
Some hundred miles away, in the provincial town of Arras, a young advocate was awake as well. He was a small, neat figure, not only in height and dress, but in manner, in movement, in person. All his life, he had taken up very little space in the world. He sat at a table by his bedroom window, where the last of the moonlight pooled with the light of his candle on the page, and the reflection caught the eyeglasses perched on his nose and turned them to milky discs. Behind them, his green eyes were narrowed in concentration. They were a cat’s eyes; his face, too, had some of the lean, pointed quality of a cat’s. Yet he lacked a cat’s air of relaxed disdain. Instead, his limbs were hunched over the desk, and he was frowning. He did this often.
His name was Maximilien Robespierre. As yet, this meant nothing to anyone, not even to him.
In this instance, his frown was occasioned by the notes of a case in front of him, which he would be presenting in court in a few weeks. His client had been charged with illegal telekinesis in the act of stealing a loaf of bread; the theft had been minor and ineffectual, but the magic was enough to put the man in the Bastille, and the added criminal charge enough to transmute the sentence to death. His family had been starving, and so had he; the telekinesis had failed because the man was too weak to levitate anything farther than a few feet. Unfortunately, this was no defense in the eyes of the court, nor yet in the eyes of the law.
There was no way to win, and he knew it. His colleagues had told him that he was mad to demand the chance to fight it, at the cost of other more lucrative cases. He fought those lucrative cases too, of course, when he had to. In the last few years, he had repaid the family debts left by his disreputable father, gained a reputation as a bright and dedicated advocate, and fought to bring the Robespierre name back to respectability. He was quiet, fastidious, proud, and
warmly regarded, though few except his brother and sister could claim to know him very well. But he wanted this case, and others like it. He had a vision in his head: of a different France, one whose Commoners could use their magic freely, not to steal to feed their children but for their own education and enlightenment. He could see it more clearly than he could the dirty cobblestones outside.
And so he kept writing, crossing out, and rewriting, trying to find the right words to bring his vision to life. Outside, the shadows deepened, almost swallowing the light of his candle. He pushed his glasses farther up his nose as the paper blurred. He yawned once. He was not aware of falling asleep, and he was never afterward certain if he had.
He was standing in his childhood garden. The house that had once belonged to his family, before their fall, stood tall and graceful across the lawn. It was a dark night, the coldest, darkest part of night, it seemed to him, right before the dawn. And yet a single light burned in the house, on the second floor. The rustle of the wind brought the oversweet scent of decaying roses, and the iron tang of blood.
In one sick moment, he realized where he was—or when. The light was on in his parents’ room: they had been awakened by the housemaid. There had been a knock at the door; two men had arrived. And he stood where he had hidden almost twenty years ago, waiting for his life to end.
“No,” he said, very quietly. He knew nobody would hear him; he didn’t even know whom he was talking to. He said it anyway. “No, not here.”
It was then that he saw the figure coming toward him out of the trees. He would never have seen it in the darkness normally, even with his spectacles. But this was not the physical world, and his mind’s eye was clear.
“Maximilien Robespierre,” the figure said. A male voice, soft and precise. Its owner stopped a few feet away—a tall, slender shadow among shadows in the grass. “This is interesting.”
“What is?” Robespierre demanded—angrily, to cover real fear. His heart was racing. This was not a dream, though he’d been here in dreams before. This was magic. “Who are you?”