The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) Page 4

  “Thank you dear,” she soothed.

  Mother Novel was draped in her usual black clothing, a dress lined with lace and a bonnet that covered part of her dark, curling tresses. Her face held a pale, smooth beauty despite her declining years, yet Lemarick couldn’t help but notice the bony withering of her hands. The darkness within her was starting to show on the surface. Lemarick took his seat opposite her at the dining table as he watched her bright eyes roving over the selection of cold meats and cheeses between them. Even as he watched, certain foods began to shift around the table, plates rising and falling until his mother had what she wanted before her. She’d always had what she wanted. Lemarick had made sure of that as the years went by.

  “I thought we’d work on water again today,” Mother suggested as she prepared a piece of bread.

  Lemarick wanted to groan, but he remained proud and seemingly unfazed by the comment. Water was his enemy: the one element he had never had any luck in mastering, save for removing the occasional droplet of split wine from the collar of his shirt. The young shade simply shook his head politely.

  “I’m afraid I have to decline Mother,” he replied. “I believe you have forgotten the date today.”

  If she was indeed angry, then the barest flicker of anger glowed in Mother Novel’s eyes for less than a second. It was hard even for Lemarick to tell what that flash of emotion meant, but he knew that in that moment, a thousand thoughts had raced through her age-old mind before she gave her considered reply.

  “You have made plans?” she asked.

  Lemarick gave a little shrug. “They were made for me,” he said. “Edvard is calling on me after breakfast. I have no idea where we’re going.”

  Mother released her breakfast knife slowly and deliberately. It came to rest on the table with an echoing thud. She discarded her food and put her bony fingertips together, eyes bright as she considered her son. After a tense moment, she pointed at him thoughtfully.

  “You are too much like your father, you know,” she said.

  It wasn’t the worst insult she had ever given Lemarick – she said far more hurtful things when his skills didn’t live up to her expectations – but the mention of his father always managed to sting Lemarick in a deep place where he could do nothing to soothe the wound. Mother meant, of course, that following Edvard’s spontaneity was something that the infamous Salem Cross would have done without even thinking it to be a bad idea. The difference, Lemarick reminded himself, was that he knew it was a bad idea, but he was doing it anyway. He wasn’t sure whether that made him better or worse than his father, but it certainly didn’t make them one and the same.

  “Yes Mother,” was all Lemarick said out loud despite his inner dialogue.

  “Oh well,” the dark lady sighed, “I suppose since you’ve made the arrangement you ought to go. It is only polite. You’ll come back at the end of the morning to continue your training. I can attend to other business in the city until then.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Lemarick replied again.

  He knew better than to ask what business exactly. Mother Novel used her title to its full advantage in the city of Paris, gaining information and notoriety wherever she went. The methods she used to do this were secret from her son, and he suspected that they would always be so. Questioning them only ever resulted in Mother getting angry and that wasn’t a sight Lemarick was prepared to see ever again, if he could help it.

  Mother abandoned her breakfast part-way through and called upon a windowmaker to take her away, leaving Lemarick to once again peer out of the townhouse window as he awaited the arrival of his friend. Lemarick donned a top hat on his crown of fair blonde hair and adjusted an emerald neckerchief about his throat. Colour was fashionable these days, but he could only tolerate a dash here and there. He could already imagine, with no small amount of horror, what Edvard might be wearing to hit the town. Lemarick hoped that Ugarte would still be with him to use her calming influence. The pair were usually inseparable but, when they fought, Ugarte often took herself back to Spain for months at a time, before she would accept Edvard’s numerous apologies and come travelling once again.

  Lemarick needn’t have worried. Ugarte came into view some way up the street, gliding down the busy avenue in a striking black and white creation. Corsets and feathered hats were the height of Paris fashion, but the Spanish beauty had done away with all the wild accessories, leaving the lines of her dress to show off her true curvaceous shape. Lemarick moved quickly through the dining room and let himself out onto the street, walking up to meet her some distance from the rented house.

  “You never let me reach the doorbell,” Ugarte said with a quirked brow. “Is your mother really that bad?”

  Lemarick managed a curl in his lip, but he knew better than to indulge himself in complaining about Mother. She had given him everything, when his father left him with nothing. It wasn’t proper to besmirch that, however controlling she could be.

  “You are unescorted?” Lemarick asked, taking Ugarte’s hand and placing it on the crook of his elbow.

  “Ed’s found a new toy,” she answered with a roll of her sea green eyes, “he’ll be along shortly. We’re to wait here.”

  They stepped out of the path of the growing crowds, nearer to the curb of the street where hardly any carriages were passing. It was a bright, warm day, the sort that inspired people to want to walk. Lemarick felt his skin crawling a little at the bustle all around him.

  “You’re getting very pale,” Ugarte told him. He felt her hand squeeze his arm just a little tighter. “Perhaps we could take you on a holiday. The Americas are beautiful in the summertime.”

  Lemarick shook his head without even considering the idea.

  “I have far too much work to do here,” he replied. “Mother wants me to find my glamour before the end of the season. She says it’s remarkably close.”

  “Glamour?” Ugarte said, her brow creasing.

  Lemarick sometimes forgot Ugarte’s youth, and not everyone had had the intense magical education that Mother Novel so dutifully provided her son.

  “The mark of a shade’s maximum power,” Lemarick explained. “Mother’s certain that my training isn’t far off reaching the full maxim of my strength.”

  “I don’t like the thought that she’s forcing you to change, Lemarick.”

  Ugarte said it so softly that he barely heard her on the busy street. He tried to shrug the words off, convincing himself that she simply didn’t understand the need for such great power.

  “It’s only a change in my appearance,” he mused.

  Ugarte turned to him, eyes wide as saucers.

  “Can you be sure of that?” she asked.

  Their moment of trepidation was broken by the sound of an obnoxious horn blasting down the street. The whole gathering on the avenue came to a dead stop, all eyes fixed on a bizarre contraption coming down the road. It was a bright red carriage with the upper section ripped off, but it was not being propelled by horses. Lemarick surveyed the machine for a steam vent indicating some sort of locomotion, but there was none. This, he realised with dread, was one of those new automobile things. He then realised, with further dread, that he recognised the driver.

  “Bonjour!” Edvard Schoonjans said, waving his top hat at the whole street from behind the steering sticks of the invention.

  Lemarick stepped up to the contraption as it came to a bumpy stop, leaning on the bright red chassis. His friend was bedecked in a lurid yellow suit which, irritatingly enough, suited him extremely well. Lemarick was determined not to give an ounce of praise for Ed’s inimitable style, and he frowned at the machine very deliberately.

  “If you expect me to ride in this death-trap…” he began, but Ed was quick to cut him off with a loud proclamation.

  “Internal combustion!” Ed boomed. “If Peugeot can do it, then so can I!”

  A few people on the street even gave him a little applause. This was a mistake, for Edvard started bowing left, right and cen
tre, forcing Lemarick to get into the back of the carriage to get him to force him back into his seat, before he made even more of spectacle of himself. Ugarte followed, leaving Lemarick no room to protest as Ed started his engine once again. He was filled with excitement like a toddler, and had all the skill of one as a driver.

  “If you think this is good, wait until we get to the Populaire!” Ed cried. “I have even more to show you.”

  “If we get there alive, that is!” Ugarte replied with a chuckle.

  Lemarick closed his eyes, gripping his seat for dear life as the automobile trundled on.

  The Inventor

  Edvard had been working in the Populaire opera house at Montmartre for several months, though Lemarick had only been able to escape the rigours of his training a handful of times to visit him there. Over the last century, Montmartre had transformed from a mining facility into a cosmopolitan marketplace: the prime location for dreamers, artists and rebels to congregate. Lemarick couldn’t claim to be any of those things, so when Ed’s new automobile rolled up to the opera house entrance, he felt more than a little uncomfortable with the crowd that it attracted.

  “Is there a performance on?” Lemarick asked. “There seems to be an awful lot of people here for this time in the morning.”

  Edvard stopped the roar of his engine, leaning back over his seat with his most self-indulgent smile.

  “No, no,” he said with unabashed false modesty, “They’re just here to see me.”

  He alighted into the sea of suits and frocks that were clamouring to admire his vehicle. Ugarte just rolled her eyes and followed him, making Lemarick the last to depart. The bright sunlight and the rickety journey had made his thoughts a little hazy and the young shade passed through the hollering horde without really taking them in. He heard only snatches of the praise they were delivering to his friend as the voices cried out from all angles.

  “You have saved me a spot at the front, haven’t you Eddie?”

  “I don’t know how you’ve done it, Monsieur, but I can scarcely wait to see it!”

  “Mark this name, ladies and gentlemen: Schoonjans. The next great inventor!”

  “Edison, eat your heart out!”

  It was a slow process by which Lemarick realised that the crowd was not talking about the automobile. Edvard led the throng of people into the splendid golden foyer of the Populaire, where a circular display was guarded by a thick crimson curtain. Standing beside the veiled structure were a gaggle of dancing girls, whose costumes consisted of more beads than they did fabric. Each one had a golden veil draped across their cheekbones, leaving only their eyes visible between the veil and the shimmering headdresses that crowned their slicked back hair.

  “Do you know any old tricks to get Ed off an obsession?” Ugarte asked Lemarick as they reached the line-up of girls. “I don’t like where this fancy for harem girls is taking him.”

  Lemarick did not answer, for something about the women had taken his attention away. Ugarte gave a huff, muttering something about all men being the same, but Lemarick’s pale blue eyes had locked on one young woman in the group, one who was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Some ringlets of her dark hair had escaped the lacquer and the headdress, ebony locks drifting across an impossibly pale brow as she tilted her head down towards the floor. Her dark eyes and long lashes sparked a rush of panic in Lemarick’s chest. He raced to Edvard’s side and threw a hand to his shoulder.

  “That girl in the centre of your troupe,” he began, trying not to lose sight of her in the mass. “Do I know her?”

  Ed laughed, batting his friend’s hand away and keeping his smile turned on the crowd.

  “I don’t know, do you?” he chuckled. “They all look the same to me.”

  Lemarick Novel had been walking the earth for over a century. He had seen many faces as the years went by, yet this girl’s was one he felt he knew. He was just starting to consider exactly how improper it would seem to ask the young woman to remove her veil, when Edvard clapped his hands together loudly, drawing silence from the eager crowd. The shade was resplendent in his yellow tailored suit as he flashed his charming grin at the patrons, one hand resting on the crimson curtain that covered the stage behind him.

  “Madames and Monsieurs, it is my delight to present, for your viewing pleasure, my latest creation: L’orchestre Mecanique!”

  His attention torn away from the mysterious dancer at last, Lemarick watched as the heavy curtains were swept aside to reveal a raised stage full of musical instruments. An entire orchestra’s worth of instruments sat on the stage, but there were no seats or spaces provided for musicians to take them up. Instead there was only Ed, who turned his back on his waiting audience and stood before the stage in the style of a conductor. He raised his empty hands, fingers extended like those of a seasoned pianist.

  “One, two, three, four, one, two, three and-”

  The instruments had barely been playing themselves before the crowd broke into rapturous applause. Edvard turned to receive yet more praise but met first with Lemarick’s suspicious, questioning look. He gave his friend a smug smile in reply, his bright eyes screaming ‘I’ll tell you later’. Ed reached for Ugarte’s slender hand and guided her out in front of the stage, starting to dance to the melody that his contraptions were now unfolding. Lemarick could feel the shademagic humming from the band as other patrons formed couples and took to the floor, but he knew it would be quite some time before he’d have the opportunity to question Ed about his curious new creations.

  “Would you care to dance, Monsieur?”

  The question shocked Lemarick almost as much as the sight of the girl who’d asked it. Once all the established couples had taken to the floor, there were a lot of bachelors left over, and Lemarick now understood that the dancing girls of the opera house were present to make up the numbers. The girl who had asked him to dance still kept her eyes to the ground, her pale brow creased in worry as she awaited his response. They must have known each other, for Lemarick knew he was not the type that girls were inclined to dance with.

  “I have never danced before,” he replied in earnest. “Is it easy?”

  The familiar girl gave a nervous chuckle, shuffling so that her beaded costume gave a jingle.

  “You shan’t know if you’ll take to it, unless you try it,” she said.

  If he was going to keep the girl present until he could fathom where he knew her from, then Lemarick had no choice but to try something new. He offered a gloved hand to the dark-haired ingénue and let her lead him towards the sound of violins.

  Something New

  The girl told Lemarick that she was not allowed to give him her name and, save for explaining the steps of the waltz to him, she said very little else for the duration of the dance. When the music came to a halt, the dancing girls raced away and out of the foyer entirely, making it impossible for Lemarick to pursue more information as to where he might have met the girl before. All he knew was that she was pale, young and French, which didn’t narrow the pool of his acquaintances down an awful lot.

  What Lemarick had learned, however, was that he had a natural grace for dance. The itch to replay the music and practise the steps to perfection plagued the young shade, even after the rest of Ed’s doting fans had left the foyer. When they were gone, Ugarte sealed the entrance doors to give the shade trio some privacy, unleashing a sigh of relief that could have blown the doors off a cathedral.

  “No more spectacles for a while, Ed,” she said, half-pleading, half-chiding. “You’re getting a fat head from all the applause.”

  Lemarick had never been prone to jealousy, but even he found himself in awe of the recognition that Ed had received for his invention. Training his own skills with Mother only ever brought Lemarick praise from his house and his own kind. Out in the wider world, he was little more than a conspicuously pale gentleman who hardly ever smiled. He was starting to wonder if there wasn’t something more to life than science and the shadeborn, and he had thought
about it more and more when the music and rhythm of the dance beat in time to his elevated heart.

  “Come and see how it works, Lemarick,” Ed offered with an eager wave.

  Ugarte looked fit to burst with exhausted frustration, but when Ed swept her along in his arms, the young woman’s resolve began to soften again. The inventor pulled back the casing of a nearby viola to reveal its secrets. Ed had called the orchestra ‘Mecanique’ for the adoring crowd, but now Lemarick looked into the hollow of the instrument with a puzzled frown.

  “Are those… crystals?” he asked.

  “Rose quartz,” Ed replied proudly. “I imbued them with my gravity powers and the instruments did the rest, once I set them to begin. They pull their own strings using my stored energy, and a little musical knowhow, of course.”

  Lemarick crouched in front of the display and opened the casings of a few violins, running his fingertips over the prism-shaped crystals attached to their insides. He could feel the hum of Ed’s power within them, a new excitement rising in his heart and mind as his curiosity grew. The concept was immense: science and magic and music as one.

  “This is amazing,” he breathed.

  “I know,” Edvard beamed.

  “Don’t you start, Lemarick,” Ugarte beamed. “He’s had enough hubris for one day.”

  Lemarick could hardly think straight with the rush of possibilities that struck his mind all at once. There were so many new avenues of magic for him to explore, yet so many things he needed to master and understand before he could explore them. He needed to experience music, rhythm, movement, pitch, tone and so much more. The chiming of a clock broke Lemarick from his vivid aspirations. As he checked his silver pocketwatch, however, the giddy mirth in his stomach was quickly replaced by what felt like a lump of lead.