The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) Read online

  “My goodness,” Bradley uttered, “what a place this is, Lily. Beautiful. Just, beautiful.”

  “Nice to see you,” Lily offered, choosing to tactfully ignore his love-struck smile. “I wouldn’t recommend sitting in the front row, since it’s your first time here.”

  “Oh,” the professor answered, some semblance of normality returning to his features. His eyes flickered to the left just slightly, as if he might have given a forlorn glance back over his shoulder at the thought of not being close to the stage. “Right-o. I’ll take your word for it.”

  Baptiste was always at his most attractive when he played his role as MC, and even the arrival of Michael Sampson did not deter the bloodshade from his charm onslaught. Michael swaggered to the much taller gent and handed him his ticket, sweeping past even as Baptiste welcomed him, so that he was standing right in front of Lily before the MC’s words had even ended.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand vaguely. “I know the drill. I know what I’m here for.”

  Michael’s eyes held Lily’s for a long moment, their gaze as bitter as each other’s. Lily felt Michael’s cocky hatred with such strength that it seemed to leave a foul taste in her mouth when he finally made his way into the theatre, striding to a seat smack-bang in the middle of the front row. Everything was just as he’d promised it would be, and Lily couldn’t help the wild tremor of suspense that flooded her every nerve as she watched him sitting there so expectantly.

  “Trouble tonight,” Baptiste said behind her, his tone low and void of pleasantries. “It’s in the air already.”

  Lily and Baptiste rarely agreed on anything anymore, but she nodded slowly as her eyes roved up to the dark recesses of the Imaginique’s stage, where the great blood-red curtains were ready to rise.

  *

  The transition from usherette to stagehand was a welcome one, and Lily felt a lot more relaxed when she stood beside Novel in the dark wings of the theatre, a short while later. The first few acts of the night had gone as well as they usually did, with Zita Bosko performing unbelievable feats of twisted contortionism, and the Sewards throwing tomahawks at a mock-screaming Dharma as she spun on a revolving disc, skirts flying everywhere. The Slovak Twins were currently part-way through the Bladeplay act that they often started the performing season with, and Novel would be next on the bill.

  It had been weeks since Lily had last seen him made up for the stage, and her first glance at his powdered face and painted black lips sent her reeling back to the wasted visage in her dreams. After she’d shaken herself from that moment, she handed Novel his jacket, holding it up at the shoulders so that he might shift into its long sleeves. She knew he had sensed her moment of fear by the way he turned, eyes sharp as they travelled all over her face, like he was doing an inventory of her emotions. She reached for him in a way that she hadn’t for quite some time, her palms resting on the velvet sleeves of his suit.

  “It’s nearly the end of the month, you know,” she said in as kind a tone as she could manage. “Have you solved the mysterious problem on your own yet?”

  Novel had been tense the whole night, carrying with him the same strange trepidation that Lily and Baptiste had felt in the foyer. He cast his pale eyes up into the high rafters of the theatre for a moment, dark lips twitching in a barely-perceivable grimace, then his focus was back on her face.

  “I have a feeling I’ll find out tonight,” he replied.

  The answer was so grave, his voice fuelled by such terrible uncertainty, that Lily forgot her irritation and brushed a swift kiss to his lips. The sudden embrace shocked Novel enough that Lily felt the zap of a tiny lightning bolt on her cheek, but she let the kiss linger through the sting. It took several hesitant seconds before Novel’s hands came to rest on Lily’s back, but even as they did, the audience beyond the wings were starting to applaud wildly. Sure enough, the smooth and elegant voice of Baptiste Du Nord soon graced the echoing recesses of the grand Victorian building.

  Killing the mood at every turn, Lily thought as Novel let her go.

  “Your raucous applause, please, for Monsieur Novel!”

  His intro came, and Novel waited, as he always did, for the applause to die out before he graced the stage. Baptiste had exited to the other wing, which left Lily alone as she watched the odd Monsieur begin his latest display. It was not the fire-building dance that she had seen him rehearsing earlier in the month, but an acrobatic display of lightning and flames, that patrons would, later, undoubtedly believe was all down to wires and an impressive array of laser projections. For her part, Lily stood in the darkness and revelled in every inch of magic that burst from the illusionist, her breath caught in wonder. She held the faint hope that she herself could have such power and control someday.

  It was then that Lily marvelled that the man the audience gaped at was her man. Novel was a man who loved her, in his own way, and one who had tried his hardest to protect her, even when she fought against him. The remarkable magician, who was bowing even at that moment to a sea of stupefied faces, was her Kindred Soul, and Lily fancied that she was being foolish, letting suspicion and secrets ruin what they’d found together. It was a slow-burning revelation, one that brought a smile to Lily’s face that felt truer than any she’d felt in uncountable days.

  And it was whilst that smile was forming that a strange creaking noise echoed high above her. Lily barely registered the sound as it resonated within the audience’s applause. What she did see, however, was the way Novel’s pale ear gave a twitch, his eyes rushing to the very same place in the rafters that he’d spotted whilst she’d been standing there in the wings with him. A half-second passed, perhaps less, before the great crashing noise came down overhead, and Novel took flight with the barest flick of his heels before Lily could even look up in surprise.

  The impact hit Lily with the same force as the illusionist’s magic had on the roof, knocking all the wind of out her lungs as Novel smashed into her stomach. His hands were clamped to her hips as he bulleted them both farther back into the theatre’s recesses, almost to the place where the dressing room corridors branched off on the far left-hand wall. It was like a car screeching on its brakes, the way they came to a sudden stop just shy of colliding with the damningly solid wall, but Lily had little time to notice that near miss of injury. She was far too focused on the other near miss: the one Novel had just saved her from.

  The creak and the crash had been made by a stage light the size of an armchair. The huge contraption had fallen into the exact space where Lily had been standing, seconds before, and now it had burst straight through the floorboards and wedged itself deep in the ground there. Lily clung to Novel’s shoulder, their hearts pounding with the same terrified rhythm. They both stared at the spot where she would have been crushed to death, if not for the pricking of the illusionist’s keen ears. Lily swallowed with the driest throat of her life, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the collapsed light as she tried to make her trembling lips form the words she wanted to say.

  You knew, she thought, feeling Novel’s tight grip that now bruised her hips with its ferocity. You looked up there before. You knew. You knew.

  It would have taken her far too long to get the thoughts straight in her shock, but Novel spared her the trouble as he pulled her close. His lips brushed her ear with heavy, stunted breaths, and he whispered fearfully when he answered her unspoken thoughts.

  “I’ll tell you what’s happening,” he promised. “I’ll tell you tonight.”

  Seven Years To Go

  It was another round-table gathering, though the mood in the kitchen was nowhere near as curious as it had been when Jazzy had revealed her Second Sight gifts. After the October show at the Theatre Imaginique, it was as if nobody wanted to know what had caused the mammoth light to crash, or the widespread panic and fleeing of the audience that followed it. In the wake of the theatre’s major disaster, everyone around Lily looked exhausted, and Lily herself was fairly certain she was only breathing because sh
ock was still powering her brain.

  Like the choking fit in the cafeteria, and falling down the stairs in Bradley’s first lecture, Lily’s heart was hammering with the fear of near misses. The more of them that happened, the less it felt like a coincidence, and now she was pacing the space between Eva’s stove and the fridge, her feet striding sharply, as if she was merely waiting for the next bout of chaos to occur. The eyes of the entire assembled troupe – minus Salem, yet again – were fixed on her, as if she could provide the answers they sought for the unprecedented calamity the light had caused, and Lily felt the weight of their expectancy even when she looked away.

  Novel should have been there to explain. He had promised as much, no less than an hour ago, but Lily hadn’t seen him since he’d given the order for them all to gather in the kitchen. To Lily’s intense displeasure, Baptiste was also missing from the group. When she could stand the silent, inquiring stares of the Imaginique’s performers no longer, Lily changed her spritely pace, and bolted right out of the room. She strode down the corridor, intent on climbing the stairs to seek Novel out, but the briefest glance down the hallway froze her in her tracks.

  The illusionist was standing in the foyer, just visible through a two-inch gap in the door that marked the corridor as Private: Staff Only. And he was crying. Novel’s shoulders shook with the kind of intense sadness that Lily had never even pictured him feeling, and his pale face – now devoid of stage makeup – was shimmering with salt water. One hand covered his brow and eyes, the other clutching at his stomach with tight-fisted tension, crushing the soft black fabric of his fine waistcoat between strained fingers. His lips, the lips that Lily had kissed not long ago, were turned in a raw grimace, half panic, half sorrow, as he began to speak in the dimly-lit space.

  “I just…” Novel stumbled over his words. “Is it enough? I don’t feel like I’m doing enough for her.”

  Lily padded closer to the gap in the doorway, watching as a hand rose to rest on Novel’s shoulder. Its long nails and the wrist-bracelet filled with tiny, grey bones made her freeze once again, as if a stone had dropped into her stomach. Baptiste’s grip on Novel was strangely gentle, and the illusionist let go of his face to throw his head back, sucking up the tears his wracked sobbing had produced.

  “It’s all you can do for now,” Baptiste replied, his voice as low and serene as ever it had been. “Get in there. She’s waiting on you.”

  And Lily wished that Novel hadn’t found his resolve so quickly, because she really didn’t want to be standing there when he suddenly pushed the staff-only door wide open. But the dim golden light from the foyer’s chandelier bathed her in its glow, and Novel’s tear-stained skin was cast into shadow as their mutually-shocked expressions met. Lily stood, open-mouthed and quite incapable of changing that look, breathing so hard that she could see her chest rising in the very limits of her vision. Novel stepped closer, taking hold of her hands in that wordless moment, and Lily saw the bright flame of their matched souls as it sparked into life.

  It gave her hope, and the strength to smile. And that was all Novel seemed to need to dry the very last of his tears.

  *

  “I trust you all recall Lily’s account of the events of last August,” Novel said, his stern features fully replaced as he addressed the kitchen full of performers. “When Maxime Schoonjans used the enchanted mirror in my dressing room to pass a message to us all?”

  Lily nodded along with the others, now seated beside Jazzy and holding fast to her friend’s hand. Novel’s intense sorrow still hung in the back of Lily’s mind, but the strength he had found by the time they re-entered the kitchen was inspiring enough to keep her rapt with hope.

  “Lily smashed the mirror,” Lawrence interjected, his expression one of fascination. “That’s how we heard it.”

  “Indeed she did,” Novel answered, biting his lip for one small, tense moment. “Many of you know how I feel about superstitions, but not all of you know the reason why. Where most beings can get by if they step beneath a ladder or knock over a shaker of salt, the shadeborn are rather more susceptible to such instances of-”

  “Bad luck?” Dharma interjected. “That’s why you won’t let me have peacock feathers in-”

  “I do not believe in luck,” Novel spoke over her, his tone louder, but quaking a little more than before. “Luck has nothing to do with breaking a mirror.”

  “Seven years,” Lily murmured, and she met Novel’s eyes with a tremor of worry returning to her own. She could remember Salem saying something about shades and broken mirrors, and how ‘seven years bad luck’ was more than a throwaway phrase when you belonged to the caste of the shadeborn.

  “Lily’s actions with the mirror have resulted in a curse being laid upon her,” Novel surmised. “I’ve been watching the situation carefully in order to confirm it, but I think we can all conclude that, after tonight, the state of affairs needs attention.”

  There was a murmur of voices, but Novel let one pale hand rise until he had silence again.

  “It is time to take action, and lift the curse as best we can. Baptiste will deliver a message to-”

  “What am I, your carrier pigeon now?”

  The MC’s interjection might have sounded like a joke in any other circumstance, but in the tense air of the theatre’s kitchen, his words cut like a challenge. Novel met his eyes with a frost-filled glare, and any compassion that Lily had mistakenly witnessed between the two men seemed to die in the space between their eye-lines. Baptiste bowed his head and let out a long, tense sigh.

  “To whom do I send this message?”

  “To London first,” Novel continued, his glare abating, “and then to the other Great Cities, should we receive no reply. We are in dire need of a potioneer, one skilled enough to lift the curse before…”

  The illusionist cut his own words short, his eyes meeting Lily’s. A shiver ran straight up her spine, like he’d shot her with only a look.

  “Well,” Novel stumbled, holding her gaze, “as soon as possible, shall we say?”

  Novel and Baptiste left at once to compose the request for a potioneer, and the remainder of the troupe slowly filtered out of the kitchen. Lily wasn’t thrilled at the sight of their half-satisfied expressions, nor was she inspired by the way each of them looked sharply about their surroundings, as though they might be next to catch some of Lily’s rotten luck. It was only Jazzy and Lawrence who stayed with her, Jazzy still clutching at her hand in her defiant best friend style. Lily exchanged a grateful smile with Jazzy, but she was more than a little disturbed by Lawrence. His dark features were suddenly gloomy, half-captured by his inner thoughts.

  “Oi,” Lily said, snapping her fingers before his eyes. “Cut that out. I can only handle one brooding figure per theatre right now.”

  Lawrence’s focus slowly returned to the room, and he spared Jazzy a thoughtful glance before his big brown eyes fixed solely on Lily.

  “Novel said a curse had been laid upon you,” the voodoo boy reiterated.

  “Right,” Lily answered, cocking a confused brow at him.

  Jazzy squeezed her hand an instant later, and Lily switched her gaze to her friend’s bright face. Jazzy was staring beyond them both again, but this time her eyes were rapt with imagination, not visions.

  “Laid upon you,” she repeated, “his exact words. A curse was laid upon you…”

  Her glasses slipped down her nose as she quirked a fearful, inquisitive brow.

  “So who laid it?”

  November

  The Quiet American

  Salem was finally free from his confinement. Lily discovered this by accident, when she burst into the attic space of the theatre with a loud, childish huff. In a flurry of air magic, Lily had the old wooden door flying open with a bang, and inside the dark, wide space, a shadowy figure jumped. At the sight of him jumping, Lily jumped too, and the force of her magic treated her to a hard crack where her head connected with the lintel. As her feet shot down to find the gr
ound once more, Lily looked sourly towards the other end of the room, where Salem’s familiar shape came into view among the shadows.

  “You frightened me to death,” Lily scolded, rubbing at the crown of her scalp viciously.

  “Lucky you,” came Salem’s flat reply.

  In just a few weeks of the older shade’s confinement, he’d managed to make himself look more ragged than ever. A black and silver beard had sprouted in full from his proud chin, sprawling up to match the hair above it, now shaggy and in dire need of a cut. Only Salem’s cobalt blue eyes shone through the rangy mess of hair and frowns, and Lily found her anger fading almost as quickly as it had come upon her. When she closed the attic door behind her – by hand this time, just in case – Salem continued to sit motionless on the battered old sofa opposite her. Even when Lily flicked the switch that bathed the room in light, the once-great shade still looked like he was surrounded by darkness somehow.

  “Sorry,” Lily sighed, “it’s been a hell of week.”

  She crossed the grubby floorboards of the rehearsal space and sat down at the other end of the sofa. A little cloud of dust rose in a mushroom from the space between the cushions, and Salem turned his head to watch it form, and then vanish into the air. He looked older than Lily had ever seen him, and she wondered if the lack of magic in his blood had done that, or if that was simply the way people looked when they didn’t care about anything anymore.

  “It’s not your fault anyway,” she said, trying yet again to break his reticence. “I’m cursed, in case no-one told you.”