Chapter Five #2
‘Well, it would help if you could tell me more about the situation,’ she hedged.
But to make a physical, tangible magical object that not only amended the fate of those who held it, of one or two named souls, but any person’s memory .
. . it was more than she had ever endeavoured to craft before.
She didn’t know how to approach such a task and feared it might be beyond her Compendium’s reach, too.
Usually when a person made a request, both the action and price needed wove through her own thoughts, but this time, nothing happened.
The path forward was unclear. Perhaps she ought to refuse.
‘Nothing you feel uncomfortable with sharing, but if I could know more about what you intend to use the key for—’ She spread her hands.
Malek gave a solemn nod. ‘Jana has always been more free-spirited than I—’ He took a hefty breath.
‘Seeking adventure, dissatisfied with a small life. It started with a wager from a man she admired.’ Malek’s sigh was rough.
‘I confess she has not admitted the finer details to me; she is my sister, you understand,’ he said uncomfortably as Thea gave him a sympathetic smile.
‘From what I have pieced together, she lost the wager and as forfeit has signed her life away to this man.’ A note of anger sang through his voice.
‘She must work for him, carry out his bidding . . . live with him.’ He shook his head, staring out the window for a beat.
Thea prickled with anger on Jana’s behalf.
‘I need that key so that I can not only enter their dwelling but search for the relevant legal documents. Their house is well guarded and I do not wish for my sister’s captor to learn even a hint of my intentions, lest he move her somewhere less accessible to me.
If I can get my hands on those documents, I can hire solicitors, begin to unpick this . . . bargain between them.’
It all sounded uncomfortably familiar. ‘It might be easier if I were to speak with your sister herself . . .’ Thea began, thinking hard.
Surely there must be a way she could craft such an object.
Fate was ephemeral, amending it an invisible project, but Thea had spent the past seven years stocking Stiltskin’s Apothecary with all manner of potions and elixirs; vials and jars brimming with tangible products.
What if there was a way to combine the two – fate-weaving and potions – to forge a physical object with fate-weaving properties?
‘No.’ Malek looked directly at her. ‘My sister cannot leave or receive visitors. I would fear exacerbating her situation.’
‘Leave it with me,’ Thea said with determination.
‘Though it will not come without cost, a price that cannot be paid with coin,’ she warned, her chest constricting at the thought of asking for the kind of price that those services would require, a world apart from the way he was regarding her now, tender and soft and relieved.
She could have bottled that gaze and sold it as liquid happiness.
Still no price presented itself in the usual manner.
Thea was intrigued; did this mean this key could not be done, or that it was going to be harder than she’d imagined to make it?
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been challenged like this.
‘I understand what I am asking for. You have my sincerest gratitude.’ Malek did not surrender her hand. Nor his gaze. Thea’s pulse scudded. ‘Though I do not wish for Jana to pay whatever price this demands. If I ask you for help, it is my price and I can at least spare her that.’
Thea softened. ‘You are a kinder man than most.’
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Jasper’s dry, disapproving voice punctured Thea’s happiness.
Realising she was still holding onto Malek’s hand, the pads of his fingers pressing her palm, Thea released him, straightening behind the counter. ‘Just serving my customers.’ Thea smoothed her apron down, wishing she could smooth her emotions down as well.
Jasper was dressed in mercurial grey, a dark cloud to Thea’s sunshine, his mood stark against Malek’s good-natured manner.
A flock of pixies entered the apothecary, their tiny elfin faces freezing as they spotted Jasper.
With a small squawk, they darted back out of the door.
Even magical folk feared people who could work the strings of fate like a puppet master.
‘Why are you here in the day?’ Thea frowned as a weather-witch also decided against coming inside, though her gaze panned over Jasper’s face once, then twice.
Thea scowled at her; if she was going to ogle Jasper, she might as well have just entered the apothecary.
‘There is apothecary business I must discuss with you. At once.’ Jasper’s pinched stare flitted to Malek. ‘Privately.’
Malek glanced between Thea and Jasper. ‘Stiltskin’s Apothecary,’ he said slowly. ‘Then you, I presume, are Pan Stiltskin?’
‘Lord Stiltskin,’ Jasper corrected.
Malek gave him a gentlemanly nod. ‘Malek Jaromir.’
Jasper stared as if Malek was a fly in need of swatting. Thea glared at him from behind Malek’s back until Jasper sighed and doffed his cocked hat, folded at the brim. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ Jasper said stiffly, and not at all sincerely.
Malek’s smile was fading fast. Yet not to be deterred, he turned his back on Jasper, leant an elbow on the counter and dropped his voice, eking out a moment of intimacy between them to tell Thea, ‘I must leave now but I shall return shortly.’
Thea’s gaze drifted over Malek’s shoulder onto Jasper.
Jasper, who looked as if he was trying to set Malek alight with his stare.
If Malek was summer, bright and airy with that irresistible smile that dimpled his left cheek, then Jasper was winter.
Dark and cold. Cold enough to burn. It was a wonder Malek could not feel Jasper’s gaze burrowing between his shoulder blades like a dagger.
Thea rewarded his patience with her brightest smile, the one that Talibah had once told her was as golden as her hair, gilded like a sunset.
Malek blinked for a moment. Then he fumbled out a goodbye and left, barely acknowledging Jasper, who stood there, glowering.
‘You ought to be careful or you will give him a false idea of your feelings,’ Jasper ground out.
‘Have you not considered that perhaps I gave him the exact measure of my feelings?’ Thea shot back.
Jasper’s nostrils flared. It was the sole sign she had rattled him and Thea clung onto it, secretly delighted.
‘It’s bad business to become involved with our customers.’ Jasper’s voice knotted over the word involved as if it physically pained him to speak it.
‘He isn’t a customer,’ Thea lied. ‘He came here for me. To visit me,’ she amended, flushing.
Jasper tracked her flush as it travelled down her neck and over her collarbones. His fingers flexed at his side. ‘I see,’ he said at last.
‘I do not allow my missing heart to keep me from courting who I wish.’ It was an untruth but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how their bargain affected her.
Jasper looked disbelieving. Perhaps her face was disobeying her again; Thea’s thoughts tended to run away with themselves and write her emotions across her face for all to read.
‘What a relief,’ he said, in a tone that sounded anything but relieved. ‘After all, we would not want you to miss out on any . . . romantic opportunities, Thea.’
Her name sounded like a shadow on his lips.
A dark promise, a sharp hatred. It roused her temper, that slumbering dragon within her.
If anyone was no friend to her, it was Jasper.
Jasper, who had continued speaking while she’d been lost in thought.
Impatience rolled from him. ‘Are you that infatuated with the man that you cannot hear?’ Jasper’s eyebrows pulled up with his disbelief.
Thea ignored his mood; it was nothing new. Jasper was grumpy as often as there were clouds in the sky. ‘What did you come to tell me? We are alone, thanks to you scaring off any customers, so speak your mind.’
He scowled. ‘I came to warn you. I have learnt that a band of Magic Hunters are sniffing around. They must have heard rumours of the Magic Quarter and decided to investigate for themselves. I’ve done some investigating of my own and they’re headed up by one court-appointed Hunter, Pan Novak, who is as notorious for his cruelty as he is his hatred of magic.
He is an ambitious man, and I fear he sees this as his chance to rise to power.
The wards ought to prohibit him from entering the Quarter, but should he worm his way through, do not bring his ire upon you – you must comply with anything he asks of you.
I will deal with him myself, do you hear me? ’
‘I’m afraid your news is coming a little too late for that.’ Thea caught herself before she winced. ‘Pan Novak came into the Gingerbread House yesterday while I was there and—’
Jasper let out a pained sigh. ‘Why did you not send me a raven?’
Thea winced, remembering his request.
‘What did you do?’ he continued.
‘Why do you assume I did anything?’
‘Because I know you.’
‘Barely.’ Thea relented. ‘I may have been on the defensive and . . . drawn his attention more than I intended to. Rose called a meeting of all residents to try and figure out how he managed to break past the wards and—’ She swallowed, her heart-spell shifting behind her ribs as Jasper focused on her face, waiting for her to continue.
‘And his entry wasn’t the only sign that something’s wrong with the wards.
’ She glanced at the crack running across the ceiling.