Chapter Seven
CHAPTER
Seven
Thea hummed as she changed the raven’s bandage. Just one day later, he was stronger already, eagerly snapping up the worms Thea fed him. Stroking his feathers, she decided to call him Biscuit.
It was a late October day, crisp and golden as honeycomb, one of those days that made it hard to imagine that anything horrible could ever happen, let alone someone nailing a bird to her door last night.
Talibah had already left, assuring Thea that she would be back to check on her soon, but Thea wouldn’t show how shaken the event had left her: she wore her favourite sage-green dress, with embroidered daisies dancing down her stomacher, before adding a dab of rouge to her cheeks and lips.
Painting herself with the confidence she wished she felt.
Customers were thin on the ground. A couple of pixies ransacked the shelves, searching for a truth-telling potion until Thea shooed them away.
She believed they’d been unsuccessful in their mischief until an hour later, when one very red-faced pixie entered alone, begging for an antidote while confessing his undying love for honey fried cake.
The crack on the ceiling remained much the same and Thea began to relax around it, no longer fearing the apothecary would fall apart around her.
Beside her, a mug of spiced apple and cinnamon tea gently steamed, and her Compendium of Magic lay open as she consulted a section entitled: Magical Creatures and the Gifts They Bear.
Beautiful drawings accompanied these pages, painted in delicate pastels.
Firebirds and lake spirits, unicorns and pixies.
Though even Thea scoffed at the notion of a unicorn existing, she couldn’t help half hoping that perhaps one did, hidden deep in the thickest tangle of an ancient forest somewhere.
She was still daydreaming about stumbling across one when something interesting on lake spirits snatched her attention:
Lake spirits are gentle creatures that only wish to live undisturbed in water.
With hair like strands of algae, they can be found hiding beneath large lily pads in the richest, greenest waters.
One strand of their hair, once consumed, may help cure seasickness, whilst a single fingernail, once ground to dust, will enable you to hide in plain sight.
Though heed my caution! Once disturbed, lake creatures are vicious beings and will almost certainly attack.
Thea added A single fingernail from a lake spirit? to the list in her journal, tapping it thoughtfully with her quill.
One of her favourite little story snippets had been penned next to a prancing illustration of a unicorn and she read it again, smiling to herself:
What unexpected joy today! A ray of light lancing through the all-pervasive gloom. A single letter has made it through the raging storms and been delivered straight to my hand, through a crack in my shuttered window:
‘I long for the day I might see you again.’
I sleep with it beneath my pillow and dream with a smile upon my lips, for it is from him, I am certain of it. The flowering season cannot come soon enough. Seeing him again cannot come soon enough.
The bells strung on the apothecary door jangled, making Thea look up. Malek’s face had been running through her head when she’d pulled this dress from her armoire, but her hope was short-lived.
Pan Novak had returned to the Magic Quarter and this time, he was not alone.
Two other men accompanied him, striding into Stiltskin’s Apothecary on his booted heels.
More Magic Hunters. Thea’s hands trembled; there had to be something terribly wrong with the Quarter’s wards to allow this incursion.
All three men were almost indistinguishable from each other with near-identical powdered wigs, painted faces, and scarlet coats and waistcoats over cream breeches.
Thea slowly slid the raven from her counter and onto a shelf below. Biscuit cocked his head at her, clicking his beak shut as if he understood the need for silence. She snapped her journal, then the Compendium shut, turning its title face down.
A couple of local weather-witches made to enter the apothecary in a whirl of sea-blue gowns and gossip when, on spying Pan Novak and his men, they swerved from the door, moving on as if the tide was sweeping them down the street.
Thea sighed inwardly. ‘May I help you with something?’
Pan Novak’s smile was tight and close-lipped. Perfunctory. ‘I am certain that my men will find what we need.’ With a jerk of his head, his companions made their way upstairs, eying the waxing moonlight that flickered as they passed.
‘If I knew what you were looking for—’
‘Evidence.’ Pan Novak’s pupils glittered as he stared at Thea through his spectacles.
She met his stare, steadying herself on the counter. ‘Evidence of what?’
‘I’m interested in seeing if the rumours about this so-called Magic Quarter are true.’ Pan Novak did not blink. ‘I will prove to the councillors that dangerous magic exists in these shops, in these products, threatening their livelihood and the health of the good people of Prague.’
Thea’s hand stiffened on the counter. ‘Most people don’t even believe in magic,’ she said softly. ‘What will you tell them?’
Pan Novak leant in closer. It took everything in Thea not to step back, not to let him see how his sudden proximity affected her. ‘That you’re all charlatans, swindling them out of their hard-earned income.’
Thea suppressed a shiver. ‘So, you’ll be lying to them for your own means.’
Pan Novak’s mouth curved into a semblance of a smile. ‘You can think what you like, but your days here are numbered.’
‘Your motives are purely political,’ Thea realised. ‘It doesn’t matter what you find here, your mind is already decided. It has been since before you took a single step inside the Quarter.’
Pan Novak clicked his tongue. ‘There you are wrong. I shall be taking the proper steps to secure the closure of this Quarter. I am nothing if not diligent.’
Alena Bohmová chose that moment to enter the apothecary. On catching sight of Pan Novak and Thea locked in a silent battle, she pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘Is this man bothering you, dearest?’
A tinkle of broken glass snatched Thea’s attention.
Glancing up at the mezzanine, she gritted her teeth as one of the Hunters roughly swiped an entire shelf of sleeping elixirs into a box.
A cloud of pearly dust swooned in their wake.
Thea smelt smoke. An ashy scent was spreading through the apothecary, as if the entire building was panicking.
She didn’t dare imagine how her overwrought apple tree was reacting.
She rubbed her left temple. ‘Must your men be so rough with my wares? Those elixirs can only be brewed once every three months!’
Alena clucked under her breath.
Hearing the soprano’s disapproval, Pan Novak’s stare snapped onto her, a note of haughtiness entering his voice.
‘It is of the utmost importance we test a wide variety of products available here.’ He peered through his spectacles at what remained of Thea’s blackberry ink before pocketing two bottles, leaving one lonely bottle standing on the display.
‘Yes, I understand what you are doing,’ Thea said, ‘but is it necessary to test the entire batch? Will you be compensating me for the expense?’ Sarcasm bled through her words.
Pan Novak ran a finger down the last bottle. ‘You ought to count yourself fortunate that I did not come here to detain you for questioning. You’re peddling dangerous substances to innocents.’
‘People come here because they trust me to help them, which I do,’ Thea replied evenly, though her blood hissed and steamed. ‘I do not endanger people, I ease their suffering.’
‘Perhaps you should see for yourself that Thea’s apothecary is harmless before you spread these lies,’ Alena pointedly added, her star-shaped beauty patch travelling down her forehead with the ferocity of her frown.
‘We shall be making our own judgement on that.’ Pan Novak gave a single clap of his hands, summoning the other two Hunters downstairs, arms laden with a rainbow of Thea’s wares.
Thea seethed. ‘I believe you know very well that what is one person’s cure is another’s poison.
’ She took pains to keep her tone calm, lest she be accused of descending into hysterics.
Gods forbid a woman should show any emotion.
‘Might I enquire how you are to run experiments if you have no idea what these are for, nor the correct dosage?’
Pan Novak’s thin lips stretched wider. Unnaturally so. ‘Your objection has been noted.’
‘It wasn’t an objection, it was a question,’ Thea said hotly. ‘But you’re not planning on testing them at all, are you? Not when your mind has already been decided.’
‘I think perhaps you had better leave now.’ Alena’s voice, powerful enough to fill an entire theatre, swelled to fill the apothecary.
The two accompanying Hunters heeded her command, swiftly marching out the door. All that time and effort Thea had invested in those potions, elixirs, inks and creams and teas was carried away with them. She felt sick.
Pan Novak lingered a moment longer. ‘I would suggest treading very carefully now. The eyes of the court are on you now. On all of you. Your little hiding place is out in the open now and I will uncover every last one of your secrets before I shut you down for good.’
‘What a vile man,’ Alena declared, the instant Pan Novak exited the apothecary.
Thea shuddered, her earlier bravado fading fast as dying daylight. ‘Something tells me this will not be so easily resolved. Pan Novak has his own agenda and he’s determined to make an enemy of us.’
‘You must put him out of your pretty head now,’ Alena said firmly. ‘Come, let me take you out for a drink.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly . . .’ Thea glanced away from Alena’s arched eyebrow to the crack splitting the ceiling, Biscuit and the Compendium and her notes on Malek’s key, all vying for her attention. ‘The apothecary—’