Chapter 10
CHAPTER
Ten
Malek came for her in a carriage.
The secret entrance to the Quarter was a clever little enchantment; it knew when to present the visitor with a staircase down into the Magic Quarter and when to stretch along Prague Bridge, opening wide enough to allow horses to trot down a stony slope instead.
For such a simple, seamless process, its magic was entangled with the powerhouse that was the Quarter’s wards, ensuring that not a soul on Prague Bridge would witness an entire horse and carriage vanishing.
Thea waited on the doorstop of the apothecary as two cream Kladruber horses clopped over, their hooves kicking up piles of leaves, a handsome ochre carriage clattering behind. Witch light flickered through the many gourds’ faces like a hundred devilish candelabras.
‘Good luck,’ Zofka whispered from above. She and Talibah were hanging out of one of Thea’s windows to watch; Zofka was beaming down, Cinnamon in her arms. Talibah wore an inscrutable expression.
Nerves and excitement fizzed in Thea’s stomach.
After the last toad, who had also been kissing half the folk in the Quarter, she had stayed in her comfort zone, oscillating between the apothecary, the forest, the Lantern and the Gingerbread House.
Staying far away from any potential frogs.
Thea could never fall in love without her heart, but she didn’t want to close herself off to the idea of it altogether.
She didn’t want to be left alone if she never got her heart back.
The coachman drew the carriage to a halt, the pair of horses gently huffing.
Malek sprang down from the carriage. When he set eyes on Thea, he flashed her that dimple, setting her at ease.
He was dressed as elegantly as she, in coordinating navy, his pomaded wig tied back with a ribbon that looked cut from the same silks as Thea’s gown.
‘You look exquisite,’ he told her, extending a gloved hand.
Thea laid her hand in his. ‘I’ve never received such a lovely gift,’ she admitted as he handed her into the carriage. ‘You were far too generous.’ Her dress bloomed like a blowsy peony as she settled onto the velvet bench.
Malek’s smile widened. His smiles came easily; conversation with Malek was no battle to be fought, there would be no trading blows tonight.
Only good company and excellent music. Malek sat opposite Thea and thumped on the roof for the coachman to usher the horses away.
As the apothecary receded from sight, Thea spotted her weathervane, spinning wildly in the rising wind; a wolf, howling back at her.
She frowned, unsure if that was a reaction to the change in season, or a portent.
Perhaps it had been howling since Pan Novak had last stepped foot over the threshold and she hadn’t noticed. At least it wasn’t a toad.
‘You cannot blame me; how could I resist treating you?’ Malek leant a little closer, giving Thea a nose of his cologne; a fashionable musky scent she recognised from some of the gentlemen who passed through her apothecary.
‘You deserve to be treated like a queen.’ Opening a box beneath his own cushioned bench, outfitted in russet velvet to compliment the gleaming woodwork, he withdrew a bottle and a couple of goblets. ‘Champagne?’
Thea accepted a goblet. ‘I’ve been making some progress on your request,’ she told him. ‘How is your sister faring? I’m afraid I need more time to make your key, it’s a rather complicated feat of magic.’
Malek’s smile softened. ‘I did not invite you here tonight to chase you for an update. I trust your process. And my sister, well . . .’ He took a hearty gulp from his goblet. ‘She understands that help is on the way, but it would ease both our minds if we knew how long that would take?’
‘I can give it to you in a fortnight or so. I’m sorry it’s not sooner, but as I said, it’s a complicated process.’
Malek leant forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Please do not apologise; I would not wish for this to be rushed.’ The golden champagne warmed his tawny eyes.
It warmed Thea, too. She might be unable to love but she knew from past experience that she wasn’t immune to affection, or the first stirrings of a crush.
He sipped his champagne. ‘Your employer, Lord Stiltskin, seemed . . . disconcerted by my presence the last time I happened by. Is there anything . . . romantic between the two of you?’ Malek’s question was tentative.
‘Absolutely not,’ Thea declared.
‘Does Lord Stiltskin reside near his apothecary?’ Malek asked.
‘No, he doesn’t even live in the Magic Quarter,’ Thea told him to reassure him.
‘He lives over near the castle.’ And hopefully the pair would not meet again.
Jasper did have such a way of repelling customers and .
. . friends. Was Malek a friend? She hardly knew anything about him. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a landowner,’ Malek said. ‘I own a collection of enterprises in the Old Town, which I oversee. I live nearby – I can’t imagine Lord Stiltskin not wanting to keep a closer eye on his apothecary, but I suppose he has no need when you seem to manage running it by yourself?’
‘So, you don’t work either,’ Thea teased, desperate to distract him from the topic of Jasper.
‘Well, you do not seem to be jumping out of the carriage so I will take that as a good sign.’ His smile was playful, though a hint of concern shone through, betraying him.
Thea smiled over the rim of her goblet. ‘Perhaps I’m simply waiting for us to stop in traffic before I orchestrate my escape.’
Malek groaned, clamping a hand to his navy coat, each brass button shining like a coin. ‘You wound me.’
Thea laughed.
Malek lifted his goblet. ‘Now I would much rather celebrate that I walked into your apothecary that day, for if I hadn’t met you then, I would be a less fortunate man tonight.’
Thea’s laugh was as effervescent as her wine. Being escorted through the city in a charming gentleman’s carriage, wearing a gown as fine as any duchess, was a dream she did not care to wake from.
They soared up the cobblestoned hill, the Magic Quarter falling away as they approached the yawning void where the statute of St John of Nepomuk stood, and through, back onto the medieval stone arch bridge.
The statue magically closed behind them, folding the Magic Quarter back into its veil of secrecy.
Thea sipped champagne and luxuriated in easy conversation with Malek as they passed the dark, haunted Gothic architecture of the Old Town Bridge Tower, joining the royal route along Karlova Street, and into the treasure box of baroque buildings in lemon yellows and dusky pinks and duck-egg blues.
It was a short ride to the end of Kotcích Street, where the theatre stood, half obscured by the line of carriages pulling up to its doors.
People from all walks of life were filtering through the doors, some emerging from carriages in fluttering gowns, others arriving on foot from their places of work, all united by a love of music.
When it was their turn, the coachman hopped down to open the door and Malek helped Thea down, ushering her inside.
‘Come with me. I rent one of the boxes here. It’s a little extravagant, but I consider it an investment in culture.
’ He sidled a look to her as if gauging her reaction to his display of wealth, and Thea gave him an uneasy smile back; she was getting the impression that she’d walked into a fairy tale where she had been cast as Cinderella, making her wonder precisely what Malek thought of her. A couple of roses wilted on her dress.
A painted ceiling arced above them, stealing Thea’s concerns away as they took their seats in Malek’s box.
‘My mother used to bring me here as often as she could,’ Malek said as Thea took in the chandeliers dripping with melted wax, the orchestra pit readying their instruments, and the large stage that stared imperiously back at them all.
‘We didn’t always agree on everything, but she loved music. ’
His smile was wistful, compelling Thea to rest a hand on his forearm. He clasped it in his. ‘She had the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. We lost her years ago and her face is fading from my memory, but that voice—’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘That voice will never leave me.’
‘How lovely that you honour her with coming here,’ Thea told him.
With a rich brassy note, the orchestra sprang to life, making the theatre hush with expectation.
As the opera unfolded, a solitary figure entered the box opposite to theirs. ‘Joseph II,’ Malek murmured, noticing where her focus had drifted. ‘He’s in Prague for a spell, to open the annual Winter Ball.’
Thea lifted her opera glasses to peer through them. ‘I heard it’s to be held in Prague Castle this year.’
‘Yes, which suits Joseph, since he’s fond of travelling,’ Malek continued. ‘But he dislikes attention, so much so that he uses a pseudonym when he journeys. Count Falkenstein.’
Thea laughed quietly, bound up in the enchantment of it all.
When the theatre erupted in song, roses bloomed up her stomacher, making her glad of the darkness as magic fizzed through her dress.
Malek’s hand lingered on hers as the music seized Thea with a power all of its own.
The spell beating in her chest surged through her veins as Alena took the stage as Argene.
As the theatre swelled with Alena’s voice, clear and high and bright, heartstrings instead of vocal cords, Thea’s own body swelled with emotion.
For one bright glittering moment of panic, she feared her heart’s return: if she could feel this much without it, what would she feel when she was whole again?
She caught the moment Alena noticed her beyond the flaming spotlights, as she tossed a wink at Thea without missing a note.
‘A friend of yours, I take it?’ Malek’s lips twitched.
Thea smiled. ‘Alena is a loyal customer.’
By the time the opera reached its sparkling crescendo, the garden of roses had bloomed on Thea’s dress, turning to golden leaves that fluttered down her skirts and shone along her hems. She admired them on the carriage ride home and, when she lifted her gaze from her gown, she found Malek admiring her.
Time slowed to a syrup as they looked at each other as Prague passed by in a drizzle of street lamps and spires.
When they reached Stiltskin’s Apothecary, he jumped from the carriage and faced Thea, a question shining in his eyes. ‘Thank you for accompanying me tonight.’ He held out his hand.
Thea took it and hopped down in a swirl of midnight silk and golden leaves. Feeling Malek’s reluctance to part with her hand, she let her touch linger, peering up at him from beneath her eyelashes. Wondering if he would kiss her.
He cleared his throat roughly. ‘Could I . . .?’
‘Yes,’ Thea whispered.
Still clasping her hand, Malek gently pulled her towards him and pressed his lips to hers.
Soft and sweet. A tender first kiss. Just as in The Lost Love of Iris Pearl, when Iris kissed the Marquess on the last page: it was everything their first kiss ought to have been.
Until a pair of dark blue eyes, haunting and deep, materialised behind Thea’s eyelids.
Alarmed at the intrusion, Thea opened her eyes, but at the sight of Malek’s face so close to hers, she snapped them shut again.
Kisses were not meant to happen with your eyes open.
But now her thoughts had meandered, she couldn’t wrangle them back, and try as she might, she could still see Jasper’s eyes.
She kissed Malek harder, paying no heed to the heat rolling under her skin, ignoring the way her heart-spell ticked faster, hating that Jasper’s power was inside her.
Focus on the man you are kissing, Thea ordered herself. On his mouth, his hand covering yours, his scent.
It was unlike Jasper’s, whose scent was tinged with wildness: the salt-lick of the sea, and the mossy darkness of the deepest forest.
The kiss ended, and with it, Thea’s maelstrom of thoughts. Malek smiled, his hand a light touch on hers.
Thea mirrored his smile. This was the man for her, she was certain of it. Malek was good for her, he treated her well and he was steady.
Who cared if she couldn’t fall in love? Love faded, tarnished with age.
Love broke hearts. It belonged in her books, along with the kind of kisses that set your soul aquiver.
Malek was nice, kissing him was nice. If another man had roamed through her head while they were kissing, well, that was just her pesky brain causing trouble.
It meant nothing.