Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER
Twenty-Six
Malek’s carriage rattled violently in its frantic dash downhill, away from the castle.
Thea clung onto the reins, attempting to steer as the
carriage veered from one side of the street to the other, forcing other carriages to dash out of their way, their coachmen swearing loudly.
She rushed over Prague Bridge, the Vltava glinting far below like a knowing eye.
When St John of Nepomuk came into view, Thea stiffened.
The statue was broken. ‘No,’ she whispered.
She pulled on the reins. The horses reared up, the carriage swerving into the side of the stone bridge, its wheels screeching.
Thea leapt from the carriage without a second thought, holding her gown in both hands.
St John had been torn in two, much like the void speared through the heart of the Magic Quarter, though instead of revealing an infinite blackness, it revealed the staircase down, yawning open to anyone who happened by. They were truly defenceless now.
Thea ran through the broken statue, navigating the stone and rubble.
It was a rocky crevice, unpassable for anything larger than a horse.
It crackled with the remains of the disintegrating wards.
When Thea threw a look back, Malek’s horses were trotting on, their breath silvering the frozen night.
She slid into her power, searching through the skeins of fate to try and hide the entrance to the Quarter, but the remains of the wards were such a tangled web, she didn’t dare interfere any more. She’d already done enough damage.
Thea fled through the Magic Quarter as fast as her heeled shoes and wide skirts would allow, her breath like ragged feathers as she avoided the rift, its shivering inky darkness seeming to watch her path.
Witches and shape-shifters and pixies congregated on either side of it, muttering blackly and conjuring various attempts at repairing it.
A makeshift bridge, made entirely of ice, traversed its narrowest point, but nobody seemed keen to cross it.
Not when it rumbled with shadows that felt like death.
Thea ran past them all, her guilt driving her onwards. She still wasn’t sure if her refusing to take a price from Malek could have caused this to happen, but even if this wasn’t her fault, leaving for the ball was.
Stiltskin’s Apothecary came into view. The gilt letters shone under the gaze of the street lamps, as did the weathervane, which almost stilled Thea in her tracks: since her departure it had transmuted into a dragon with a colossal wingspan.
Its wings sheltered the entire roof of the apothecary and its jaws were unhinged in a silent roar.
Thea hurried towards it, her heels clattering.
She needed to warn Zofka and Talibah what was coming.
Malek and his Hunters, including Pan Novak – and Heloise.
A veritable army of enemies had the Quarter in their sights.
If the weathervane was any indication, it sensed what was coming their way, too.
Candlelight spilled from windows and as Thea neared home, she spotted Zofka and Talibah bathed in the apothecary’s welcoming glow as they stood outside, considering the rift.
Thea reached them gasping for breath, her hair falling loose from the elaborate curls Zofka had arranged, her face paint slipping. Revealing the fear beneath.
‘What happened?’ Zofka demanded, as Talibah’s concern unfurled across her face.
‘I found out that the last of the Hunters have reached Prague,’ Thea managed to get out, clamping a hand onto the stitch in her side.
Zofka craned her head down the street. ‘Where’s Malek? What happened?’
‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Thea said through gritted teeth. ‘He’s from an old line of Hunters – I caught him passing a note to Pan Novak and compelled him to tell me the truth. They’re orchestrating an attack on the Magic Quarter tonight. They’re going to shut us down.’
‘Shut us down?’ Zofka exclaimed. ‘Then we’re not safe here any longer.’ She crossed her arms over the comfortable velvet dress she wore.
‘We need to warn everyone, now,’ Talibah urged.
Thea nodded grimly. ‘Let me call the ravens—’
Hooves beat against the cobblestones, growing louder and louder.
Zofka grabbed both Talibah and Thea and tugged them inside the apothecary. All three women peered out of the window. ‘Is it the Hunters?’ Zofka asked with a tremble in her voice.
‘I don’t think so, I see only one horse—’ Thea trailed off as Jasper rode into view on the back of Eclipse, his hair in disarray, his collar crooked. He must have ridden furiously through the city to catch up with Thea. Leaping from the back of his horse, he strode over to the apothecary.
Zofka yanked the door open.
‘Good evening, ladies.’ Giving a quick bow of his head, Jasper shut and bolted the door behind him. ‘Forgive the intrusion.’
‘Are you all right?’ Thea asked, fretting anew. ‘What happened with Heloise?’
Jasper looked self-conscious under the scrutiny of all three women. He tugged his collar back into place.
‘Heloise . . . the fate-weaver you warned us of earlier?’ Talibah’s amber eyes glinted warily.
‘Yes. Heloise appeared at the ball. Jasper was fighting her before I fled back to you . . .’ Thea turned to Jasper. ‘But you seemed more powerful than her; is she really that much of a threat?’
Jasper’s voice was ice. ‘I am her match. I was lucky tonight; she seemed . . . distracted. But I am incapable of eliminating her myself. She is also far more devious and does not hold the same morals I do. She cares not for who else might be decimated in her path; she will use anyone to achieve her means, and she is not to be underestimated. Pan Novak, Malek and the Hunters are all inconsequential in comparison. We knew from what you overheard in the forest,’ –Jasper nodded to Thea – ‘that a fate-weaver has been involved in this from the beginning, stirring up chaos for their own purpose.’ He shook his head, glaring fiercely out the window.
‘Heloise and I clashed some time ago, and she has been clamouring for vengeance since.’ He looked darkly at Thea.
‘This apothecary and you are both marked with my power.’
Thea suppressed a shiver.
‘Heloise is notorious in our world. She craves power above all else and the Magic Quarter is the ideal place to take that power. I believe she intends to seize it all for herself in the name of revenge, though envy would be a better fit.’ Jasper scowled.
‘She was manipulating the Hunters to throw us into turmoil, to mask her presence, but I do not know what her end goal with them is. To her, they will be nothing but another plaything. It amuses her to toy with people’s lives. ’
‘What did you do to earn her wrath?’ Zofka whispered, a little in awe at the chaos Jasper had unwittingly caused.
‘I defended another of her targets.’ Jasper sighed. ‘They were innocent, and did not deserve her ire. I should have known she’d come for me one day.’
‘Why did she bother hiding then, if she’s so powerful?’ Zofka asked. ‘Why send Pan Novak and Malek sniffing around first?’
Jasper scanned the street outside the window again.
‘She likes her little games. Once she fixes on a target, she’ll stop at nothing to decimate every last bit of their life, their livelihood, everything.
’ When he turned from the window, his face was overcast. ‘I am sorrier than you’ll know that you have become entangled in her web. ’
Zofka and Talibah offered their sympathy, but Thea’s thoughts were running down another track.
‘I thought these threats I’d received were from someone involved with the Hunters,’ she began tentatively.
‘But could they have come from Heloise? I think she saw me on Prague Bridge. Sometime near the start of autumn. I remember how shocked she looked. At the time I thought it was because I’d vanished, but now I wonder if she recognised me . . .’
‘I think it far more likely that was another of Pan Novak’s little games,’ Jasper said firmly. ‘You galled him from the start.’
‘Those notes falling into the Quarter were magical,’ Talibah pointed out. ‘Pan Novak is human.’
‘Unless he recruited someone else to send the notes on his behalf,’ Zofka gasped. ‘Maybe it was one of the weather-witches.’
Thea sighed. ‘That feels unlikely – he hates magic.’
Jasper turned thoughtful. ‘Would it surprise you if he were a hypocrite? If he used magic for his own purposes, while hammering down on it elsewhere? We are an obstacle in his way, nothing more. And Heloise has somehow managed to identify Pan Novak as our greatest threat and capitalise on the entire thing for her own good. She is playing the puppet master.’
‘Perhaps,’ Thea said. ‘But I saw the way Heloise regarded me.’
‘Heloise won’t attack while I am here, not yet at least.’ Jasper leant against the wall in a manner that seemed too casual for him.
His white shirt was torn. The smell of lemons, sugar and sunshine began washing through the apothecary, as if it had noticed its owner’s exhaustion, the fatigue bruised beneath his eyes.
‘She’s weakened after our clash today, but that will not last for long.
I have exerted too much energy to confront her again now, otherwise I would tear the city, the forest, apart searching for her, if it ensured your safety.
’ Jasper looked intently at each of them in turn.
‘The rest of the Quarter will not listen to me the way you have. I urge you to plead my case: we need to send ravens to everyone, telling them to stand down tonight so that we might regroup and form a plan for when Heloise decides to make her move. The Magic Quarter can and will survive being closed for business by the Hunters. It will not survive Heloise.’ Jasper sighed.
‘You need to call for an emergency meeting.’
‘Are you . . . planning on attending that meeting?’ Thea asked after a beat.
‘Unfortunately so,’ Jasper said.