Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER
Twenty-Seven
Thea’s heart-spell palpitated.
Stepping away from the window, Jasper steadied her. His fingers were strong and tender as they wrapped around her elbow, anchoring her. ‘I will handle this,’ he told her.
Despite all her instincts for self-preservation, his touch was lightning.
Zofka and Talibah’s rapt attention was hot on the back of her neck.
‘I do not require your assistance.’ Despite begging him to kiss her, she would not yield her independence to him, and now was not the time to invite suspicion from her friends.
She slipped out of his hold, opening the apothecary door and striding towards the commotion. After a beat, she heard him follow.
Pan Novak was striding down the centre of the Magic Quarter, flanked by an army of Hunters, careful to keep far from the shivering black void bisecting the street like a cruel gash. Smoke seeped from its edges.
The witches, shape-shifters and pixies who had been flurrying around, attempting to shore up the Quarter, had vanished back into their homes.
Doors quickly closed as Pan Novak paced past. Faces appeared behind frosted windows, then vanished, as the occupants of the Quarter reacted to the Hunters’ presence.
Most held tight, as urged by the unkindness of ravens Talibah had sent out on Jasper’s bequest. Some could not be contained.
Jasper’s faint sigh was audible only to Thea as Rose marched outside in her nightclothes, brandishing a sharpened trowel in one hand, a watering can in the other. Thea didn’t want to guess at its contents.
A row of shops’ candles extinguished in one breath as their residents wisely decided to hide.
Zofka whispered something Thea didn’t catch. ‘It will be all right,’ Gretel murmured to her at Thea’s side, wrapping an arm around Zofka’s waist. ‘I’m here and I won’t let anything bad ever happen to you.’
Pan Novak cast a dour look in the direction of Fleur’s, neighbouring the Rose Basket to the other side.
Fleur emerged in a beautiful nightgown in cerulean silk, joining Rose and raising a pointed eyebrow back at Pan Novak.
A row of petticoats rustled menacingly behind her.
Thea’s nerves rustled in tandem; Rose and Fleur needed to stay strong and not provoke Pan Novak, not yet, not now.
Fighting fire with fire was never wise, and either way, they needed to bank those flames for their true enemy, hiding behind her Hunters.
She cast a look around, but didn’t spot Malek in their ranks.
That was . . . worrying. She didn’t trust his absence after the vitriol he’d spewed at the castle.
Pan Novak drew in line with Stiltskin’s Apothecary.
And halted. The tilt to the corner of his mouth, that glint he did not bother to disguise, set Thea’s stomach writhing.
This was a man who took pleasure in the misfortune of others.
Slowly, he turned his head and smiled at Thea. A smile that did not reach his eyes.
She glared back at him.
‘Easy,’ Jasper warned at her side.
Less than half the inhabitants of the Quarter had crept outside, huddled in the doorways of their shops and homes, bracing for the news they all knew was coming.
Pan Novak took his time before addressing them, his army of Hunters marching to each corner of the Magic Quarter, unfolding like a show of force. But they were only human. And the magical folk of the Quarter knew that. Thea caught a few exchanging glances, tension rippling through their ranks.
‘Witches are not like fate-weavers,’ Zofka told Thea, speaking across Gretel.
‘We are not scales, bound by birth to balance fate. Our power, our magic, is innate – but not infinite. If this Heloise, who Jasper believes has orchestrated all of this, is biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike, she may have deliberately planned this.’
Thea frowned to herself. ‘Are you saying that if the witches defend the Magic Quarter tonight, they won’t be able to defend it at a later point?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Zofka finished grimly. ‘If we use a lot of power now, it’s going to take time and rest to recover before we can use our powers again.’
‘Witches burn bright and fast,’ Jasper said at Thea’s other side. ‘We need their fire for the coming battle.’
‘What about you?’ Thea fretted. ‘You’ve already battled Heloise once today—’
‘A fate-weaver channels their power instead. We would have to channel an almost inconceivable amount of energy before our strength failed us.’
Pan Novak’s brittle voice sounded as if it might snap when he raised it. ‘I hereby announce that this Magic Quarter is closed. No business, nor trade is to be conducted here, by order of the Prague City Council.’
If he expected an outburst, he was to be disappointed; the residents who’d braved the void and the Hunters to stand outside, stared at him in a silence that was eerier, more disquieting, than their outrage would have been.
He cleared his throat, forging on. ‘Furthermore, we have been granted permission to search your establishments and homes for any harmful magic that has been ruled a danger to the citizens of Prague and the House of Habsburg.’
Jasper stiffened.
Thea’s dress warbled in panic, fast and shrill, as a handful of magical folk bristled at the suggestion.
‘He’s deliberately provoking us,’ Talibah said, her height enabling her to see above Thea’s head.
‘Absolutely not.’ Rose brandished her sharpened trowel at Pan Novak. ‘I refuse to allow you entrance into my home.’ Her nightcap sat crooked on her wispy grey hair, and her slippers were embroidered with sword-fighting roses.
One of the Hunters looked at her and laughed.
The silence of the Quarter grew an edge. Rose might be an interfering wretch, but she belonged to them, hissing roses, eavesdropping and all. Fleur grabbed Rose’s trowel-wielding hand and spoke in a flurry of fast, furious French.
The Hunters shuffled, unsure if she was verbally assaulting them or arguing with Rose.
Thea’s teeth sank into her lip as she fretted.
Wojslav caught her eye from the other side of the street as she drew blood.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Zofka whispered. ‘He’s been on a diet since he was caught eyeing up Sarah’s litter of kittens.’
But Zofka’s words hardly registered as Thea watched Fleur and Rose.
Jasper’s fingers spasmed at his side, catching her dress, which let out an indignant hum.
She caught his hand, ignoring the way he tightened at her side, his attention pooling on her face.
‘Don’t compel them with fate,’ she whispered out the corner of her mouth.
‘We want the Quarter to trust you, remember? Using fate against them, to stop them from fighting back, won’t do that.
They need to make this decision themselves. They have the right to free will.’
He grumbled something incomprehensible. But when she let go, his hand recaptured hers, keeping her close.
The tension sharpened like a dagger, everyone drawn to the same point of focus: Fleur and Rose, the tip of the blade.
Rose batted Fleur away. ‘Fine, search my home,’ she told Pan Novak, giving him a slow, venomous smile that Thea did not trust one bit.
‘Search all our homes, our places of work.’ Her smile turned wicked.
‘But you mightn’t like what you find there.
Don’t be fooled by the rift tearing our beloved Quarter in half: this is a magical place.
And magic doesn’t like being threatened by weasels like you. ’
Pan Novak was silent as he listened. Then he lifted one hand. ‘Search it all,’ he scratched out. ‘Detain anyone who objects.’
Fleur took the opportunity to drag Rose away.
Jasper ushered them all back inside the apothecary and shut the door. ‘You were right,’ he told Zofka. ‘There’s safety in numbers.’
Zofka and Talibah exchanged a wary look.
‘Close the shutters,’ Jasper ordered.
Thea jerked to attention, her, ‘Me?’ on the tip of her tongue, when the shutters all obediently snapped shut.
Gretel looked faintly impressed.
‘Candles,’ Jasper barked out next.
The apothecary flared with candlelight. More candles than Thea had seen flickered alive, new ones appearing on each step of the spiral staircase and along the mezzanine railing, stuck in place with melted wax.
‘Are you sure you’re not a witch?’ Zofka half grumbled to herself.
‘It’s my apothecary,’ Jasper told her. ‘It listens to me.’ He patted the nearest wall fondly.
Zofka snorted.
Thea glanced at the rows of towering shelves, each one home to weeks and months of her work, using the Compendium to research new potions, searching out the magical ingredients for her concoctions, brewing them over long periods of time.
‘If everything you’ve said about Heloise is true, then Pan Novak is just her puppet. ’
‘The rest of the Hunters too,’ Jasper added. ‘And your Malek.’ He sidled a look at her that intimated if they hadn’t been interrupted, he would have shown her all the ways she’d never been Malek’s.
‘He’s not my Malek,’ Thea fired back, knowing from the looks on her friends’ faces, particularly Zofka’s, that they would be requiring more details when they were no longer under threat.
Hiding his smile, which was entirely too self-satisfied, Jasper conjured glistening strings of fate, which he looped over and around the apothecary, cloaking it from sight. It cut off any sound from the Quarter outside, leaving everything muffled and dim. As if they’d retreated into a cave.
‘I thought we didn’t want to provoke the Magic Hunters?’ Talibah asked, watching him.
‘I’m not just removing it from view, I’m removing it from their memory. Just for a little while.’
‘Can you cloak the café, too?’ Zofka popped up, fixing Jasper with a hopeful stare.
He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I would cloak the entire Quarter if I could, but there are limits to my powers.’
Thea hurried about, pouring cups of her most soothing valerian and nightingale-song tea, and making everyone comfortable as their group congregated in her little jungle.
Guilt snarled in her stomach that they were hiding while danger prowled through their Quarter.
Zofka and Gretel squeezed onto a single armchair, Talibah claimed Thea’s rocking chair, next to her poor anxious apple tree, whose leaves had flailed when they’d all retreated there.
And Jasper silently took a seat on Thea’s planting bench, among all the herbs and potted flowers.
A bevy of lavender flowers were tilting their heads towards him, curiously tickling his arm with their buds until he frowned, and they fled to the other side of their generous pot.
Thea knew, even with her back turned to him, that he was watching her. Her hand shook as she overfilled Gretel’s cup, almost scalding her. ‘Sorry,’ she winced.
Zofka, whose magic had immediately caught the escaping tea like an invisible saucer, missed nothing. ‘What’s wrong?’
Thea gestured at the walls, which were thick with plants and errant stacks of books she’d left downstairs, sheltering them while Pan Novak and his Hunters marched on the rest of the Quarter. ‘I feel bad we’re holed up safe in here, while outside . . .’ She gulped.
Gretel took the shiny red teapot from Thea and pressed her down onto a nearby footstool as she poured her a cup. ‘Sit, drink,’ she said kindly.
From the outside, it might have appeared as if they were passing a pleasant spell of time, nestled in Thea’s lush sanctuary, making their way through several cups of tea. If it wasn’t for the guilt swirling through Thea that they were safe while she’d endangered everyone else.
Until Zofka looked at her, narrowing her eyes. ‘What are you not telling us?’
Thea nodded to herself, avoiding Jasper’s gaze.
Jasper, who had calmly listened to her confession without judgement.
She’d promised never to forgive him for withholding her heart, leaving her ill-prepared to face whoever had threatened her, but his dark blue eyes shadowed her thoughts, haunted her dreams. Deep with feeling in the forest, brimming with hunger the night of the blizzard, when he had surged forward and taken her mouth.
The look in them before he kissed her tenderly when the Hunters had marched on the Quarter.
‘It was me. I broke the Magic Quarter,’ she said bleakly.
‘You did what?’ Rose’s voice broke into their conversation as the garden-witch stepped out from behind the apple tree, which shivered nervously.