Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
A couple of vulpine shape-shifters growled as they noticed Jasper’s presence.
If they’d been in their fox-forms, their hackles would have stood on edge.
The resident pixies had all migrated to the opposite side of the café.
But Rose was the loudest in her mistrust. ‘You,’ she said, pointing at Jasper.
‘Will you now deign to tell us why we weren’t allowed to prevent Pan Novak and his worms from storming through our homes?
My begonias might never recover from the shock. ’
‘An old enemy of mine has targeted the Magic Quarter,’ Jasper said, remaining seated, though he raised his voice an increment.
The café hushed, everyone craning closer to hear, despite themselves.
They needed to know they’d been targeted, that a dark fate was marching to meet them.
‘A fate-weaver, one who is very powerful and very dangerous, and yet craves the power and magic we have collected here.’
‘You don’t even live here,’ Zdenka pointed out.
Jasper canted his head. ‘That you have all collected here, then. Her name is Heloise and it has only tonight come to my attention that she has been the instigator behind these incursions into the Magic Quarter. Pan Novak, Ma— the Hunters,’ he amended, glancing at Thea, ‘have all been dancing on her strings. She is the real threat and the one which we need to prepare to meet. We need to hurry, ready ourselves to defeat her. An attack will be coming soon, and though you needed to hear this, we do not have time for discussion—’
‘How can we trust a word he says?’ Zdenka exclaimed. ‘For all we know, you are in league with this fate-weaver, this Heloise, and you were the one who destroyed the wards to allow her to target us!’
The gingerbread door creaked open. Paní Dagmar shuffled inside, squeezing herself through the crowd until she reached Thea’s table.
She was as tall as Jasper, though he was seated.
‘Don’t listen to them dear,’ she said, giving Jasper’s hand an affectionate pat as everyone in the café stared at her.
She stared back. ‘You’re all forgetting that it was a fate-weaver who erected the wards in the first place.
Jasper will have them popped back up in no time.
I say, is that gingerbread cake?’ She squeezed onto the same chair as Gretel, who slid a plate of cake towards the elderly witch.
Zdenka and Rose’s disbelief was visible. ‘It seems a very big coincidence that the wards were completely destroyed the same night you attend your first meeting,’ Rose pointed out.
Thea stood. Her dress screamed in fright, echoing her damp palms and trembling voice.
‘Actually, that was me.’ She made her way to the front.
Time was drizzling away like melted honey, leaving her more and more anxious.
‘You all know I’m apprenticed to Jas— Lord Stiltskin and his apothecary.
’ More cutting looks slashed in Jasper’s direction.
He calmly ignored them all, leaning back in his chair as Thea continued.
‘For some time, I . . . I stopped taking a price to alter fate.’ She twisted her dress in her hands.
When it chimed unhappily at her, she let her hands drop.
No, that was too awkward. What did one usually do with their hands?
She slid them into her pockets. ‘I didn’t realise it was taking its toll on the Magic Quarter.
When Wojslav told us that his windowpanes had gone missing before I stopped taking prices, I presumed the timing was a coincidence and something else was at play—’
‘Er, actually.’ Zdenka coughed into a fist. ‘That was me.’ They lifted their palms as the vampire glowered at them across the café.
‘On Rose’s behalf,’ they added quickly, shooting an apologetic look at Rose, whose lips had thinned so much they’d vanished.
‘You were quarrelling at the time and Rose thought it would be funny since you’re afraid of the ravens—’
‘Disliking a creature does not mean I fear it,’ Wojslav snapped.
‘Anyway,’ Thea said loudly, clawing the attention back before any bloodshed and they bickered away what remained of their time.
‘I hadn’t realised I was to blame. When the apothecary ceiling cracked, the Quarter was already starting to give way so I reassured myself it could not have been my fault.
I don’t know what happened with Wojslav’s windowpanes but when I refused a price for someone I thought I was helping, the street ruptured.
’ The café fell deathly silent. It gave her chills.
Even the group of noisy pixies sharing a slice of cake had gone too still, too quiet.
Rose eyed her sceptically. ‘Was that when you dashed off to that fancy ball of yours?’
‘Yes,’ Thea whispered. ‘But I wasn’t sure that it was my fault—’
‘Pish posh,’ Rose said. ‘You knew. I can see the guilt shining out of you, girl.’
The café was heavy with stares.
‘Who’s the oldest here?’ Rose demanded, eyeing the tables with speculation. ‘One of you must know if it was a fate-weaver who put the wards in place.’
‘Oh yes, it was,’ Paní Dagmar nodded. ‘Jasper saw them, too. Five hundred years ago now, wasn’t it?’ she asked cheerfully.
‘Something like that,’ Jasper said gruffly.
Rose did not point out that she mistrusted Paní Dagmar’s memory or that she could be five hundred – five hundred? – years old, but her pinched mouth did.
Thea reeled, giving Jasper a speculative look. His glance back at her was knowing, making her blush despite herself.
Zdenka pointed to Wojslav, who was standing at the back, next to the gingerbread door, which he shot a longing glance at. ‘Were you here five hundred years ago, Wojslav?’ Zdenka asked, tightening their purple satin headwrap.
Everyone pivoted their stares to the vampire, whose sigh was audible. ‘I was not,’ he said. ‘Why not ask the spectre?’
The crowd looked around, giving Wojslav enough time to dart out of the door. It swung shut behind him. ‘He made it ten minutes longer than the last meeting,’ Talibah noted, impressed.
Radim floated through from the kitchen as if he’d been conjured.
‘I believe someone called me?’ he asked politely, smoothing his medieval vestments as if it could be ignored that they were covered in blood.
His hair was long beneath a short cap, and his smile was generous, though as it widened, more blood appeared, crusted around his neck.
‘Goodness,’ Rose exclaimed. ‘However did you die?’
Zdenka pressed a hand to their chest. ‘You should never ask a spectre how they died.’ Zofka nodded in agreement.
‘I heard you were discussing the wards?’ Radim asked, swiftly changing the subject.
‘Yes.’ Thea seized hold of the conversation before it charged in another direction again. Keeping everyone’s attention was as impossible a task as corralling Sarah’s bundle of white-socked kittens. ‘How long have you, er, been around for?’ she asked diplomatically.
‘Just a short three hundred and thirty years,’ Radim mused, sinking onto – and into – a gingerbread chair. ‘I have only had the pleasure of visiting this corner of Prague recently.’
Jasper unfolded himself from his chair. ‘I think I’ve heard enough.
’ He strode to the front of the café, where he stood next to Thea.
‘Whether you believe me or not is immaterial: Heloise is coming, and she is not to be underestimated. While I am greatly sorry that an enemy of mine is threatening this Quarter, I cannot defeat her alone. Our only hope is our combined powers. We are running out of time and we must act swiftly.’
‘If a fate-weaver made the wards, surely you could just fix the wards and prevent her attack?’ Rose’s beady eyes targeted Jasper.
‘They are complex. I’ve been attempting to fix them for some time now, but there are many pieces to this puzzle. Some of which I have at home and are almost ready. I wager I could have the wards repaired in the next few days, but there is no guarantee. The damage is considerable.’
Thea’s gaze dropped to the floor.
Something nudged against her little finger.
Jasper’s hand. He didn’t, wouldn’t take it in public, not when it would invite so much more debate and distrustfulness, but knowing he stood beside her eased her turmoil.
When she glanced up, he was wearing his concerned frown.
‘I will take care of this,’ he said, addressing the café, though he looked at Thea. ‘I only require some assistance.’
Rose sighed. ‘What can we do to help?’
Suggestions fired through the air like arrows, turning the café into a battlefield of half-formed ideas and nonsense.
It could be argued some ideas, such as the weather-witches forging weapons of fire and ice, were good.
Others, like the shape-shifters forming their own army of claws and talons and teeth, were also productive. Others were not.
‘Has anyone seen a fate-weaver fight a vampire?’ Zdenka cried out. ‘Somebody get Wojslav back in here!’
‘A vampiric fate-weaver’s worse than a regular fate-weaver,’ Rose groaned in response.
When they’d exhausted their options and organised a plan of attack – or rather, defence – Jasper looked as if he’d aged ten years. And Thea felt as if she were a hundred. But at least now maybe they stood a chance at defending their homes.
‘I shall take my leave now; I need to fetch some things to repair the wards, but I will return shortly,’ Jasper said, already striding through the café. ‘Send me a raven if there is any sight of Heloise.’
The gingerbread door slammed shut after him. Seconds later, he rode past the glazed sugar windows, Eclipse’s hooves pounding against the cobblestones as he urged her faster. Fast enough that the Hunters didn’t attempt to stop his exit.
‘Thank you everyone,’ Thea said, giving them her warmest smile. ‘I am so grateful that we’re all coming together like this.’
Rose pointed a crooked finger at Thea. ‘You have some courage standing up there and presenting yourself as a hero when this has all been your fault all along. You were the one who ripped down our wards, giving these so-called enemies of ours – who sound like enemies of yours – an opportunity to enter our lives and throw them into disarray.’ Her voice was unrecognisable, filled with judgement and disapproval.
Long gone was the nosy yet grandmotherly garden-witch next door in a nightcap.
This woman had teeth, and she wasn’t afraid to bite.
‘You invited this upon yourself, upon all of us.’
Thea ran cold. The Gingerbread House fell silent once more, save for the gentle brush of snow against the iced roof, as everyone stared at her. She reddened under their scrutiny. ‘I made a mistake,’ she began.
‘I’ll say,’ Zdenka muttered, frowning to themself.
Thea’s cheeks were so hot she worried they’d catch fire.
‘I’m sorry. I should never have refused one price, let alone multiple prices, and I should never have gone to the ball with Malek .
. .’ Something new occurred to her. Malek.
He had yet to reappear, though his Hunters had made a move on the Quarter earlier.
He’d fled from her at the ball, and she was certain he was up to something .
. . Their previous interactions dashed through Thea’s head, one after the other.
But several stuck there, lodging in place: Does Lord Stiltskin reside near his apothecary?
. . . No, he doesn’t even live in the Magic Quarter.
She reframed their conversations, Malek’s questions about Jasper’s address, her catching him looking through her Compendium, his key that he’d requested for a sister who bore unusually similar circumstances to Thea herself.
She all but ran out of the café. Outside, it was still snowing from the weather-witches’ outburst, and she welcomed the cold. It made her head clearer, more concise.
Zofka and Talibah emerged on her heels, cloaks in hand.
‘I think Malek asked me to make that key to go after Jasper,’ Thea told them breathlessly.
‘The wards might be down, but they were just the barricade, never the determent. It was Jasper and his power that’s been protecting us, all of us, all along.
He’s not just Heloise’s target – Malek is after him, too.
And I played right into Malek’s hands, presenting him with the perfect weapon.
A key,’ she said bitterly. ‘A key that can admit anyone anywhere. Even into a magical fortress. He’s going to break into Jasper’s house. ’