Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
That insouciant smile that Thea loathed returned to Heloise’s lips. Kicking off from the statue, she unfolded to her full height. She was taller than Thea, slimmer and more angular, eyes green rather than brown, but her hair . . . it was the same sunshine-golden shade. Thea’s certainty wavered.
‘How sweet of you to offer, but not tonight.’ Heloise lowered her voice. ‘I’ve already given the orders for your dear moody Jasper’s execution.’ She gave a mock wince. ‘He ought to be bleeding-out in his townhouse just about now.’
Thea’s legs threatened to give way. Something in her reared in horror at the thought of harm befalling Jasper. She cared more than she dared admit, even to herself.
‘You see, I don’t want to take you now. I want to raze your precious Magic Quarter to the ground, and drag you screaming away from your friends’ corpses.’ She surveyed Talibah and Zofka, and shrugged. ‘Two corpses just don’t have the same panache.’
‘Something is very wrong with you,’ Thea whispered.
‘We’ll never let you take our Thea away,’ Zofka said hotly.
Heloise strolled down the bridge towards them.
‘Your time is running out, Theodora. Enjoy your last night while the Quarter still stands.’ She held up a finger.
‘One night of mourning Jasper.’ She drew to a stop just in front of Thea, bent to whisper in her ear.
‘My gift to you, sister to sister.’ Heloise turned her face and kissed Thea on the cheek.
‘One last night. Then I am coming for you.’ She wove her fingers too quickly for Thea to see the tapestry of fate, and vanished.
Talibah slid her dagger out of sight. ‘At least now we know who’s been threatening you,’ she said grimly. ‘Knowledge is power; it gives us something to work with. We’ll deal with her soon, but one thing at a time—’
‘That woman cannot be my sister!’ Thea ground out. ‘I am coming for you; that’s what the messages said. She’s taunting me. Even tonight; Jasper said that she was weakened after they fought, that’s why she’s biding her time, not to give me time to mourn . . .’
Zofka’s witch light sputtered and died.
Thea grabbed Talibah’s hand. ‘We need to get to Jasper,’ she said urgently. She broke into a run, Talibah and Zofka on her heels.
Snow painted the spires and domes of Prague into a wintry fairytale. It was a crisp night, the Vltava silvered with ice, the sky sequinned with stars. The women sprinted deeper into Prague, wending through Hrad?any with the castle standing sentry on the hilltop above, blanketed in snow.
They hurried past empty palaces, each one devoid of light, as the Czech aristocrats who owned them had relocated to court life in Vienna.
Past churches and sculptures encased in frost. Thea was still struggling to pay attention to anything other than her own guilt and worry and fear rattling around inside her skull – until they stopped in front of Jasper’s townhouse.
It looked even older than she’d remembered. Low and wide, painted butter-yellow with countless windows staring out like eyes, the flicker of candlelight or a fire, banked low, visible through some, its roof sugared with snow. A thin plume of smoke leaked from the chimneys.
‘How will we even know if Malek’s inside?’ Uneasiness gnawed at Thea’s bones. ‘The key I made hides the holder from sight.’
‘We go in and locate Jasper.’ Zofka shrugged. ‘And stay alert to anything . . . suspicious.’
Thea’s unease swelled, threatening to devour her.
She marched up to Jasper’s front door and eyed the brass knocker mounted there.
It was a creature shaped like no animal she recognised, with talons and batwings and a protruding horn.
With frozen fingers, ignoring the creature’s glaring eyes, Thea tried opening the door.
It didn’t budge. ‘It’s locked.’ She hadn’t entered when she’d popped by to consult Jasper around five years ago and she worried she wouldn’t be able to now.
‘Try it again.’ Zofka shuffled from foot to foot on the top step in a bid to keep warm. Each time she moved, the heavy skirts of her mourning gown grew in volume like an inverted umbrella.
Talibah examined the door. Impatience rolled through Zofka. ‘We didn’t think this through; surely there’s magic at play here to ward against someone breaking in.’
‘Yes, Jasper’s power.’ Thea slowly smiled. ‘His power, which runs through me.’
‘Smart thinking.’ Talibah moved aside for Thea. ‘Jasper’s wards should recognise his power – in the guise of you – enough to let you through, and then once you’re on the other side, you can let us through as well.’
‘Great. Then we can figure out how to defeat an invisible enemy.’ Zofka blew into her hands to warm them.
She blew a little too hard, with a little too much warming magic, and the air crackled around them.
A nearby street lamp shattered, shards of glass tinkling onto the cobblestones like broken ice. ‘Oops.’
Thea softened her gaze, until the world looked as if she was viewing it through a frosted window.
Until fate sparked to life and she could see possibilities twisted through the fabric of the world like many, many strings, each one leading to a hundred more.
It was the work of seconds to locate the knot outside Jasper’s front door and unpick it, whispering a quick promise to do no harm inside, to take nothing that was not hers.
Paying with a nightmare she would never miss.
The creature on Jasper’s door blinked. Thea blinked back at it, wondering if she’d imagined it, or if it was the knot, the source of Jasper’s power bound up in a protective ward on his property.
The door swung open. Without giving herself pause to think – to overthink, as she did everything – Thea leapt over the threshold.
Nothing happened. Holding the knot she’d unpicked in her mind, her fingers stretching through the world’s fabric of fate, Thea kept it open. ‘Come in, now, quickly,’ she whispered.
Zofka and Talibah rushed inside. And Thea released her grip on fate. The door swung shut, relocking itself.
‘That wasn’t ominous at all.’ Zofka stared at the door.
Talibah tilted her head to one side, considering Thea. ‘Can you sense the key? It was your magic that made it; perhaps you can locate Malek through the key he’s carrying?’
Thea closed her eyes, releasing the swarm of thoughts that flitted through her head like angry bees, the fear snarled in the base of her spine, the worries churning her gut.
She let it all go, calming her breath until all she heard was her own pulse and the faint thump of a grandfather clock somewhere in the house, measuring time like a heartbeat.
She opened her eyes. ‘I can’t sense anything.
Can’t hear anything but that incessant clock ticking.
But if Malek made his way here after the ball, that was hours ago.
I hope I’m wrong and he hasn’t been waiting here all this time, but I have a horrible feeling .
. .’ she trailed off. ‘We have no reason to trust Heloise; she wanted to strike fear into us.’
Zofka looked sceptical. ‘Not that I trust her, but should we consider—’
‘Let’s start looking and quickly,’ Thea interrupted, before Zofka could finish that thought. One thing at a time, she promised herself. ‘I don’t know why Jasper never replied to me, but that doesn’t mean that he’s dead. Malek had a key and the advantage of surprise, but he’s still only human.’
‘Agreed.’ Talibah set her hands on her hips and her sights on the foyer they stood in.
Thea was on the verge of suggesting they go upstairs when a distant creak on the floorboards emanated from the right.
Holding a finger to her lips, Thea crept through a low, interconnecting arch that led into a burgundy panelled room, hung with paintings.
Nothing seemed amiss. A suit of armour glared at them from a corner.
Zofka liberated the suit of its sword with a murmured, ‘Just in case.’
Talibah glanced at the hilt. ‘Careful with that thing; it looks like it could have been from the Crusades.’
Zofka wielded it as they wound through two more rooms, one plush with carpets, a crackling fire and settees in embroidered sage and olive tones, the other boasting a dining table set for one. And the largest, grandest fireplace Thea had ever seen.
Where Malek was poking around.
Thea gasped.
‘What? Do you see something?’ Zofka whirled round, sword tip pointing out.
Soot billowed out from the fireplace as Malek startled at their entrance.
‘Got him,’ Thea said, watching Malek stand and brush the soot from his breeches and stockings. ‘I take it neither of you can see Malek standing in the fireplace?’
Talibah shook her head. ‘No.’
Malek stiffened, caught like a deer before a carriage.
‘You can see me?’ His tawny eyes swivelled between the women, filling with alarm.
‘I thought that you wouldn’t be able to see me.
’ Stunned into admission, Malek stared at the key he held in his hand – the key that had cost Thea days and days of work, the key that she’d let go unpaid, ripping apart the Magic Quarter as fate claimed the balance that was due. The key that he had lied and lied for.
She glared at Malek, expecting to feel a gathering sadness that this man she had thought might be the right one for her had been the worst toad of all. Instead, she was numb.
‘What are you doing in that fireplace, and what have you done with Jasper?’ she demanded, spreading her hands, ready to command fate at a moment’s notice.
‘I haven’t done anything,’ Malek argued, giving her hands a fearful look. ‘I was merely lighting this fire.’
‘You’re lying,’ Thea said. There was a lot of that wreathing around tonight, like a noxious smoke strangling the city. Shrouding the truth from sight. And she was lost in it, set adrift without a lamp.
‘Thea,’ Talibah murmured. ‘Look.’