Chapter 22 #2
As their appetizers, salads, and main courses came and went, Fabian continued to entertain Nigel with juicy news from Plym.
It was, Nigel found, rather pleasant to reconnect with his old life.
He hadn’t been home since the Authorities of Plym kicked him out of prison, a heptagram tattoo emblazoned on his chest, and many a fell warning ringing in his ear.
He’d stayed just long enough to gather what he needed for Garden’s safe transference, then set sail for Brython. It never occurred to him to look back.
He looked back now, however, with some indulgence.
He and Fabian were never close, but proximity and shared experiences created a sort of bond between them where affection could not.
And though Nigel would have protested vehemently that he wasn’t a gossip hound, he lapped up all the sordid details his brother provided of past comrades and competitors alike.
“You recall Calista Quick, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” Nigel acknowledged. “The one with the, erm . . .”
Fabian made a certain fulsome gesture with both hands. “Right. You remember.”
Nigel did.
“Well, she has given up sorcery and then some! Married some pickled politician and now is the head of the l’mavaus.”
“The what?”
“The Ladies of Moral Authority Voice Against the Uncanny Society. LMAVAUS.”
“Calista Quick?” Nigel frowned into the dark contents of his third cup of taerel. “I find that hard to believe. She was a talented sorceress. Thought she’d go places.”
“She has. The l’mavaus are a powerful arm of social action these days. Why, they claim single-handed responsibility for the finding and tattooing of fully half the sorcerous families in Plym.”
“How did she avoid being tattooed herself?”
“Her politician had something to do with it, I think. Had her university record scrubbed. To the rest of the world, she is nothing but a society beauty, and all memory of her early forays into sorcery are no more. Not to mention the role she played in tracking down the remains of the Thorpewillow family and its offshoots earned her some social credit.”
A sudden chill blew through the restaurant. All the candles seemed to sink into their wicks, and shadows deepened in every corner.
Fabian watched Nigel closely over the rim of a half-drunk martini. “Yes,” he murmured. “You know that name, don’t you?”
Nigel looked down at his meal, mostly eaten. His appetite seemed to have taken flight.
Jastira. That was the name the Shadowbane Lady went by. It was drawn from ancient legend, a chariot-driving queen of old Plym, revered by her subjects as a goddess. A name of power and portent, appropriate to the ambitions she harbored.
But before she became Jastira, before they began to call her the Shadowbane Lady, she was just Janet Thorpewillow from Stirlingsley County. The Thorpewillows were a family of some prominence among sorcerous circles, perhaps, but no more exalted than the Brecknocks or the Twelvetrees.
Fabian leaned forward, the expression on his stolen face keen.
“There weren’t many of them left, you know.
The Thorpewillows. The more powerful she became, the more other sorcerous families targeted them, seeking to bring her down.
Only a handful survived—none of them female.
Just males. The Authorities have taken them into ‘protective custody,’ whatever that means. No one has seen them since.”
Nigel shivered, not meeting Ebenezar Prodigimus’s eye.
“They’re taking precautions,” Fabian continued. “After the Authorities sacked Jastira’s tower, some of those old notes of hers were found. They figured out what she was trying to do. Everyone fears that she might still just manage to do it.”
“Jastira is dead.” Nigel breathed out slowly, even as his left hand, resting on the tabletop, slowly clenched. “She’s not coming back. Not in any form.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Nigel flicked his gaze up sharply. “I’m sure. I killed her myself.”
His brother leaned in a little more, voice dropping. “But are you quite sure?”
A trembling knot formed in Nigel’s gut.
“You see,” Fabian continued softly, so that no one seated at nearby tables could hear, “she is not without friends. There are some who still believe the world was a better place for sorcerers before she was brought low. Yes, of course, she was going a little crazy toward the end—bound to happen when inhabiting a body so far beyond its natural lifespan, isn’t it?
If she could be safely housed in a fresh form, however—”
“Not possible,” Nigel said shortly. “Because she’s dead.”
Fabian sat back, swirling his drink. He watched how the olive bobbed in the little martini maelstrom. “I don’t like that word,” he mused. “Dead. It sounds so very final. Like there’s nothing more of her in existence.” He looked up, caught Nigel’s eye. “We both know that isn’t the truth.”
Nigel did not answer. He began to wish he’d not sent away that absinthe Fabian had ordered for him.
“All she really needs,” his brother continued musingly, “is a fresh host. That’s it! And, of course, someone who knows where exactly she . . . is.”
“She’s in hell.”
“You know better than that. I know better than that. Why pretend like we’re both idiots when we’re not?”
“You are an idiot if you imagine she’s anywhere else.”
“But she is, isn’t she?” Fabian lifted a finger from his glass, pointing at Nigel.
“I know you. You shut her away somewhere, yes. You cut her off from this world. But you . . .” He grinned slowly, an awful expression on his stolen face.
“You loved her. You loved her to distraction. That heart of yours—that tender little heart—was still her plaything, even at the very end. You didn’t banish her soul to hell, Nigey old boy.
You banished her to the Dire Dimensions.
Which means . . .” He leaned back comfortably and took a sip of martini. “Which means she can be brought back.”
Nigel forced his clenched fists to relax. “Her body was completely dematerialized in the altercation,” he said. “I saw to that. Whatever is left of her, it cannot return to this world.”
“Not in that body, no.” Fabian shrugged, then lifted an eyebrow. “You do know what she was experimenting with at the end there, don’t you?”
Nigel set his jaw. It felt like it had turned to granite.
“It’s why the Thorpewillows were all carted away,” his brother continued. “To make certain no one ever got it into their heads to experiment with any of those old spells of hers. They’re all gone. Dead, perhaps. Banished, maybe. But gone.”
“And that’s just as well, isn’t it?” Nigel sat back in his seat and delicately blotted his mouth with a napkin. “There will always be idiotic sorcerers in this world who think they want to restore the Dark Days of Glory. Best simply to rid them of temptation.”
Fabian smiled. “How about dessert?” Before Nigel could respond, he lifted a hand, summoning a waiter.
He ordered something, but Nigel scarcely heard him.
His ears were too full of the thunderous sound of his own pulse.
He drank the last few gulps of his tea, which had become quite tepid.
This Twiglings brand . . . it simply didn’t hold a candle to Luna’s blends. Definitely not his True Love Tea.
Fabian, his order made, settled back in his seat once more, folding Ebenezar Prodigimus’s hands across Ebenezar Prodigimus’s stomach. “You know,” he said musingly, “you’re not at all the man you used to be, are you?”
“I should hope not,” Nigel muttered.
“I envied you,” Fabian continued. “When you got the summons to Nocturnus . . . ah! It felt as though everything I’d striven for all my life was suddenly stripped from me and placed in your hands.
Then to watch you rise and rise as you did, until your name was on the lips of all magic-users in Plym.
The consort of the Shadowbane Lady! The Grimshade Lord, they called you.
” A malicious chuckle rumbled in his throat.
“Not a bad title for a Dark Sorcerer, eh? I would have been proud had I not hated you so much.”
Nigel looked his brother in the eye without flinching. It wasn’t a shock to hear him speak of his hatred. They’d always hated each other, at least as much as they ever loved each other. “You were the lucky one, Fabian,” he said. “You don’t know how lucky you were.”
“No. I don’t.” Fabian grimaced. “Perhaps if I knew, I could be grateful. As it is . . .”
“Trust me. You don’t want to know what it was like.”
The waiter arrived just then and set a single dessert plate down between them. Chocolate cake layered with mousses, ganache, fruit, cream, and topped with a little candied, gold leaf crown. A true miracle of holiday decadence. The sight of it turned Nigel’s stomach.
“Did they ever mark you, Fabian?” he asked, tearing his gaze from the dessert to look at his brother’s enchantment-swathed face again.
“With the heptagram?” Fabian briefly rolled back his cuff, revealing the unmarked wrist of Ebenezer Prodigimus. “Sure. Just a little one. Why do you think I’m wearing old Ebenezer’s fine self around town? Can’t go around with one of those things on display, not in this world.”
“You know it’s not illegal to be marked. Just illegal to hide the mark.” Nigel’s brow lowered. “You’re skirting a dangerous edge, brother.”
Fabian took up his fork and stabbed a large bite of cake. He chewed slowly but, judging by the expression on his borrowed features, didn’t seem to enjoy it all that much. “All right, Nigey,” he said as he swallowed, “spill the beans. Garden is somewhere in that shop of yours, isn’t it.”
Nigel narrowed his eyes. “Who wants to know?”
“Well, I do, don’t I? I’ve got a right. It was Dad’s Great Work. I’m as much his son as you ever were. It’s my inheritance, same as yours.”
“Dad entrusted Garden to me. With his dying breath.”
“So you say. Have you any witnesses?”
“Debbie.”
“She’s not exactly reliable, is she?”