Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Thorne
I wake up to find myself forced against a wall; Beaufort, Dray, and Tudor sleeping wedged up against me.
My immediate instinct is to jolt away, to get as far from them as I can.
It’s been my instinct for such a long time.
Don’t let anyone get too close. Don’t let them get too near. Don’t let them touch me.
It takes my mind and my brain a moment to remember that things are different now.
Nini has tamed my shadows. Somehow they no longer seem the threat that they once were, not to my friends and my family anyway.
I still think they’d be deadly and ruthless to anyone who tried to hurt us. In fact, that I’m certain of.
I shift on the bed, realizing that Nini is missing from this makeshift bed we’ve created in Tudor’s old room.
I shake Beaufort awake.
“Briony’s missing,” I snap, before he’s even opened his eyes.
“What do you mean ‘missing’?” Dray says, alert from somewhere else in the bed.
“She’s not here, in this room.”
“Probably just downstairs,” Beaufort says, yawning.
But I have to be certain. So I scrabble out of the bed, pull on some pants and a shirt, and head downstairs.
Briony’s two friends are stirring in the front room with her old dog and Tudor’s mother is cooking eggs in the back room. There’s no sign of Nini.
My heart starts to race in my chest and my shadows, so calm a moment ago, are stirring inside me.
“Have you seen Briony?” I ask Tudor’s mother.
“Oh, hello dear,” she says, smiling kindly at me, in a way that reminds me of my own mother. “She went to check on that dragon of hers. I’m sure she’ll be back any moment.”
“You let her go on her own,” I say, unable to help the accusation in my tone.
“I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea but she was determined not to wake you all and she does seems a very capable young woman.” Tudor’s mother’s tone is rather rattled in response.
“She’s also in a lot of danger right now,” I say, already heading to the door.
But I don’t make it there before it’s creaking open, and Briony’s stepping back inside the house in an old ragged coat that I don’t recognize.
Her cheeks are rosy and so is the end of her nose, and she’s shaking slightly from the cold.
She toes off her boots, walking towards the fire and blowing on her fingers as she does.
“Good morning,” she says to me, Fly, Clare, and the dog. She stands herself in front of the fire and warms her toes and her fingers.
“You went out on your own,” I say.
“What?” Beaufort says, descending the stairs somewhere behind me.
“She went out alone to see the dragon.”
“This is my home,” Briony reminds them. “And I know it far better than any of you. I’m safe here. I know I am.”
“For the time being,” I mutter. “It’s only a matter of time before someone alerts the authorities to the fact we’re loitering in Slate and sends the Empress and the elite guards after us.”
She rubs her hands together, the light from the flame flickering across her features as she considers my words.
“I think you might be right,” she says. “Which is why I think I have to talk to the people before we’re caught here. I have to tell them the truth of what’s been going on.”
“I don’t think they’ll believe you,” Beaufort says, coming to stand beside me.
Briony turns away from the fire to face us. Between her and us, her friends are sitting perched on the sofa, looking sleepy and slightly anxious, like they know they’re caught in the middle of a potential row.
“I think they will believe me,” Briony says, “especially when I show them my magic and when I show them Blaze. Things are different here in Slate than they are in the rest of the realm.”
“Different how?” I say, although it’s pretty obvious.
“People are less trusting of the authorities here,” Briony says.
“That isn’t true, Briony,” Beaufort says.
“You told us yourself. The people out here believe the academy is a chance for a better life. I saw it in the eyes of the Slate Quarter kids back at the academy; the optimism. They don’t suspect the system’s rigged.
And I’m not sure they’ll believe you when you tell them it is. ”
Briony chews on her cheek. “Perhaps you’re right. But I have to try, Beaufort. Your vision. I can’t help feeling that’s fate’s way of giving us a clue, of lending us a hint. I think the only way we win this situation is if we find others like me. I think this is the place we find them.”
Beaufort hesitates, and then he nods.
“How are you going to speak to the people?” I say.
“Out in the public square,” Tudor’s mother says, lingering in the doorway, a dirty apron tied around her waist and her gray hair pinned back from her face.
“I can spread the word. Tell people there’s an important announcement and they need to be in the square this evening.
Most people will be back from their shifts by then. ”
I hear footsteps on the staircase and Tudor and Dray join the rest of us.
“What do you think?” I ask the Professor.
“They deserve to know what’s really going on in this realm,” he says. “They deserve the truth.”
“So what are we going to do in the meantime?” Dray asks, bouncing on his toes, his hands wedged in his pockets. “Hide out here all day?” It’s clear he’s feeling caged up and does not like that idea.
“I think you should take us to where you found the firestone, Briony,” Beaufort says. “Because if my vision is correct and there are more here in Slate, that’s the place we’re most likely to find them.”
Briony shakes her head. “If I can remember where that was… it was deep in the forest.”
“I’m sure we can find it,” Dray says, tapping his nose.
Half an hour later, we’re dressed in an array of clothes from Mr. and Mrs. Tudor’s closet.
The pants I’m wearing are too short. The coat doesn’t fasten up at the front.
And as she had no boots that would fit my feet, I’ve had to scuff mine up with mud.
I look ridiculous, but apparently, I’ll fit right in.
“You really think the clothes that people own in Slate Quarter are well-fitting, Thorne Cadieux?” Briony says when I complain about the way I look, her hands resting on both hips. “Most people rely on hand-me-downs. You’re lucky if it doesn’t stink.”
“My clothes do not smell,” Mrs. Tudor says, obviously insulted.
“No, I wasn’t implying that,” Briony says. “Just explaining that he looks more like he belongs in Slate.”
Mrs. Tudor considers me and the rest of us. “To anyone not looking too closely, you do,” she says, “though your teeth are a definite giveaway.”
“My teeth?” I say.
“Well, you have all of them,” she points out, “and they’re gleaming white.”
“He’ll keep his mouth closed,” Dray says, grinning at me. “He doesn’t have a lot to say anyway.”
I scowl at him.
But then, leaving Mrs. Tudor and the dog behind, we’re slipping out of the house, using our shadow magic to disguise us anyway as an extra precaution. Briony leads us to the far end of town, to where the old temple lies surrounded by an uneven graveyard.
She takes us to the place where her sister is buried. There’s no stone, although someone has planted some winter flowers, their delicate petals piercing through the frozen snow. Briony stares down at the grave.
“This was the place I first felt the firestone call to me,” she says.
Her eyes linger on the scrabbly ground. The delicate winter flowers, pink in color, seem too fragile to have survived a bitter place like this.
Then she turns around and looks out towards the forest that lies just a few yards away.
“It was that way, I think. It was raining hard, and I wasn’t thinking straight, but I know I came back this way once I had the stone. ”
Soon we’re making our way through the bare trees and, despite her earlier reticence, Nini seems to recognize the way.
“Do you feel anything now?” Beaufort asks eagerly.
She halts, concentrating for a moment, then shakes her head. And Beaufort sighs with disappointment.
“It’s probably kind of a miracle there was a surviving firestone out here anyway,” Clare points out. “The chances of there being more than one…”
She’s right of course but neither Briony nor Beaufort are deterred and so the rest of us follow after them as they continue trudging onwards.
The snow becomes thicker, the trees denser, until we’re weaving our way among them.
I notice how quiet the forest is. No animals scrabbling in the undergrowth.
No birds squawking from above. I wonder if the smog and pollution of this place has killed them all off or if the people have in their desperation to eat.
“Do you think it’s much further, Cupcake?” Fly whines a few minutes later. “My feet are killing me.”
“Your feet or your head?” Tudor asks.
“Both,” Fly admits, rubbing at his temple. “Your parents are way more fun than you are.”
“Professor Tudor is fun,” Briony protests.
“I am not,” Tudor contradicts.
Fly laughs and winks at our little mate. “I’ll take your word for it, Cupcake.”
She gives him the finger, opening her mouth for what I’m sure is a smart retort. But then she halts, her mouth dropping open.
“That’s it! Over there!” She points through the trees. “Can’t you see? Shimmering in the distance?”
I squint through the gloom. I can’t see anything at all. But Fox, with his superior eyesight, nods in agreement, and we all pick up our pace, arriving at the edge of a small black pool ten minutes later.
“This is where I found it,” Briony says, “at the bottom of this pond.”
“Are you sure?” Tudor asks.
“Absolutely certain.”
Clare looks down at the frozen surface of the pond with apprehension. “If there are any more at the bottom of this pond,” she says, “we’ll freeze to death before we find any.”
“You might,” Dray says, winking at her. “We’ve got magic, remember?”
Clare shudders. “I still don’t like the way it looks. It’s sort of sinister.”
“I don’t feel any bad magic,” Beaufort says, “and usually you can sense it, sort of hanging in the air, like a threat. I don’t feel any of that here.”
He looks around at the rest of us, and we all nod in agreement.
“Do you feel anything pulling you that way, Cupcake?” Fly asks, also peering down into the frozen pond.
Nini cocks her head to one side. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not as strong as last time, but there’s a sensation in the pit of my stomach, inching me a little closer.”
We’re all quiet for a moment, and then Beaufort whispers into the silence, “I feel it too.”
“Seriously?” Dray says, looking unimpressed. “You always have to be the special one, don’t you, Beau?”
“Hey,” Beaufort says, insulted, “I’m telling the truth.”
“Either way,” I say, “there’s only one way to find out.”
I snatch off the gloves from my hands and send my shadows colliding against the surface of the ice. They smash right through, cracks racing along the surface as the cold waters from below bubble up and drag them down into the depths.
“It looks even more sinister now,” Clare says, shuffling on her feet and scrunching up her nose.
“I don’t feel any danger.” I let my magic swim through the dark waters below, down to the peaty bottom. My shadows sweep methodically, and then they halt. “There’s something there,” I say.
I wrap my magic around the object, unable to decipher exactly what it is. I pull at it, trying to dislodge it, trying to free it from where it’s stuck. It doesn’t move. I yank harder, and it still doesn’t move. I frown.
My shadows are possibly the most powerful in the realm, bar the Empress’s herself. Removing a stone from the bottom of a pond should be no effort at all. And yet, no matter how fiercely I pull, it does not come away.
“It’s stuck,” I say. “It won’t move.”
Dray scoffs and sends his own magic splashing into the water. I feel it race up against mine and weave around the object too. He grits his teeth and grunts as he pulls and pulls and pulls.
Nothing happens.
Finally, he huffs in frustration, and his shadows come hurtling back toward him.
“Maybe we have to wade into the pond and remove it physically after all,” Tudor suggests.
“Or maybe only a lumomancer can remove it,” Clare says.
We all look at her, then back at Briony, who shrugs.
The next moment, light is soaring from her fingertips and piercing through the water, illuminating its gloomy depths and revealing what lies beneath.
Not one stone, but two, lodged right at the very bottom of the pond.
“Are they firestones?” Fly asks, tipping forward to take a closer look.
“Looks like it to me,” Tudor says.
“They might not come away for me,” Briony says. “They weren’t calling to me like Blaze’s egg was. Maybe these ones don’t want to be found.”
“Just give it a try, sweetheart,” Beaufort says.
Her magic glides around the two stones and yanks, but not yanking in the way my shadows and Dray’s had. Instead, carefully, her magic nudges them loose, and both come away easily, gliding up to the surface and floating there, cradled in Briony’s light.
“They’re beautiful,” Clare says in astonishment.
“And just sitting there all that time,” Fly says. “I can’t believe you never checked this pond, Briony.”
“I was kind of astounded to find the first one. I didn’t know what it was and didn’t give any thought as to whether there would be any others. And like I said, these two weren’t calling to me.”
Tudor wades into the water, the icy depths quickly reaching his knees. He leans forward and scoops both stones into the palms of his hands. Then he turns and wades back the way he came, offering them both to Nini.
She stares at them. “I wonder why these ones didn’t call to me,” she ponders.
“They may not be alive,” Tudor says, handing her the first stone. “They’re warm, though. Can you feel that? A little warm.”
Beaufort comes closer and takes the other stone from the Professor’s hand, gliding his palms over the smooth black surface.
“This one’s warm too,” he says.
“So we might have two more dragons,” Dray says.
“I don’t know,” Briony says. “But I think… maybe yes. Two more dragons.”