Chapter 6
‘the rexilium brothers?’ lowri asks, foreboding blooming inside her as she looks to Eli. ‘Have you ever met anyone that can do what you can do?’
Eli frowns and shakes his head. ‘No one. It’s why I wanted, why I was so interested in finding my father.’
‘I know,’ Lowri says quietly. ‘But perhaps it’s best you didn’t find these brothers if they started a war here and caused such damage.’
‘More than damage,’ Ethlet says. ‘Devastation. They tried to conquer our world and were beaten back, but at great cost. Come outside. I think it’s time you see Fallow with your own eyes.’
Lowri gathers her temporary strength from the Fallow Fog brew to step outside, into the world beyond Eli’s father’s house.
What she finds is an abomination. Magic – overused and twisted in such an unnatural, vicious way – has left a legacy of darkness that drips over Fallow.
She watches as a drop falls from the dense fog above, descending like tendrils of onyx smoke.
Where it meets the paved street it splashes like ink, before dissipating.
She licks her lips, cowering away, all too aware of the repercussions of twisted magic from the experiments in the lower levels of Coven Septern.
If these Rexilium brothers did this, if they are capable of this level of destruction that cannot be undone …
she watches as another droplet falls, then another.
She cannot see the sun or moon or stars.
The fog obscures it all. Ethlet sighs, stepping out beside her, and opens an umbrella with a pop, covering them both.
‘You probably don’t have long before you weaken again, but let’s take a walk. Traversing is disorientating, from what I’ve been told. Isaiah said Fallow is like walking through a fractured mirror of Highborn. You may find it … strange.’
Eli declines an umbrella, holding out his hand for a drop of fog to land on his fingertips. It wreaths his skin in shadow for a heartbeat, then disappears. He rubs his fingertips together, regarding them impassively, then turns to Ethlet. ‘Lead the way.’
They follow Ethlet past rows of crooked homes, all three or four storeys tall that don’t just go up, but sometimes across, a room borrowed from one side or the other in jagged lines.
It’s not until they cross a street that two things occur to Lowri: there are no carriages, no horses or carts using the roads, and the houses all look as if they’re falling over, as though suspended before the very brink of collapse.
People hurry past, clutching umbrellas that hide their faces, and Lowri makes a point of observing their shoes instead.
It’s the only part of them not painted in black or grey like the streets of Fallow surrounding them.
Ruby-red heels, burgundy flats, cerulean boots, even shoes that sharpen to a point, glistening and gold.
She searches in vain for any other hint of colour in this city, but even the shop windows are bereft.
They hold garments in shades ranging from shale to granite, umbrellas that all look the same to her untrained eye, and one shop holds cage after cage of mice, all pale grey with black beads for eyes.
‘Why the shoes?’ she murmurs to Ethlet as they round a corner on to a square with a gated garden at the centre, complete with muted grey rose bushes and stygian trees. ‘And why is everything else grey?’
‘It’s another after-effect of the war. All the colour, all the light, was absorbed into the fog.
Well, most of it. A few glints remained.
If you had a little colour left, a little light magic, what would you use it on?
’ she asks. ‘It’s a glimmer of hope, and it’s also just the fashion.
I’ve got a pair of blush-pink boots I’m rather fond of. ’
‘So the shadow magic has been overused, whereas the light magic has all but vanished?’ Eli asks, reaching out to pluck a rose petal through the black bars surrounding the garden. ‘And it’s light magic that brings colour to your world?’
‘Pretty much,’ Ethlet says with a small shrug. ‘A world in balance has every shade of light and shadow, but when the Rexilium brothers were through with Fallow, they had blotted out most of the light and left too much shadow behind. Now we are in the after, and even the Society cannot fix it.’
‘You’ve mentioned the Society before. Who are they?’ Lowri asks, stepping round a puddle that could just be rain, or, she realises, could be fog.
‘Oh, careless of me,’ Ethlet tuts. ‘They’re a collective of the very best and brightest minds, stretching across the land.
Shadow and light magic wielders, they experiment, theorise, revolutionise.
They use magic for the betterment and advancement of our world.
Only now, of course, they have just shadow magic left. ’
‘And my father?’ Eli says, glancing at her. ‘Where did he fit into all this?’
Ethlet pivots down a side alley, bringing them back to a wider street. ‘He was a member of the Society. He’d been trying to restore the balance of magic for a lifetime. But, in the end, it all comes down to a singular thing.’
‘What’s that?’ Lowri asks.
‘Our world is almost completely drained of light magic,’ she says, eyeing them both.
‘Isaiah believed that if we could only find a source, even just one person, we could reintroduce colour and light to the world. Then, the shadow magic would reduce, and magicians would replenish, having both light and shadow to draw from, the two twisted strands of magic reinforced. The cycle would begin again, and the world would heal itself over time. The fog would disappear.’
Lowri bites her lip. ‘Just one source?’
‘But there is no source, and there are no magicians left with that kind of power. Only scraps. So the people of Fallow weave any found glimmers into their footwear, and when we walk around Fallow, we recognise our neighbours, even if we cannot see their faces concealed under their umbrellas.’ She smiles.
‘Life finds a way, even in a world turned over to shadow.’
Ethlet’s words echo through Lowri’s mind with each step as she contemplates them.
They stop outside an imposing building with pillars set beside huge doors thrust open on to the street.
A few people mill in and out, putting up umbrellas to step back on to the street, or shaking them out, before walking inside.
‘This is our museum. It tells the story of the war, if you’d like to take a look.’
‘Yes,’ Lowri agrees, ignoring the way her vision already sways, the effects of the Fallow Fog brew already wearing thin. She must have answers.
They wander through rooms filled with artefacts and paintings, telling the story of the history of Fallow.
Eli moves slowly, examining each one with wonder, but Lowri strides ahead, to the room named War.
And there, in a framed painting, maybe once in vivid colours but now depicted in shades of grey, are the Rexilium brothers.
She gasps, the floor beneath her tilting sickeningly as she stumbles back.
For they may be the Rexilium brothers in this world, but in hers …
They are the ruling council of Arnhem.
‘Eli!’ she calls, a dull thump beginning once more behind her eyes.
He hurries in, looking first at her, then to the painting she points out to him. He stills, taking in the cruel twist of the brothers’ mouths, their pale skin, their eyes. Then he swears softly. ‘My father was right, in that letter he left. He was right about them.’
‘They’re monsters,’ Lowri says, lowering her arm. ‘What they’ve done to this world …’
‘We have to go back,’ Eli says. ‘If they have magic like mine, if they can wreak havoc like this, then the Fortunate Isles are in danger. Mira, Caden, Brielle …’
‘None of them are safe,’ Lowri whispers. ‘Our entire world is not safe.’ Then the last drop of strength leaves her, and she collapses.
Lowri wakes again on the sofa, the ebony flames crackling from the fireplace across the sitting room.
‘Lor? Thank everything. Ethlet, she’s awake. She’s awake.’
Lowri blinks slowly, finding a figure hovering over her, quickly joined by another. Her whole body seems so heavy, and her mind is like cloud, her thoughts drifting too slowly, too hard to grasp.
‘At last,’ Ethlet says, but she’s already moving away. ‘I’ll brew more Fallow Fog. If a slip of shadow magic gives her even a little strength, she needs to keep drinking until we find a more permanent solution for her.’
Eli takes Lowri’s hand, and he thanks Ethlet before turning troubled eyes on her.
‘You’re cold, Lor. Too cold.’ He frowns.
‘I have to find some way to help you. My father’s work, it’s all in the attic, in his office.
I’ll be back. Now you’re awake, now that I know you’re not …
’ He shudders, releasing her hand. ‘Ethlet will bring the brew in a moment. We will fix this, Lor. I’ll find a way. ’
He leaves her too, the door snicking closed behind him, and she breathes into the silence. But before she can follow her thoughts into sleep, she’s aware of another presence. A creature.
You know, I could probably help you, witch.
Lowri’s eyelids peel back, and she finds Gracious peering up at her. More shadow than cat, she notes the way he moves, like the fog in the sky above Fallow. Like he’s a physical, breathing embodiment of it. ‘In what way, creature?’
Can you sense what I am?
‘You are shadow itself.’ Lowri scrunches her nose, tiredness weighing on her, staring at the grimalkin, parsing back its form, finding what appears to be beneath. ‘Magic made almost flesh, aren’t you? You feel a little like another creature I know. My familiar, Nova.’
Gracious purrs. Clever, you witches. I have not met a creature like you before. If only you had brought more with you. Stronger ones filled with light magic.
‘You were too greedy, weren’t you?’ Lowri murmurs, beginning to understand what a grimalkin is as she fights to stay awake. ‘You absorbed too much shadow magic. You were almost consumed by the fog. I can – I can sense it.’
Clever, clever witch.
Lowri squints at the grimalkin. ‘You have no light magic left?’
Gracious licks his not-quite paws. Yes. In another world, perhaps I would be a cat. But there was so much shadow, an abundance, and we grimalkin did not realise the true cost of our hunger.
‘And how do you think you can help me?’
A deal of sorts. I help you, and you in turn help me.
Lowri blinks heavily, knowing what it is to make a deal with a creature. Knowing it may have a greater cost than it first appears. ‘Go on.’
If I give you some of the shadow magic I consumed, it will lessen my burden and it will help you too, witch.
You’re on the brink of death. I can feel it.
But if you take some shadow magic, if you can twine it round the little light you have left, then maybe you’ll live.
Maybe you’ll be able to regenerate your light magic, as Isaiah believed to be true of the nature of magic.
Lowri considers this offer, watching the cat that is not really a cat. ‘You have not told Ethlet what you are? What you can do?’
She is but a child. Gracious twitches his tail. Isaiah did not want her to be afraid of me. He wanted to ensure I stayed with her. That I protected her.
‘Keeping secrets never helps. In the end, the truth may be harder, but it’s always better than a lie.’
Perhaps. Do you agree to the deal?
‘I …’ Lowri begins. Footsteps sound outside the door and she turns to see Ethlet framed in the doorway and holding a mug of Fallow Fog. When she looks back to the grimalkin, he has gone.