Chapter 18
eli’s words hit her like stone.
I can’t form a portal, Lowri.
I can’t get us back.
He tries to open another portal, thrusting out his hands, shadow wreathing his arms. But all that emerges is a shimmer in the air before him, like a pool with a pebble cast into it.
He drops his hands to his sides, then tries again.
And again, growling in frustration, agitation marking every movement.
The distorted shape of other worlds ripples suddenly on the fifth attempt, and Lowri holds her breath.
But then it fades back to the trees before them, the gravestones, the grey tones of this world. And Eli sinks to his knees.
‘I’ve left it too long to return,’ he murmurs.
‘It must be the fog. It must have soaked up any light magic I had … I should have known they’d retaliate, that they wouldn’t suffer a defeat in the isles …
and now they’ve got Mira.’ His voice cracks on her name and he turns to Lowri, despair dragging him down.
They’ve been in the graveyard for hours.
Twilight is sweeping in, claiming the world and sending chills over Lowri’s skin.
She looks at the looming fog above Fallow, just a few minutes’ walk away, and swallows down her own bitterness, her own despair.
Lowri doesn’t want to think of what this means for them, that they could be trapped here, trapped in this world of shadow, away from their own world, their own lives … forever.
She takes a deep breath, pushing her own feelings aside, and steps towards Eli, placing a hand on his arm. ‘We’re not getting anywhere here. Let’s go back and make a plan.’
‘Isaiah’s notes – maybe there’s something there, some more knowledge we have yet to uncover,’ Ethlet begins, her voice fading along with her hope for them.
It’s clear to all three that the magic they used to get here, Eli’s abundance of power formed and grown over many years in his world, is blocked in this one.
It won’t work for the return journey. But none of them say it, none of them acknowledge the enormity of what it means. That they could be trapped here.
Lowri walks ahead this time, with Ethlet and Eli trailing behind her. Ethlet talks in a non-stop monologue about Isaiah’s research, his books of notes, his experiments with the fog – anything to try to get Eli to open up. To talk back.
When they reach the townhouse in Fallow, Eli strides up the narrow staircase, straight to his father’s study, and when Lowri tries to follow him in she finds the door locked.
For a moment, her fingertips hover over the handle, a witch word on the tip of her tongue to unlock it.
It’s always been his weakness, this tendency to brood, to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, to never let anyone past the charming veneer he presents.
From what she has seen, only Mira has truly broken through.
But she’s not here. And, worse, she’s in danger.
Only Lowri is here, and she doesn’t know how to reach him.
With a soft sigh, she leaves him to stew in the tangle of his father’s notes and research, returning downstairs to form a plan.
‘Gracious, can you sense if I am more restored than before?’ Lowri asks as she enters the lounge, finding the grimalkin sprawled before the fireplace. ‘Is my magic at all balanced yet?’
Mostly. You are still rather short on light magic, and, as a witch, you should have more. But there is enough for you to cast a little.
Something he says catches her attention. ‘When you say, as a witch … Do you mean that creatures and humans hold different levels of shadow and light to be in balance?’
Yes. Your cousin wields shadow magic, and for him to be in balance he needs far less light magic than you.
But – Gracious swipes his tail back and forth – he is not in balance.
Even less so than you. The little light magic he needs has been drained from him and in this world he cannot create more.
Just like the others in the Society, just like his father.
Lowri blinks, falling back into the sofa.
This changes everything. Everything she thought she knew about magic, everything the coven taught her.
The fundamental basis of magic and burnout and balance – it’s not just based on magic in one form.
It’s all to do with the two twisting strands of light and shadow.
‘Is the balance of magic between just shadow and light? Are there more strands?’
‘Isaiah’s research with the Society pointed to more,’ Ethlet says quietly, walking in to flop on the sofa beside her.
‘He was seeking other forms, other strands, that might bring a new kind of balance to help banish the fog. And so that he could form a portal and return to Eli. His mother, your aunt, did she ever speak of Isaiah?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lowri says. ‘I never met her. She died in childbirth, before Eli could even form a memory of her.’
Ethlet’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. So he truly knows nothing of his father. Not even her memories of him.’
‘It’s why he’s so cut up. He’s forever chasing past ghosts.’
Ethlet nods, her features troubled as Gracious watches them quietly.
‘We have to go back to the Society. Isaiah’s research and notes might be here in his office, but they’re uncatalogued, scattered.
He had his own way of organising things, and now I need to bring some order to his work.
But at the Society someone might have answers. They might even be able to help.’
A message is sent to the Society, and Lowri waits anxiously as they assemble their members.
Ethlet tempts Eli out with the invitation to speak to the members and he leaves his father’s study seeming haunted.
This time, in that great round hall, Eli addresses the gathering and the tinkle of those bells falls eerily silent.
He speaks of the portal between worlds that his father had taken half a lifetime to try recreating.
And he talks of how he is now having the same troubles, and that he and Lowri cannot return home.
Lowri’s heart cracks as he tells the Society what he saw through the portal, of Mira, his love, in danger.
His anchor to our world. The person to whom he could not cross over and reach.
‘She was being held by the ruling council’s guards.
The Rexilium brothers have her. I implore all of you to dig into your memories, your knowledge, and perhaps I can piece together a solution.
Anything you can tell me might help us. Please …
’ Eli says, swallowing. ‘She’s in danger and this is only the beginning for us. ’
After some conferring, a woman with a lined face and grey eyes stands, silence falling once more like a spell.
‘Your light magic is being sucked into the fog, as you are aware. It’s like a sponge, wringing our world dry.
Isaiah found this too. The longer he stayed, divided from your world, the more difficult it was for him to be able to return. ’
‘But you must have a solution,’ Eli says desperately. ‘Some way to restore the light magic.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Eli grips the chair back, schooling his features as he speaks smoothly, carefully.
‘Isaiah was working on another theory, though. Of light and shadow not being the only strands of magic, that there could be more. Other ways to bring balance to Fallow and the rest of this world. Did he share this research with anyone? Anyone here today?’
Many pairs of eyes blink in puzzlement, whispered conversations breaking out over the room.
‘Anyone?’ Eli asks a second time. But he’s once again met with silence. Not a single handheld bell rings out.
‘The Society cannot help you,’ the woman eventually says pityingly. ‘This shadow, this curse of fog, is beyond all of us.’
‘A complete waste of time,’ Eli mutters darkly as they descend the wide staircase, back into the entrance hall. ‘All we’ve done here is wasted time.’
Lowri hesitates, catching something in the corner of her eye.
A message sparrow, swooping into the entrance hall below.
It pecks at something on the ground then flies up, landing on the banister beside Eli.
Lowri extends a finger, murmuring a witch word to call it to her.
It looks up, beady eye regarding her, before it flutters over, landing on her finger.
‘What have you got there, Lor?’ Eli asks softly, meeting her eyes with a smile.
Lowri whispers another word, the message turning to ash in her fingers. The message sparrow squawks and leaves her finger, flapping for the open door and narrowly missing Ethlet’s left ear. ‘An appointment we cannot miss.’
It takes Ethlet half an hour to lead them across Fallow, all of them clutching umbrellas. ‘You’re still too conspicuous,’ Ethlet hisses at Eli. ‘If you’d only worn those yellow shoes …’
‘Nothing says “I’m not up to anything; don’t bother following me” than a pair of bright yellow shoes – you’re right,’ Eli says as they step round a gaggle of schoolchildren wearing red shoes. ‘Which street did it say again, Lowri?’
‘Gallow’s End.’
‘Cheery,’ Eli remarks.
Ethlet sighs. ‘I liked you both more when you were despairing.’
Lowri snorts, covering it with a cough as they turn on to the street.
Aptly named, it seems even more gloomy than the rest of Fallow, as though the shadows are deeper here, darker.
They reach a door and Lowri raises her knuckles to knock, but it opens before she can.
And framed in the doorway is the historian they met at the Society – Hellius.
‘We need to talk,’ he says. ‘Come in.’