Chapter 21
‘if you stay out there in the street, they’ll only spot you,’ Hellius says, beckoning them inside.
‘You’ve created quite a rumble in the Society.
Isaiah was very careful who he trusted his theories with and many of the members were overly cautious.
They believed his research risky. Potentially dangerous. ’
‘And were you someone he trusted?’ Eli asks pointedly.
‘I was,’ Hellius replies. ‘And, if you come inside, I can prove it to you.’
Lowri wonders if this is a trap, if the temptation of two otherworldly visitors is too great a prize. But she is long past wariness. The desperation and longing to return to their world is almost tangible, a riddle she must solve. ‘Know that if you are lying to us, I have a very good right hook.’
Hellius raises his eyebrows at that and chuckles before disappearing into the room beyond.
‘Maybe I should make the threats, Lor,’ Eli mutters. ‘Although you do have an exceptional right hook.’
They walk into a room dominated by a large worktable, covered in the detritus of a man obsessed with magic.
Jars of powders, rolled parchments riddled with inky words, cuttings from plants, flickering candles and an indisputably pungent aroma.
Everything is greyscale, just like all else in Fallow, but to Lowri there seemed to be a glint of something that could almost be an array of colours.
Hellius stirs a small pot on a stove along the back wall. ‘I mix Fallow Fog in with everything now. Would you like some soup?’
‘We’re here about your message, not for soup,’ Lowri says, moving round the table. Her gaze catches on a book, eyes widening slightly before she looks back at Hellius. ‘Tell us about yours and Isaiah’s theory.’
‘And why you have one of my father’s notebooks,’ Eli says.
Hellius holds up his hands, eyes darting to meet Eli’s before settling on the notebook.
Back when they’d met this historian of the Shadow War in the Society, he seemed friendly, harmless.
But now the spiky beard and the close-set eyes appear a little sly to Lowri, as though he had been hiding a side of himself before.
‘Ah, that. I was keeping it safe. You see, we worked on everything together. We were partners …’
‘And now you’re trying to pass his work off as your own, aren’t you?
’ Eli says, folding his arms. ‘I have read my father’s theories, been through his office.
My father may have had a unique filing system, but he kept meticulous records.
And you were never mentioned as a partner.
In fact, in a note I read this morning, he mentions you as someone who tried to discredit him.
Or did that slip your mind when we first met you? ’
‘Merely friendly rivalry.’ Hellius titters nervously. ‘Would I invite you here today if I didn’t have the best intentions?’
‘Tell us what you want, and then it’ll be clear what your intentions are,’ Eli rumbles.
For a moment, Hellius maintains his false smile.
Then it drops, along with his pretence. ‘Fine,’ he hisses, then points a finger at Lowri, the slyness in his gaze intensifying.
‘I wanted her here. A witch, a creature from another world with light magic?’ He shakes his head in barely concealed hunger.
‘If I were to take her light magic, I could save Fallow. I could save our world. I would be lauded, rich. No one would ever question my knowledge, my authority—’
‘You should have stopped at saving Fallow, Hellius,’ Ethlet says quietly. ‘If it were Isaiah, that would have been enough.’
‘And that’s why he failed,’ Hellius snaps. ‘His ways were too by the book. It’s no wonder the Society wouldn’t believe his theories. No wonder he received no funds, no resources. All theoretical. All too politely requested. Whereas I—’
‘Would kidnap a creature?’ Lowri says. ‘That’s what I am to you, isn’t it? Not human, therefore someone to be controlled, drained of light magic.’
Hellius shrugs. ‘Witches aren’t human. Isaiah told me about your catalyst to call forth the power inside you: creature blood. You’re no better, witch.’
Lowri swallows. ‘That may be.’
‘A trade, then,’ Eli says. ‘Tell us what you know, and we will give you light magic. If that’s what you desire.’
‘But how?’ Hellius says, holding up a finger.
‘That is the real question. One I have pondered on since your arrival. And that answer …’ He laughs.
‘The answer is in you. The two of you. Light and dark, together. Two strands, combined, strong enough to open a portal. Strong enough to right the balance in our world.’
‘You speak in riddles,’ Ethlet says impatiently, ‘and it smells like cabbage in here. Get to the point.’
‘You always were an insolent little—’
‘The point, Hellius,’ Eli says with deceptive softness.
‘Isaiah had a theory,’ Hellius says quickly, a grin flickering on his lips.
‘A theory of how to draw light magic out of a witch, and bottle it. So that it could be consumed, or it could be contained to grow and grow, until it could be released into the fog, and the shadow would dissipate, beginning the cycle of renewal, of healing.’
Lowri narrows her eyes. ‘An extraction?’
‘Precisely.’
‘And why was this theory not in any of his notebooks, Hellius?’ Eli asks, thunder gathering in his voice. Then his eyes widen, sliding to his father’s notebook that Hellius has on the table. ‘Did you … steal that?’
Hellius frowns, all pretence dropped. ‘He would have done nothing with it,’ he hisses.
‘And when I saw you in the Society building – a witch! A creature carrying light magic! – I asked for a private audience with the head of the Society. I pleaded with them to allow me to carry out one of your father’s theories—’
‘They said no?’ Ethlet asks.
Hellius’s mouth twists. ‘They said no. You were guests of our world and the theory was unproven. But if you were to offer your blood willingly, if you gave some to me, I could prove the theory …’
Lowri leans her head to the side, considering. ‘How much blood?’
Eli looks sidelong at her. ‘No, Lor.’
‘We have little choice.’
‘I won’t risk you.’
Lowri blows out a breath. ‘We are taking great risks every hour that we stay here! You took a risk when you walked between worlds. Is it not my turn? My choice to make?’ She crosses her arms, every moment of being controlled, of being told no at Coven Septern rearing up in her mind, her own personal monster of bitterness and frustration, and it wears her mother’s, her Malefant’s, face.
‘The witch has a point there.’
‘This does not concern you, Hellius,’ Lowri snaps.
She steps towards Eli and he runs a hand down his face. ‘I carried you here when you were dying.’
‘And you can carry me back out if you must. We will take Gracious with us. Isaiah’s research too.’ Then she adds gently, ‘I am not asking your permission, cousin. Allow me to make my own choices.’
Eli sighs deeply, eyeing her. Then he nods. ‘So be it.’
Lowri turns to Hellius, holding out her wrist. ‘How much blood, then? Tell me and I can decide.’
‘Not your blood,’ Hellius says, licking his lips.
‘Your magic. You must speak the witch words for giving, for offering. That’s what Isaiah surmises in his notebook.
You must use your witch words and offer up your light magic.
’ He moves to the corner, throwing a covering off a large contraption.
Made of glass and silver, it gleams in the dull light, a balloon-like glass bottle with an open funnel at the top, covered in a latticework of silver.
At the bottom is a stopper, like a tiny tap, and inside there is nothing.
Eli walks to it, examining it carefully. ‘The silver encases the magic. The glass itself is tempered. I saw a sketch in one of his notebooks, but there was no explanation. I just flicked past …’
‘It distils the magic within, changing it from fog, if it’s shadow, to liquid,’ Ethlet says in awe.
‘He theorised that the light magic would act differently, that it may sink, that it may be more concentrated and therefore heavier than shadow, which floats as the fog does, overhead.’ She shakes her head slowly.
‘Isaiah spoke of this process, but I thought it was only theoretical. To see the apparatus he dreamed up …’
‘The sketches that you stole, I presume?’ Eli says sharply to Hellius.
‘And aren’t you glad of that now?’ Hellius says. ‘If not for me, his work would be deep in the Society archives. They wouldn’t have even thought to give you his theories, his dreams … They never believed in him.’
‘But you did, and instead of working on it with him, supporting him in his request for funds from the Society, you stole the design and created it for your own gains. He didn’t know about this, did he?’ Eli presses, gaze like a blade, pinned to Hellius.
‘He didn’t,’ Hellius says, deflating for the first time. ‘I’m sorry.’
Eli looks away, crossing his arms. Silence descends for a moment before Lowri makes a decision. Not for Hellius, not for his selfish gains, but for her, for Eli. For his father’s world and theirs.
‘So I offer up my magic, into this funnel at the top …’ Lowri says.
‘Then the device distils it. The shadow will remain in a cloud in the top of the balloon, just like the fog. The light will sink, pooling, so that it can be drained in liquid form.’
‘In theory,’ Eli says.
Hellius shrugs. ‘As Ethlet said, that was your father’s theory.’
‘Well,’ Lowri says, clearing her throat. ‘Give me some space, all of you. Hellius, a tumbler to draw the light magic. Ethlet, watch the door. And Eli …’
‘Yes?’
‘Do not interfere. No being the hero. Not today.’
Eli chuckles darkly. ‘You know me too well, Lor.’
Lowri smiles, then gestures to the funnel at the top, feeling her magic, still slightly wrong, almost syrupy as it clots in her fingertips, too little still, as though poured from a bottle, rather than a well.
She calls upon a witch word, the one for the act of giving.
The one for selfless love. And she allows it to pour from her lips, sweet as honey, gentle as spring rain.
Amoria.