Chapter 27
somehow, i just know.
There was an absence in our world, a space where he used to be.
Perhaps it’s in my heart, maybe it’s the ghost of the boy who moves through shadow, but, when the world shifts, I gasp.
Pressing my hand into my heart, I feel the pull of him, like the moon lures the tide, like the ebb and flow of the waves rushing over shell and sand.
Eli has returned.
He’s found his way back to me.
I rush from my room, running through corridors, flying down the staircase, and when I step out of the front door, he’s there.
I sob, tears already filling my vision, his smile swimming before me like sunshine, like my first breath of air in weeks.
I run to him. I run to his arms and feel his own wrap round me.
I’m home. At last, with his heart beating beside my own, I’m home.
I reach up to his face and his lips meet mine, his touch sending trails of honeyed light through my veins.
Everything that’s happened, everything we’ve been through, dissolves in this moment with his lips touching my own.
‘You found a way,’ I say, smiling through my tears.
‘And I brought you back what you asked for,’ he says, holding something out to me. A snow globe, perfectly formed, of a town with a dark cloud hanging above it. ‘The city of Fallow, a piece of another world.’
‘Your father’s world,’ I say in wonder.
‘Yes.’ He closes my fingers round it, then leans down, kissing me softly.
I close my eyes, drinking him in. It’s home, it’s us, it’s me and him.
We break apart and he takes my hand, tugging me gently into a pool of shadows.
When we step out, we’re together on his favourite beach on the other side of Ennor, the waves lapping over shells, his hands at my waist, bracing me.
He runs his palms down my sides, tracing my form, as though still not believing I’m real. That he has returned.
‘When I saw you in that doorway,’ he says shakily, ‘when those guards pulled you away …’
‘I know,’ I say, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair, to press my body to his. ‘But I’m all right. I escaped. Our friends, they helped me get out of there.’
‘I should have been there for you, rescued you. I should have got back sooner.’
I smile at him. ‘I do not need you to rescue me, Elijah Tresillian. I rescued myself. I fought for myself. I just need you. To be alive, and whole, and returned to me.’
We kiss again, wrapped in each other, our souls cleaved as one, once more. But we both know it’s borrowed time, that this perfect moment, this reunion, can only be a temporary, fleeting thing. The ruling council will come for us and their revenge will be brutal. We must prepare to fight.
He doesn’t know everything that’s happened here.
And, as much as I want to live and breathe in this slip of space and time, I have to tell him.
He knows I was captured, but he doesn’t know the full story, or where it leaves us and his people.
He doesn’t know that, even now, our enemies will be amassing their forces to wipe us out forever.
That they intend to control magic and that they have their sights set on a bigger prize. The entire continent.
‘Eli, we have to talk.’
His happiness dims for a moment as he searches my eyes. He pulls me down to the sand, his arm draped round my shoulders, his gaze locked with mine, as if I’m the most precious thing in the world. ‘Tell me everything.’
I swallow, blinking up at him, and figure out where to begin. ‘As soon as you and Brielle left, a rival coven descended on Phantom …’
Our discussion continues as we traverse back to Ennor Castle, where Amma provides bread and butter and cold slices of pie, fluttering around Eli, who speaks to her quietly.
I’ve brought him up to date as much as I can, but I still know little of his time away.
More people gather, some from Rosevear staying within the castle walls, some from the town of Ennor, needing to see with their own eyes that Lord Tresillian has returned.
‘It seems we have much to discuss,’ Eli says at my side as we enter the formal dining room where everyone has gathered. ‘I’m very glad to see you all.’
We take our seats round the table. Our inner circle of thirteen: Brielle, Caden, Lowri and Eli, then Agnes, Kai and I, Tanith, Joby, Merryam and Pearl, and finally Bryn and Feock.
We gathered right here not so very long ago, all with a stake in the isles’ future.
But now it appears that for the ruling council controlling the Far Isles and the Fortunate Isles is only the beginning of a bigger, more ambitious campaign.
It began with their plan to bring us all to heel and for the watch to rule over us with a fist of iron. It may end with all-out war.
‘The ruling council mean to go to war if they do not get their way,’ Brielle says, spreading her hands wide.
‘The law controlling magic is only the start. Once they control the use of magic, they own the covens and apothecaries. And with the factories in the north, and what they are manufacturing,’ she pauses, ‘they will unleash forces with weapons of magic upon the continent and create an empire.’
‘And you learned this from the hunters of Coven Septern?’ Bryn says through a puff of pipe smoke.
Brielle nods. ‘The coven set in motion the rescue of Mira and Agnes from the Trials, and they had help from a young woman called Sember Lockswift of Skylan. She has an obvious interest in not allowing Arnhem to gain the upper hand on the continent, but I trust her,’ she says.
‘And, as for the rest of the coven, I’m told that Lessifur herself – head hunter of Coven Septern – went with a band of hunters to scout the wild north.
She wanted proof to take back to her Malefant.
She returned with a first-hand report of the factories, showing merchants delivering metals mined in Valstra. ’
‘Which is one of the reasons they want to control the shipping route and scupper the use of the Straits,’ I say.
‘Exactly,’ Brielle says with another nod. ‘The ruling council want to control what is mined, how it’s delivered to Arnhem and the distribution of weaponry galvanised with magic. It’s war they want, and conquering the isles may only be the beginning.’
‘Is Lessifur going to Mother with this information?’ Caden asks.
‘Yes,’ Brielle says. ‘Well, she’ll already know by now.’
‘And yet she hasn’t tried to contact anyone? She hasn’t offered the coven’s support, or anything?’ Lowri asks.
Brielle smiles sadly and shakes her head.
‘Who is galvanising the weaponry with magic?’ Eli asks, leaning forward. ‘Did the hunters say?’
‘A rival coven,’ Brielle replies.
Agnes leans round Kai to look at me. ‘Perhaps the same coven that took us from Phantom.’
‘Could well be,’ I agree.
‘Perhaps the same one that sent their hunters after me and the two fledgling witches I found on the continent,’ Brielle says. ‘We had quite the journey returning here after we found out Phantom had been ambushed.’
‘This is building a worrying picture,’ says Feock, deep in thought. ‘Magic is power, and power can be intoxicating.’
We all fall into silence, contemplating the power the ruling council is gaining.
The fact that they want me as their storm bringer, to wreck the Straits, to intimidate the other rulers and representatives from across the continent witnessing those Trials …
they are not only interested in wiping us out. They want full control.
‘We learned more about the ruling council in the city of Fallow, where Eli and I traversed to,’ Lowri begins, looking to Eli.
Eli holds his hand out to me. ‘May I show them your gift?’
I nod, placing the snow globe in his hand.
He holds it aloft, and everyone cranes forward to look.
‘This is Fallow, where my father lived. And above it is this dark cloud that they call the fog. It drips down over the city of Fallow, leaching all the light magic from it. It means the world is now almost entirely black and white, with no colour apart from some little twists of light magic remaining. It’s a remnant of shadow magic, magic like mine, from a Shadow War that the Rexilium brothers started.
We learned that magic is made of strands, mainly light and shadow, and if they are not in balance –’ he shakes the snow globe and dark glittering flecks rain down over Fallow – ‘the aftermath can be devastating.’
‘In this world, the Rexilium brothers are known as the ruling council,’ Lowri says softly.
I lean back in stunned silence, remembering what happened in the throne room, the shadow that they held round Agnes’s throat, constricting her airway until she couldn’t breathe …
They really are just like Eli. Not only that, they’re from his father’s world.
They traversed here. ‘And did they win the war they started?’
‘No, they lost,’ Eli says, placing the globe on the table. ‘And they were driven out of Fallow. They formed a portal, left their world and stumbled into ours. They are far older than they appear. The coup that formed the ruling council was, in fact, those same brothers, some hundred years ago.’
‘So these Rexilium brothers, the ruling council, they are repeating what they did before?’ Feock asks, folding his arms. ‘This is bad news indeed.’
‘The question is, will they first pursue Mira here to Ennor and return to establish their hold on the isles? Will they seek to recapture their Storm Bringer? Or turn to greater conquests?’ Tanith muses.
‘They are full of pride,’ Agnes says, throwing back her hair. ‘They cannot bear to be slighted. And after Mira’s escape from the final Trial, in front of everyone …’
‘Then it seems likely they’ll return here first,’ Kai says. ‘And finish what they started.’
Eli nods in agreement. ‘We need to be ready.’
‘My concern is the rival coven assisting them,’ says Brielle. ‘Those witches, the magic in their weaponry. It’s enough to bring us to our knees. If they came to Ennor, we’d have no hope.’
Eli leans back in his chair, thoughtful. ‘Then what do we need? What kind of allies should we seek?’
‘Witches. Magic wielders,’ Lowri says. ‘Brielle, our fledgling coven, it’s too small, not yet established.’
‘And we cannot trust Coven Septern,’ Brielle adds. ‘The Malefant and high witches could be debating this issue for weeks. They may decide to sit it out completely, not choosing to support either side, despite their hunters assisting us.’
‘Cowards if they do,’ Caden says.
‘What we need are witches from outside Arnhem. Allies that would not want to see the ruling council win here, then turn their gaze on other territories.’
I bite my lip, considering Brielle’s words. And Fey floats to the front of my mind. ‘The Spines,’ I say, and Brielle’s eyes meet mine. ‘Go to the Spines and seek a woman called Fey. She’s a drake rider. We can seek witches, find allies there.’
‘This feels like a good moment to chime in,’ a voice says from the doorway.
We all turn to see a young woman leaning against the door, a glint of silver in one hand: a large, rather ornate key.
As I watch, it reforms, changing into a coin, which she pockets.
I grin as Sember Lockswift winks at me. ‘I’m afraid I let myself in.
Hope you don’t mind. What an interesting gathering.
Did you really think I’d miss out on all the fun? ’