23. Cinn
twenty-three
Cinn
W hen he awoke, not to his ruined red hellscape city, but instead into a field of daisies, the tiniest shard of disappointment threaded through the realisation. Even though the shadowrealm London was not the slice of home he’d ideally want to visit, he couldn’t deny his excitement at recognising it last time, and starting to unravel its mysteries.
So, where exactly was he, then?
He climbed to his feet. The field was vast, an expanse of white flowers that stretched for a mile. The bright sun warmed his bare back, while a light breeze pleasantly brushed across the ground, sending the daisies waving back and forth.
All that was missing was an ice cream, and he’d be set for a nice afternoon.
Shame that he was here to interrogate a dead woman.
He spun, about to choose a direction at random, when a childlike laugh came bursting out from a treeline on his right.
“Béatrice?” he called, and was rewarded with another gleeful laugh.
Moving quickly, he darted towards the sound, entering the crowded thicket of trees. A sense of urgency enveloped him. Sunlight played hide-and-seek through the leaves overhead as he wove between towering trunks, a rhythmic crunch of twigs beneath his hurried footsteps .
Every time he thought he was about to close in on the laugh, it sounded again, equidistant from him.
Then, he saw it: a flash of white fabric that disappeared behind a large pine tree. He shouted her name again to no avail—she was gone by the time he reached it.
Gritting his teeth, he pressed forward. If he woke up and had to tell the others he’d spent the entire trip lost in a forest, he’d not be pleased.
A soft, golden glow began to filter through a diminishing canopy. Sunlight hit on an earthy path, as if revealing it to him. Emerging from the woodland shadows, he found himself on the threshold of another green expanse, this time a vast greenery alive with a sea of poppies, scarlet petals greeting him with their dancing wave.
More laughter, but this time more than one voice. He squinted across the field to spot three figures in the distance. Taking tentative steps towards them, he soon saw a family: two blonde children, around ten years or so, sat on a red checkered picnic blanket, on either side of a beautiful blonde woman, vaguely recognisable from Béatrice’s locket. Their mother.
Was this a memory, or an imagined projection from Béatrice? He hoped it was the former. The trio’s enjoyment of the day was irrefutable—Julien was merrily munching on an apple, legs kicked out, looking up at the clouds as they drifted languidly across the blue sky.
If only it had all stayed this way for you.
As expected, neither Julien nor his mother looked Cinn’s way as he approached them. They wouldn’t be able to see him—he’d learnt that the hard way during his first handful of trips. He turned to Béatrice, who was plucking poppies from the field and placing them in a pile on her white dress.
Her head snapped up to him, her grey eyes so similar to Julien’s, he was momentarily stunned.
“What took you so long?” she said.
Before he could reply, she’d jumped to her feet and sprinted off. Not sparing a second, Cinn charged after her, fully prepared to tackle the small girl to the ground, if that’s what it took.
She was fast, but he was faster.
Grabbing on to the back of her dress, he yanked her backwards. Her small body stumbled backwards, touching his. He reached to gently wrap his arms around her, her sun-kissed skin warm.
A single intake of breath and an ethereal energy pulsed through her into him. She continued to fall backwards, impossibly further into him, the boundaries between their forms blurring.
Then he wasn’t in a field. He was Béatrice, eleven years old, hiding under a table, behind a tablecloth. He was terrified. Terrified of the glimpse of feet he saw pounding across the floor. Père, her voice said in his head. Don’t let him find me.
“Où est-elle?” her father said. Where is she?
And then another set of feet came into view, and another voice—familiar, albeit younger. Julien. Their father repeated the question, but Julien seemed unwilling to give the answer he desired.
As Béatrice, his heart hammered with fear and guilt. He needed to come out from under the table. He needed to help Julien, before it was too late.
Then Julien’s feet were being lifted off the ground to be shaken like a rag doll, and all Béatrice could do was to press her fist into her mouth and silently scream. Julien !
Another pair of shoes thundered into the small sliver of floor, attached to thin legs. A woman’s voice unleashing a distressed series of French curses.
Then the legs went flying off to the right.
Reality flickered.
The sun was back .
He was back in Paris, on the bank of the Seine, if the glimpse of the Notre-Dame towers were anything to go by.
He—Béatrice—was older now, thirteen, and was sitting with their back pressed against someone. He turned to find Julien again, his shock of blond waves longer, his boyish face offering a glimpse into its future form. Julien smiled his dual-dimpled grin at Béatrice, before returning to his task: sketching the river. As his hand flew across his drawing pad, the slightest hint of his tongue poked out.
He shuffled back around to return to pressing his back against him, savouring the peaceful afternoon. Gazing up at the beaming sun, he desired to stay here forever, in this tiny slice of happiness.
Maybe it was because he already knew he wouldn’t cope with whatever came next.
The dread started in the pit of his stomach, growing until it consumed every piece of him. He opened his mouth to protest, to say something to stop Béatrice from taking them away from this place. Because where they were off to next was the worst day of her life. He could feel it.
“Please,” he whispered, shutting his eyes.
The gentle sounds of the river and Julien’s pencils faded away, replaced by a growing hum.
When Cinn pried his eyes open, there was a crimson lattice adorning his palms. The sound of someone sobbing—Julien, of course it was Julien—tore his eyes up to find him, barely older than in the last memory. This Julien screamed, a horrific sound of pure devastation, as he sat by the unmoving body of their mother, who was face down on a tiled floor.
All around them lay debris, the air thick with dust and acrid smoke, assaulting his eyes and making them water. Forcing himself to look through the haze offered glimpses of stained-glass shards across splintered pews, their vibrant colours muted by layers of grime. It was only when Cinn looked up to see the splintering beams of the vaulted ceiling shaking above them that their location became clear: they were inside a large church, its once-grand architecture now crumbling around them.
Béatrice was injured. One leg in particular throbbed, and he held it limp behind him as he forced her body to move towards Julien, whose face was pure devastation as he shook his mother and screamed nonsensical things in French.
“It’s okay,” Cinn tried to say as he attempted to place his arms around him.
Julien shoved him off, sending Béatrice tumbling backwards onto a shard of fractured stone.
“Julien,” Cinn croaked, as tears freely poured down his cheeks. Béatrice’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
He climbed to his feet on shaking legs, stepping towards Julien again, this time kneeling behind him to wrap his arms around his stomach. Julien’s whole-body sobs reverberated through his embrace, each shuddering breath piercing a knife a little deeper into Cinn’s own heart.
“Tout ?a c’est ma faute!” Julien screamed. It’s all my fault .
“No!” Cinn said. “Don’t say that.”
Julien continued to sob in his arms.
Pressing his face against Julien’s back, Cinn squeezed his eyes shut, inwardly demanding to Béatrice that it was time to leave.
She agreed. Julien’s warm body faded from his grasp, and Cinn felt its loss like a tooth.
Cinn had lost Julien, but he’d lost Béatrice, too. He felt her drift out of him, leaving him empty. Sightless, he drifted through an eternity of time and space. Everything was fluid, formless, a boundless expanse of intangible whispers he couldn’t quite grip on to.
Then, wetness.
Wetness under his face, his hands, his body. He reached out to grab a handful of sand. He’d washed ashore, somewhere. A dark beach, lit only by starlight .
He stood up, instantly dry, and strode towards Béatrice, sitting alone on a rock. Just them this time, then. Behind her rose a towering cliff, its sharp edges jagged.
She was crying, knees drawn up, head in her lap.
“Hey,” Cinn said, touching her shoulder. There was no response, and a jolt of anxiety shot through him—what if she couldn’t see him now? He studied her. An adult now, far taller, and with even longer golden hair. “Béatrice. Listen. We might not have much time. Julien has sent me.”
At the mention of Julien’s name, her breath hitched, but she didn’t pull her head up, only continued with her soft sniffles. Sighing, Cinn threw himself down on the sand next to her, facing the ocean. Its smooth waves gently lapped the beach, its expansive depths reflecting the blanket of stars above.
Stars .
He twisted, reaching up to cup her head with two hands. “ Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night,” he recited.
A gasp. Béatrice’s muscles tensed. And then, she lifted her head up to face him.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“A friend of Julien’s. And Darcy’s, and Elliot’s.”
A single tear trickled down her cheek. “I miss them so much. It’s cold here. And lonely.”
“They miss you too,” he croaked. “Have you just been… here the whole time?”
A faraway look entered her eyes as she stared at the sea. “I’ve been… lots of places.”
He felt the tiniest tug within him, the smallest signal that his time here was drawing to a close. “I need to ask you some questions, Béatrice. Julien believes that your death wasn’t an accident.” Béatrice did know she was dead, yes? Cinn tensed, but no reaction came. “He wants to find out if you know anything that might help him. Help us.”
Béatrice said nothing for a long time, and Cinn itched with impatience. But then, from under her patchwork jumper, she brought out her locket. “It was this,” she said, gripping it tight in her fist.
“Your locket? How?”
“Something was wrong with it that day.” She opened her hand to show him the metal oval, turning the side adorned with the moon and stars over to the back, the metal charred black and warped. Just like he’d always seen it. “I was up in the mountain. Trying to find survivors.” Cinn frowned, recalling the hazy details of the aid mission she was on. “I found one of those… dark creatures up there. It… it—” She cut herself off with a choke.
“An umbraphage?” he said. This was new information, as far as he could remember.
“I started channelling and that’s when it happened. The locket… did something to me.” Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry. I’m finding it hard to remember.”
“Take your time,” he said, even though they had only moments left, he was sure of it.
“It was like it was taking all my power and amplifying it. But it was too much. Then, I was floating. Then, I was… burning,” she whispered, horrified, looking down at her arms as if she could see phantom flames still licking her skin.
“What was wrong with your locket? Do you know?”
She shook her head.
“Had you noticed anything odd about it before?”
Another shake. “I rarely took it off. I don’t know what happened to it.”
A giant tug within him, lurching his consciousness back to reality.
No. Not yet .
There was one more question he couldn’t leave without asking, even if the answer would kill Julien. “Béatrice, what was your involvement with the Arcane Purifiers?”
She blinked at him.
“Could they have done this—murdered you?”
“What? Why would they do that?”
“Julien found a note in your diary. It marked the day they attacked Auri. You have to tell me. Were you working for them, or against them?”
A silence. A breath held in anticipation.
“Is Julien going to be very angry with me?” she asked, her grey eyes as wide as the moon. “When he finds out?”
Cinn grabbed hold of both her hands. “No. Julien loves you very much.”
She suddenly stood, dragging him up with her. “Don’t leave me here. Take me back with you.”
Stunned, it took him a moment to reply. “Béatrice, I can’t.”
“You can. I can feel it.”
“They’ve warded my body with this ink stuff. It won’t let me bring anything back with me.”
“Please, just try ,” she said, more tears streaming down her face. “I don’t want to be here by myself.”
“Okay,” he said, to appease her, and she threw herself into his arms, clutching him tightly to her, burying her face into his neck.
He tipped his head back at the night sky. The stars shimmered, brightening. Then he noticed a shadowmote, dancing above Béatrice’s head.
“Where have you been?” he whispered to it, holding out a hand. Another appeared, then another, and soon there was a tornado of darkness encircling the pair of them.
They were the eye of the storm.
Cocooned in a tempest of shadows .
The shadowmotes’ pace increased, and so did Cinn’s grip on this reality. He pressed Béatrice tightly to him, as the shadowmotes circled ever closer to them, until they were brushing up against them, a rush of wind and black.
Then, they were spinning, spinning alongside the shadowmotes.
Spinning, spinning, spinning.