CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Theodora told the story while staring out of the window. She did not cry as Dot would have. Instead, she recounted it as if it were the narrative of a radio play. By the end, her voice was hoarse, and she picked up the bowl of noodles and drank down the broth.
‘The young man,’ said Dot, ‘the one Opal abandoned you for?’
Theodora gave a sad smile and, as if that very question had summoned him, there came a fierce shout from below.
‘What’s that smell coming from the attic? Do you have dumplings up there?’
‘You must be imagining things, Lio!’ Theodora stuffed the largest dumpling into her mouth.
She met Dot’s eyes. Dot snorted and the witch chewed and swallowed.
‘I know I act like a petulant child with him, but I gave him the safety of my wards, didn’t I?
I plucked him from the river and let him live in my house and I didn’t throw him out, even though I wanted to.
I saved him from Cate, that night. Does that count for nothing? ’
‘Sometimes,’ said Dot, chewing on her nails, ‘blame is easier than guilt.’
‘And yet,’ said Theodora, ‘dear Liutprand doesn’t seem to blame me, does he? Love of his life stabbed by her own mother because of my spite, and where is his hatred? He’s a better person than me, and I bloody well detest him for it.’
The witch stared sombrely at the wardrobe across the room. Around and above her, the arched window rose like a cage and Theodora, with her long arms wrapped around her legs, fingers ever fidgeting, seemed to Dot a clipped bird, tethered beyond her reach. Gently, Dot asked, ‘Are you truly in debt?’
‘Yes.’
‘To Salamander?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much?’
Theodora did not meet her eye.
‘First it was only a little,’ said the witch, rubbing her forehead.
‘I needed capital to buy the tea shop. Understand, Dorothy, I left that forest with nothing. Not even that terrible bread knife. Salamander was a big fish here. Belchamber told me all about him and I knew he was interested in strange magic. There aren’t that many covens, you know, fewer still who teach the use of blood magic. Acanthi are quite bizarre, really.’
Dot sat by the window, still holding her now-empty noodle bowl. She set it down at last on the floor beside her.
‘I am digressing,’ said Theodora with a sigh.
‘I was desperate and so I sought Salamander out and then he asked me what I had planned. I, in my arrogance, was honest. I told him I wanted to open a shop and sell packet spells. He offered me silver in exchange for a cut of the profit on my tea shop and a promise to pay it back. I read the contract five or six times. Belchamber was against me signing it.’ At this, Theodora glanced at the spirit unconscious in his little bed.
‘I didn’t listen to him. I bought the building, but then the floorboards needed to be replaced, but it was expensive so I asked for more silver, and then I asked for more and more and with each altered contract, the terms were worse and the debts were harder to pay back, and Salamander went on, raising his cut of the profit, so I took on more jobs, and I became Justine and Edythe and years went by and I expanded and expanded, and each time I signed the contract again, I read it with less and less care until . . .’
Theodora weakly raised one hand and clicked. A bound stack of parchment wriggled its way free from a mess of papers beside the door. It shot toward Dot, who awkwardly caught it.
‘This is my copy,’ said the witch. ‘Bottom of the thirteenth page.’
Should the debtor default in repayment of the whole (or any part of the) debt by the first day of the third month of autumn in the twenty-ninth year of King Ellarde Custre IV, the debtor irrevocably consents to the seizure and/or liquidation of all personal and professional assets including but not limited to silver, staff, clientele, property and proclivity.
In such case, the debtor will accept the placement upon them of a permanent conduence charm.
‘A conduence charm,’ said Dot, dread rolling in. She recalled the King’s words in the menagerie.
‘Salamander’s invention,’ said Theodora.
‘So that even in his daemoted form, he can steal the magic of others. The United Allies think that Salamander’s reformed and – better yet!
– that he is ever so grateful for his lesson.
So grateful, in fact, that he passes on the profits of his enterprise to the Allies’ citizens in Kremora, in Beleust and Arranfol. ’
Theodora rubbed her eyes, and Dot yawned. She sat up a little, fighting her exhaustion.
‘Salamander doesn’t even do good business!’ the witch continued. ‘He is a lazy, haphazard entrepreneur whose scatterbrained production line simply spills out cheap goods so he can drum up quick silver to be handed to this or that politician.
‘That is why he let me build my empire. Because I’m much better at making money than he is.
With every new contract that I’ve been forced to take out, he was able to steal away a greater percentage of my profit.
This must, I’m certain, have been his intention from the beginning.
And meanwhile he makes his spare silver from shoddy packet spells, and people think that my business and his business have nothing to do with each other. Oh, I was so arrogant.’
‘Why arrogant?’ asked Dot, tilting her head.
‘Because I was so buoyed by all my good ideas that I didn’t see the danger I was in. Salamander wanted my brain, my labour, my future capital. Salamander is not only a dedicated scholar, but also an entrepreneurial scavenger.’
Theodora shook her head.
‘The kinds of people who come to my tea shop, or my factory, or my club, are not the kinds of people who will accept Salamander’s packet spells.
His spells are laced with opium. Few of them work and it does not matter.
His customers become addicted, and many of them don’t even realise why.
They think it’s the magic that does it. But what schoolteacher would buy those back-alley spells?
What university student? What Prime Minister?
I came in and suddenly, between us, we have the whole market for illegal magic covered. ’
Theodora laughed bitterly.
It was a sad sound. Dot wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but didn’t. Instead, she took Theodora’s empty noodle bowl and stacked it with her own.
‘With that final contract, I was doomed, Dorothy. He has precluded me from scheming or building any new modes of revenue. I even tried to break it. I hypothesised that because Salamander had been daemoted his magic might have been weaker than mine. I was wrong. Nothing I did worked. Casimir later told me that Salamander had enchanted all of his contracts well before he lost his magic – that he has thousands of slabs of enchanted paper stored away, ready to be used. He might not be able to access all of his magic but, beneath the daemotion, he’s still a formidable spirit.
He will make a conduit of me before the autumn is over. ’
‘Explain it to me,’ said Dot. ‘The King called it the “puppet master’s charm”. What will happen to you?’
‘Someone inflicted with a conduence charm,’ said Theodora, ‘can, at any moment, become controlled from afar. Mostly, Salamander uses it to siphon someone’s magic for his own perverse uses.
Initially, only a small portion of one’s magic is taken.
It’s like a tap, with a thin stream, always trickling.
Only when he needs it does Salamander open the valve entirely.
The victim still has some control outside of this.
They may speak, cast spells, go about their day as normal.
Casimir, for example. You saw those tattoos on him?
Those are the runes of Salamander’s conduence charm. ’
Dot gasped. ‘That’s what those mean? But he seemed quite normal.’
‘Indeed,’ said Theodora. She let her legs dangle from the alcove. ‘Yet, the victim’s body and their magic are never again their own. And if Salamander becomes greedy, he will take too much. Imagine that same tap, but with the force of the South Sea coursing through it in one violent burst.’
Theodora looked away darkly.
‘It sounds terrible,’ said Dot. She watched the witch carefully.
‘Casimir has told me of it. He has seen colleagues, spirits, caged creatures who were the unlucky chosen on a day that Salamander needed too much magic.’
‘Whyever did you sign a contract with this in it?’ asked Dot, exasperated.
‘I did not realise this clause was in there,’ said Theodora, closing her eyes.
‘I was so daft, Dorothy. It was early last year. I was working late every night and sleeping only an hour here or there and I was so tired. I knew I needed more money and it was so unbearably shameful that I let my eyes trail over all the words, assuming Salamander had included his usual increases and nothing more. And so I signed the stupid thing. I didn’t notice until weeks later when Belchamber was sorting my papers.
I’ve never seen him that angry before. And now, there he is.
’ She nodded at the spirit’s body. ‘There is something wrong with him, Dorothy, and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it.
What is the point in knowing so much magic, if I cannot do anything to help? ’
‘What percentage of your profit does Salamander take now that he’s increased it?’
Theodora grimaced. ‘Ninety-five.’
‘Saints,’ said Dot, her hand flying to her mouth.
‘I know,’ said the witch in a hush. ‘I was very, very stupid.’
‘How much debt is there?’ asked Dot.
‘I don’t want to tell you.’
‘You had better.’
‘About three hundred and fifty thousand silver pieces.’
Dot cursed under her breath. ‘He’ll take the tea shop,’ she said. ‘And with a ninety-five per cent royalty, you would have to earn, what, seven million silver pieces? Does the King even have that much money? What is the due date again?’
She squinted at the contract. The first day of the third month of autumn in the twenty-ninth year of King Ellarde Custre IV.