CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The witching hour arrived. Each of them huddled in the living room with their papers and tools.
Rupert held Belchamber not unlike an infant and set him gently into the crook of the armchair beside the ornate vase.
The woollen blanket Dot placed upon him smelled of lavender; she rearranged it so that Belchamber’s tin-coloured face peeked through.
Could spirits get cold? Perhaps not, but they could feel love and she knew that Belchamber would appreciate the gesture of the blanket if he woke and it was upon him.
‘Every time I look at him, I want to wring Acanthi’s necks,’ said Rupert.
‘As I’ve told you, Rupe,’ said Theodora, picking up tea cups and saucers from the coffee table. She flicked her hand, and the table flew to the other side of the room. ‘That would be a very Catherine Weyer way to explore your passions.’
‘What if it’s fair?’ asked Rupert, picking up the small kitchen knife he’d placed on the mantle.
The boy leaned over the hearth and poured alcohol on the blade.
‘Cate murdered your friend, didn’t she? She did this to Belchamber.
Maybe some people deserve to have their own nastiness inflicted back at them? ’
‘Perhaps,’ said Theodora, taking the knife from Rupert. ‘But we know better.’
‘Dot blasted my mother halfway across the markets,’ said Rupert. ‘You didn’t seem to mind about that.’
‘That was accidental,’ said Dot. ‘In truth, I feel terribly about the whole thing.’
‘Don’t,’ said Rupert. He gestured at her affliction. ‘Hurt you more than it hurt her.’
They turned as Lio rolled away the rug to reveal the rune beneath. Theodora set down several candles in a circle around its edges.
‘Lead us through the plan again, Dorothy,’ said the witch.
Dot stood tall, her hands behind her back.
‘The witches of Acanthi have been abducting tea shop customers, and that is most likely how the wards were weakened enough to allow them to attack Belchamber.’ Theodora nodded, and Dot went on.
‘We need to search the city to find the wards that they’ve reconfigured, fix them, and then banish Acanthi from Alliaster by taking their blood, which will probably be difficult because blood magic is Moira’s talent – but firstly, they are not expecting us to use blood magic and secondly, wards are your talent, Theo, so, in a fight, you would be stronger.
And hopefully that helps if they notice what we’re doing before we’ve done it and they attack us. ’
‘I was hoping for something a touch abridged,’ said Theodora with a small smile, ‘but beautifully explained, Dorothy! We have somewhere between fifteen and twenty faulty wards to locate and we need to move quickly.’
‘So, there’s really no other option besides blood magic?’ asked Rupert.
‘I have tried everything else,’ said the witch. ‘And if we’re going to use it to banish them from the city, we may as well fix the wards at the same time. Don’t worry, Rupe. I’ve done this once before.’
The witch opened up her palm. There was the grimace-shaped scar.
‘You will do a spectacular job, both of you,’ said Theodora to Rupert and Dot. ‘Don’t let Liutprand kill me.’
‘Give me your sodding coat,’ said Lio.
Theodora shrugged it off and handed it to him.
‘No one get excited,’ she said, and began undoing the first few buttons of her silk blouse.
Theodora lay against the wood-carved rune of the living room floor and opened the shirt wide enough to reveal her chest and the upper edges of her brassiere. Rupert’s chalky face flushed red.
‘Go on then, Dorothy,’ said Theodora.
Lio handed Dot a little bowl of purple paste.
The concoction smelled sour – menthol, lavender and something bitter that Dot could not pick.
She dipped a thin paintbrush in and, like she had practised at least twenty times on parchment back in the workshop, painted onto Theodora’s upper chest the same rune that was against the floor, adding in flourishes to help locate the reconfigured wards.
Dot finished her work and stepped out of the rune. Only Lio and Rupert were allowed inside it now, and so she retreated to the arm of the chair beside Belchamber. She picked up her stained map of Alliaster, her tidy handwriting long ago smeared by the water of the Lourdes.
‘You’re up, Rupe,’ said Theodora, grinning. ‘Remember, if you hit bone you’ve gone too far. You need to cut carefully, shallowly and evenly. You’ve sterilised the blade so pray you don’t touch it with your hands. We’re looking for steady slices, not sloppy jags.’
‘Will it scar?’ asked Dot.
‘That will be the least of our worries,’ said Theodora.
Rupert glanced back at Dot in what seemed to her a moment of panic. Never had the boy looked younger, and Dot almost made to walk over and hug him. Yet, Lio patted his shoulder and Theodora reached up and took Rupert’s hand.
‘You’re going to do a wonderful job,’ said Theodora calmly. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I did not think so.’
‘You wouldn’t have asked me if you weren’t scared the spell would kill Dot,’ said Rupert, nodding back at her. ‘Or if you trusted Lio to do both parts.’
Theodora laughed and patted the side of his face.
‘Astute as always, Rupe. Still, I do trust you. I promise you won’t let me down.’
Rupert nodded and kneeled beside the witch. He took up the small knife. Begrudgingly, Lio kneeled on the other side. He looked down at Theodora, his own features uncharacteristically drawn.
‘Something on your mind, Lio?’
‘No,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Well . . . should we not find Cate before we fix the runes?’
‘Depending on what they’ve done to the wards, they might use them to wriggle back in,’ said Dot from her corner. ‘It’ll be cleaner to sweep the city of their magic first and then banish them.’
‘I taught her that,’ said Theodora, prodding at Lio’s arm. He swatted her hand away.
‘I hate this kind of magic,’ said Lio. ‘Let’s just get it over with.’
‘Let’s,’ said Theodora. She spread her arms against the wood of the floor.
Lio placed one hand on Theodora’s forehead and the other on Rupert’s.
In a low voice, he began to chant. Theodora, eyes open, placed her palms against the carved rune beneath her.
A gale of wind swept about the room, jiggling the picture frames and books and the vase of bergamot.
Loose papers were caught up in the gust and Dot held tight to her map to stop it from flying away.
The smell of Theodora’s magic plumed. Incense, woodsmoke, gunpowder, lilac.
With Lio’s hand still on the boy’s forehead, Rupert steadied himself and leaned over the witch.
Carefully, he dug the tip of the little knife into her chest.
Theodora winced. She slid her fingers into the grooves of the rune beneath her, holding tight to them. Rupert’s knife dragged ever so carefully along the salve that Dot had painted, scarlet mixing with lilac. Theodora’s blood dripped over her shoulders and down her ribs.
When the first drop hit the rune, Theodora’s head rocketed back.
She gasped. ‘Quickly, Rupe. Finish cutting the rune in.’
Rupert hurried, his hand clutching the handle so tight that his knuckles turned white.
All the while, Lio chanted, his hands on Theodora and Rupert.
Theodora closed her eyes, mouthing the chant along with Lio.
Rupert took a laboured breath and then started on the inside rune.
The blade was thick with blood now. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed and all the while, Theodora’s blood seeped down and across the grooves of the ward carved into the living room floor.
Dot’s hair whipped in the wind. Rupert cut two more lines into the left side of Theodora’s chest. Two starbursts on the right. Four lines pointing inward from the circumference. Dot saw him readjust his grip on the slippery handle.
‘Almost there,’ called Dot.
He cut and he cut, and the longer he did it, the more Theodora winced.
Still, the witch did not cry nor scream.
She mouthed Lio’s chants fiercely and channelled her magic through her fingertips and into the rune beneath her, for she was the one driving the spell.
Dot held tightly to her map, thinking of the little girl with raven hair who at three o’clock in the morning had chosen all of this: the blood and blades and bad women to spirit her away.
Rupert removed the knife at last.
‘I’m going to channel my wards now,’ said Theodora. ‘Rupe, the opera glasses. You’ll get a small window to inspect each. When you find a broken one, describe its location as clearly and as quickly you can. It is going to be a very long evening and we have a lot to find.’
The witch’s hands were shaking as she clung to the rune beneath her. She closed her eyes. Without breaking the connection to Lio, Rupert awkwardly reached for the opera glasses and peered through them.
Dot anxiously stroked Belchamber’s arm, watching the three of them within the rune: Lio chanting, Theodora wincing, Rupert squinting through the opera glasses.
‘Anything?’ called Dot over the wind and the thrum of chanting.
‘Not yet,’ said Rupert. ‘Saints, she puts them in obscure places – behind bins and under statues. They’re very faint but I don’t think any of these have been . . . no, that’s intact. That’s intact. All of these look fine to me. I don’t understand.’
‘Keep going,’ said Dot, and he did for several long minutes until at last he cried out.
‘Here’s one! I – oh—’
‘What?’ asked Dot. Theodora’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut as she drove the spell; Lio held fiercely to Rupert, momentarily startled by the boy’s outcry.
‘It’s a body,’ said Rupert, turning pale. ‘Oh, Saints, I think she’s been dead a long time. Preserved, but I know this woman. Geraldine Thomas. She used to ask a lot of questions in the tea shop. She wore green.’
‘Oh, Rupe,’ said Dot.
‘I’m alright,’ said the boy. He cleared his throat. ‘This is what Acanthi do. We’ll sort them.’
‘Rupe,’ hissed Theodora. ‘Hurry up.’
‘Right,’ said Rupert. ‘Sorry. I’m on a rooftop. There are trees?’