CHAPTER FORTY
Belchamber was unable to cast a portal, both because he was restricted from assisting or harming the mortal populace of their country with magic, and because he was simply too exhausted. Thus, it was decided that he and Archie would take a train back to Seafarthing.
‘Belchamber may spend the rest of his existence healing from what that magic did to him,’ said Theodora when Archie protested.
‘One more touch from Salamander, and Belchamber could expire entirely. That Opal’s curse was hidden is no small thing.
I need you to look after him, Archie. Take him safely to Seafarthing. ’
The old man with no magic of his own, at length, agreed.
Now, at the station, Archie turned to his granddaughter.
‘I just got you back, Dottie. You can’t expect me to leave you now.’
‘I need you to be safe, Grandad,’ said Dot, sitting on the station bench.
‘I will look after Dorothy,’ said Theodora.
‘Who will look after you, love?’ asked the old man in the faded accent of his homeland. He patted her on the shoulder. ‘You deserve so much more than that man up in that house gave you.’
Theodora nodded and looked away, and then Archie shook Lio’s hand and at last he came to Dot.
He sat down beside her on the bench, wearing that same red coat that he had worn the day they found the anglerfish.
Dot put her arms around him and wondered fleetingly how many more times she would get to hug her grandad.
There was a number, and with each embrace, it grew fewer.
This man was her very childhood – his turns of phrase, and white hair, and terrible recipes, and aquiline nose that looked just like hers.
Would this be the last time she smelled menthol and mothballs and the sea?
‘I should have never gotten on that trawler,’ said Archie into her hair.
‘It doesn’t matter, Grandad,’ said Dot. ‘After this I’ll come home. Maybe we can look for the Ancient Spirit together. I promise you, I will come back.’
Archie hugged her tighter. ‘That’s my girl.’
Archie and Belchamber boarded the train, using tickets forged by Theodora from the spare sweet wrappers in Archie’s coat pockets.
The little spirit opened up the window and leaned out.
Belchamber waved to Lio, who stood by the sign coughing into his handkerchief, and then to Dot.
Then, finally, to Theodora, he said, ‘Be safe, Eggs.’
Theodora patted his hand.
The train pulled out of the station and was quickly swallowed up by the willows.
Once it was gone, Theodora sat beside Dot on the bench, unstoppered a large bottle of tonic and handed it to her.
An elderly lady across the platform stared curiously at Dot’s hands.
For a moment Dot was reminded of the customers in the tea shop, and she felt the hollow pinch of grief – she had spent so much time with Rupert there.
‘This is far more concentrated than it really should be,’ said Theodora of the tonic.
‘Your liver won’t thank you for it.’ Dot drank it down and felt the liquid scorch her throat.
As the tonic coursed through her, the fatigue lightened.
Theodora tugged a jar of salve out of her coat pocket and reapplied it to the stump of Dot’s middle finger.
‘If the neighbour’s herb garden had been better stocked, we could have accelerated your healing more.
But the amputation looks, perhaps, three weeks in, wouldn’t you say? ’
Dot looked at it. The skin was smooth, but every now and then it itched with phantom pains, and a strange buzzing tickled at the stump, irritating her to no end.
‘I won’t lie to you,’ the witch went on, checking her own bandages, ‘this portal will not be a comfortable one.’
‘It can’t be worse than last time,’ said Dot, rising from the bench. Her legs wobbled.
‘You were in shock. And before I cauterised your finger, I shoved a tincture of laudanum down your throat. We were, all of us, quite focused on Rupert.’
‘Should we really leave him here?’ asked Lio, staring up at the roofs poking through the willows. Somewhere behind one of them, the boy was buried.
‘He’s safe,’ said Theodora. ‘Which is more than I can say for the three of us. Come on. First stop, Ollianne Shrine. Once we’re there, we must move quickly.’
Lio cast the portal and they stepped into the whirling darkness and as they did, Dot felt the magic rip up through her amputated finger and down through her afflicted arm.
She screamed, buckling as they fell, and Theodora and Lio clutched at her and dragged her through the tunnel of wind and out onto the steady, stone grounds of the Ollianne Shrine, high on the western ridge overlooking the city.
The place reeked of the ocean.
Dot collapsed against the cobbles, her ears ringing, her vision blackening. She gave herself a moment. Beside her, Lio coughed and Theodora stilled. Something, Dot realised, was terribly wrong. Pulses of cold desolate magic now dragged at her; she swatted them away, balancing them with warmth.
Finally, she looked up. What Dot expected to find was a procession of myriad spirits, lanterns lit, bells ringing. Instead, she took Lio’s arm and saw the shrine grounds completely abandoned.
‘Where are they?’ asked Dot. ‘No, no – where is Thistlethwaite? She needs to break the contract.’
They turned this way and that, but the two-thousand-year-old spirit was nowhere.
Beyond the brim of the stone steps, they could now see the ocean almost entirely covering the city of Alliaster.
Dot came to the edge and peered into the water below.
Bizarre invertebrates with scales the colour of milk swam around the stones.
Far to the east, she saw the spires of Saint Penelope’s Cathedral and the tip of the Tower of étienne poking from the water.
‘How far does it go?’ asked Lio, before coughing into his handkerchief once more.
‘Only to the edge of the city,’ said Theodora.
They searched the shrine grounds, wandering along the paths of leafless birches up to the shrine proper. Along the way, they spotted discarded brooms and overturned bowls of salt and rosewater. They came to the gatehouse. Theodora placed her hand on the door.
It opened a fraction and a pair of startled, bug-like eyes peered out.
‘Hello?’ asked Theodora.
‘Are you Edwina?’ squeaked the spirit. She opened the door a fraction more and peered at Dot. ‘Or you, perhaps?’
‘I am Edwina,’ said Theodora.
‘I have a message,’ said the spirit quickly, jittering with fear. ‘Salamander and all his many fellows were here. There were simply too many. Thistlethwaite and the rest have been taken – I hid. I did what Thistlethwaite would have wanted. I waited. I told you. Now, I will go.’
‘Wait!’ said Theodora, but the door was shut and the spirit was gone, and no amount of knocking brought her back.
Theodora’s expression darkened.
‘All of our planning is dashed to bits,’ groaned Lio.
‘What do we do?’ asked Dot.
‘I do not know,’ said Theodora, turning. Her hands were on her hips and she paced. ‘I have never crafted a spell for swimming. I could try, but without any ability to test it first—’
‘Swimming?’ asked Dot. ‘Why would we swim somewhere and not cast a portal?’
‘The water’s enchanted,’ said Lio. ‘The physics of a portal rune are so specific to the workings of the open air, the wind. We might rip ourselves in half. We could cast a portal over the water, or perhaps to some interior space, but what would be the point? Where would we go?’
‘Hemmington’s,’ said Dot. ‘We could break in.’
‘Without Thistlethwaite?’ asked Lio. ‘And what about Acanthi? Are they not still camped upon the roof of Hemmington’s?’
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ said Theodora. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the bread knife.
‘Why do you have that?’ demanded Lio.
‘I couldn’t leave it behind, could I?’ said Theodora. ‘I took it from the roof before we went to the valley. Can you imagine if Opal got it back?’
‘No,’ said Lio. ‘I don’t want to imagine or see that horrible knife ever again.’
‘We’re desperate,’ said Theodora. ‘Opal is somewhere in this city. Perhaps we can use the knife as a Sympathetic link, and then use Opal as leverage with both Acanthi and Salamander.’
‘We are not using that knife,’ said Lio. ‘Throw that cursed thing into the sea. We will come up with something else.’
‘We do not have time,’ said Theodora, and she looked at Dot. ‘Dorothy, if we fail, I don’t want to live and I don’t want you to sully your magic. Just drive this into my heart.’
‘Stop,’ said Dot. ‘You are panicking.’
‘I am not,’ said the witch, and she lifted up the bread knife.
‘If Salamander can convince the members of parliament to alter Article Thirteen, he will take all of his magic back. It’ll not be like he was before.
He’s had over twenty years to research. Perhaps he will turn every spirit in the city into a conduit.
Thistlethwaite will be beneath Hemmington’s, somewhere.
He must have overpowered her by numbers, but against Salamander alone .
. . Dorothy, I have no genius for mathematics nor the hierarchy of spirits, but I hope we find Thistlethwaite in that dungeon and I hope her two thousand years will best Salamander. ’
‘Why seek out Opal first?’ asked Lio. ‘Why not go straight after Thistlethwaite?’
‘We cannot take the risk of running headlong into Acanthi at Hemmington’s,’ said Theodora. ‘Both Cate and Salamander will want Opal. We can use her to bargain with them, or, if not that, then at the very least we could create a distraction.’
Dot and Lio exchanged glances. Then, they both gave a grim nod.
Theodora closed her eyes. Up kicked a warm wind. The scent of woodsmoke, incense, gunpowder and lilac enveloped them. She raised the bread knife and out burst a shot of light and then, before much fanfare at all, the magic halted and failed.
‘What?’ said the witch, staring at the knife.
‘The link mustn’t be strong enough,’ said Lio, puzzled.
‘It should have been,’ said Theodora. Her eyes darted and landed upon one of the strange scuttling creatures. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’ asked Dot.
‘Those things,’ said Theodora, nodding at them. ‘What did Belchamber call them?’
‘Acolytes,’ said Dot. ‘Looking for the South Sea Spirit.’
Lio stepped out of the way as one large acolyte scuttled grotesquely past him.
‘Did the Sympathetic link not connect with Opal . . .’ said Dot, watching the near creature, ‘because she’s no longer Opal?’
Lio recoiled. ‘Surely not?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Theodora. ‘If the affliction has taken her heart and turned her blood. There’s so much about this magic we cannot understand.
It hardly matters right now, but, if we’ve no way to find Opal .
. .’ Theodora paced about. ‘We could lay a trap for Acanthi and try to sell them to Salamander but, oh, that would be a cruelty beyond any of us, surely . . .’
Theodora went on riddling, winding circles around the sea-swept courtyard until at last the answer hit Dot so obviously and profoundly that she started to laugh.
‘What?’ asked Theodora and Lio at the same time.
‘Of course we have a Sympathetic link,’ said Dot, and she held up her hand, and spread her remaining fingers wide, and showed them the place where her finger should have been.