The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1) (19 page)

M
AY

Strength To Strength

With Michael ignoring her, it was much easier for Lily to spend more time training with Novel, and she was surprised at her own lack of guilt in letting her sort-of-boyfriend walk away from her so easily. In her sixth-form days, she’d have cried over even the slightest tiff with a guy, but lately there was only really one person whose approval suddenly mattered.

“Salem Cross wields the buzzsaw,” Novel read from the latest flyer for the May show. “Will the delightful Dharma be cleaved in half?” He set the paper down with a sigh. “One can only hope so. My father’s not exactly renowned for tact and care these days. Perhaps they’ll both get the chop and save me some trouble.”

If Novel knew that Salem was responsible for letting Eno out at the last moon, then he wasn’t letting on about it, so Lily thought it best not to intervene. There were other things, however, that she kept trying to bring up in conversation, but the moment never seemed quite right.

“So… Salem just says what he thinks?” Lily questioned, looking off into the rafters of the theatre. “Is he… I don’t know… quite blunt about things?”

“Blunt, yes,” Novel said, quirking a pale brow, “but honest, no. Why? What’s he said to you?”

“Nothing in particular,” Lily lied quickly, trying not to analyse Novel’s face as he looked at her with those pale, narrowed eyes.

Lily was starting to wonder what Salem could possibly have seen in his behaviour that would make him think Novel had feelings for her. His ever-unsmiling face was its usual picture of thought, and if anything he looked a little bored as they sat together, breaking from training to catch their breath.

“As a rule, I try to ignore everything he says,” Novel added, getting to his feet and dusting off his knees. “Are you ready to try some more gravity?”

Lily sighed, but she nodded and got into position all the same. She tilted her head down to concentrate for a moment, letting another line slip out before she could stop herself.

“Couldn’t we practice something… together?” she asked.

She could feel Novel’s indecision without even needing to look up.

“You mean a collaborative cast?” he answered.

“I guess so.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. She found his face again, but he was looking away from her, focused on the theatre curtains as they swayed back and forth in the non-existent breeze. “I don’t want to generate too much power when the hunters are so close by. It’s the same reason I’m trying not to fight with Salem.”

“You think we’d be too powerful together?” Lily pressed eagerly.

Novel snapped his gaze to her so fast that it made her flinch a little.

“You’ve been reading the book, haven’t you?” he accused. Lily just nodded, disappointed by the sternness in his jaw. “Honestly, the one time you heed me and take to studying, and you’re reading the wrong thing. I don’t think you’re ready for anything collaborative,
especially
not with me, and
certainly
not in front of the hunters.”

“The book thinks I’m ready,” she said with resilience, choosing to conveniently ignore how hesitant it had been in giving her the information about the Kindred Flame.

“Hang the book,” Novel snapped with an angry sweep of his hand. He forced his head away again, looking at the boards beneath his polished shoes. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

And there it was: the thing that Salem must have seen, perhaps on that night when he’d first arrived. Novel’s jaw twitched as he shuffled his weight from foot to foot, like a stifled boxer, and for all his harsh words and teacherly instructions, he looked thoroughly upset. There was a kind of fury to Novel’s insistence that put a whole new type of energy into the room, so powerful that it seemed as though the glass could blow in the theatre with the slightest motion of his fingertips. Lily had that same conflicting swell of emotions rising in her chest as the illusionist’s words echoed in her head. It wasn’t fair to push him, when it was so clear that he believed what he was doing was right.

“Gravity then,” Lily agreed, surprised by the tremble in her own voice, “as you said.”

They trained far later into the night than they had planned but, by the end of it, Lily had the appropriate skills to make something akin to the bubble that Novel had generated to contain Eno. Though she could only lift small, inanimate objects within it, he showed her how to cast the bubble around herself instead as a kind of defensive shield. They seemed to be working a lot on shields and not much on actually attacking anyone, which once again told Lily that, if Novel was planning to fight the turncoat and his hunters, he was intending to do it alone. Edvard’s ghost had warned him against that very plan, but he was ploughing ahead with it all the same.

When Lily eventually heaved out her request to quit for the night, the two shades went down into the Row Below to sit and rest awhile. Novel scooped himself up thoughtfully, with his arms around his knees He was silent and lost in thought as Lily glugged a gallon of water and half-reclined on the old wooden bench, looking at the musician-less instruments that made up the orchestra around her.

“Did you ever put Edvard’s violin in with these?” she asked, glancing around the string section.

Novel’s face sank down against his knees, half-obscured.

“I can’t bear to take it out of the case,” he confessed. “It’s upstairs in my room.”

“I get that,” Lily replied quietly. “Mum’s got this old coat of my dad’s, and she wouldn’t ever throw it out, even though he left her. She used to go mad if I went near it.”

From the corner of her eye, Lily saw the illusionist straightening up. When he turned his sharp face to her, his eyes were brighter again. Lily couldn’t help but grin at him as she watched the wheels of thought turning behind those pale blue orbs.

“I think I need to meet your mother,” he said.

Lily’s smile dropped away. “What? Why?”

“If we could find out what house you belong to, they might offer you protection,” Novel explained.

He was so consumed by his own idea that he clearly hadn’t seen Lily’s disdainful look at the prospect of going back to Colchester. She had managed all year long to successfully update her mother on the basics of her life by text and answerphone message, without having to engage in any of the awkwardness she always felt in their proper conversations. Now, Novel was actually suggesting that he should be introduced to her mother as a friend. A friend who wanted to ask serious personal questions that Lily didn’t even know the answers to. Tamara Coltrane was a crackling bonfire at the best of times, and Novel was practically a tank of gasoline waiting to be thrown.

It was a very, very bad idea. And yet, the more Lily thought about it, the more entertained she became by the prospect of her mother trying to keep her cool against someone like Novel. Tamara hated anything side-show, or even slightly out of the norm, and the sight of Novel in his old fashioned suit with his bright white hair would produce a collection of horrified facial expressions that Lily could spend the rest of her life laughing about. But more than that, Novel had intimidation on his side, the kind that might help Lily to finally discover the truth about her father. No matter what other sparks were going to fly in a home visit, that was a revelation that she couldn’t afford to miss out on.

Home Truths

Lily insisted on returning to Essex the human way despite Novel’s arguments, reasoning that if anyone she used to know saw her materialising from one of Gideon Pratt’s invisible windows, they wouldn’t reach her mother’s house in one piece. She met Novel with the compromise of getting the earliest possible train from Piketon Station, so that they wouldn’t have to stay anywhere in the human world overnight, which saw Lily standing in the pouring rain under the awning of Waite’s Jewellers at 6a.m.. It was the Saturday before the May show was due to take place at the Imaginique, and Novel arrived as precisely on time as he ever did, wearing a long brown coat and a frown.

“Thank God you’ve brought an umbrella!” Lily exclaimed, pulling him by the arm until she could get under the brolly’s wide brim with him.

“Why haven’t you?” he asked sharply.

“It broke, and I’m broke,” Lily said. “I couldn’t spare the cash for a new one.”

“You ought to have mentioned it,” Novel said as they set off from the jewellers.

“Oh?” Lily remarked with a rising eyebrow. “Are you in the business of taking pity on penniless shades now?”

“Ha,” Novel said without smiling. “Not all penniless shades, but I could have helped. I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. One tends to accumulate over the decades, you see?”

Lily’s shoulders dropped as she tried to stay under the umbrella.

“I wish you’d told me that yesterday,” she said with a frown. She pointed back at the jeweller’s window and gave Novel a pout. “Somebody bought my ring. You know, the diamond and garnet one?”

“I remember,” he answered with an eyeroll. “Bad luck that.”

He didn’t sound like he cared in the least. As they walked at Novel’s brisk pace, Lily struggled to huddle close enough not to be dripped on by the edge of his umbrella, repeatedly bumping into his shoulder, until the illusionist gave a mournful sigh.

“For goodness sake, come here,” he said.

Novel exchanged his grip so that the umbrella was in his other hand, and slipped that arm around Lily’s shoulders. He should have been the one getting dripped on now, but the stray strands of water appeared to be hitting a thin, invisible barrier just before they reached his body. Lily tried to settle into his grip, finding one awkward arm stuck against his side, until she gave in to practicality and wrapped it behind his back. She felt him tense at the touch, and tried to focus hard on the wet pavement as they walked.

“I thought you couldn’t control water?” she asked, her boots splashing through tiny puddles.

“What do you mean?” Novel replied, his throat a little hoarse.

“The raindrops aren’t hitting you,” Lily answered.

He looked up and stuck his head out of the side of the umbrella, as if to prove to himself it was true, but then he gave Lily another quizzical look.

“Are you sure you’re not doing this?”

Lily smiled at him. “I think we both know my accidental casting is way less gentle than that,” she replied.

“Fascinating,” he said with a genuine youthful wonder.

Novel became silent and transfixed in thought on the walk, but he kept his arm around Lily firmly as they trudged on towards the station. They were almost there, and with plenty of time to spare, when running footfalls caught Lily’s ears. A voice called out “Hey Lils!” and she turned just in time to see Molly jogging towards her in one of her expensive tracksuits. The young athlete was soaked to the skin, but beaming and bouncing on the spot, energised by her morning run.

“Oh, hi!” Lily said, keenly aware that Novel was slowly trying to get his arm off her shoulders without dropping his umbrella.

Molly had already spotted their closeness; there was a gleam behind her bright eyes that said ‘Gossip, gossip, gossip!’.

“You missed the last two society meets,” she told Lily with a pant. “Bianca’s going to chuck you out if you don’t come next week. Although I don’t think you’ll be missing out on a theatre ticket.” She eyed Novel with a wicked grin. “Love your show, by the way,” she added.

“Thank you,” Novel said with a little bow of his head. When he moved, Lily realised she still had her hand on his back. Her fumbled attempts to dislodge it only made Molly stifle a giggle.

“Most welcome,” she answered. “Well, gotta keep up the pace. See you around!”

She was off like a shot down the rainy road, leaving Lily to bite her lip in agitation.

“Well that’s going to be all over campus by noon,” she sighed.

“What is?” Novel asked.

“This,” Lily answered. “You, me, us?”

Novel had looked for a moment as if he would resume his position holding her, but at her words he broke away and left her holding the umbrella. Lily didn’t know whether to be hurt by the break of closeness, or happy about the awkward curl that had suddenly appeared on Novel’s usually-expressionless lips.

“You’ll have to get the tickets,” he added briskly. “Things are rather different from the last time I travelled by train.”

It was four hours and three trains later that Lily and Novel stepped out into the sunshine of Colchester. Lily hardly had a moment to appreciate the old brick buildings and high street full of shops that she had known all her life, as she and Novel bundled into a taxi that would take them out to Myland. When he paid for the cab, the illusionist had a roll of banknotes so thick that the taxi driver probably thought he was some kind of drug baron, but fortunately he made no comment, zooming off rapidly no sooner than they had slammed shut the doors of his car.

Lily’s mother was waiting by the front window and clutching her mobile phone. Tamara waved vaguely, her eyes immediately seeking out Novel and looking him up and down before she even came to open the door for them. As she waited at her old front door, Lily was gripped with the sudden panic of how exactly to introduce Novel to her mother. What was he? Her boss? Not really. A friend? That sounded ominous, considering she had brought him all the way to Colchester on a sudden whim and delivered him to her mother’s front door. She prayed outright that her mother wouldn’t instantly presume him to be some retro-beatnik-type boyfriend she had picked up at university, but as Tamara Coltrane opened the door, Lily realised that was exactly what she was already thinking.

Her brown eyes roved all over Novel with unhidden disapproval, her painted lips stretched thinly in a feigned smile.

“Hi Mum,” Lily said weakly.

Tamara’s eyes didn’t move from Novel, who was glaring straight back at her with a feline sort of malice.

“All right love?” she asked with a tremor in her nasal tone. “Didn’t think you’d be visiting until summer, especially not with a… guest.”

She still hadn’t moved from the doorway to let them in. Novel extended a hand without breaking his stare.

“Forgive me, I’ve forgotten my manners,” he said darkly. “My name is Lemarick Novel.”

Tamara didn’t take his hand. Instead, she looked to Lily, and suddenly grabbed her daughter’s wrist, pulling her into the house with a vicious wrench.

“Mum! What are you doing? Oh my god!”

Lily wrestled against her mother as Novel took a menacing step forward. Tamara put herself between the two shades and tried to square her tiny frame up to Novel’s sharp jaw. She was usually a little manic in Lily’s eyes, but the woman’s behaviour now was positively insane as she jostled in her attempt to remain a human barrier.

“I was told if ever a person came here with that surname, my daughter would be in danger,” she said through gritted teeth.

“And who told you that, I wonder?” Novel asked. He had a dangerous look in his eyes, and Lily could see his palms flashing with blue sparks.

“I know
what
you are,” Tamara said with a sneer, her grip still painfully tight on Lily’s wrist.

“Then you know what your daughter is too,” Novel growled, catching Lily’s eye over her mother’s shoulder.

“She’s nothing like you!” her mother insisted with a shriek. “You… you freak!”

At this outburst, Tamara went flying across the hall and bumped against the wall beside the stairs, crumpling into a shocked heap on the bottom step. Lily trembled as Novel stepped into her childhood home, realising that it was not he who had made her travel. Lily’s own blood was burning in her veins, and she stared at her hands, cursing them for their accidental magic. Magic that had worked to defend Novel, even against her own family.

“Your gravity’s getting better,” the illusionist remarked.

He remained extremely casual for someone who had just witnessed a girl attack her own mother. Lily rubbed her sore, red wrist and rushed forward to help her mum back up. Tamara held out her hands forcefully, as though her outstretched palms could keep them both away.

“No,” she whispered, eyeing Lily with anger and fear. “Don’t you touch me. Not ever again.”

It was as though someone had lifted a veil on Lily’s past. She stood looking down on her mother as the skinny blonde quaked in fear, her face a picture of terror, disdain and regret. The rift between them, that impenetrable wall preventing their closeness that Lily had never understood: this was what it was about. Lily, Tamara’s daughter, her only child, was not even human. And her mother had known this perhaps all her life, never wanting to tell her, in the faint hope that her shadepowers might never awaken.

“Please Miss Coltrane,” Novel said in a softer, more polite tone. “I just need what information you have about Lily’s father. I’ll never darken your doorstep again once you tell me what you know.”

Lily reverted to her usual form, and did what she always did after a fight with her mother. She made everyone a strong cup of tea. The three of them sat at the kitchen table, silently cradling their tea mugs until Tamara had gathered herself up enough to speak. She had elected to sit as far away from the two shades as possible, yet she was still trying to recede even farther into the back of her chair. It hurt Lily to see her mother so desperate to get away from her, but the bitterness of all the secrets and lies kept throughout her life prevented her from giving any sympathy.

“He told me what he was just before he left,” Tamara began in a cracked voice, “and he said that if I raised Lily right and kept her safe, then she’d never know what she might have been.”

“What she is,” Novel corrected. “You’ve kept her from her people. From her family.”

“I was her family!” Tamara said, slamming her mug down as tea spattered everywhere. “Every damn day lived in fear that one of
your kind
was going to show up and take her away!”

Lily felt like her throat was closing, but she sipped at her drink and reached into her pocket under the table. The lepidolite stone that Novel had given her felt warm in her hand, and it sent a wave of calm into her chest. She let it go again, and took a deep breath.

“That’s passed now,” Lily said. “Never mind. Just tell us his name.”

“Mikhail Proust,” she stammered.

Novel shook his head immediately. “There’s no such family.”

“Well that’s what he told me it was,” Tamara snapped back. “Of course I know it’s false. I tried to find him. I wanted answers. I mean, how could he look down into his daughter’s face and not even care? Just leave like he did…”

“Wait,” Lily interrupted with a wave of her hand. “Look down? You told me he left before I was even born!”

Lily steeled her fist against the table angrily, and a gust of wind swept through the room. Novel put his hand over hers to calm her, and the breeze died instantly, but the flicker of the Kindred Flame ignited at their touch. Tamara looked at the impossible sight with revulsion. Lily saw her mother’s expression, and gripped Novel’s hand defiantly, making the flames glow with greater intensity.

“What did he look like?” Novel pressed, forcing Tamara to look back to his sombre face.

She half-shrugged and half-shivered at the question. “Tall, good looking, a bit on the hairy side. He had one eye a different colour to the other, and he told me it was made of glass.”

“And Lily saw him, when she was a child?” he added.

Tamara gave a nod. “She smiled up at him, and he didn’t even flinch. He just left.” Lily tried to put her other hand out towards her mother, but Tamara flinched away. “If that’s all you wanted, then you can go.” She shut her eyes tightly. “Both of you.”

Lily had the sudden, childish urge to cry and scream at her, but Novel wasn’t done.

“There’s one more thing,” he continued. “I want to see his coat.”

It was Lily who led him upstairs to her mother’s wardrobe in the end. The frightened human waited at the foot of the stairs, desperate to be rid of the two abominations invading her home. For her part Lily couldn’t wait to be gone either, back to Jazzy and Novel and the theatre people, who didn’t care if she was human or not. She threw open the wardrobe doors and ripped a whole stack of clothes aside to reveal it: a huge, long overcoat made of real fur. Novel ran his fingers over the fabric gently.

“This is old,” he mused. “Much, much older than me. Perhaps even older than Salem.”

“Do you know who the description fits?” Lily asked in a whisper.

Novel sucked in his lip a moment. “I have a few suspicions, but we’re going to need some help.”