by Raquel Lyon
Compassion compelled her to cover his hand with hers. “I can’t imagine how lonely you must be.”
“I was far lonelier before meeting you.” He glanced at the fingers of his other hand as he stroked them gently across the surface of hers. “It has been too long since I have felt the touch of another.”
The seconds passed as Piper tried to decipher what he was thinking. “I’m going to get you out,” she said softly.
“Not without my key.”
“I’ll find it. I promise.”
Lambert’s hold tightened and he leaned closer.
Piper pulled her hand away and jumped up. “About the letters; I found more.”
His eyes brightened. “Show me,” he said, before eagerly accepting the papers and devouring their words.
Piper waited as Lambert read the story of his life, occasionally emitting a small smile or chuckle as the wetness built in his lower lids.
“I’m right in thinking they were written by your mother, aren’t I?” she said. “She is L, right?”
He nodded. “Her name is Lamischa.”
Lamischa? “Wait.” Piper wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “What did you say?”
“Her name is Lamischa,” he repeated.
“No.” She scrambled for the note, she’d finally remembered the location of. “That can’t be.”
“I assure you I speak no falsehood.”
“I didn’t mean to insinuate...” She thrust the note under his nose. “Look.”
Lambert scanned the rough scribbles. “What is this?”
“The possible... indiscretion I told you about.” Piper pointed to the name at the top. “See the name at the top? My father was writing to your mother.”
A heavy silence filled the air as Lambert reread the words. “This makes no sense, unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless my father was dictating it to yours—who then sent the letter on his behalf... or...” Lambert paused, his brows bunching as his gaze drifted off to the side.
“Or what? What are you thinking?” Piper asked.
“That there can only be one other explanation.”
“Which is?”
“Our fathers are the same man.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PIPER FELL FLAT ONTO THE mattress, as though she’d been hit in the chest with a bowling ball, and stared at the ceiling. The possibility of yet another secret came as no surprise, but out of all the things she’d heard, this one was the most implausible. How could they be the same man? That would make Lambert her brother, and how could she have a brother without knowing it? Wouldn’t she have had a feeling? Heard or seen tiny clues? As for Lambert... They had to be the same age, and she’d been thinking about... Ugh. No, she refused to believe it.
“You did ask if I had a different theory,” he said.
Piper propped herself up to speak. “Better ideas, I said. Better. This is not better. It is so far from better.”
“I agree. If it is indeed so. There has been much deceit.” As he spoke, there was a knock on the door.
“Piper? Are you in there?”
“Oh, no. It’s Beth,” Piper whispered. “She thinks you want to kill me.”
Lambert looked quite stunned, his mouth slightly open. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Shh,” she said, jumping from the bed and pulling Lambert to his feet. “Quick. Hide.” She tugged on his arm, but it was like trying to move a firmly rooted tree. He wasn’t going anywhere fast. Then, as she considered compelling him into the bathroom, her bedroom door opened.
Beth angled her head. “What do we have here?”
Piper froze. Having never been caught with a boy in her room before, she was flummoxed as to what to do. Lambert, however, was unfazed. His hands shot behind his back as he bowed and then stood proud. “My name is Lambert Croft, madam. Very pleased to meet you.”
Beth eyed him suspiciously. “And you’re here, why?”
Piper took a deep breath. “He’s my stalker,” she said. But before she could point out that she no longer thought of him that way, Beth’s hand shot out, and in a bright flash of light, the bedspread flew into the air and wrapped itself tightly around Lambert’s body until he looked like a weird pink mummy. “What are you doing? Let him go.”
“We spoke about this, Piper. What on earth were you thinking?”
“He isn’t a danger. Release him and I’ll explain.”
“Are you sure?”
Panic rose in Piper’s throat. Surely Lambert would be suffocating under the thick layer of silk. “Absolutely.”
“You’d better be right.” Beth turned to unbind him, but found only a heap of material.
Piper sighed. “I can explain that, too.”
*****
Over dinner, Piper told Lambert’s story.
“I find it incredulous you brought the box with you,” Beth said, pushing her pudding bowl aside, “when you knew he might follow you here, and he could have been the one who committed the murder at the potter’s house.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“And you were speculating that he was a killer before you’d even met him. But I had met him, and... I had a feeling. You told me to trust a witch’s intuition. I guess you were right.”
“Yes, but it was still a risk you shouldn’t have taken.”
“You mean like coming to a haunted house owned by a werewolf?”
Beth pressed her lips together. “Okay, point taken.”
“I’ve decided to make finding Lambert’s key my priority,” Piper said as they left Sophie to clear the table and moved to the living room to continue their discussion.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Positive. From what I saw of my father in Chimmeris, he appears to be there by choice, and he certainly wasn’t in any danger,” she said at the very moment Sam walked into the room.
“Evening, ladies.”
“Hi, honey,” Beth said. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”
Sam sat down in a nearby armchair. “Our investigation turned up some information I thought you might find interesting.”
“About my dad?” Piper asked excitedly, moving to the edge of her seat in the hope that Sam could shed some light on her father’s double life.
“Not yet, sorry. We’re still working on that.”
“You might not need to,” Beth said. “We’ve made some discoveries of our own on that score, but tell us your news first.”
Sam settled further into the chair and linked his fingers. “It seems our friendly, neighbourhood potter was dealing in more than mere ceramics.”
Piper sank back into the sofa, deflated. She couldn’t care less about some random man’s illegal sideline that had nothing to do with her problems.
“Our initial search of the premises found all manner of contraband hidden inside various statues. Everything from Class A drugs to jewellery. Further enquiries established he was of Manopus descent. The DNA in the kiln, however, was not.”
“What was it?” Beth asked.
“We’re running tests, but it definitely wasn’t Ned Tuckman.”
“Then where is he?”
“We suspect out of our jurisdiction. He hasn’t been seen all week, and on the day in question, an erroneous ripple in the interdimensional veil was detected.”
“What does that mean?” Piper asked as his words caught her interest.
“Someone crossed dimensions. If it was the potter who jumped, he must have been pretty desperate to get away, and I doubt the Assembly would grant us permission to follow him on a hunch. We might have to face the fact that that particular avenue of our enquiries is closed.”
Piper bit on her nails as she thought over what Sam had said. “By the ‘day in question’, you mean last Wednesday, right?”
Sam nodded.
“It must have been your dad,” Beth said, laying a hand on Piper’s knee. “We now
know he’s in the Sixth, so it makes sense that it would have been him. Crossing dimensions is so rare.”
Was the woman stupid? “My dad left six months ago,” Piper said, irritated at how everyone kept forgetting that fact. “It wasn’t him. Nor was it the potter. It was Rixton.”
Unable to face another round of repeating herself, Piper left Beth to bring Sam up to date with Lambert’s story. She went to the library and apprehensively called Jo’s name. If she was going to find the key, she had to get more facts. Mathanway’s book hadn’t offered much more than topographical information. What she wanted was to know more about Lambert’s people and her possible heritage, and for that, she needed Jo’s help. When he didn’t materialise, she called again.
“No need to shout, dear girl. I’m dead not deaf.”
“Oh, Jo. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I take it my assistance is required?”
“Yes, please. I was in here the other day with Sophie, and we were trying to gain some information about a certain place, but we couldn’t find anything. I was hoping you might happen to know of a book about the history of other dimensions.”
“Other dimensions, you say? Yes, I do believe I may have something of that ilk in the primordial section.”
Jo flew up to the rafters and returned a few moments later with a book floating before him. No wonder Sophie couldn’t find anything when it was practically stored in the ceiling. Dust blew from its cover as it landed at Piper’s feet. “I think that should suffice.”
Piper sat down and ran her fingers over the title, Dimensional Origins. Opening the cover and glancing at the contents list, she saw the name she was looking for. “This is perfect, Jo. Thank you.”
“Excellent. Now I’m afraid I must love you and leave you, my dear. There’s a small matter I need to take care of.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks again,” she said, flipping the pages to the chapter on Chimmeris and settling down to read.
Realm Nine in the Sixth Dimension, Chimmeris is a land of two halves. A rugged landscape of vast mountains and rolling plains, its rocky terrain is home to two main species: the Voltignis and the Divimagi. Long ago, they lived side by side, each working their lands in harmony. It is no longer so.
In the Semoveo period, a dark sorceress of Divimagi origin, spurned by her Voltignis lover, took her revenge. She transformed her lover into a monster and banished him to an eternal life of torment in the depths of the Great Fire Mountain. From then on, he became known as the Anfira. With her fury at her lover sated, the sorceress then turned on the rest of his kind, cursing them into three factions to weaken their power.
One faction took to the skies, imprisoned by their animal form and forced to become beasts of labour. Another was similarly banished to the seas and lakes, their fire doused by the water. The last were denied their gift of flight, remaining in their human form to rule their land, yet tortured by the fire burning within them.
Piper turned the page and studied the illustrations of the three factions, two of which were clearly dragons. Why didn’t the author just call them that and have done with it? She stretched her back and grimaced. Sitting on the floor was making it ache, so she took the book up to her room to continue reading on the comfort of her bed.
Swearing that no future Divimagi woman would suffer the same heartache at the hand of a Voltignis man, the sorceress denounced any further unions between the races, vowing that if any child born of such a coupling was allowed to reach maturity, it would bring an end to the realm as they knew it.
Over the centuries, a handful of such children have been born, all of which the Divimagi have sacrificed to the Anfira in the hope of preventing their destruction.
Piper let the book fall onto her lap and stared over to Lambert’s box. Divimagi? That was her lineage? A descendant of a race who used to mate with giant lizards, locked people in boxes for no good reason, and burned their children alive? If that were true, she had no desire to be a part of any of it, and if her father had chosen to return to such a weird and primitive place rather than remain in the life he had made here, well, that was his choice. Personally, she would rather give her magic back and stay human.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KING OBAN LAID DOWN his scroll and looked up. “Septamus. Good news, I hope.”
“Alas, I fear not, Your Majesty. The boy refuses to cooperate and, despite extensive... persuasion, still professes to have no knowledge of the subject.”
“May I suggest stronger persuasion?”
“We have used all we have. Any more could be the death of him,” Septamus said with a hint of optimism.
“An outcome I would not be opposed to, but one my wife would be most displeased by.”
“And what is the boy to her?”
“To my knowledge, no one, but she believes in justice and, with the Resistance growing stronger by the day, does not wish me to stoke the fire and have my honour called into question.” The king poured two goblets of wine and offered one out. “She is, of course, correct. I need my people’s trust and their belief that I only have the security of our kingdom at heart. If I were to be seen as unjust to one of my subjects, more may turn against the Crown. Therefore, let it be known the boy was overheard speaking in favour of the Resistance, and as soon as he is able to stand, send him below. A stint in the mines may loosen his tongue on the other matter.”
“As you wish, Sire.” Septamus sipped on his wine and studied the king’s face. There were many untruths lying behind his ruler’s steely expression—ones he had been attempting to uncover for far too long. “Perhaps, if you told me the real reason as to the importance of the prisoner’s retrieval...?”
“That, I cannot disclose. I ask for your loyalty on this, Septamus.”
“Your subjects would not think any less of you, were he to remain elusive.” That damage was done the day you chose a monster for your bride.
“And yet, he cannot. Do you have any news on the other lead?”
“My men have yet to return, but I anticipate their arrival any day.”
Both men turned as a soldier crashed through the door. Distress marred his features as he briefly bowed to each of the men. “Your Majesty, Sir, I apologise for the intrusion, but the enemy has been spotted near Charton Ridge.”
Septamus drained his goblet and slammed it down. “Sound the alarm.”
He ran from the room, along the battlement, and down into the belly of the castle, with the soldier hot on his tail. It was most unusual for another attack to take place so soon after the last. Their desperation was becoming tedious, but this time they would lose some of their own. He would ensure it. He was ready for it. Every one of the scaly fiends that did not hit the dirt with a shot to the heart would be one too many.
When he reached the barracks, he shouted orders to send the troops to the West Side, before suiting up in his own armour and following his men.
Outside the relative safety of the walls, he glanced over to the horizon, where the sky was thick with smoke. The Voltignis had already penetrated the outer perimeter, and many aerpila were taking to flight. The enemy must not be allowed to reach the capital.
Septamus located his own machine, landing on the wooden seating with steely determination. He flicked the switch to activate the protective energy orb and set off towards the source of the smoke.
As he flew over the town below, he saw panic spreading. Villagers ran screaming through the streets; shutters were slammed down on homes, and protective spells cast over properties. It had been this way for centuries. How could the king think that peace was possible between their two lands? Oban was deluded if he thought the Voltignis were worth anything more than complete annihilation. The king was weak, but he, Septamus, Lord General of the most powerful army his land had ever known, was not, and if he had to take them out personally, one by one, he would. They were savages that needed wiping from existence, not thought of as future allies, and the sooner that happened, the sooner his people would rest easy
in the knowledge that no more of them would be sacrificed. The years had shown that not a single witch or warlock had been able to reverse the curse. Abducting Divimagi in the hope that one would have such a power to grant their wish for unification was fruitless, and if the Voltignis had not yet realised that, they never would.
Spotting a group of familiar silhouettes to his left, he steered his aerpila towards the melee, dodging stray spells that had missed their mark and ricocheted off the ground. Then, just ahead, he saw one, its huge wingspan stretched wide and heading for a group of his men. If he could get close enough, without being seen, he stood a good chance of taking it out.
Dropping to a safer height, he approached just as its rider shot out a tornado of fire, which spiralled towards two men who were too late to avoid it. Aerpila’s protective orbs were good for repelling residual heat but were no match for a direct hit.
The remaining soldier turned to see his comrades envelop in flames and shot out an angry death bolt. It clipped the beast’s tail, and its head reared up with a savage roar. Septamus saw his chance and aimed his own crackling bolt directly at the beast’s heart. It twisted mid-air, throwing its rider spinning to his death, and the monster was quick to follow, crashing to the surface in a spray of dirt.
Septamus broke right. There was no time to savour his victory. Over by the apiary, the sound of a child crying had attracted attention.
He swooped low over the hives, casting a congrego charm. The bees burst out of hiding and swarmed high into the air, massing around the flying beast. It reeled, screeching and snapping flesh-ripping teeth that were useless against the tiny assailants. The rider fought for control, needing both hands to keep hold of the reins and leaving him with no weapons. Septamus flew in close to take aim, but in its confusion, the beast flung out its huge claws and ripped a gash in his aerpila’s orb. It crackled and vanished, leaving him unprotected. It was now or never. Regaining control of his aerpila, he looked up at the scaly belly and fired a shot before swerving from the descending body as it hurtled to the ground.
