The Shadow Lantern

by Teresa Flavin

  Blaise jumped back, chastened, and grabbed Sunni by the arm. He dragged her round the fight to Lorimer’s side and they crouched down beside him.

  With a mighty blow, Angus knocked Soranzo’s blade from his hand. It skidded across the deck and landed at Sunni’s feet. Without hesitation, she picked it up and stood, holding the rapier out as a warning to anyone who dared come closer.

  Soranzo glanced at her from under his hooded eyelids as his phantoms stopped fighting and formed a protective ring around him.

  “Now is your chance to kill me, Bellini,” he said smoothly. “Or you, Sunniva. I would enjoy watching you try and fail.”

  Blaise could see her knuckles were white and the weapon trembled in her hands.

  “I’m not killing anyone,” said Sunni.

  “Death will come to you, Soranzo, without her assistance.” Corvo gestured to Angus and the apprentices to surround them. “And your blood will not be on her hands.”

  “I disagree.” Soranzo did not take his eyes off Sunni. “I think this girl wants to settle a score with me – if she dares.”

  “Sunni!” Angus, panting and sweating, was barely able to contain himself. “Just stand your ground.”

  Soranzo spread his arms out wide and gestured for the spectres to back off. “Come, any of you, run me through! I would rather perish in battle than face an unending sleep in this shadowland or become a misplaced skeleton in the twenty-first century.”

  Corvo’s rapier dipped for a second, but he gathered himself and said, “Signore, there is another choice.” He sheathed his rapier and pulled a small sheet of parchment from his doublet. As he began drawing with a stump of charcoal, a large black circular shape appeared on the deck. It had a small gap on one side. With each stroke Corvo drew, smaller concentric lines grew inside until the circle was filled up except for an empty centre point. A labyrinth.

  Corvo nodded once and the labyrinth began to glow. “Walk it to the centre, Soranzo, and be returned to the place where you first used the Oculus to enter the shadowlands.”

  A crooked smile grew on Soranzo’s face.

  “You can’t let him return to the past, sir,” Blaise blurted out. “He’ll decipher your clues and go after the paintings again!”

  Corvo shook his head. “I did not say Soranzo would return to the year 1583 – just to his home.”

  The smile drained from his enemy’s face.

  “Walk to the centre of this labyrinth, signore. It will transport you to a year when you would have been a very old man. You will die instantly and peacefully on the other side.”

  “I will become a skeleton like the others,” Soranzo muttered.

  “But your family will bury you and tend your grave,” Corvo answered. “Is that not better than your other choices?”

  Soranzo considered this for a moment. Then, head rigidly high and eyes forward, he walked towards the labyrinth’s entrance. The others all made way for him and the spectres followed at his shoulders. Without a word, he stalked round and round the labyrinth’s path until he arrived at the centre and turned to face them. As he bent to take an exaggerated bow, his body evaporated into a wispy vapour and disappeared, taking the seven wraiths with him into the beyond. The labyrinth glowed a bit brighter for a moment and then faded to nothing.

  There were sighs of astonishment and relief.

  Angus dropped his weapon and held out his hands. “I guess I’m next, Signor Corvo. Send me back to my banishment on the island.”

  “No,” said Corvo. “You are finished here. Everything is finished. I want you all out.” He gestured for Sunni, Blaise and Lorimer to approach. Sunni carefully laid Soranzo’s weapon on the floor and tiptoed over.

  Blaise hadn’t exactly expected thanks from Corvo but he also hadn’t expected him to be so sullen either. “This is my fault, sir. My curiosity got the better of me.”

  “So did mine,” said Lorimer sheepishly. “The wish to see your magical world overwhelmed my common sense. Stupidly, I thought there might be the slightest chance that I would find you, signore.”

  Blaise frowned. “But we told you we only met his doubles, Mr Bell.”

  “I know,” the teacher answered, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “But I had to see for myself. I’ve dreamed for so long that I could somehow meet Signor Corvo and ask for my cousin Angus’s freedom.”

  “You have it,” Corvo said curtly.

  Angus squeezed his eyes shut and nodded as Lorimer murmured, “Thank you.”

  “Signor Corvo,” said Sunni. “We did keep your secrets, even when we nearly died for it. This wasn’t the first time we met Soranzo. He came after us a few months ago.”

  Corvo put his hand up to stop her. “No stories. I believe you but I am tired. No more secrets. Find my three enchanted paintings and make sure they are safe. I hope they are still hidden somewhere in the real world, in your century. That is the last thing I ask.”

  “Under the Bright Ravens?” Blaise repeated.

  “Yes. And you already have the cipher disc, I believe.” Corvo managed a half-smile. “I will tell you no more than that because I cannot trust a Bellini.” The magician raised his eyebrows and called his eldest apprentice. “Marin, you were very hard on these two children. Soranzo caused this trouble, not them. Their hearts are in the right place.”

  Lady Ishbel’s spirit stood close behind Marin. “I am sorry,” he said in a flat voice.

  Sunni seemed unimpressed by this, and Blaise’s heart leaped with satisfaction.

  “Lady Ishbel is standing behind you, Marin,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  He nodded and looked at Corvo. “Her spirit will stay. I wish it.”

  “This means you’ll leave me alone, Lady Ishbel,” said Sunni. “Right?”

  Ishbel’s slender hand curled round Marin’s arm and he covered it with his.

  Corvo pointed at the ship tethered behind them. “Now go! Your way will be clear. Go before this shadowland turns dark again.”

  “What about you, sir?” Blaise asked meekly.

  The sorcerer nodded at the sea stack. “We will return to our home in Arcadia.”

  Not daring to say anything else, Sunni, Blaise, Angus and Lorimer climbed onto the empty vessel. With a sweep of his arm, Corvo cut the invisible tethers and all the ships except his own spun away in a sudden whirlwind.

  The rogue wind blew them back to the long quay. They quickly disembarked and hurried through the dark Amsterdam streets towards the house they had arrived in.

  Blaise could barely recognise some streets without their foliage and hills, but there was no sign of any giant lurking tentacles under the bridge and, to his relief, the sea snake was gone. Just one full moon remained in the sky. He imagined the sea stack, and Corvo’s lone ship still twinkling next to it, attracting everything alien to this shadowland in a spinning funnel and sending it back to where it belonged in Arcadia’s living underworlds.

  Chapter 24

  “Don’t let go of it!” Dean struggled to keep the wobbling table from collapsing as Munro grasped the hot Oculus with his gauntlet gloves.

  “The roof’s going to come down on us any minute,” said the spirit photographer, straining to keep the magic lantern stable.

  Someone had pounded on the door but there was no way Dean was letting anyone, even Mandy, interfere with this. He had yelled at them to go away, and that was that, though he suspected they’d be back if they dared come up through the crumbling building again.

  The floor rocked and the walls shifted, sending the painted sea creatures on the oak ceiling beams into shudders.

  “Hold on!” Dean shouted above the worrying creak of the rafters. “The projection is changing again.”

  “You said that ages ago,” Munro bellowed.

  “You know what the picture is supposed to look like, right?”

  Munro hugged the Oculus as it bounced during another tremor. “I told you! It’s a room with a bed and a candlestick on a table.”

&nb
sp; Dean coughed another helping of plaster dust out of his throat and said, “If I die and you don’t, I’m going to haunt you like you won’t believe!”

  “Nice thought,” shouted Munro. “No offence, but I’d rather keep you alive, which is why I think you should go while you can. I’ll keep the Oculus steady.”

  Dean snorted. “No, I’m not leaving. This is a two-man job.”

  “I hope, wherever your stepsister is, she knows how lucky she is.”

  “When I see her, you can bet I’m going to remind her.” He cowered as a chunk of plaster plummeted to the floor. “Wait, look at that!”

  “Something’s happening in the projection!” Munro cradled the magic lantern while trying to keep his face away from its heat.

  The mish-mash of ciphers and symbols was giving way to something else.

  “A picture!” Dean whooped as the image adjusted and clarified. He could hear a disturbance outside in the corridor and gritted his teeth. “People are coming again! What if they’ve got a key? What if they turn the light on?”

  “I think things are settling down,” Munro said, looking up at the painted creatures on the beams. They were still and showed no sign of ever having moved a millimetre. “The table’s steady.”

  “No!” Dean said. “Don’t let go yet.”

  The Amsterdam bedroom appeared in the projection but it was empty.

  “Oh, man!” He bent his head down on the table, exhausted.

  “This is good,” said Munro cheerfully. “This is very good! Come on, look at the wall!”

  Dean looked up and smiled at the image of Blaise rolling head first into the projection and pulling Sunni in behind him with a candlestick in her hand.

  “Boy, she’s in a right state!” Dean gasped, but he couldn’t help grinning, especially when the two of them hauled Lorimer Bell into the picture. “That’s it!” Without looking at the projection any longer, he yanked open the Oculus door and put the flame out with Munro’s brass candlesnuffer.

  The Mariner’s Chamber went black and Munro staggered back onto the bench with an exclamation of relief. From somewhere in the dark a man groaned.

  Dean switched on his torch and shone it at the place where the noises had come from. It picked up Lorimer Bell, curled up on his side with his eyes closed. Dean waved the torch across the rest of the floor, hunting for Sunni and Blaise. It took a moment to locate them because they were so quiet, but once he’d found them, he knew why. They were lost in a kiss, their arms tightly wrapped around each other.

  Before he could make any embarrassing comments, Sunni reluctantly broke away and glared into the light. “Dean? What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Saving you,” said Dean.

  She and Blaise got to their feet together. “Where’s Munro?”

  Dean swung the torch onto the spirit photographer’s startled face.

  “Why did you do it?” Blaise bore down on him. “I said not to aim the Oculus at the painting but you did it anyway! You dumped us right in it.”

  “Huh?” Dean grunted. “It’s this guy’s fault?”

  “Pretty much!”

  “I don’t know what got into me,” mumbled Munro.

  “I think I do,” said Sunni, coming up close to Blaise. “You thought you could get your hands on the three lost paintings.”

  Munro hung his head.

  “Well, we didn’t find them,” said Blaise, putting his arm around Sunni’s shoulders. “So too bad for you.”

  A key turned in the lock and overhead light flooded the Mariner’s Chamber.

  “Well, for the love of—” Jimmy the security guard said, clapping his hand to his forehead, before he was knocked out of the way by a small horde of people.

  “Sunni!” Rhona bustled over, her expression a mix of relief and anger. She gave her stepdaughter a quick squeeze and gasped at her streaked face, torn gown and the filthy once-white cardigan. “What happened?”

  “Here we go,” Dean murmured. “Get ready, Sun.”

  “Rhona, Dad. We’re okay.” Sunni made no attempt to remove Blaise’s arm as she reached out to her father. “Why are you here?”

  Sunni’s father put his arms around them both. “It got late so we came to give you a lift home. We found the Tower in chaos, rumbling and swaying like it was in an earthquake, and everybody running out. What on earth has been going on up here?”

  “Dad, are you ready for another long story?” she asked sheepishly. “Like London?”

  Her father sighed. “Not again.”

  “Afraid so. It’s all to do with that.” She pointed at the Oculus.

  “Let’s hear about it later. First, you owe Mandy your thanks.” Sunni’s father nodded at Mandy, who beamed. “If it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have known where you were.”

  “Mandy!” Sunni gaped at her friend and the familiar cat in her arms.

  “And I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for Dean spying on you and Blaise,” said Mandy. Everyone’s heads swivelled towards Dean.

  “You were the spy?” Blaise exclaimed. “You gave me the creeps, man. I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder!”

  Dean shrugged, pleased at this compliment.

  “He saved the day,” Munro said mournfully. “You all have him to thank. If he and Mandy hadn’t got in and found me…”

  “I’ll be having a word with you about that later, Munro,” Jimmy interrupted, jangling his keys.

  Mandy carried Lexie over to the spirit photographer, but he shook his head and said in a resigned voice, “I think she’s chosen to stay with you now, if you’ll have her.” Mandy’s purple zombie flesh reddened and she nodded.

  Rhona crushed Dean in her arms. “I thought you were out at a Halloween party.” Then she pulled back and frowned at his ninja gear. “You left the house as a pirate.”

  Dean shrugged again. “So I didn’t stay a pirate.”

  His mother shook her head. “You lied to me, son.”

  “Yeah, I did. And I’m sorry. But it worked out, didn’t it?” he pleaded.

  “You lied as well, Sunni,” her father said.

  “About James!” Rhona exclaimed.

  James looked up from the floor nearby where he, Iona and Aurora were tending to Lorimer and shook his head. “Yeah. Your stepmum thought I was taking you to the party.”

  Dean smirked. Sunni winced as though she had just got a cold blast from the freezer cabinet at the supermarket.

  “Pardon?” she asked weakly.

  “Thing is,” said James. “It went viral. Iona’s mum was onto my mum – you get the picture. Luckily Iona’s cool about it.”

  Iona gave Sunni a frosty look.

  “All right, it was a fib so I could come here tonight with Blaise. But I’m not going to lie about him any more!” Sunni put her arm around him and took a deep breath as she faced her dad and Rhona. “I want to be with Blaise. He’s my best friend and I’m proud of it.” She looked sideways at him and asked, “Is that okay with you?”

  Blaise grinned. “Totally okay.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in danger with anybody else,” she said.

  “And I wouldn’t have had the courage to keep going without Sunni being there,” said Blaise, standing tall. “I’d never let anything bad happen to her either.”

  Rhona dragged Sunni to her and hugged her tight. “We just worry about you.”

  “I know,” came Sunni’s muffled voice. “What about Blaise?”

  “We’ll talk when we get home,” said Rhona, giving him the beginning of a smile.

  “Hey!” a gravelly voice interrupted. Looking half-conscious, Angus stumbled to his feet and teetered slightly as he pointed a dirty finger at the bench.

  Dean nearly croaked. How had that crook sneaked back in?

  “Angus Bellini.” Munro’s mouth hung open.

  “Why am I not surprised to see you here?” Angus said. “Little thief like you.”

  “No,” Munro protested. “Not any more.”

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p; “Really.” Angus fumed, moving towards the bench.

  Sunni’s father moved his family away from Munro and the others shuffled a few steps back.

  Jimmy jumped in front of Angus with his arms up. “Stop right there.”

  “Angus.” Lorimer dragged himself to standing. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I just want an answer from this dude,” said Angus. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came here to do some shows with my magic lantern,” Munro murmured. “And take some photos.”

  Angus tore his hand through his unkempt hair. “And see what you could steal. Isn’t that your thing, Munro? Shoplifting unusual gear?”

  There was a collective draw of breath from everyone in the Mariner’s Chamber.

  “How do you know that?” Sunni asked.

  “He and I have crossed paths before,” said Angus.

  “I’m on the straight and narrow now.” Munro crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Sure you are.” Angus waved his arm at the Oculus. “Where did you get that?”

  The spirit photographer set his lips in a thin line.

  “You said you found it in Istanbul,” Blaise said with distaste. “Bet that’s not true either.”

  But Munro said nothing.

  “The Oculus is stolen?” Sunni was outraged.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” said Angus.

  “Yeah?” said Dean. “And you’re the good guy now?”

  Angus gave him a sidelong glance. “Well, you’ve certainly grown since I last saw you, Deano.” He held both his hands up. “No, I’m no good guy. In fact, you can call the police now, Mr Security Man. We’re ready to go, right, Munro?”

  The spirit photographer just shrugged.

  “Angus Bellini. That’s right, the one who put Mac into hospital last winter,” Jimmy said into his phone. “And another one called Munro.” He signed off and shouted above the buzz of voices, “I want the ladies and kids out now. If you gentlemen would be so kind as to stay behind and help me keep an eye on these two.”

  “Tell the cops to hurry, would you?” Angus groaned. “I’m desperate for a wash and some grub.”

  Rhona herded Sunni, Blaise, Dean and the other teenagers towards the door.