The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1)

by Finn, K. C.

  Get dressed and come outside. We’re going for a walk.

  She slipped out of her covers slowly and went to the window, realising that she had not been the one to open the curtains. Shivering a little, Lily peered down into the grassy quad in front of the Wellesley Dorm, to find a figure standing in its centre in a long black coat. Novel’s smooth white hair gave him away instantly. He waved officiously. A flood of nervous excitement filled Lily as she fumbled in the semi-darkness for a jacket and jeans. Praying with every passing moment that Jazzy wouldn’t wake to prevent her from leaving, she dressed in the dark and dashed out of her door without a second thought.

  There were a lot of students rolling in at this time, filling the corridors with the overwhelming aroma of alcohol (both in pre and post vomited states) so Lily was able to pass them before they had the time to collect enough brain cells together to ask where she was going. She wrapped herself up against the frozen December night as she padded over the wet grass to where Novel stood. He was wearing a thick black scarf and woollen gloves, with an ornate silver chain snaking from one coat pocket to another.

  “Good evening,” he said in a low rumble as she approached. He inclined his head to her a little. By the shadows of the streetlights, he was halfway between his sinister stage look and the fresh-faced figure she’d had a few glimpses of.

  “Hi,” Lily answered, her breath escaping in a cloud before her against the frost permeating the air. “So, um, where are we going?”

  “Back towards the theatre,” Novel explained, waving a hand at her to follow him.

  They rounded the building to pass Bean’s Coffee Place, where out of habit Lily rushed up to the window of Waite’s Jewellers to check on her pipe-dream ring. It had become something of a compulsion to take a look through the grate at the golden band every time she passed the place. Novel coughed behind her somewhere, a polite indication that she wasn’t doing as he’d said.

  “Sorry,” she replied, turning sheepishly. But her expression changed for a moment as she caught sight of the silver chain again, and realised the calibre of the man she was talking to. “Actually just a minute,” she started again. “I’ll bet you know what these stones are in this ring. Come take a look for me, and then we’ll go.”

  Though his lips hardly moved, it was all too clear that Novel was gritting his teeth under them. He approached the window and followed her wavering, pointed finger until his gaze found the ring she was describing. Lily watched as his brows came down, his lip dropping open a little in thought.

  “Diamond and garnet,” he answered, turning to her with an odd look that she didn’t understand.

  “Oh right,” she replied, starting to walk off again towards the theatre.

  It was a moment before Lily realised that Novel was not following her. She looked back to find him still staring into the window.

  “Don’t you dare buy it,” Lily warned with a tiny smile. “I need it to still be there when I’m eighty, and might actually be able to afford it.”

  “You like it?” he asked in a low, throaty voice. “This ring in particular.”

  Lily couldn’t be sure if he was judging her, or genuinely curious.

  “I guess you could say it speaks to me,” she replied.

  Novel gave a slow nod, then shook himself a little against the cold. The illusionist caught up to where Lily stood and let out a breath that almost sounded jovial.

  “I shouldn’t worry about material things now, if I were you. You’ll find you accumulate quite a lot of funds over the years,” he said.

  Lily’s smile faltered as she recalled what he had said about shade ageing. “Right,” she mumbled, wondering how long ago eighty must have felt to a man who’d been around as long as he had.

  “That’s how I came to invest in the Imaginique,” Novel added. “I bought her in 1927, when music hall was just dying out.”

  They had entered the shadowy park as Lily processed the information.

  “Have you been living there all this time?” she asked.

  Novel shook his head. “I settled in here about ten years ago when the rest of the theatre scene died, to save the place from being bulldozed.”

  “I suppose you’d be pretty attached to it after nearly a hundred years?”

  “Indeed.”

  Lily couldn’t think of a single question to ask that wouldn’t result in her being even more disturbed by the long and tumultuous future ahead of her, so the pair walked in silence for the remainder of the time. When they reached the looming buttresses of the old theatre, Novel did not approach the front door. He led Lily around to the side of the building and looked straight up its sheer wall.

  “We’re going to the roof, if that’s all right with you.”

  Lily’s lip quivered. “You’re not going to use the stairs though, are you?” she asked worriedly.

  “There are no stairs,” Novel added simply. “Come here.”

  Lily stepped up awkwardly as Novel slipped an arm around her waist. He hardly held her at all, as though he was simply steadying her should she fall, like a protective parent with a toddler on a scooter. Lily’s hand hovered near the shoulder of his thick winter coat as she wondered whether to latch onto him or not, pre-empting the horrific scene of plummeting to her death if something went wrong with the ascent. Novel caught her tentative look and pushed his shoulder against her arm, as if to give permission. She held on and looked away from his gaze, finding that her feet were already leaving the ground.

  They were about a storey up when Lily suddenly had to look away, burying her head against the hand now clinging violently to Novel’s coat. He let them rise gently, and with such precision that Lily felt she was hardly moving at all. For a moment she marvelled at the idea that she might be able to levitate too one day, but the memory of the exploded cabinet didn’t inspire confidence in something as delicate as lifting oneself into the air. When her feet touched down on the roof, Lily broke out of Novel’s encasing arm right away to walk around and appreciate natural gravity once more.

  A lingering shadow gave her pause in her wanderings. A large black bat was hanging from a television aerial in one corner of the roof space. It had huge skeletal wings in a charcoal shade that were wrapped tightly around itself. At the sound of intruders to its private hangout, the bat opened is bright eyes and observed the goings on of the night. Lily backed away from its freaky silhouette, giving a grimace.

  “Come here.”

  She followed Novel’s voice to a raised platform between some ventilation shafts. Novel sat down, leaving a clear space for her to accompany him, then threw himself flat on his back to look up into the night. Lily walked slowly to the place left vacant for her, looking down at him with a hand on her hip.

  “This is going to help me how exactly?”

  Novel let out a small sigh of exasperation. “Don’t be awkward. I can’t bear awkwardness.”

  Resisting the urge to call out his hypocrisy, Lily lay down, but she was sure to leave a carefully wide gap between Novel and herself. The bat left its perch and fluttered over, circling above them. Lily shivered again.

  “Euch,” she griped. “I hate bats.”

  “This one’s particularly irksome,” Novel said flatly. “He sits on the television aerial and ruins our ITV signal.”

  Lily held in a chuckle. “I didn’t picture you as an X Factor fan,” she murmured.

  Novel said nothing. He waved a hand casually and a massive gust of wind overtook the roof, shooing the bat away into the night. Lily heard it shriek as the air forced it from view, leaving the night sky exposed above for her to see. As she gazed up at the bright stars, almost blue against the inky sky, a sudden burst of light caught her eye.

  “Look!” she said, throwing up a finger. “A shooting star!”

  Novel put his hand over hers and gently lowered her arm.

  “It's terribly rude to point at a star,” he remarked.

  Lily frowned, turning her head to look at him. “Rude to who?”r />
  “The new-born shade it represents,” he continued. “We are beings of the elements, but we derive our core strength from the stars. They, in turn, celebrate our presence on this Earth. Watch.”

  Novel turned back to the sky, closing his eyes and taking in a deep lungful of frozen air. As his chest expanded, a strange blue light poured out of the air around him, gathering like a cloud of bright steam, and making his body glow the same colour for a few seconds. When he breathed out again, the light faded away.

  “It’s called starbathing,” he said, his eyes still closed, “I suppose you could think of it as recharging your batteries.”

  Lily watched him, giving a little nod. Perhaps a little charge-up was exactly what she needed to get this shade mojo working right. She lay flat again and looked up at the sky, exactly as Novel had done. Nerves trickled down her spine as she straightened it out.

  “How do I do it?” she asked.

  “Just relax, and breathe in.”

  Letting her mind clear was harder than it sounded, but after a few seconds Lily felt suitably chilled out to give it a go. She inhaled deeply, the freezing air lining her nose and throat as it plummeted into her lungs and suddenly her whole body tingled, like someone had dipped her into a tepid bath. She held her breath, letting the lukewarm sensation lap against her limbs for a moment, feeling its gentle hum ring in her ears. When she let the air escape her chest, she opened her eyes just in time to see the same blue glow dying down all around her.

  “How do you feel?” Novel asked. He sat up and reached his hand out. A moment later a satchel flew into his grip from the other side of the roof.

  “Tingly,” Lily answered, sitting up to watch him rummage in the clunking bag.

  “Good.”

  Novel produced a series of long, clear crystals from the satchel, lining them up at his feet where the reflections of starlight glinted over their sharp angles.

  “Clear quartz,” he explained, “is marvellous for catching starlight.”

  “And we want to do that because…?” Lily said, looking at the stones and cocking her head to one side.

  “Starlight has healing powers,” Novel added. “I’m trying to prove a theory by storing it in crystals, to see if it can be used during the day.”

  She could see the concentration in his eyes as the crystals began to glow that same blue hue. So his interests outside of creepy magic include slightly-less creepy magic. Makes sense.

  “And how are you doing so far?” she asked.

  “It’s a work in progress,” he said with a frown. “These are going to take a while to fill up. Why don’t you practice that fireball while we’re up here, see if the starlight helps?”

  It did. Lily managed to generate the flames almost right away, though they wouldn’t stay for long. Every time she felt her energy waver, or a yawn coming on, she lay back and took in another deep breath, giving herself the strength to repeat the process again. Novel said he was impressed, despite there being no way to confirm that on his face, and when his prisms of quartz were glowing brightly, he gathered them back into the satchel and stood up, throwing it over his shoulder. On their way back down the side of the tall theatre, Lily felt a lot less worried about the height. She was aglow with a new set of possibilities and a clear path of practice that Novel had set for her.

  “Listen,” said Novel as he walked her back through the shady park some moments later. “My mother is in town. She’s come to take dinner on the winter solstice. She wants me to invite you.”

  “Oh,” Lily replied, now fairly excited about the prospect of meeting another shade. “Sure, why not?”

  “I’m going to be rather busy this next week or so, preparing the dinner and rehearsing her,” he explained, scratching the back of his neck. “So if you keep practising like this when you can, I’ll see how you’ve progressed nearer to showtime.”

  “I’ll definitely try,” Lily said, nodding with a head full of starlight and newfound confidence. “Did you say rehearsing her?” she added.

  “I’ve given her my slot in the next show. She never used to be one for the stage, I’m afraid that was my influence,” Novel answered. He made that little half-laugh noise again. “I don’t know how she found out about you actually,” he mused. “I hadn’t mentioned you yet, but Mother has many talents that I don’t understand.”

  “Sounds like a formidable woman,” Lily remarked with a smile.

  A pale eyebrow rose on Novel’s star-kissed face.

  “Indeed.”

  Tea With Mother

  It was billed on the poster as ‘An experience like no other’, so Lily was treading on her tiptoes to see past the queue and get into the theatre when the showtime containing Mother Novel’s performance came around. She had bags of good news for Novel too, for after some midnight magic sessions, she had total control over the ball of flame for minutes on end before it blew itself out. That very morning, she had also been able to produce the same effect during the day. With a new ability under her belt in such a short space of time, Lily was certain that no matter how frightening the supernatural world before her was, she would soon succeed in mastering the skills to survive in it.

  Michael and Jazzy mistook her merry mood for Christmas spirit, which in truth Lily had almost completely forgotten about as she became slowly obsessed with perfecting her first shadeskill. Her friends were busily discussing the Piketon Winter Wonderland that was about to open in Memorial Park as Lily reached the head of the line with her theatre ticket in hand. She was more than a little disappointed to see Dharma collecting them, with a face like thunder.

  “Don’t ask me where Baptiste is,” she snapped as Lily opened her mouth. “He is away for the holidays and I am sick of people asking.” She snatched Lily’s ticket away swiftly. “Honestly, you’d think he was popular or something,” she griped as Jazzy had her ticket ripped from her gloved grip too.

  Touchy…

  “Well I’m sure glad to see you,” Michael told her with a wink.

  Dharma pouted her lips and let her chest swell proudly.

  “There’s a good boy you are, sweetie,” she purred, taking his ticket much more slowly than the others.

  Lily found herself more than a little irate at Michael’s open flirting, but she wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed that his attention was directed at the beastly and arrogant Dharma Khan, or at the fact that this was the first time she’d seen Michael wink at someone that wasn’t her. Jazzy noticed her face as they took their seats together.

  “You can’t blame the guy,” she whispered. “He’s been trying to get with you for three months and you’ve said no to every place he’s invited you.”

  Lily focused on the stage guiltily. “I’ve been busy,” she mumbled.

  “Busy schmizzy,” Jazzy added, “he just told me that he’s going to ask you to go for a night out at the Winter Wonderland. He really, really likes you, so stop being a dopey loner and say yes.”

  “That’s rich from you,” Lily said, turning to her friend with an accusing glare, “when all you’ve done since we came here with Lawrence is smile at him across the cafeteria every day for six weeks!”

  Jazzy frowned. “But I’m shy and he’s shy too!” she protested. “It’s difficult.”

  It was true. Perhaps they were slowly working up to an actual conversation, sometime near the end of the academic year. Lily knew that her own hesitance with Michael was almost totally because of Novel and the whole shade thing, but the prospect of having a night off to enjoy the rides and ice-skating with the charming boy was rather a pleasant thought. When he sat down and offered her a Mars bar she took it happily, flashing him a proper smile.

  “Enjoy your chat with Dharma, did you?” she asked coyly.

  “It was all right,” he shrugged, his grin firmly focused on her once more.

  Dharma made a real show of her welcome and announcements, adding lewd jokes to the programme that Lily was certain the sophisticated Monsieur Baptiste would have spat at
the thought of. She wondered what could have possessed Novel to allow Dharma to fill in for the elegant gent, but one glance at the playbill reminded her that having Dharma on for only minutes at a time meant that she didn’t have an actual act to perform. Novel had probably devoted her usual enormous chunks of rehearsal time to his mother instead, the prospect of which made the other acts fly by in a flurry.

  The curtains closed momentarily for the stage to be set for the headlining act, which gave Dharma the opportunity to flash her legs and tell another crude tale to the whooping and applause of a large contingent of the audience. When she eventually contained her mirth enough to announce ‘Tea With Mother’, the curtains pulled back before her sentence was even through. Lily was sure she saw some invisible force tugging at the edge of Dharma’s leotard, like a phantom crook trying to yank her out of the way. When she eventually gave in and retreated, the audience were left to view an empty round table. The table was laid up with a bone china teapot, several cups and saucers and other pretty Victorian additions that made it look as though the space was set for some retro edition of House & Home.

  The lights blacked out suddenly, just for a second, and when they came back on Lily almost didn’t believe that the figure she saw was real. The circular table laid out for tea now had a guest sitting at it, a petite woman in a long, dark dress trimmed with black lace. Her ancient, bony hands picked up the china teapot as the crowd gave nervous mumbles. The woman’s face was totally obscured by a thick, black veil that extended down to her skeletal collarbones, leaving a slight gap before the neck of her dress began. Lily knew instinctively that it would be a bad idea to ever gaze upon the face beneath that fabric. Mother Novel poured herself a cup of tea slowly. When she spoke, her frail, whispered tone drew silence from the audience as they craned forward desperately to hear her words.