by Finn, K. C.
He nodded and excused them both from the table, causing everyone else to stand and immediately grab Mother’s attention. She let them go, however, without one of her snide remarks. Novel led Lily out to the theatre’s foyer where they stood beneath the flickering chandelier. Lily tapped her foot against the plush carpet a few times, chewing on her lip, then huffed out a breath and folded her arms tightly.
“I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” she said.
“If this is about your blood,” Novel began, his young face looking more tired than she’d ever seen it. “Take no notice. There’s no reason you can’t progress.”
“Blood is the least of my worries,” Lily snapped. She threw her finger out back in the direction of the kitchen. “If that is what I’m headed for, then I want out right now. It’s like she has no feelings at all, not a single care about offending people!”
“The most successful shades are those who can separate their emotions totally from casting their magic,” Novel said in a louder tone. “Mother is-”
“Separate or remove completely?” Lily interrupted angrily.
Novel’s brow came crashing down. “Don’t you dare disrespect my mother,” he growled.
“Why not?” Lily shouted. “She’s disrespected me all night! And you just sat there and let her upset every one of your troupe! What kind of boss are you?”
“That’s not what this is about,” Novel protested with a snap.
“What it is then? Mother knows best?” Lily spat.
“I have no right to be anything but grateful to her!” Novel cried, sparks flying from his hands straight into the dim lamps all around them, which fizzled out instantly as the glass within them shattered. “She made me what I am!”
In the almost non-existent light of the chandelier, Lily took in Novel’s unsmiling face, his sharp jaw and his eyes, which had turned hard as stone. She stepped up to him and looked him up and down with the most disgusted face she could manage.
“Then she made you wrong,” Lily answered.
“So that’s it?” Novel asked in fury. “You’d throw all this power away for the sake of one bad dinner?”
“What about Michael?” Lily countered as she remembered the night at the show. “Whatever she did to him, he hasn’t recovered from it! Your blessed Mother tortured him live on stage!”
Novel let loose a scoffing sound.
“What does that matter?” he asked. “He’s only a human.”
Lily took one last look at Novel’s pale blue eyes before she turned on her heel and marched away. The front doors opened for her in a gust of wind that almost took them off their hinges, and she felt her clenched fists set aflame as she strode out into the night.
JANUARY
Resolutions
“So how’s it going?” Jazzy asked, forcing the elastic of a New Year party hat onto Lily’s head. “I feel like I’ve hardly seen you since your date on Christmas Eve!”
The DJ at Guttersnipes was playing a lurid collection of festive remixes for the assembled partygoers to dance to, and they had just screamed out the countdown for the start of a brand new year. Lily and Jazzy sat at a corner table where they could actually hear one another speak, and Lily poured herself another generous glass of Pimm’s, smiling all over from the warmth of her own semi-drunkenness.
“Well you know,” she slurred, “Mikey and me have been doing all the stuff. He gets invited to so many parties and I didn’t have any projects due so…” She shrugged happily. “He’s such a good kisser, you know.”
“So you keep saying,” Jazzy giggled. “And it’s an official thing? He’s your boyfriend now?”
Lily pulled her battered phone from her bag and pulled up his latest messages to show Jazzy. She struggled to read them against Lily’s wavering hand, but the idea was clear enough.
“He sounds loved up,” Jazzy observed.
“Mmm-hmm,” Lily added with a wiggling brow. “You were right Jaz, best thing I ever did. I feel like I’m finally getting the uni life that I wanted now, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jazzy replied, “and with the blood alcohol level to prove it. I think you should come home and sleep this pitcher off. The Illustrious Minds are doing that lunch tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll be cool,” Lily stammered as she struggled from her stool onto her feet.
Lily wasn’t sure if she snored when she was drunk, but when she awoke on New Year’s Morning to find Jazzy huddled up in bed looking at her, she immediately felt guilty for disturbing her night. She groaned loudly the first time she tried to speak, craning her head and throwing it back against the pillow like it was a lead weight. It took her several long, painful moments to find her speech-capabilities amidst the banging of her brain.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “God, don’t ever let me have that many glasses again, right?”
Jazzy didn’t move from her spot. Her purple duvet was huddled up under her nose, so that Lily could see nothing but her glasses framing her wide eyes.
“Lily, I’ve got to talk to you about something.”
It took her a while to sit up and get her head together, but eventually she could concentrate on Jazzy in almost full focus. She wrapped herself up in her own blankets and sat cross-legged, absorbing the still-worried look on the face of her friend.
“What’s wrong Jaz?”
Jazzy snaked a trembling hand out of her bedclothes-fort and pointed up at the ceiling.
“That.”
Lily looked up, and her head spun, but she held fast until their white ceiling came into focus. Or rather, their usually white ceiling. Great black scorch marks ran the length of the space above Lily’s bed, like she’d fired a flamethrower at it. Lily slowly processed a faint smell that was something like burnt toast, and her mouth dropped open as she lay back down in her bed.
“You do things,” Jazzy began tentatively, “in your sleep. They used to be small things, like little balls of light and itty bitty flames. But this was big. And really bloody scary.”
“Oh God,” Lily said, throwing an arm over her eyes so she didn’t have to look at the damage.
“Do you know you can do this stuff?” Jazzy asked.
Lily nodded silently.
“Then… sorry, but… what are you, exactly?”
Lily turned to look at her friend with a sad little shrug.
“I’m a shade.”
Due to her colossal hangover, it took a fairly long time to explain her meetings with Novel to Jazzy but Lily was once more impressed by her roommate’s ability to take any challenge head on. Jazzy worked out by herself that the occasional ‘job’ at the theatre was all pretence, and that Novel’s mother had to be a shade as well. Lily didn’t hold back on the details of the beastly woman, giving Jazzy both barrels as she relayed all the events of the solstice dinner and how she had walked out of the theatre in protest, leaving her friend with a thoughtful frown.
“So that’s it?” Jazzy said, sounding a little disappointed. “I mean you’re not going to learn more?”
Lily ignited the little fireball in her hand and showed it to Jazzy, who beamed in wonder.
“This was hard enough to make and apparently it’s toddler magic,” Lily sighed, “so I think I’m probably not cut out for it anyway.”
“Are you actually mental?” Jazzy cried. “How dare you turn this chance down! I’d give up my limbs to have supernatural powers!”
Lily let out a groan. “I know, I know,” she said. “It’s not like I’m not still tempted. But this last week with Michael has been so nice and, well, normal. I’m not sure if I can have that life if I’m still doing this too.”
At that she let the fireball start to grow and shrink, feeling a little forlorn that she only knew how to do more with it when she was unconscious.
“Besides which,” she added with a sigh, “I don’t know if Novel would have me back after I insulted his precious mother.”
“Screw him!” Jazzy exclaimed. Lily was shocked by the force of her outburst. “It’
s all focus and concentration right? Learn by yourself. That’s what we all have to do when sucky teachers let us down.”
“I guess I could,” Lily mused, letting the fireball fade away, “but where do I start?”
“You start with a cup of tea and some tablets for that hangover of yours,” Jazzy said, clambering out of her duvet cocoon, “and then we get to work.”
The Illustrious Minds’ New Year’s society lunch was at 3p.m., which left Lily about an hour to practise after she had finally managed to get her head clear from clubbing the night before. Jazzy prepared a space in the centre of the room, and hid all her expensive appliances in case something went wrong. It was practical, but it didn’t exactly do wonders for Lily’s confidence. Once they were ready, Jazzy gave her a big hopeful smile that Lily couldn’t help but return, despite feeling totally opposite about her chances of success.
“Okay, I’ve thought this through,” Jazzy began, like she was starting an essay project. “You can make a ball of fire, so why not try a ball of something else?”
“Water would be the least risky,” Lily said with a nod.
She concentrated her efforts into the palm of her hand, as she had with the fireball, but this time she pushed all thoughts of flame and anger from her mind. She let her shoulders relax, taking a few breaths as the tingle in her veins told her that something was trying to happen. When she thought too hard the sensation went away, but the more she calmed her mind, the more pronounced the tingling in her blood became. She broke into a smile at the glimmer of progress and at the same moment a few droplets of water splashed into her hand.
Lily almost stopped to wipe them off but Jazzy put out a warning finger quickly. “Keep going!” she cried, amazed by the sight before her.
The waterball came much easier than its fiery predecessor; there was no need for starlight or any fancy tricks in order to conjure it. Lily was overwhelmed by her own prowess, even managing to expand the ball into a sphere bigger than Jazzy’s head, and hover it towards her ominously, laughing all the while. The bigger the waterball got, however, the more its colour changed. When it was the largest Lily could make it, it was no longer a clear globe, but a pale, frosty blue colour that reminded her of Novel’s ghostly eyes. At the thought of her would-be teacher, Lily felt a smug smile coming on, imagining how dumbfounded he would be if she could dowse all his flames with the spherical tidal wave she had mastered so swiftly.
Russian Roulette
As January tore on, there was a new heap of deadlines from Professor Havers that kept Lily’s time occupied. She had missed her last tutorial in order to avoid awkward post-Mother questions with Lawrence, but now she’d hit a bump in some research for a piece on Jack The Ripper, and she desperately needed the professor’s advice if she was ever going to complete it on time. She skulked into Havers’s office with a bashful smile and tried not to look Lawrence in the eye as she sat down at the professor’s polished desk.
“Were you ill last time Lily?” Havers asked. Her little face was studying the girl with great care.
“I had a bit of a busy week after New Year,” Lily explained.
It was fairly true. Between learning to conjure water, studying and having dinner out with Michael almost every night of the week, Lily’s life had suddenly become a lot more hectic than it was before.
Havers sucked on her lip thoughtfully and smiled. “New boyfriend?” she suggested. Lily said nothing, but her grin gave the answer away. “Good for you, girl, but don’t let the absence happen again,” the professor warned.
The tutorial went on as normal and Lily got all the guidance she needed to finish her assignment. She made an attempt at a quick escape after the meeting, but Lawrence’s tall frame was no match for her when it came to speed. His long legs caught her up out in the corridor and when he called her name, she felt obligated to stop. It wasn’t him that had treated her so badly, after all.
“Are you coming to the show tomorrow night?” Lawrence asked her with a hopeful look.
Lily’s golden ticket to the Imaginique was sitting under a pile of library books at the dorm, where she deliberately couldn’t look at it, but in spite of her protests she had never actually managed to throw it in the bin. She squirmed on the spot.
“I don’t think I should,” she muttered. “Novel and me… we didn’t exactly see eye to eye last time we spoke.”
Even as she said the words, the memory of him blowing out the lights with the sparks from his hands made her shiver.
“Oh we know, believe me,” Lawrence said with a roll of his eyes. “He’s been a beast all month. His mother left the same night, they argued too. You could hear the explosions from three floors up.”
“What did they row about?” Lily pressed.
“No idea,” Lawrence added, shaking his head, “but I have a feeling she won’t be back for a while. And that’s no bad feeling.” He let loose a toothy grin at that.
Lily found herself grinning back. “I’ve been practising you know,” she whispered. “I’m getting better with water magic all the time.”
“Then come back,” Lawrence pleaded. “Novel needs things to occupy his time, or his temper plays havoc with the rest of us. Please?”
The idea that she could show off her waterball to Novel was all too tempting and, coupled with the thought that Mother Novel was off the scene for a while, it seemed like a reasonable idea to test the waters at the Imaginique one more time.
“I’ll come to the show,” Lily decided, “and I’ll see how he behaves before I make any big decisions.”
*
Michael wrapped his muscly arm around Lily to shield her from the cold as they waited for everyone else to turn up for the walk to the theatre. They were outside Waite’s Jewellers, where Lily was pointing out her favourite ring, which looked more spectacular than ever despite the dark winter night shadowing the mesh window. It was like she forgot how big and shiny the diamond and garnet stones were until she saw them once more, absorbing her interest all over again.
“Trust me to pick a babe with expensive tastes,” Michael said with a cluck.
Lily leaned into his warm body and kissed his ear gently. “You’d better get your skates on and figure out how to make big money with a literature degree,” she whispered.
Michael turned her shoulders and pulled her into a string of frozen kisses that lasted until Jazzy and the other society girls turned up.
“Whoa! PDA alert,” Molly said, pretending to cover her eyes as she giggled.
“Please don’t do that all the way through the show,” drawled Bianca with a grimace. “The January programme’s scary enough without the sight of you two locking lips.”
Lily watched her and Jess lead the pack in their fluffy Ugg boots, hanging back so that she and Michael could join Jazzy at the end of the line. Jazzy gave Michael a careful look then let out an excited little squeal as she took Lily’s arm. She was elated that Lily had reconsidered the possibility of learning more with Novel, even though she had insisted that one visit to the theatre didn’t mean that anything was definite. Still, the temptation of shademagic was firmly back in place at the forefront of her mind as the theatre roof loomed in the distance.
The sight of Baptiste back at the helm gave Lily another lift. His exotic face was bright as he greeted his patrons, many of whom stopped to tell him how glad they were to have him back, Jazzy included. The elegant man thanked her cordially before he took Michael’s ticket with a polite nod, his eyes already flashing to Lily’s face. His moustache twitched just a little.
“I wasn’t expecting you, ma cherie,” he said in a low tone. “I was told you’d stepped out of line with the Novels.”
“I did,” she answered with half a grin, “but Lawrence tells me that the Monsieur isn’t exactly in Mummy’s good books either now.”
“Indeed not,” Baptiste replied, his sharp teeth breaking back into their usual smile. “He’s in a very bad mood, Miss Lily. Take care if you wish to speak with him later on.�
�
Lily took the warning gratefully and followed her friends into the theatre. Bianca had been right about the January playbill being a frightening one, and Lily was glad to have Michael’s arm around her shoulders for the duration of each display. Zita performed a spine-tingling ballet with her neck in a noose the whole time, convincing the audience that any leap or twist might genuinely be her last if she lost her balance. The Slovaks and the Lawrence were particularly vicious in their death march under Poppa’s voodoo chanting, damn-near trampling and crushing one another with their intricate feats of strength.
The only light spot in the programme was Dharma, who danced a burlesque number to sitar music, which was actually a welcome change for once amid the invisible orchestra’s pounding drums and funereal string quartet. Lady Eva took the stage just before Novel’s headlining act and Lily finally saw the so-called hologram ghosts that Michael had once told her about. It was clear now that the spirits were no mere projection, and that the dead were walking the boards before their eyes. Knowing what she now knew about the troupe at the Imaginique, Lily could hardly look at the faceless spectres who wandered, thrashed and sometimes wailed in a great circle all around the Hispanic gypsy, as she called upon her gitano connections to summon more and more spirits to the stage. Lily leant over Michael’s chest to check on Jazzy, only to find her face frozen in fear. Her eyes were focused on one ghost in particular, and she looked as though she was having a major freak-out about the possibility that they were real.
There was no time to reach her and ask what was wrong, for Eva cleared the stage swiftly, her expression obviously mindful of the irate shade who was following her on. Baptiste came first to the boards, but he did not make the usual introductions. Instead, he carried an elegant old gramophone on a stand, a model that Lily couldn’t help but be impressed by. She wondered if Novel had bought it when it was brand new, since the condition of the shining brass and antique, polished wood was truly superb. The turntable was already spinning when Baptiste produced a cylinder record for it. He gave a polite nod of his head to the silent audience, then set the record playing and slowly left the stage.
