The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1)

by Finn, K. C.

  Salem cowed as her voice grew into a shout, looking back at the lifeless body of his boy. He nodded sadly and turned away, sitting himself on the arm of the sofa near Novel’s feet.

  “They’re right though,” Jazzy said quietly, rubbing Lily’s arm. “You can’t just go off in a trance unprotected.”

  “I know,” Lily replied, “but taking supernatural people with me is asking for too much trouble. The hunters can feel the magic, and that’s why I need you.”

  “Me?” Jazzy questioned, her eyes bulging. “What can I do?”

  Lily turned her head to the window. “Baptiste, run to the Row Below and find Novel’s stones.”

  “Stones?” the MC repeated with a funny look.

  “Rose quartz,” she explained. “They’re in a crate, and they’re all glowing with power. Don’t drop them, or you’ll blow a hole in the roof.”

  “Are they like your pendant was?” Jazzy asked, catching the drift of her plan.

  Lily nodded, fogging up the window glass to draw the rune and summon Gideon Pratt.

  Burning Skies

  Pratt the windowmaker was less cool and collected than usual, and he had declined to stay and wait for their return journey. He had promised that if Lily called him again to get back to the Imaginique, however, then he would answer. Once Jazzy was set up with the stones full of loose power, and the Book of Shade on her knee, Lily laid herself down on her dormitory bed and held the chunk of lepidolite over her chest. She willed it to quickly calm her heart and allow her to drift into sleep. Lily knew that she might not have long before Maxime and the hunters started attacking the building, so she closed her eyes and thought hard of Novel as the stone helped her leave consciousness all the quicker.

  Lily found herself back in the same patch of the park where Novel had been attacked, but this time the grass was singed and black. The sky above her had some of its old pinkish glow, but vast clouds of fire had overtaken the peaceful scene, burning and raging in the heavens, as if at any moment they would break and rain down flames. Lily glanced around at the black skeletal trees that smelled like fire, searching the empty scene for any sign of life. Novel was almost camouflaged by his black suit and slim frame where he stood amongst the trees, his pale head buried in his hands.

  He seemed to know before she spoke that she was there, turning with shock and racing towards her, as he had just before he was shot down.

  “Lily,” he cried, reaching out for her desperately.

  When they touched, neither could get a proper grip on the other, slipping out of each other’s fingers or melting right through each other like they were made of water. Lily stamped her foot and bit her lip, cursing in a low tone.

  “Stupid dream physics,” she griped. “How do I wake you up, Novel? Please tell me you know how!”

  The illusionist’s surprised expression retreated into sadness. “I don’t,” he confessed with a shake of his head, “this enchantment is much older than anything I’ve ever been taught. She kept it from me, all these years. I thought I knew everything.”

  “She?” Lily pressed. “She who?”

  “You don’t know yet?” Novel replied with wide eyes. “My mother, Lily, she’s… she’s in league with Maxime.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped open as the burning world around her shifted into a darker focus.

  “They’re working together?” she gasped. “So Maxime did this on your Mother’s orders?”

  “To keep me out of the way,” Novel answered with a nod. From some angles in the peculiar dream, the shadows made him look as though he was made up for the stage. His eyes turned dark and hollow as he spoke. “So that she can do what needs to be done.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Lily remarked.

  “She’s been spying on the theatre,” he explained. “The mirror in my dressing room, it’s a two-way mirror, one that can look from place to place. You have to take it down!”

  “I smashed it,” Lily revealed with an apologetic look. “I didn’t know about the bad luck thing. I’m sorry.”

  Novel gave a hollow, unsmiling laugh. “I don’t know how to stop her Lily,” he looked back to her with large, sad eyes. “She wants you dead.”

  “But my father wants me alive,” she replied, “if I’ll join his side.”

  “Don’t trust them,” Novel said, shaking his head so violently that his whole body blurred. Every moment that passed he became less in focus, more akin to the scenery of the dream, like he was getting less real by the minute. “Stand your ground at the theatre until Baptiste can get you out. He has my orders.”

  “Orders?” Lily snapped. “No. You’re not having me kidnapped and leaving your body there defenceless. Salem’s protecting it, he-”

  “My father has never once stood up for me, Lily. He won’t change now, especially not if it means saving his own skin. I’d be surprised if he’s even still there when you return.”

  Novel hung his head and Lily tried to touch his shoulder, her hand passing straight through it as he flickered out of view for several seconds. When he came back, he looked more panicked than ever.

  “The theatre has catacombs,” Novel explained hurriedly, “and they form a passage out of town. No-one knows but Baptiste and I. You have to-”

  “I hear you,” Lily said as the burning sky closed in on them both, surrounding them in a whirl of flaming clouds. “I’ll do what’s best.”

  “Don’t think of it as selfish to run,” Novel whispered, his darkened eyes fading out again. “It’s just how things happen sometimes. Perhaps I’ll see you again, if she ever lets me wake.”

  Lily thought about saying more, but the clouds were closing in. Darkness coated them suddenly and Lily heard Novel give one final sigh before she was opening her eyes in her dormitory bed.

  AUGUST

  One Down

  “You do not have my permission to converse with my son in this manner.”

  Lily rubbed the sleep from her eyes in the dark dorm room, sitting up in shock to find Mother Novel standing in the doorway. Jazzy was stood in front of Lily’s bed with her arms extended protectively, one foot resting firmly on the Book of Shade. Lily looked around in sudden panic for the energy-fuelled crystals, horrified to realise they were gathered in a floating wall behind the veiled shade’s head. Mother Novel had control of their only defence.

  “You may have caught your father with these petty tricks, girl,” Mother rasped, “but I am a different matter altogether.”

  “Oh, you’re a case all right,” Lily stammered. “Tell me Mother, do you think your son would be standing on your side of the room, or mine right now?”

  The crystals began to tremble violently. Lily felt as though her heart was actually beating in her throat as a low, animal growl emitted from beneath Mother Novel’s thin lace veil.

  “How dare you!” she spat, a bolt of furious flame illuminating the dark room, hanging in the air around the three occupants.

  “Lily, don’t,” Jazzy breathed, shaking with terror but still holding her ground, holding onto the book.

  “What does it matter Jaz?” Lily asked, trying to step past her friend. “She’s going to kill me anyway! Isn’t that right Mother dear?”

  “I can’t deny it,” the old shade answered with a vicious laugh.

  “I won’t let you!” Jazzy screamed, stepping back and putting her body right against Lily’s, preventing her from advancing.

  “Oh?” Mother said, approaching with dainty little steps, “and how will you stop me, little human?”

  Slowly, Jazzy began to rise into the air in front of Lily. She watched in horror as Mother Novel’s bony white hand directed the course of her friend’s motion. Lily shook her head repeatedly, her fists clenching as they illuminated with the first flickers of flame.

  “Now, now,” Mother chided, “let’s not resort to violence quite yet.”

  She flicked her other hand and Lily went flying into the wall, pinned by gravity and helpless as she watched Jazzy rotate in
the air in a terrified stance. Lily struggled to be free, but she could hardly move a muscle against the power of the senior shade.

  “Hmm,” Mother Novel hummed. “What’s for the best here? What would be… effective?”

  She clicked her fingers on the hand that was controlling Jazzy. Her friend’s defenceless form snapped into an ungodly convex. Lily felt her stomach leap into her throat as Jazzy’s back bent a terrifying one-eighty, her black curly hair intermeshing with the heels of her boots. She cried out in the most horrific agony Lily had ever heard, and Mother Novel swayed her long black skirts like the howling was music to her ears. Jazzy dropped to the ground in her broken form, crying out and heaving, struggling to breathe. Lily too was released from her hold against the wall, stepping up to Mother Novel with tears streaming from her eyes.

  “You see?” Mother said calmly. “Your last memory will be of her suffering, and now she gets to watch you die. Most effective.”

  Without any warning, the senior shade expanded her arms sharply, sending all the explosive crystals right at Lily. She could do nothing but shield her head, praying to whoever would listen that this moment would not be her last. In her desperate fear, Lily cried out for Jazzy and Novel, but as the crystals neared her, no impact came.

  “What is this?” Mother Novel whispered.

  Lily opened her eyes and watched as every crystal evaporated against an invisible wall that had formed between the two girls and the old shade. Mother Novel shot blast after blast of her own insurmountable power at the wall, but it took every bolt of energy in and forced it to vanish. Mother’s veiled head sank to look at Jazzy again, then at the Book of Shade lying on Lily’s floor. Lily was certain that the old shade would see the writing on the open page just as well as she could, most especially the bold title of the chapter.

  “Sacrificial protection,” Mother Novel spat. “Foolish human; it won’t last long.” She pointed a bony finger at Lily, a wind whipping up around her as she prepared to disappear. “Your hours are numbered, girl. Come sunrise, you die whichever side you choose.”

  The violent black storm hit the walls of the protection charm, rebounding against Mother Novel as she tried to keep control of it to vanish herself. The wind hit up her monstrous veil and. in the few seconds where she remained within the cyclone, Lily saw her face for the first time. Her ghastly eyes were shrivelled black pits, sunken into a visage far older than shade biology would have allowed. Mother Novel’s darkness had made her thin and spindly, wrinkles upon wrinkles crushing and destroying her features to unrecognisable proportions. Lily felt as though she was looking at a withered, decaying corpse, one whose black eyes caught her gaze, just before the horrid vision disappeared.

  In the calm that followed, Lily rushed to Jazzy’s side, relieved to find her still breathing, but barely conscious. She dialled an ambulance rapidly, hardly drawing breath herself until she had given the information to the receiver and been assured that help was on its way.

  “They told me not to move you,” Lily whimpered in a panic, focusing hard on Jazzy’s face rather than observing her distorted spine.

  “The book,” Jazzy whispered painfully, “it opened. It gave me a choice.”

  “You shouldn’t have made it,” Lily said, shaking tears all over the ground, “not for me.”

  “You have to go,” Jazzy added, her eyes fluttering as she tried to keep them open. “Make a plan. Stop her.”

  “I can’t leave you!” Lily answered, leaping back as a new shadow entered the doorway from the quiet dorm corridor.

  It was Molly, in her best running gear. She wretched at the sight of Jazzy’s mangled body, heaving out huge breaths as she held her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

  “Jazzy called me, and I drove here as quickly as I could,” Molly explained in a shrill, shocked tone. “She said you were in danger.”

  Lily leapt to her feet and grabbed Molly’s shoulders.

  “An ambulance is on its way,” she urged, “so keep her talking. Don’t let her pass out.”

  Despite everything, Lily was heartbroken to find Jazzy giving her a tiny smile. She burst out of the corridor with Molly sticking her head out after her.

  “Hey wait!” she cried in panic. “Where are you going?”

  Lily marched on down the dark hall, her fists enflamed as the invisible breeze shot all around her.

  “I’m going to give the bitch who did this what’s coming to her.”

  The Somnolent State

  Gideon Pratt kept his word and helped Lily back into the Theatre Imaginique, but again his fears for his own safety meant that he left her alone in the foyer when she arrived. Instantly, a hand crept over her mouth from behind, another following to grip her about the waist. She elbowed the attacker in the ribs and a gust of wind emanated on impact, knocking him back into the wall with a masculine grunt. Lily spun on her heel to find Baptiste staring at her from the floor, his eyes momentarily glowing blood red.

  “You’re not taking me anywhere,” Lily insisted. “I’ve spoken to Novel, and you can forget the escape plan.”

  The elegant man rose to his feet as his eyes faded back to their usual dark hue.

  “I thought as much, but it was worth a try,” Baptiste said with a shrug. “It’s been a while since I’ve fought a shade. Apparently I’m out of practice.”

  “If you want to get out via the catacombs, you can,” Lily offered, keeping her distance from the tall figure, “but take the others with you when you do. This is my battle, mine and Novel’s, and we’ll see it through.”

  Baptiste shook his head. “I’ll show them the way should they choose to take it, but I’m indebted to your soul mate. I will defend you both with all I have.”

  Soul mate. The words gave Lily strength. She clutched the Book of Shade tightly in her hand and gave Baptiste a nod.

  “Take me to Novel and Salem,” she instructed.

  They started to walk to the sitting room, but as they went Baptiste pursed his lips and gave a sigh.

  “I’m afraid Salem left not long after you’d gone,” Baptiste revealed.

  “Just like Novel said,” Lily snapped bitterly. “The rotten coward. It doesn’t matter. I don’t expect he would have helped if he’d stayed.”

  Novel was still laid out on the sofa where she’d left him, peaceful as ever, but now that Lily knew of the burning skies and fiery clouds haunting his consciousness, his still state was more unnerving that it had been before. She kissed him again on the cheek as she settled beside him and opened the Book of Shade across her knees.

  “Come on,” she encouraged it. “Give me something. What do you know about this curse?”

  The Somnolent State

  The black words curled onto the newly-leafed pages instantly.

  A powerful curse divined by potioneers, who mix ingredients as yet unknown to the shadeborn. The somnolent state creates a psychic injury in the soul of the victim and only after the healing process has been completed will the sleeper wake.

  “Healing,” Lily mused. “He needs healing.” She turned to Baptiste with a bright grin. “Starlight heals shades,” she exclaimed. “He told me so!”

  Baptiste gave her a sad look and shook his head.

  “We cannot risk putting him on the roof,” he said. “Everything outside of the walls is exposed beyond the protective spells.”

  Lily threw the book down in frustration, rubbing her jaw. She breathed heavily for a few tense moments, looking again at Novel’s pale face as he lay so still. She could imagine him lying on the roof absorbing the light of the stars, as they had done so often over the course of the last few months. She slowly began to smile once more.

  “The starlight stones,” she said with a half-laugh. “Baptiste, get the others.” She scrambled to her feet as he helped her up. “We have to collect all the clear quartz in the building. Novel’s been filling them up with starlight.”

  “You think it will wake him up?” the elegant man asked, a new brightness in his expressi
on.

  “It’s all I have to hope for right now, so yes,” Lily replied.

  She wasn’t surprised by the utter dedication of the troupe as they rushed from their beds to help heal Novel. Even Dharma collected a series of stones from his room, and carried them in the skirt of her tiny nightdress to show willing. Lily lined up all the stones no matter how full or empty they were, forming a circle around Novel on the sofa, letting the crystals lie against the sides of his body everywhere she could find a space. Slowly, a blue glow formed around him as more and more starlight stones gathered and shared their power.

  His supine body hummed with the light of the stars, reflecting on his face to turn him a faint shade of blue. Novel lay perfectly still amid the healing powers, but he did not stir. Lady Eva approached and ran her hand over the space above him, closing her heavy-lidded eyes as she assessed the air.

  “Something is happening,” she confirmed. “You were right Lily, there is good magic at work here.”

  Lily smiled a little, but the sight of Novel, still motionless, sank her heart.

  “But he’s not waking,” she said softly.

  “Not yet,” Baptiste said, resting a hand on her shoulder. He was cold as the grave. The elegant man took a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly through his mouth. The others watched him with an interest that Lily didn’t understand. “It’s five hours to sunrise,” he continued, though how he knew this from just breathing, Lily had no idea. “I’ll circle the building and let you know when they arrive to lay siege.”

  “You’re going outside?” Lily protested, “but you just said it was exposed?”

  Baptiste gave her a sharp-toothed grin. “You have your ways, shadegirl, and I have mine.”

  “What are you?” she asked him.

  “If Novel has not yet told you, then it is not the time now,” he explained. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

  Baptiste stalked from the room with purpose, and Lily turned to the assembled group who were mostly watching Novel. Dharma tangled her long hair in her fingertips with one hand as she nervously bit her red nails on the other. Zita wrapped her peignoir around her like she was struck by an impossible coldness, and the Slovak Twins moved to stand either side and keep her warm. She patted their hands with sad, languid affection. Lady Eva was still riveted, studying the air above Novel as the starlight healed him, and Lawrence and Poppa Seward stood over at the window, watching intently, waiting to see when the hunters would appear.