Candlelight danced around the room. Jemma’s churning thoughts were turning into a thick butter, threatening to keep her awake all night. Sleep was a hopeless cause.
“No point just lying here like a log,” she mumbled, pulling herself to sit. Settling cross-legged on the bed, she picked up Majem’s book and opened it. Title. Name. Then she noticed something beneath it, hand-written in faded lettering, which she hadn’t seen before. As she looked, the shadow of ink began to sparkle, faint light shining through the words, just as it had shone through the cover when she’d first read it. She tingled with anticipation as the light became brighter, until the words’ graceful flourish was clear across the page.
This Book is dedicayted to the Fire One, unto whom I write in this my thirtieth Yeare.
“The Fire One! So Majem knew about the Prophecy … and wrote this dedication, all that time ago, to me?” The idea felt strange and fascinating. Even though she knew she couldn’t be the Fire One without having been Initiated, she felt compelled to read on.
Childe, have Fayth that the Forgotten Song, whose sole purpose it is to help thee in thy Quest, shall come to thee when thou need’st. Trust in this. Blessings of Light be with thee. MS.
“MS. Majem Solvay,” Jemma whispered, slightly perturbed by the word quest with its capital Q. “But what on earth does she mean by the Forgotten Song?” Spurred by curiosity, she turned the page.
CHAPTER THE FIRST: BEGINNINGS
I was born in that most dark of Places, Agromond Castle, at nine in the morn
Nine in the morn! And the date: it was three hundred years to the day before Jemma’s birthday. The cord of connection between her and Majem tightened.
At the Moment of my Emergence from my motheres Womb, it is sayd that a grayt Chorus of Owls did set up their mournfulle Song, and black Cats did wail ’neath the Castle walls.
Jemma’s gaze sped over the pages, despite the old-fashioned language. She read about Majem’s father, Kralyd, marrying a beauty who, though not of sorcerer’s blood, brought more wealth into the already-bulging Agromond coffers. She read how Majem, the youngest of two sets of twins—each a boy and girl, as those of healers and sorcerers always were—was the most powerful of their four children. Majem’s gruesome Offerings had delighted Kralyd, making her siblings green with envy. She had no remorse. No feeling for others. Jemma skimmed over several pages of details, her stomach now churning as much as her head.
Then she came to a passage that made her throat clench: The Children imprisonned in the Dungeons—twins and triplets who were kidnapped and brought to the castle to be dealt with—in accordance with Twin Lore, which Majem went on to explain.
There exists between Twins an invisible Bond, she wrote, the brayking of which by the Deathe of one by whatsoever means, doth release a grayt Force.
“A bond between twins,” Jemma murmured. “When one dies, no matter how, the bond breaks, releasing a great force. Digby mentioned something about that, on our way to Oakstead.”
She read on, her patience stretching to grasp the rest of the Lore. But she was determined.
When the twins were from the families of healers and sorcerers and therefore had special Powers, the great force released at one twin’s death automatically went to the surviving twin, increasing its strength—and its Powers.
However, when twins from normal families died, since they had no special Powers, the great force simply flyeth into the Ether, as Majem put it—unless, at the moment of death, it was harnessed by someone powerful enough to direct it to a place of their choosing.
Which is exactly what the Agromonds did.
Twice a year—though always at Tymes unpredictable, to avoid Detection, they took twins and triplets from far and wide, then sacrificed the strongest one, and, using the proper Rimes and Rituals, directed the force of its twin bond into the dark Entity, which in return gave them Power.
Jemma needed no reminding what that Entity was. “Scagavay,” she whispered, her blood running cold. But it got worse. Under the Agromonds’ command, not only did the great force go to Scagavay—the slain twin’s soul went too. Its body was then locked in the dungeons with the surviving twin, who was simply left there to die.
She choked back tears, utterly nauseated. “Those poor children! Just like that girl ghost in the forest said: swallowed by the monster.…” Then a terrifying thought hit her: that was exactly what would have happened to her too. All her dreams, with the dark voice saying You are mine, all mine! had been telling her so. And Majem had done such awful things … had reveled in them! How could somebody so evil possibly have changed? Despite the horrors of everything she’d just read, Jemma had to find out. She turned the page.
CHAPTER THE SECOND: THE DAYE THAT DID CHANGE ME
Two dayes before our Initiation into the Ways of Mord were my twin Faustus and I in the dungeons, when Faustus did for sport and spite locke me into the smallest Cell.
—Free me, Brother! sayeth I, For thou art naught but the hind quarters of a Hog, green with envy for my Powers! Yet he did taunt me with much Laughter, then walketh away, leaving me with a Boy of four or five yeares, and his dead Twin, who we had put to the Sacrifyce but days before. Deathe now stood nigh to the Boy also, he being scarcely more than skin and bone.
Through many Hours did the Bell toll, and his cryes did beginne to wear me, the stench of Deathe becoming vile to me, and as I saw his lost Sister lying there, his pain moveth me, as though I myself had such Loss and Greyf buryed deep in my Soul.
O, how he did cling to me, and I did speak soothing words to him, my Hearte braykinge more and more open. Then at last with a gentle Smyle, he sayeth—Thank you, deare Ladye, for biding with me and being my Comfort. This sayeth he to me, a chief cause of his suffering! Then did his blue eyes emptye and turn blank, his Spirit floating from him and through the walls, seeking his deare Twin as do they all, yet can they never fynd them, for they are lost to Scagavay, and those remaining banished to the Forest to search for ever more.
Banished to the Forest … Seeking his lost twin … Jemma’s mind spun back to the forest phantoms, pleading for the souls of their trapped brothers and sisters. Perhaps she had even seen this boy among them.… It was all so heartbreaking. But the book held her eyes like magnets.
There did I sit four hours more with the Boy’s poor empty body, my Greyf and Gilt grayt indeed. But thenne two Creatures did come to me, offering solace. Creatures whych until that daye had I reviled, yet these had golden Pelts and Eyes like rubys. I called them my Rattusses—
“No!” Noodle and Pie woke with a start. “Sprites! I can hardly believe what I’m reading—two rats, just like you …” The rats crawled onto her lap.
At day’s end, my brother Faustus having plainly forgot me, did my Mother fynde me—
Instantly, Majem’s mother had seen the change in her. Majem must flee, she said, for her father would surely kill her if her Powers no longer served his ends. Majem protested: she was not yet Initiated—could not possibly survive the forest! Her mother assured her she had a plan to protect her—a plan that would also ensure her own freedom, for she too could no longer abide the evildoings at the castle.
So be of Courage, my child, and leave this very night, and rest assured that I too shall soon find my release.
Terrified, Majem ran from the castle and down the crag, her Stone around her neck, her two new rat friends in a pouch around her shoulder. Just as Jemma had dreamed. The Aukron spied her, and attacked. She would die—she knew it! But no … A sudden rush of force filled her. The beast lay wounded. In what seemed like no time, Majem was at the bridge, crossing the river into Hazebury—with no Mist around her.
“No Mist,” Jemma said. “And two rats. The same color as you.” Noodle and Pie blinked at her, and an absurd thought leapt into her head. “You’re not related to them, are you?” Another blink. “No … it’s too weird. This whole thing is weird.… So, what was that force Majem felt? Ah, here we are: And soon did I surmise what must have
come to pass—Oh, no!”
Majem’s mother had murdered Majem’s twin. Murdered him, to increase Majem’s Powers and give her the strength to defeat the Aukron. Though Majem never went back to the castle, soon the terrible tale rippling through Anglavia confirmed her suspicions: her brother Faustus had indeed been slain by their mother. Kralyd put his wife to death for her treachery.
Rattled by the story, Jemma raced through the rest of the chapter: Majem’s journey to Oakstead … Healing a sick boy on the way … Her thirteenth birthday, alone on the moors … Then at last, four dawns after fleeing the castle, she arrived ragged and exhausted at the Solvays’ door. Their son Gudred answered it, invited her in. She was taken under their beneficent wing, and trained in the Light Arts. Gudred, though just a year older than Majem, was the family academic, and taught her to read and write. At nineteen, she married his older brother, Valior. Her father’s fury was taken out on the whole country: poverty, misery, and Mist spread like disease. On the Solvays, Kralyd placed a particular curse, which Majem and Valior discovered when their son, Ruddeg, was born: he was an only child. This was a shock, for Solvays, like Agromonds, had only ever borne twins. But from now on, the curse decreed, Solvays would only bear single children, so if one died, there was no twin to inherit its Powers, which were therefore lost.
The final blow to Majem and the Solvay family was Gudred’s mysterious disappearance. By now, at the age of only twenty-six, he was already beloved as a great warrior and Visionary, and his renown only grew with his absence. At the time of Majem’s writing From Darknesse to Light, he had not been seen in over four years. In my Hearte, the chapter ended, do I know that never shall we set Eyes on my deare Brother-in-law again.
“That’s so sad, Rattusses!” Jemma closed the book and yawned. Dawn was beginning to break, and at last, weariness weighed down her eyelids.
She blew out the candle and lay down, with Noodle and Pie nestled into her neck. The story wove through her mind. All those twins who had met such a terrible end! The forest phantoms, Majem’s brother—and Nox’s sister, Malaena, too. It was just as well, she thought, that the Agromonds had cursed the Solvay line. Being a twin was obviously far more dangerous than being a single child, as she was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Threads
Wakey wakey.
“H’mmm?” Jemma opened one eye and saw four ruby ones staring at her. A gust of wind flapped the curtains, carrying the sound of voices from outside.
Sun! Come, see. Noodle and Pie hopped onto the window ledge. Pale squares of light slanted onto the wall opposite, throwing the rats’ whiskered silhouettes against mottled whitewash, but Jemma’s heart felt dark and heavy. Remnants of Majem’s story flickered through her head, and she tried to breathe away its thick shadows as she slid out of bed and went to the window.
Over the rooftops, the sun was golden, the Mist barely more than a wispy veil pulled across it. Her spirits lifted a little as she leaned out and looked at the cobbled courtyard below. In the center was a circular fire pit, into which a small, barefoot boy was placing kindling. A few feet away, a long table was spread with a patchwork cloth, held down at intervals by thick candles and bowls of nuts. Several other ragged children ran around it, laughing. Then Pedrus staggered out through the kitchen door, puffing under the weight of a pig carcass that he hitched by its hind feet onto a post at one side of the pit. As he crouched to light the tinder, his daughters, Bethany and Moll, walked through an archway into the courtyard, carrying baskets of heather and gorse that they laid along the table. In the light of day, Jemma could see that they were about the same ages as her and Digby. Their dresses were plain and dusty-looking, and she noticed that their hands were swollen and rough: working hands, like Marsh’s.
The smaller one, Moll, looked up, and nudged Bethany. Jemma waved at them, and they waved back, then scuttled inside. They seemed happy. What was it like for them, never to have been confined by castle walls, and to have each other’s company day after day? She felt a pang of jealousy and sadness. If not for the Agromonds, she and Jamem would have had that kind of companionship. She had missed so much. Him. Her parents—
There was a knock at the door. “Jemma?” The latch lifted, the door creaked open, and her mother peeked in. “Good morning!”
“Good morning, Mother.” I should be as happy as a lark, she thought, seeing the sun for the first time. And my mother’s here. But melancholy had her in its clutches, and wouldn’t let go.
“I’ve brought you some tea. Your favorite, Ida tells me.” Sapphire walked over and put a steaming mug of mauve liquid on the window ledge, then gave Jemma a hug. “I see heaviness in you today,” she said. “Digby’s departure, perhaps?”
Jemma shrugged, and took a sip of tea. Its citrus tang did nothing for her nerves.
“Ah, no. It is about your brother. And things you have read …” Sapphire glanced at the book on the floor. “How far did you get?”
“Just to where Majem and Valior marry, and the curse Kralyd put on them.”
“A fair bit, then. I was afraid it might be too much for you, so soon.”
“I couldn’t sleep. It was there.” Jemma nursed her tea, wondering whether to mention the hand-written dedication. Last night, it had thrilled her to think of her ancestor writing to her across so many generations. Today, it felt empty and pointless.
Sapphire tilted Jemma’s head, searching her eyes. “These threads of the past are burdensome indeed, my child,” she said. “It’s normal that you should feel their weight. Do not fight your heartache, though, for that will only give it more strength. But don’t allow it to hold you captive either. There is always balance. Today, the sun is shining for the first time in many years. The air is warm. Oakstead is free of Mist for at least a hundred paces from the walls. We are safer than in many years from the threat of the Agromonds and their supporters, who despise sunlight, and will not venture into it. Everywhere in Oakstead, people are talking about it—about you. For this is your doing, Jemma. How perfect that you returned yesterday, on a Sunday!”
“Sunday? But … yesterday was Mord-day.” Saying the name sent a chill through her.
“Here, we call it Sunday, in honor of the sun, the bringer of light and life. ‘Mord’ is everything opposite to that: darkness, and death. Before Mordrake Agromond, there was no Mord-day. Only Sunday. We have always refused to call it otherwise.”
“Sunday.” Jemma thought of her life’s longing. “Sunday …”
“Our name, too, honors it,” Sapphire said. “ ‘Solvay,’ in Lappic, means ‘way of the sun’. Today, let us enjoy it, and tonight, we shall celebrate! As you can see, Pedrus is preparing a feast for us. Now, there are clean clothes on the chair—old ones of Bethany’s, which should fit you. Oh, and this.” She dipped into her pocket and pulled out Jemma’s Stone, attached to a new, golden chain. “The chain is special, given to me by Lumo’s mother, who trained your father and me, and Marsh before us.” She fastened it around Jemma’s neck.
“Thank you.” Jemma laid her palm over the Stone and felt its familiar comfort.
Her mother stood back. “There. Now, after you’re dressed, come down to the kitchen. I see that Noodle and Pie, anyway, are eager for breakfast. They’ll have to mind Paws, though—he’s the inn’s cat. But I’m forgetting, you’ve probably never seen one. Cats don’t like rats.”
Jemma smiled, remembering the effect that Noodle and Pie had had on Mowser in the Goodfellows’ storehouse. “I don’t think Paws will be a problem,” she said.
“Good. I’ll see you downstairs, then.” Sapphire hugged Jemma again, then left the room.
The rest of the morning was a bustle of preparation for the night’s feast. Everyone was in good spirits. Her parents were feeling stronger. Marsh’s stump, which she proudly displayed, was better—she’d taken the bandage off before sleeping, and the scabs had healed overnight into a healthy pink. Noodle and Pie were perfectly at home, having terrorized Paws into keeping his distance. And
although Digby had gone, he’d left a note for her with Marsh. Gud luk Jema, by by, it said, his scrawl looking as though someone had dipped a spider in the plum-colored ink and allowed it to crawl across the page. At the bottom was a single X, whose meaning Marsh explained while Bethany and Moll, who were busy chopping beets and parsnips for that night’s soup, tittered knowingly. Jemma felt a flush of pride as she folded the note into her pocket. Yet despite all this, she couldn’t shake her gloom.
Before lunch, her parents took her for a stroll around Oakstead. They showed her the house where they had lived before she was taken, now empty; the side streets with their mostly deserted shops; the fountain in the square where she’d paddled as a baby. Everywhere they went, people stopped to welcome her home, and talked about the clock, and how the Mist had rolled back as far as the orchards now, the fruit trees were showing buds for the first time in years, and the fountain water looked less green by the hour. It was a miracle! Still, Jemma’s spirits kept sinking. She wondered increasingly about Jamem. Had they played here together? What would he have been like now? His absence gnawed deeper into her, and she wished her parents would talk about him. But the two times she mentioned his name, they quickly changed the subject.
After lunch, she was too agitated to rest. Leaving a note for her parents, she went outside with Noodle and Pie and followed a path down to a brook, then wandered alongside it until she came to a willow. She sat beneath it, trying to enjoy its soft shushing, the brook waters’ lapping, and the warmth of the Mist-free sun on her skin. This was everything she had longed for, but still, sorrow scraped her heart. She sighed, and closed her eyes.
Black swirled around her. You are mine—all mine! Screams, the children—Help us, help! A tiny shadow reached for her from the darkness, a shadow shot through with flame, whispering, then screaming, “Jem-Jem!” Gray baby fingers stretched toward her—
The Flame in the Mist Page 23
