But then I see what it is he’s doing. I doubt he’s been here to visit her once since he turned her into this creature, because though he tries to conceal it behind the handkerchief, I see it is horror that he hides.
I glance back to Cedric, who is slowly turning back to face his mother. The realization of what she has become, the abominable real-life counterpart to his costume, slowly dawns on him.
“Y…you,” his words come out strangled. “You are supposed to be dead.”
The creature, I cannot bear to think of her as human any longer, let alone the woman who gave birth to Cedric, opens her mouth to speak. The scent of death increases as she does. I get a good view into her mouth and wish I hadn’t.
But she doesn’t speak at first. She just gapes at Cedric, one hand pressed to his face, the other still dangling at her side, cradling a basket of pruned roses. Then a sound like wind wheezes out of her, slowly growing into words until she is able to moan them out.
“Who…are…you?”
I put a hand up to cover my mouth.
Cedric blinks several times. “I…I’m your son.”
The creature continues staring at him for such a long time without speaking, I wonder if she has finally gone and died. But then she slowly lowers her hand back down to the basket, picks up her shears, and turns back to the bush.
“I…have…no…son.”
The words cut through Cedric sharper than any blades, which for just a moment, I had wondered if she was going to use on him.
Cedric takes a stumbling step backward. His eyes are glazed, unfocused—staring through this thing that was once his mother, rather than at her.
Then his head whips back to his father. Disgust, rage, fear, confusion—all the emotions that he is usually able to control inside, they come pouring out of him.
“How could you, you of all people, do this?” He shoves a finger back at the rose-pruning zombie. His voice drops an octave. “And how does she not know me?”
I catch Cedric by the elbow, and he lets me lead him at least far enough away from the stench that I can breathe again before he shakes me loose.
“And you!” he says, turning now to me. “How did you know?”
“I saw it,” I say. “Or, at least part of it, in the crystal ball you had put in the divination room—”
Cedric looks confused for a second. “I didn’t have the ball installed.”
“But then, who did? I just assumed…”
Cedric looks past me from Draven to Kendall, even Wednesday and Mathilda where they hang back, and then back to me. “I promise you, it wasn’t me.”
“No,” says a new voice. This one fills me with dread. It spreads from the top of my spine and travels until it paralyzes every part of me with fear. More fear than I felt when I saw the twisted vision of Cedric’s mother. More fear than when I saw the bashed-in face of the man who once sold the potion that turned her to her current state. More fear than the sudden appearance of Bram in the bathroom.
Because unlike the others, I know the owner of this voice would take everything from me if given a good enough reason, and the fact that he is here, means I might just have. “It was me.”
Dr. Fashu stands beside Wednesday and Kendall at the entrance to this part of the garden. Jessica is at his side, and a little behind her, is Flynn. He runs over to me as soon as we catch sight of each other, but he hesitates when he sees the rose-pruning zombie.
Cedric looks between him and the others in confusion.
“Did everyone know about this other than me?”
“No, actually,” Dr. Fashu says as he takes another couple careful, calculated steps towards us. He eyes the zombie moving over to another patch of roses with nothing more than the trained eye of a professional. “I planted that memory in the crystal ball for an entirely different reason.”
He…planted the memory?
I feel the blood draining from my face and body, and I suddenly feel lightheaded.
Flynn catches me and supports me by the crook of my elbow. He brings his lips close to my ear and whispers a quick apology. “She knew right away,” he says. I feel the prickle of something at the front of my brain, uncomfortable and intrusive. At the same time, Flynn’s eyes squeeze shut and his face screws up from pain. I catch Jessica several feet away, looking smug.
I look from her, to Flynn, and then finally back to Dr. Fashu. “That’s why it didn’t go right the second time, when I tried to show Flynn.”
It wasn’t Jessica interfering with his magic after all, it was just that the vision wasn’t even a vision at all.
Dr. Fashu just brushes off my comment, as if planting memories so people will think they are visions is just another ordinary day for him.
He’s continued. He isn’t speaking to us now, but to Cedric’s father instead.
“I’ve suspected your dealings with The Underground for years now, but after the whole situation with Octavia, I was sure of it. I thought if I planted a little seed of doubt in her mind, it might bloom. She’s the closest thing to you, you see. But instead, she found something better.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know? What about the part where she asked me to help her?”
He just shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only needed you to find the connection between Bram and the principal. I’ve been holding on to that old shopkeeper’s memory for years now, waiting for a time that it might be useful. It wasn’t until your friend Draven here got caught working for The Underground crime syndicate that we discovered Bram was one of their operatives.”
Some small things are slowly falling into place now. “So that was why you gave me the kratom,” I say, thinking back to that day in his office. “You thought I hadn’t had the vision yet.”
“An error, on my part.”
It also makes sense now, why he kept giving me tests that required the use of glass balls.
“But I still don’t understand why you didn’t just figure this all out on your own,” I say. “Why me?”
Dr. Fashu doesn’t look at me, but at Cedric. A sick feeling lodges in my stomach.
“You have access to the Davenport family that few could dream of,” he says. “A memory from fourteen years ago is nothing without new proof.”
“Although,” his eyes once again rove to the zombie wife that was supposed to be dead, “I never imagined something this spectacular would come of it. Zombification of a person before their death is a capital punishment, Mr. Davenport, we both know that.”
I feel both Flynn and Cedric stiffen beside me. This time when I reach for Cedric’s hand, he takes it and doesn’t let go.
Cedric’s father doesn’t deny it. There’s no reason to. The evidence of it stands right before us.
He says nothing, only folds his arms in front of himself, resigned, then gently motions back towards the door out of the garden. “Am I right to suppose the rest of the tribunal is on its way?”
“They will be here within the hour,” Dr. Fashu says with a slight nod to his head. Jessica looks so pleased there, beside him, I want to snap her pretty little neck.
The moment the thought pops into my mind, however, I immediately wonder when my thoughts got so dark. And then, just as quickly, I realize why when Dr. Fashu continues.
“I’ve already spoken to them, and rather than letting everyone waste more time and precious resources, we are putting an end to this silly nonsense with Octavia straight away.”
“What?” The resounding chorus drowns out all other sound. I don’t even know if I said it aloud, or if I just shouted it inside my head, because my ears are ringing now. I repeat it again, several times, until I am sure I can hear my own voice. “What? But I was given three months. I’ve been studying…”
“And been found wanting,” Dr. Fashu says. He holds out a hand, and Jessica passes him a fat folder I hadn’t noticed her holding until now. He opens the cover and flips through several pages. “The tribunal will take one look at these and agree
with me when I say you cannot be allowed to continue. You should have been stripped of your powers months ago.”
“But…” I look to Cedric’s father, but he remains emotionless. “You’re still on the tribunal, right? There has to be something you can do!”
He doesn’t even shake his head. He just stares at Dr. Fashu with no emotion whatsoever. “I believe you’ve been under consideration for that position for quite some time now, haven’t you.”
Dr. Fashu snaps the book closed and passes it back to Jessica.
“A fitting position, I think, for a man such as myself.”
A massive headache rages from one end of my brain to the other, prompting me to clap my hands over my ears. I am going to be sick. This is all too much. It was not supposed to go this way.
For a second, I forget how to breathe. But then I feel the grip on my arm tighten, and Cedric’s fingers lace back in with my own, tugging my arm back down to my side as gently as he can. When I open my eyes again, both Draven and Kendall have joined me. Even Wednesday, who was moments earlier, doubled over from too much drink, races past Dr. Fashu, Jessica, and the principal to come stand by my side. As far away as she can from the zombie too, I note.
It is Cedric who speaks.
“You can’t do this,” he says. “You made a promise.”
Dr. Fashu just looks bored. “People in power make promises all the time. We do it to keep peace. But as long as you are allowed to run around, putting everyone else in danger, with no regard for anyone but yourself…” he is looking directly at me now, “No one will be safe.”
“But you set this up,” I say, finally finding the words. “You planted the vision. You knew what we planned to do tonight, Jessica just said it. So how can you claim this is all my fault?”
He looks at me, and I have never seen such utter enmity directed at me in all of my life. “You just proved my point. Mages like you cannot possibly understand our ways. You’re too easily swayed.”
Then, just like that, at least a dozen armed men in black garb rush in from all around us. They must be the reason it took so long for Dr. Fashu to get here in the first place.
Cedric’s father just keeps staring at Dr. Fashu.
“I would have come quietly, you know. Don’t you think my family has been through quiet enough?”
“It isn’t you I am worried about,” Dr. Fashu says.
I feel the prickle in the front of my forehead as he tries to pry inside my mind for the first time.
His pushes hard against that mental fortress, but it does not budge. I feel myself drawing on power that is not just my own, but from those around me. And then, suddenly, that searing pain returns. It is not just Flynn this time, not even just me, it ripples through all of us, rendering us useless.
Jessica takes a step forward and spits on the grass by Flynn’s feet.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she says, disgust wrapped around every one of her words. “To get mixed up with these kinds of people.”
There are so many retorts I could make if she still didn’t hold a searing grip on my brain. This is what they warn you about when they tell you to get along with the mages you are paired to.
She pulls a ring from her left hand, which I only just now notice, and she throws it to the ground at his feet as well.
I see Flynn grit his teeth to me side. “Finally,” he says, picking it up, “The first reasonable thing anyone has done all night.”
Then the pressure suddenly stops, and in its void, the men all around us swoop in before we can try to escape.
They tug Draven and Kendall and Flynn and Cedric away from me, and pull my own arms tight up behind my back. I grunt and try to free myself, but the man who holds me doesn’t budge. Their armor must be enchanted to give them supernatural strength, or else there is no way they could have separated me from the others so easily.
Dr. Fashu walks over to me. He takes his time with each step, and once he is close enough to be within reach, he stops and leans in, as if taunting me.
“I’m disappointed, really,” he says. “I think I had secretly hoped you would put up a bit more of a fight.”
Damn it. Damn it. I want to try. I want to send lightning bolts from the sky to strike them down. I want to will the earth to rise up and swallow them whole. I want to push past their mental defenses and give them pain like they’ve never before experience in their lives.
But even if I could, all that would be for naught. We would still be here, trapped, with the rest of the tribunal on its way to do just the same.
The only way, I realize, as Dr. Fashu starts to turn away, the very first smile I have ever seen on him appearing in his moment of supposed triumph, is to escape. And to escape, we are going to need help.
I manage to wiggle my hand free enough behind me to reach into my back pocket. I find the card I was only just given maybe an hour earlier, and I rub it between my thumb and forefinger.
Bram, I think, though I don’t know if he can hear me, I think I’d like to take you up on your offer.
38
Octavia
A ripple stirs across the garden. It happens so quickly, just the slightest fraction of a second, like a tear that begins at either side of my vision, moving to converge in the middle.
I hear a stifled whimper to my side. It is Wednesday. “Octavia, what are you doing.” I can hear her struggle a bit in the grasp of the person who is holding her. “What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”
But it is too late to stop now. One moment, the only person standing in front of my is Dr. Fashu. The next, in the space only previously occupied by grass, Bram steps out of the air to stand before us.
Our Underground liaison offers the lot of us a slight tip of his hat. His eyes flicker across the glade until, at last, they come to rest on me.
There is no savior there, looking back at me. This is a deal. Protection in exchange for power.
If Draven were here to stop me, I am sure he would. But he is out of reach, held in the clutch of those who would strip us of our powers, break the bonds that bind us, and leave us a shadow of our former selves.
Even Cedric’s father is dumbfounded. I’ve never seen him surprised before. “How…” his voice trails off, and he looks to Dr. Fashu, the men, and the rest of us behind him. “This place is protected from teleportation.”
Bram’s eyes do not leave mine. He takes another step forward. The principal is not his concern tonight.
I feel a pressure at the front of my head, and this time I relent.
Are you certain this is what you mean to do?
His voice inside my brain brings with it a heavy weight. If I accept his offer, there will be no going back. I know this. I am new to this world, new to its rules. Dr. Fashu and the others have made sure to remind me of that fact time and time again.
I may be new, but I do understand some things.
Some things, you do not come back from.
I look Bram dead in the eye, and I nod.
I am ready to make the deal.
With a flick of his wrist, a slender, blunt-tipped black cane appears in his hand. The arms gripping me grow tighter, suffocating even. Bram lifts the cane slightly above the ground and leaves it hovering there a second.
“Sometimes I think even you forget, Davenport, that Time is not the only forgotten affinity.”
And with that, Bram plunges the cane down into the grass.
But it does not land silently, muffled in the soft ground. It hits something solid, something that echoes and jars me to my core. I feel that thing tearing once more, but this time, it tears around me.
I stand exactly where I did before, but it is like a veil has suddenly been pulled in front of my eyes. All around me, the garden is dull, the light dimmed, colors muted. The only other thing that is not separated by this thin wall is Bram himself.
The garden erupts in panic. Time has not slowed, nothing has changed, except that suddenly, though I am here…I am not there.
Cedric’s mother turns to see the source of the commotion, and she locks eyes with me. Where before, in the garden, I didn’t believe she could really see us, somehow, now I know, she does.
Dr. Fashu may have planted that vision of the Voodoo shop in the crystal ball, but I do believe some of it, Cedric’s mother pleading for help, was actually real. Little did she know that by asking for it, she would end up destroying her family in the process.
Dr. Fashu and the rest of them have started herding everyone back towards the exit to the garden.
Bram nods towards the others. “I can take your paired mages with us, if you’d like.”
I finally find my voice. “Yes, yes please.”
Bram walks calmly across the grass, though his feet never touch a blade. He taps his cane beside Kendall and then, just like before, Kendall suddenly falls through the veil to our side. I run over, unable to ignore how this place feels wrong, like we are squeezed between two places at once.
Bram moves with surprising speed between the other three. Cedric next. Then Flynn. Draven last. The guard who grabbed him was trying to drag him away towards the exit, but he is too slow.
I have barely had time to accept Kendall’s embrace by the time Draven gasps a breath on the other side. I can see anger in his eyes, betrayal even.
Bram speaks again. “We should go now,” he says. “It isn’t good to linger too long in the in-between places.”
I pry myself off Kendall and whirl until I spot where they are dragging Wednesday and her paired Mathilda. Wednesday’s eyes are wild and filled with fear.
“Where did they go?” she asks, first to Cedric’s father, and then to Dr. Fashu.
Both men give her no answers.
Her head darts back and forth across the glade in a frenzy. I see Mathilda reach out to her, but they are not allowed to comfort one another.
“Wait, there’s two more,” I say. But Bram just shakes his head.
“They were never part of the deal.”
Adapt: Book Two of the Forgotten Affinities Series Page 20
