The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1) (18 page)

New Perspectives

When Lily awoke, there was an offensive amount of sunshine in the room. She shifted uncomfortably in her t-shirt and found that her hoodie was piled on her stomach, like she had pulled it off in her sleep. She pushed it away sharply and put her aching head back on the satin pillow. Until she remembered that it wasn’t her pillow. She froze, suddenly very, very aware that she had also shuffled out of her damp jeans at some point in the night as well. She opened her eyes slowly to face the bright room again, taking in the red chaise longue and armchair she was facing. A small shaft of quartz, filled with starlight, glowed with a faint blue hue right next to her on the bedside table. She smiled at it briefly before an ache in her side made her shift onto her back.

She suspended all motion as someone else moved too. Looking gingerly to her side, Lily found Novel lying next to her. He had his bare back to her, and was curled up in a position that exposed the full shape of his lean shoulder blades, and a few of the bones in his spine. The illusionist had shifted very slightly, but his heavy breaths told her that he was still fast asleep. Lily lay very calmly and watched Novel’s back moving gently as he breathed. Though it had shocked her to find him so close by, his presence was not unwelcome. And at least now she knew where the bright lights were coming from.

Novel was casting magic in his sleep, just as Jazzy had witnessed when Lily was asleep in the dorm. Where Lily gave volatile and sometimes damaging bursts of flames, Novel’s perfect silent sleep was causing a flurry of brightly coloured lights to fly in orb-shapes around his bedroom. They had all the elegance and fascination of fireflies, and Lily lay and watched them flurry to and fro with rapt attention. When one came close to her head, she could hear the hum of electricity from the lightning at their core. She wanted to know how Novel made them change colour, but she reasoned that he might not even know himself that he could make such things occur.

A buzzing alerted Lily, suddenly followed by a loud, proud Katy Perry tune that burst from somewhere at the side of the bed. Jumping at the shock of the violent burst of sound, Lily suddenly hung herself over the edge of the bed, reaching out in a panic. She fumbled aimlessly for her hoodie, and the mobile phone within in, as all the coloured lights went out.

Novel gave a loud groan.

“What in God’s name is that?” he rasped.

“Sorry!” Lily said, finding her own voice hoarse and lifeless. She finally found what she was looking for in her hoodie pocket – the offensively loud phone – which she quickly disabled. “I set an alarm to remember to take my library books back today.”

The rest of the phone was still on silent mode. There were a million messages from Jazzy asking what had happened to her, and Lily texted her a quick and clumsy reply, pretending to be fine. She felt Novel heaving himself onto his back beside her and, when she lay back down, they were side by side. It was just like the way they had lain on the roof so many times before, except for the new, awkward squirming that Lily felt deep in her gut at such a close proximity. Novel rubbed his face in the dim light of the morning sun, then looked across at Lily. His features seemed somewhat relaxed, but his shoulders tensed as he gazed down at his own bare chest.

“I don’t normally rise this early,” he said, still in a raspy whisper.

“I should be leaving the dorm for class right now,” Lily mused, then she let out a little laugh. “Oh, to hell with it. Professor Havers can talk gallows and guillotines to herself today. I’m not going.”

“A wise choice under the circumstances,” Novel replied. “Maxime wasn’t with the hunters last night. He could still be prowling around the town.”

Lily turned onto her side to face Novel, curling up in his black sheets.

“How can you be sure he wasn’t there?” she asked.

“Because he’s nearly seven feet tall,” Novel answered, staring at the roof of the four-poster. “I only met him once, when I was a boy, but he’s not a figure you’d ever forget.”

“Scarier and scarier,” Lily mumbled.

Novel turned over too, so that he was facing her, and she spotted some fading lightning flowers around his collarbones, like someone had tried to strangle him with a noose of electricity. Suspecting another fight with Salem, Lily decided it was better not to ask. She refocused on his face to stop her eyes from wandering any farther, and he lay watching her with a silent, thoughtful look in his pale eyes.

“I expect you’ll want some breakfast,” he said gently.

“I can fix something up downstairs,” she said, secretly wondering what strange and interesting things she might discover if she was left alone to root through Eva’s cupboards. “You haven’t had your sleep, don’t worry about me.”

“I won’t get back now, I’ve been awake too long,” Novel countered, “and I want to see if there’s any news on Eno.”

Novel turned until he was sitting up in his bed, revealing a black band of fabric across the very base of his back. When he got out of the covers and onto his feet, Lily couldn’t help but glance at his cotton shorts before he turned his body and went looking for his clothes. Lily waited until he had gone away to dress before she jumped out of bed and into her jeans and hoodie, feeling them all too cold and stiff against her skin, after last night’s weather. She found her way to one of the bathrooms and wrestled with her hair until it was passably flat, slipping back out just in time to find Novel descending the stairs. She stood there just a moment longer, feeling a strange emptiness as she glanced back to the bed they had shared for the night, then shook her head just once, and followed him downstairs.

It seemed that everyone at the Imaginique had had the same idea about checking the news. The sitting room beside the kitchen was full of people in their nightwear, and the only one not present was Monsieur Baptiste. Salem took pride of place on the sofa amidst the crowd of performers watching the television set. Before she even had a chance to get to the screen, Lily took in Eva and Zita’s hand-over-mouth expressions. Lawrence was shaking his head sadly, and even Dharma looked upset.

“What’s happened?” Novel asked, pushing through all them to get to the screen.

“They got him,” Salem said gravely.

Lily found a place where she could see the TV for herself, which was repeating the same story over and over, with a ticker tape update scrolling along the bottom of the screen:

MAN FOUND SHOT DEAD WITH SILVER BULLET IN MEMORIAL PARK.

“He didn’t get far away when he ran,” Novel mused with a grim look.

“I think he must have tried to fight them again,” Salem added. Both men nodded slowly, and in grave unison.

The report told of a man found buried in a small mound of earth, naked and shot through the centre of his head with a bullet made of pure silver. The screen showed a bodybag, at which Zita let out a strangled sob, and various shots of a forensic investigation underway. The woman reporting the event also added the news that all the man’s teeth had been forcibly removed from his body, and anyone who had information regarding such practises should report to North Lancashire Police immediately with their news.

“His teeth?” Lily said as the report began to repeat again.

Poppa Seward turned to her with a sad look. “Wolf teeth are good protection against evil beings,” he explained.

“The bastards,” Salem growled.

Novel was clenching his fists, and the son had never looked more like the father than in their moment of mutual grief and fury.

“They robbed him of his teeth to stock up…,” Novel began bitterly, “to fight
us
.”

He and Lily exchanged a worried look before he stalked from the room. She heard his footsteps marching back upstairs. The rest of the sitting room’s occupants started gathering their nightclothes about them awkwardly, until Eva offered them all an early breakfast. As they agreed and dispersed, Lily watched the report again and again in a kind of silent shock, until she was eventually left alone in the little space, with only Salem for company. In her reverie, slow thoughts made connections with one another, until she reached a strange conclusion at the sight of the older shademan.

“You were talking to Eno about going out for a run,” Lily said slowly, breaking the silence.

Salem gave her an eyeroll. “I didn’t know he was so suggestible. Lemarick said he’d never tried to escape, not even once before-”

“Before you got here,” Lily completed.

It was the longest she had seen Salem go without grinning. He just nodded softly and looked down at his hands. There was a long, tense moment that settled between them, like those moments when Lily’s mum had waited patiently for her to admit to some minor offence she’d committed in the house, like eating all the chocolate, or accidently breaking an ornament. Salem’s face made a clear shift as the weight of the silent guilt finally crushed his will, and an apologetic look sprang onto his usually-suave visage.

“I didn’t want him to attack anyone,” he confessed, “I just wanted him to get out in the air awhile.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs awkwardly. “The lycanthropes have been good friends to me over the years. I couldn’t stand seeing him caged like a dog.”

“Will Novel suspect you?” Lily asked, folding her arms in a perfect imitation of her mother.

“He’s got a lot worse things on his mind,” Salem half-laughed.

“Again, thanks to you,” Lily added. “I’m starting to see why he hates you so much.”

“I can’t help but be trouble,” Salem pleaded, starting to grin again by way of apology. Lily remained unimpressed. “That’s how I was raised. But
him
.”

Salem paused again, and shot a nasty look up through the ceiling as though it would find his son. “He was with me every minute of his childhood, ignoring everything I said, keeping to himself. What kind of kid does that? And then, oh then, his
precious
mother, who dumped him on
me
the moment he was born, by the way, comes along a quarter-century later and he welcomes her with open arms! What’s that even about?”

Lily had to admit that she didn’t understand Novel’s bond with his vile mother, but she knew the dark shade had taken him in and educated him in his powers. He might have been drawn to that idea of power, just as Lily had accepted Novel’s help, despite being terrified of him for so many weeks when they first met. What she did understand was that Salem Cross was trouble, and all she could do was ignore his excuses and hope that Novel would have the sense to cast him out of the theatre before the next nightfall. She made her way to the door as the scent of breakfast inspired her queasy stomach to growl, but Salem caught her with another phrase.

“He’s lucky to have you,” he mused.

Lily turned and gave him an irritated look. “He doesn’t
have
me,” she corrected. “We’re… I don’t know. We get along.”

Salem grinned properly this time.

“You two are as dense as each other,” he laughed. “Surely you can see that the man’s in love with you?”

Ignition

When she next had the chance to consult the Book of Shade, Lily had so many questions that the pages were threatening to tear themselves to bits at her indecision. She calmed her mind and tried to put her thoughts in order, starting with the one that was most pressing: the fire that appeared when she and Novel made contact, the flame that Edvard and Salem had been so fascinated by. They knew what it meant, perhaps Novel did too, but no-one would actually tell her anything about it. The book took quite some time to decide whether it would oblige her too, but eventually the words appeared for her to see.

Ignition, or the Kindred Flame.

This rare apparition occurs only between shades with strong connections, both in element and spirit. The Kindred Flame is so named for its tendency to display the bond between kindred souls, namely those whose powers complement one another to the maxim of compatibility. Parting a pair of kindred souls results in a weakening for both parties, but when they are free to train and combine their skills, a potential for unstoppable power awaits them.

Lily stared at the page for quite some time, taking in the words more than once. An unstoppable power.
This is it!
They had compatible magic, and if she could train up more, then she and Novel would be much stronger together than they could ever be apart. This was the thing that could surely stop the shadehunters and their turncoat leader, which begged the very important question of why Novel was choosing to hide it from her. Salem’s ridiculous words crossed her mind as a possible motive, but he was absurd to think that Novel had ever shown even an iota of romantic notion towards her.

Novel cared about her, that much was certain. He wanted to protect her, but perhaps that was just natural for someone with his experiences and skills. He had threatened his own father with death for her sake, but she was starting to suspect that he gave Salem the death warning on a regular basis anyway. There was nothing above a protective instinct to suggest that Novel had those kinds of feelings for her.

Except for Eno. Novel had let people die rather than have the shadehunters discover her, and not just hunter men that he didn’t care about. Eno Rolin, who had lived under his roof, worked for him and sometimes socialised with him on non-moon nights, was dead because Novel would rather keep Lily safe and undetected. That act spoke volumes, and it said something that Lily wasn’t really ready to hear.

A knock at her dorm door made Lily jump. The Book of Shade slammed itself shut as it sensed a human presence, and Lily went warily to the door. Knowing that the hunters were still at large did not encourage her to open it, but after a moment she heard a familiar whining sigh on the other side of the barrier. It was like that of a child, bored and petulant and deliberately loud and irksome at the same time.

“What do you want Michael?” Lily said, swinging the door open as he barged inside. “I’m working on a paper.”

“No you aren’t,” he said flatly. He was holding a few white pages in his hand. “I just went to try and catch you at Havers’s lecture, since you haven’t returned my calls. She said you’ve missed the last four sessions and gave me your assignment. You’re not doing a perp, Lily, ‘cause you don’t even know what the paper is!”

At this last, he slammed the pages down on her desk, right on top of the Book of Shade. It was as though he’d hurt her physically when he thumped the book, as something sharp pinched at her heart. Lily steeled herself and shot him a nasty look, but she could think of no excuse for her behaviour.

“I want to know what you’re doing at night at this theatre place,” he demanded, his once-handsome, chiselled face suddenly angular and unpleasant in her eyes. “We were going along okay, you and me, maybe building up to a proper thing. But since you turned down that Valentine gift, things have been getting worse. It doesn’t feel like you even want to see me right now.”

I don’t.

Lily didn’t dare explain anything of the truth to Michael. She shrugged sadly, remembering how excited she had been the first time he gave her one of his cheeky smiles. So much had changed since then, both in the outside world and in her head. They weren’t even the same species anymore, and it made her wonder where along the way she had accepted her new biology. Novel’s words before the funeral floated across her mind, when he had called the shades ‘our people’. Lily could almost have smiled at the memory, had Michael’s impatient expression not been filling her view.

“I’m going through some stuff,” she tried with a weary sigh. “I can’t tell you what it is.”

“Of course you can’t,” Michael added harshly, “because you don’t want to! I’m just some idiot who takes you out and buys you drinks when you need cheering up, aren’t I? You’ve rinsed me!”

Lily felt her face shifting into a tight rage.

“I have
not
!” she exclaimed. “Don’t say that, you don’t know what’s happened to me, you don’t know-”

“Exactly,” he bit back, “and I don’t think I ever will, ‘cause you’re not going to bother to tell me.”

He stormed out of the room and crashed straight into Jazzy, rocketing off without an apology. The tiny girl recovered with a wobble, and she guarded a little brown box in her hands to keep it from getting squashed. Jazzy watched Michael blaze his trail down the corridor with her mouth agape, until Lily pulled her inside and slammed the door, loud enough that he would still hear it.

“You two not getting on?” Jazzy mumbled.

“I don’t have time to muck about with him,” Lily sighed. “Forget it. What’ve you got there?”

Jazzy put the box down carefully next to the loose assignment pages. The Book of Shade opened underneath them excitedly, scattering the papers everywhere as it fumbled to find a page.

“It was in the pigeonhole downstairs,” she explained. “I guess it’s for your birthday.”

Things had been so hectic that Lily hadn’t even planned a celebration, despite the big 19 being tomorrow. Now that she was going to look the same age for the next twenty-five years, her birthday didn’t seem like much of an occasion any more. The brown box intrigued her nonetheless, and she pulled its lid off to see a huge pink and purple gemstone sitting within it. The stone glimmered with glittery spots and white striations running through it, which reminded her of little crackles of lightning. Atop it was a single strip of writing paper, adorned with Novel’s curling script.

Happy Birthday Diamondchild.

The Book Of Shade gave a splutter of paper as it unfolded to the page that it was searching for. Lily looked at the words appearing on the brown leaf within the book, finding a drawing that matched the rough edges and glistening surface of the stone in the box.

Lepidolite: A stone that calms the heart.

Lily picked up the heavy shining stone, feeling a familiar kind of warmth radiate from it into her hands. A series of memories slowly faded in and out of her head, scenes of starlight, magic and dreams with pinkish-red skies. She felt a smile growing slowly on her lips and, for the first time in many weeks, there wasn’t a single twinge of fear within her chest. If she’d half-managed to convince herself earlier that Novel only cared for her safety, now the lepidolite stone told another story. It was proof that he cared for her happiness too.