The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1) (6 page)

N
OVEMBER

Shadepeople

Lily made excuses that she had gotten freaked out in the theatre all alone, deciding not to face the prospect of telling Jazzy about the impossible things she had seen and felt. The nightmares came and went – flashes of fire, gusts of air, those haunting blue eyes enveloped by blackness – until Lily was no more able to push the thoughts from her waking hours than she was the ones in which she slept. The end of October brought with it a so-called ‘reading week’ in which classes were put on hold for students to catch up on their book lists. Jazzy took full advantage of this time for its proper purpose, until she was invited to a party on Halloween by her English degree friends, which Lily promptly declined to go with her to. She’d had quite enough ghouls as it was.

After pretending that Halloween didn’t exist, Lily threw herself into the noble pursuit of watching Disney movies on her fuzzy laptop and catching up on her sleep. It was amazing what a few rounds of Bambi and The Lion King could do, especially if she remembered to skip through the grisly parts. She began to wonder slowly if she hadn’t imagined a lot of the things she thought she’d seen that night after the show, or if perhaps they had just been some really good special effects, designed to freak out any unsuspecting dummy who went back to the theatre when they shouldn’t have been there. It was possible that the whole thing was some sick set-up for Novel to get his kicks out of frightening girls, and that Lily could put it down to one humiliating life experience that she would eventually forget.

Until there came a knock at the door.

It was early November and Lily was in her pyjamas, engaging in the careful process of painting her toenails when the first loud rap hit the door. It wasn’t the kind of knock that belonged to anyone in Wellesley Dorm; it sounded more like that of a security guard. Jazzy gave her a weird look as Lily rose and padded carefully over to the door, so as not to get her hot pink polish on the carpet. She swung the door open, frozen to the spot as it revealed him. She took in the deep navy blue suit first, her eyes trailing up from his pinstriped trousers to his waistcoat and pocketwatch-chain, before they finally settled on his face. It was mercifully make-up free and had that softer, more human look. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the vicious, irritated expression that was slowly fading from his face.

“I must speak to you,” Novel said in a flat, low tone.

When Lily said nothing, Jazzy made a shift somewhere behind her.

“Who is it?” she pressed.

“I, um,” Lily began, her eyes fixed on the illusionist and his patient face. “I’m just going down to the common room. Be right back.”

“Okay.”

Going to a public place was far more sensible than letting him into their room, but Lily soon remembered that it was past ten at night when she arrived at the empty common room with Novel in tow. The others were either in bed or out drinking at this hour, but she settled as confidently as she could into an armchair, hugging her arms around her chest as the wintery chill made her wish she’d worn thicker pyjamas. She kept her eyes on her own half-painted nails as Novel’s polished shoes came into view. She could see her own terrified face in them as he sat down opposite her, trying desperately to calm her expression enough to meet his eyes again.

“I’m sorry I frightened you.”

It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. She looked up at the conjurer to find him leaning on one fist, staring at a spot on the floor between his knees. He ran a long-fingered hand up into his pure white hair, that wayward curl escaping just a little down into his face.

“It’s just I’ve never had to do this before,” he rambled with agitation. “I’ve never met a shade who didn’t know they were a shade.”

That creepy sensation that she was talking to a madman slowly forced Lily’s heart-rate up, but she cleared her throat as calmly as she could.

“I don’t understand you, I’m sorry.”

Novel looked up at her, one side of his mouth curling downwards as he bit the inside of his lip. He suddenly put his hands on his knees and reclined in the chair, letting out a short breath.

“Do you ever dream about being buried alive?” he asked.

“Well yeah,” Lily answered, her fingertips quivering where they gripped her own shoulders, “but it’s a very common fear.”

“It’s one hundred percent common among shades,” Novel replied.

That word again.

“And tell me,” he continued, “do you have much luck getting electronic things to work for you?”

“Not really,” Lily mumbled.

“Neither do I.”

Lily could hardly imagine the man before her ever having picked up a mobile phone. The malevolent insistence he’d had at the theatre wasn’t present now as they sat together in the empty room, there was just a quiet authority to Novel that reminded Lily of the first time you meet a new librarian. He leaned forward again and held out his hand, his palm pointing up to the ceiling. In the blink of an eye, tiny flickers of fire began to grow just above his skin, slowly transforming and twisting until they formed a full sphere of little dancing flames. Lily studied his hand carefully, looking for an indication of where they had been generated.

“This isn’t an illusion,” Novel explained quietly. “Put your hand out.”

Lily obeyed before she had even really thought about it. She was about to snatch her hand back again when Novel flicked his wrist. The ball of fire lifted from his grip and landed squarely in hers, where it shrank and grew for a few moments before settling once more. Lily stared into the fire floating just above her palm, then back into the illusionist’s face. His eyes were serious, but his mouth twitched nervously.

“I’m not controlling it anymore,” he said, “so if you want to put it out, or make it bigger, smaller, it’s up to you.”

It was absurd, but Lily did feel as though the veins in the arm that held the flames were sort of humming. As she looked back to the sphere she imagined it shrinking to the size of a penny. The blood flushed inside her forearm, bringing blue veins to the surface of her skin, and slowly the ball of fire started to shrink. It didn’t quite make it to the size of a penny, but she knew by the tingle in her own blood that she had made it change. As the prospect sent a major freaked-out shiver through her limbs, the fireball extinguished itself with a pop.

“Tell me about your parents,” Novel said. “Your mother, she’s human?”

Lily gave him a horrified look. “Of course she is.”

“And your father?”

Lily looked beyond Novel to the open door of the common room. The corridor outside was still void of activity.

“He left before I was born,” she revealed.

“That’s it then,” the illusionist said, slapping his knee with a nod. “Your father must have been a shade.”

“Okay,” Lily said, holding out her hands suddenly, “you keep saying ‘shade’, but you don’t actually tell me what it means.”

Something flashed behind Novel’s eyes as he caught her gaze again.

“My apologies,” he began. “A shade is a being with the ability to generate and control the natural elements of this world.”

She didn’t want to believe it, but everything pointed to his words being true.

“So that makes me what? A half shade?” she asked.

Novel shook his head.

“There’s no such thing,” he countered. “It’s about blood, you see. You either have shadeblood or you don’t. And you most certainly do.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing his sharp chin. “I felt it when you came to the show in September. I really ought to have done something sooner, but I didn’t expect you not to know what you are. I had to rile you, you understand, to see if the powers would surface. I really am sorry if it upset you.”

He didn’t actually look sorry, but his voice was sincere enough to keep Lily in her seat. She fumbled over her words until the right ones came to mind.

“Say that this is all true,” she began slowly, “then what happens next?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Novel answered, his hands returning to smooth out his hair. “I suppose it would be prudent for someone to teach you how to use your abilities.”

Lily shook her head. “How come I haven’t noticed them before? Why can’t I just shoot lightning out of my hands like you?”

“Overexposure to humans is very bad for shades,” Novel said. “I would imagine it’s been keeping your powers hidden, especially since no-one told you they were even there.”

Lily processed the information very slowly.

“Are you saying I’m not human?” she asked, her sharp breaths making her clip the end off each word.

“Yes, I am,” Novel replied.

There was talk of arrangements that Lily couldn’t fully take in, but when she got back to Room 13, Jazzy was waiting at her desk and cradling a cup of tea that had long-since gone cold. She leapt up as Lily re-entered the room, chucking the cup down where its contents splashed over her notes.

“It was the Monsieur,” Jazzy said with wide eyes. “I saw him when you started off down the corridor. What did he want?”

Lily bit her lip, remembering the alibi he had suggested.

“He offered me a job.”

Disco Inferno

“Why on earth do you want to work in a dusty old theatre?” Michael asked as he refilled Lily’s drink from the pitcher. “I mean it’s a cool show, but restoration work? It’s sounds so boring.”

“Restoration’s what historians are all about,” Jazzy said over the thrum of the dance beat all around them.

“Besides, I need the money,” Lily added.

Michael seemed to understand that concept better. He had finally persuaded Lily to give Guttersnipes a try, and going on a weeknight turned out to be pretty nice. The rest of the Illustrious Minds had swiftly become the Inebriated Minds after deciding it was a good idea to start the night with Vodka and end with lemonade instead of the other way around, but Michael, it transpired, was much more of an encourager than a drinker. He explained gleefully that he liked everyone else to be much more wasted, so that he could be the one to take all the pictures and embarrass them on Facebook the next day. Since Jazzy was drinking a mix that was ten percent Sex on the Beach and ninety percent sparkling water, she wasn’t in any danger of becoming a Facebook victim, and Lily didn’t particularly want to get hammered and start spilling the beans on the fact that she wasn’t actually human after all.

It was hard to accept that, much harder than the idea of having supernatural powers, a prospect that she actually quite liked the sound of once she’d passed through the initial phase of shock. Novel had left her with an open invitation to return to the Theatre Imaginique should she want to begin exploring her powers, so long as she arrived between the hours of 5p.m. and 5a.m.. She didn’t like to ask about the unsociable time, but at least it didn’t interfere with any classes.

“Come on then, let’s see you dance,” Michael insisted, setting Lily’s drink down for her and dragging her to the floor.

Lily quickly beckoned for Jazzy to follow so that they would be in a group. She wasn’t sure what was stopping her from pursuing anything with Michael, but the instinct was there and so she had followed it. She definitely fancied him – how could anyone not, with his model looks, floppy hair and muscles sneaking out everywhere under his clothes – but his personality required more investigation. Lily hadn’t really got under his skin, or seen anything about him that was deeper than his daft college boy charm, so there was no sense in getting involved until she knew more. Lily wasn’t about to make the fatal mistake of having a quick fling with a guy she’d have to spend the next two years making awkward conversation with afterwards, even if he was a Grade A stud.

The three of them went out to join the crowd of people dancing, avoiding a section of violently drunk twerkers that now included Bianca and Jess. When they found a good spot, Lily let the Katy Perry song take her back to a less complicated time, hardly listening as Michael and Jazzy remarked on how wasted the others were and started the process of committing their images to digital memory forever more. In her musical reverie, Lily started to wonder if all the tension with her mother had something to do with this shade thing. Though she loved her mum in that automatic, dutiful way that all good kids did, they had never really gotten along, always bickering and butting heads on every little issue, even when Lily was tiny. And then there’d been the silent treatment: those times when her mother would come in from work, shut herself in the living room and just plain avoid conversation with her daughter.

It made Lily a little queasy as she remembered how it felt, that iron weight in the pit of her stomach, making her feel like she had done something wrong, even though nothing had really happened. She swayed a little slower as the club song changed, starting to feel warm as other people closed in around her.
Maybe I didn’t have to do anything wrong. Maybe I am wrong.
The throng of thrashing bodies filled with alcohol was starting to get on her nerves. Somebody nearby starting jumping and moshing and soon the whole floor was doing it. Lily took an elbow to the shoulder that gave her a sharp cracked of pain. She turned angrily to find the owner of said elbow, the music now impossibly loud and irritating her every sense.

Then she saw the flames around her fist.

Quickly putting her hand back down into the cover of the crowd, Lily shook it out frantically until the embers died. It had left a few faint pink marks along her knuckles which she rubbed, surprised to find them as warm as if she’d been holding a hot tea mug against them.

“You all right there?” Michael shouted over the swarming clubbers.

Lily turned to him and shook her head rapidly. “No, it’s too busy here,” she yelled back. “I’m going out for air.”

With Jazzy at the bar, Lily took her chance to break out into the fresh night air. She sidled along from Guttersnipe’s main entrance until she was away from all the smokers, standing alone on the corner as she filled up her lungs with cool winter oxygen. It was a bad idea, she concluded, to come out without her jacket, which was still thrown over her chair in the club. She rubbed her arms as goose pimples bubbled up and pulled her dress down straight so that it warmed a little more of her legs.

“Would you care to borrow my coat, Mademoiselle?”

The smooth, exotic voice did not startle her the way it should have. Baptiste Du Nord was crossing the empty road in front of her, a cigar in one hand and his long velvety jacket in the other. The MC smiled and gave her a little bow as he arrived at her side.

“It’s okay,” she lied. “I’m going back in soon.”

“Good,” Baptiste replied. “It’s dangerous for young ladies to be out here alone.”

Lily glanced at the row of people smoking outside the nearby club. Someone rushed out and abruptly spewed their guts on the street, collapsing onto their knees.

“I’m not sure it’s much better inside,” Lily remarked.

Baptiste gave a little laugh, puffing away at his cigar. It had a strange smell of spices to it, almost like some food that had been cooking and was gradually starting to burn. Lily’s trembling skin was strangely calm on the side that was next to him, though the flesh on the opposite arm still reacted wildly to the cold.

“Lemarick tells me you are one of his kind,” Baptiste mused.

So they all knew at the theatre what he was. Lily pondered over the way the elegant MC had worded his statement.

“I wondered if you might be too,” she endeavoured. “If they all were, down at the Imaginique?”

Baptiste shook his head. “Novel always insisted he was the only one in this tiny town,” he explained, “but now there is you.”

It disturbed Lily that the MC had not really answered her question. He turned to her, throwing what was left of his cigar into the gutter. Those dark, foreign eyes sparkled, reflecting the gold chain of a pocketwatch as he raised it to check on the time. Baptiste put one warm hand on her shoulder, and Lily felt a strange serenity in her core.

“Just be careful with him, dear girl,” he warned. “Lemarick can be somewhat temperamental. That doesn’t always end so well for the rest of us.”

He released her from his touch, his warning made, and Lily found herself shivering again as Baptiste Du Nord retreated into a nearby shadow. She watched his long elegant form waltzing casually into the darkness. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.