The Key (39 page)

It’s OK
, Vanessa thinks.

Does it sound crazy if I tell you I’m missing you already?

The familiar wave of warmth that only Linnéa can set off is spreading inside Vanessa. She has to force herself not to grin foolishly.

I love it when you go crazy
.

Linnéa laughs inside Vanessa’s head.

You’re in luck, then. Lots to love. Seriously, I am sorry I was so grim. It’s just that
…
you know
.

‘But Evelina, I’m telling you, I’ll never sleep over in Leo’s flat again. Can’t cope with the way you keep making out all the time.’

Vanessa loses the thread. Has Michelle been to stay with Evelina in Örebro?

‘Stop it! We weren’t that bad, surely?’ Evelina sniggers.

Vanessa? Still there?

Vanessa tries to think, but it’s so hard to keep what’s going on outside her head separate from what’s going on inside it.

Sure, yes, I am
, she thinks, rubbing her forehead.

When she takes her hand away, she realises that Evelina and Michelle are looking fixedly at her.

‘You look weird,’ Evelina says. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Nothing. All I …’

She tries to find something plausible to say and can’t. Notices that Michelle and Evelina are exchanging significant glances.

Sorry, such a lot going on here
, Vanessa thinks.
I can’t concentrate
.

‘Hey,’ Michelle says in a low voice. ‘Have you heard? Or …?’

‘What?’ Vanessa asks, and probably looks weirder than ever.

Michelle and Evelina glance at each other again.

‘Look, Nessa, there’s something …’ Evelina says at the same time as Linnéa thinks something.

I didn’t catch that
, she replies, but Linnéa is gone.

Her head is in a spin.

Evelina looks strangely at her.

‘What did you say?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Never mind,’ Evelina replies.

A few minutes before meeting, Minoo walks across the gravelled yard to the manor house. The building seems to grow bigger the closer she comes. It feels as if the whole edifice will collapse and bury her when she presses the doorbell.

The door opens. Alexander is standing there wearing a dark blue suit and white shirt. She hasn’t met him since she hid Adriana’s memories. She had almost forgotten how tall he is. His dark hair is greying at the temples and his eyes are colder than ever when he looks at her.

‘Come,’ he says. ‘Follow me, I want to talk to you.’

He turns and starts to walk away without waiting for an answer. She quickly looks around the hall. There is a vase of magnificent white roses on the old wooden counter that served as the reception desk when the house was an inn. Their sweet scent fills the air.

‘Minoo,’ Alexander calls.

He has stopped halfway down the left-hand corridor that leads to the library and the gallery where Anna-Karin’s trial was conducted. Minoo can’t help herself; her heart starts galloping.

‘Come along, Minoo.’

They walk along the corridor in silence. Minoo observes Alexander’s very straight back. She feels certain that he still hates the Chosen Ones because they shamed him in front of his superiors during the trial. And now, the chairman of the Council has included Minoo in his new circle. A circle that Alexander cannot join because he is not a natural witch.

However talented he is, however strong his powers, Minoo thinks, he’ll never be as strong as I am.

But, once they are both in the library, her attempts at talking herself up ring hollow. She is not used to seeing the room in daylight. She looks at the chequered floor. The bookshelves. The armchairs facing each other. The closed doors to the gallery.

‘Do sit down.’ Alexander settles into his usual armchair.

‘The others are waiting for me.’

‘This will be quick,’ he says. ‘If you just listen to me.’

Reluctantly, Minoo sits back in the same armchair as last time and, as it did that time, it almost swallows her.

‘I wanted an opportunity to speak to you alone,’ he tells her. ‘Now that we’re forced to collaborate under these … exceptional circumstances.’

She makes herself meet his eyes. And suddenly she feels a little calmer. They are back in the same room, sitting in the same chairs, but everything else is different.

Despite his arrogance, she is certain that Alexander is perfectly aware of it too.

‘Do you believe it all now?’ she asks. ‘Do believe in the Chosen Ones? The demons? The apocalypse?’

‘I believe in our chairman, Walter Hjorth,’ Alexander replies.

He speaks with complete conviction, as if Walter is his religion.

‘As for all the rest, let us agree that the truth was somewhere between my perception of the situation and yours,’ he continues. ‘It would seem, for instance, that the Chosen Ones are replaceable.’

‘Apart from me,’ Minoo says.

A shadow crosses his face.

‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ she asks.

‘I need to assure myself that you are aware of the continued need for you all to respect the laws of the Council. Just in case, for example, you feel tempted to use magic to manipulate the magistrates in the case of the young men who attacked Linnéa Wallin.’

Minoo tries to look relaxed. She mustn’t let on that this is exactly what Anna-Karin wants to do.

‘I will be present at the proceedings. If I detect that you are deploying magic, it will have grave consequences for you.’

His face is very calm as he continues.

‘I made quite a few mistakes in the trial against Anna-Karin Nieminen, but the biggest one by far was that I allowed the case to be heard in court. It should have been dealt with by a less cumbersome process. The kind of quick, discreet approach that leaves no loose ends.’

At first, Minoo doesn’t grasp the full meaning of what he is saying. When she does, she goes as cold as ice.

Alexander had been terrifying enough as the prosecutor. Now he seems to regret not having taken on the role of executioner.

‘Let me put it this way.’ He adjusts the strap on his wristwatch. ‘I have learnt from my mistakes.’

‘There’s no need for us to manipulate the proceedings. Robin has already confessed, after all,’ Minoo says. ‘And we have a witness in Viktor.’

She can tell that Alexander doesn’t like to be reminded of Viktor.

‘Now, I would also like to discuss Adriana,’ he says. ‘Specifically, how we are to manage this situation so that she is not damaged.’

Not damaged?

Minoo looks at Alexander. The man who informed on Adriana. Who branded her with the sign of fire just below her collarbone, using a red-hot iron. Who tortured her again, here in the manor house, until she revealed the secrets of her own and of the Chosen Ones. Disgust for him rises inside Minoo and threatens to choke her.

‘It is important that we agree on what has happened to her.’ Alexander goes on to describe, coolly and factually, how the Council has explained Adriana’s position to her. When Viktor told the story, Minoo had felt sympathy for Adriana. Now, she only feels hatred for Alexander. It’s his fault. He is the origin of all the suffering in his sister’s life.

‘I have asked Adriana to keep a low profile, but you will inevitably run into her. Nonetheless, everyone has been told to avoid her whenever possible. This rule applies to you in particular. You and your friends have already inflicted more than enough damage.’

Minoo’s heart is thumping. Her hatred of him is stronger than ever before. She wants to hurt him. Make him suffer, too, and as terribly as she can. She senses the black smoke beginning to stir inside her. It wants out and she wants to let it loose. Would he be able to turn it against her? Probably not. The magic of the guardians isn’t connected to an element.

She must not do it. But maybe she can still hurt him in another way.

‘Is this how you manage to live with yourself? By pretending that
we
are to blame for everything? After all that
you
have done to her?’

Alexander opens his mouth to speak but Minoo ploughs on.

‘It must please you that Adriana isn’t aware that you killed her familiar. Or that it was you who forced her to stand as a witness, even though you knew she would be tortured.’

‘Adriana knew the kind of risk she—’ Alexander begins.

‘Shame that she remembers the other time you betrayed her,’ Minoo interrupts. ‘Her, and Simon.’

Now, he can’t hide his shock.

‘Did Adriana tell you this?’

‘No, she did not. Walter told me.’

Minoo watches as this fact sinks in. Alexander struggles to control his expression. She didn’t know that he could look so totally shaken. It is so satisfying.

‘This discussion is completely irrelevant. And I have no intention of prolonging it,’ he says stiffly.

He gets up, and Minoo follows his example. She sees that his hands are trembling, then that he has noticed that she has noticed. He quickly puts his hands in his trouser pockets.

‘Even though you might be under the chairman’s protection at present, the others are not,’ he points out. ‘Do remind your friends of this in good time before the court proceedings. You may go. The rest of the group is waiting for you in the garden.’

Minoo gives him a final glance. He looks defeated now, but she knows that is an illusion. She has probably turned him into a more dangerous enemy than ever before.

Minoo steps out into the corridor. Someone is in the hall, a girl in a pale pink dress. Closer up, Minoo recognises Clara. She has changed during the summer. Her hair is glossy, her still-pale skin has a rosy tinge. She looks more like Viktor now.

‘There you are!’ Clara says. ‘I got worried you were lost. It’s easily done. There are so many rooms that a lot of them aren’t even in use.’

Clara’s eyes meet hers for just a second or two before looking away. Clara blushes several shades pinker.

‘I’m sorry … I’m practising this eye-contact thing. It’s still kind of new to me.’

She glances at Minoo again and smiles. ‘But it’s a problem I’m really happy to have. Thank you very much for helping me.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Minoo says, sounding as if Clara had thanked her for handing her the milk at breakfast.

Clara checks to make sure she can’t see anyone around who might overhear them.

‘Viktor told me that you saw my memories,’ she says in a low voice. ‘And also that I could trust you not to say anything to anyone. Or, at least, nothing that doesn’t directly affect the Chosen Ones.’

‘I promise.’ Minoo feels relieved that she has kept quiet. ‘Would you like to know what memories I saw?’

Clara shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t. I feel better not knowing.’

She fingers the wide bracelet that hides the scar on her wrist. Minoo is disconcerted by how much she knows about Clara, even though they have hardly ever met.

‘Come along,’ Clara says. ‘The others are waiting for us.’

Minoo follows her along the corridor and through a door into a room with one long table in the middle. The linen tablecloth is such a pure, perfect white that Minoo knows if ever she was asked to eat in here, she’d spill something on it.

They continue through a series of impersonally furnished rooms and Minoo soon loses all sense of where in the building they might be.

Then she sees Viktor in a doorway.

‘There you are.’ He steps forward to give Minoo a quick hug. Now, he is completely odourless again. ‘We almost started to worry that you wouldn’t come.’

They carry on walking through the seemingly endless spaces in the manor house. Minoo becomes more and more convinced that she’d never learn to find her way.

‘Minoo, I’d just like you to know that I’ve started to use my magic again,’ Clara says.

And Minoo instantly understands.

‘Have you joined the circle, too?’

‘Yes. It has just been decided.’

Viktor casts a quick glance at Minoo, a glance that tells her he doesn’t like this decision at all. Clara notices as well.

‘Alexander and Walter are sure it’s perfectly safe,’ she says crossly.

Then she smiles a little at Minoo. ‘Besides, we’ve always got you if something should go wrong.’

Clara means it jokingly, but Minoo can’t help feeling that she has been burdened with yet another thing.

They enter a large, unfurnished room with tall windows and three grand chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Presumably a ballroom, Minoo thinks, and then tries to imagine a time when balls were held in Engelsfors. It seems impossible.

In here, the air is fresh and cool. The double doors are opened wide to the garden behind the manor house. Viktor stops to let Clara and Minoo go outside ahead of him.

Minoo stops for a while at the top of the stone steps.

Not a trace is left of the untamed greenery that used to grow there. Surrounded by the tall white fence, the garden looks cared for, with an evenly green, immaculately trimmed lawn and pruned apple trees. The white roses in the border along the wall give off an intoxicating scent. A leafy hedge in the middle of the garden reaches high up in the air and forms a near-compact wall. Minoo hears voices from behind it.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Clara says.

She crosses the lawn with light steps and disappears behind the hedge, but Minoo is suddenly immobile. As if she is fused to the stone step.

She listens to the voices. The other circle. The strongest witches Walter has been able to recruit. Probably all from the highest echelons of the Council. The elite of the elite.

Viktor stands next to her.

‘You have nothing to fear,’ he tells her.

‘I’m not afraid,’ Minoo responds, but she hears how nervous she sounds. How silly she is to pretend.

‘Who are the others?’

‘Two of them were in my class at school, Sigrid and Felix. They’re OK.’

Minoo nods. Viktor went to one of the Council’s boarding schools, which means he has lived in their company. He must know them really well.

‘There’s another girl who seems quite harmless, too,’ he continues. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

They cross the soft lawn towards the hedge. There isn’t a single slug in sight. And definitely no plastic buckets. Minoo is sweating under her jacket but doesn’t dare take it off. She is certain there will be damp patches under the arms of her T-shirt.