The Key (50 page)

Walter nods and, seeing his sad face, it is clear that he knows Felix is their weakest link.

‘It’s important to prop Felix up when we can,’ Walter says. ‘But I won’t pamper him or anyone else. We can’t afford that.
The world
can’t afford that.’

Minoo just nods. She wonders if Walter thinks he has had to pamper her. She must sharpen up. Make sure that he won’t have to do it again.

‘I want you to carry on observing their magic,’ Walter goes on. ‘Keep an eye on how they develop. But only speak to me about it. I don’t want them to feel like they’re under surveillance.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Minoo agrees, and then realises that she has accepted yet another spying assignment.

‘But, above all, learn as much as you can about your own magic,’ Walter says. ‘Try to understand your own powers, just as you are learning about that of the others. As for me, I will help you as much as I can.’

He gets up.

‘We had better get out and about before the others begin to wonder what we’re up to in here.’

He opens the door. Minoo follows him into the ballroom.

‘Have a break, everyone,’ he shouts into the garden. ‘You have an hour off.’

He smiles at Minoo and vanishes into his office. She picks up a plastic-wrapped cheese sandwich and sits down to eat it. Sunlight warms the room and is refracted in the prisms of the chandelier, casting rainbow reflections on the walls.

Clara is the first to come in from the garden. She is very pale and there is a feverish look in her eyes. When she bends over to pick up a sandwich, Minoo sees that her dress is marked on the back by a thin line of sweat.

‘How are you?’ Minoo asks.

Clara doesn’t reply at all, just disappears through a door.

Minoo tells herself that Clara is just tired and doesn’t hate her. She gets the sandwich out and takes a bite. It tastes of margarine and the bread is stale.

Viktor and Sigrid enter together, chatting quietly. Henry is dashing in and out between Sigrid’s feet, but she seems untroubled by the possibility of stumbling over him. They move in perfect harmony.

Sigrid’s laugh is so sudden that Minoo jumps.

‘It’s nothing to laugh about,’ Viktor says with a smile. ‘I’m serious.’

‘You’re never serious.’ Sigrid smacks his arm lightly. ‘You’re just out to provoke. And
everyone
knows that.’

‘Ouch,’ Viktor says, picking up two sandwiches. ‘I’m busted.’

He glances at Minoo. ‘Have you seen Clara?’

She makes herself swallow the gooey mass in her mouth.

‘She came in and left again just a moment ago.’

A shadow of worry falls across Viktor’s face. Then it changes again, back to the aloof expression he used to have all the time when Minoo first got to know him.

‘Where is Nejla?’ Sigrid asks as she tears the plastic pack open. ‘God, I’m starving.’

‘The moment Walter called us in, she got her mobile out and called her boyfriend,’ Viktor says.

Sigrid rolls her eyes and goes to sit next to Minoo. Henry scurries a few circuits around their feet before shooting out into the garden.

‘What have you been doing this morning?’ Sigrid asks.

‘I … watched.’ Minoo is grateful to be able to hide behind a sort of half-truth.

Sigrid takes a big bite and her cheeks bulge like a hamster’s.

‘Easy, easy,’ Viktor says. ‘The food won’t vanish suddenly, I promise.’

Sigrid laughs and a piece of cheese falls out of her mouth. If it had been Minoo, she would have felt disgusting, but Sigrid just looks charming.

Felix comes in and goes to pour himself a glass of water, drinks it and fills it up again. Minoo senses how careful he is to avoid looking at the others.

‘It’s amazing how much stronger one becomes here in Engelsfors,’ Sigrid says between mouthfuls. ‘I feel the difference already. Viktor, you must have developed loads during the time you spent here.’

‘Yes, I’m well ahead – you’ll have to do some work to catch up,’ he tells her.

Sigrid lifts her eyebrows and eats some more of her sandwich.

‘Guys, do you remember when we were in Las Vegas?’ she says.

‘Hard to forget,’ Felix mutters. He busies himself picking the lettuce out of his cheese sandwich.

Sigrid turns to Minoo. ‘Our school arranged for a couple of weeks in the US on a student exchange, and one of the activities they had planned for us was to visit a totally non-magical place. Just to get a feel of what it’s like.’ She shudders. ‘One felt utterly helpless. Like … ordinary.’

‘When did you find out that you were a witch?’ Minoo asks.

Sigrid takes another bite.

‘I’ve always known,’ she says, as if that was quite natural. ‘My parents sent in samples for testing just after I was born. I started to practise using my magic when I was four, but my powers didn’t really awaken until I was fifteen. Felix, you were thirteen, weren’t you?’

Felix looks pained. He only nods in response.

‘The Chosen Ones were like, sixteen, weren’t you?’ Sigrid asks Minoo. ‘That seems to be the average age. How old were you, Viktor?’

‘I can’t even remember.’ Viktor shrugs. ‘All I know is that I was an obnoxious little kid.’

‘You still are,’ Sigrid giggles.

Minoo thinks about what she has seen of Clara’s and Viktor’s childhood. She wonders how early their powers really woke, with no one there to help them. And she realises suddenly that she is probably the only one in this circle who has seen something of Viktor’s true self. She knows him even better than Sigrid, who has been to boarding school with him for several years.

It is a strange insight. She feels tenderness for him. True, everyone puts on a show from time to time, but to never be able to drop one’s guard must be tough.

She glances at him. And suddenly feels a familiar prickling at her wrists.

She can’t understand what is happening.

She looks at Viktor and she feels …
in love
.

She can’t stop staring at his blue eyes, blue as cornflowers, his ash-blond hair, his perfect features, his warm, soft lips. She wants to feel his arms around her, feel that he will protect her against the world; she wants to touch him and wants him to touch her, wants to be alone with him. Why can’t the others just go to hell and let her be alone with him, because she is the only one who understands him and he is the only one who understands her; the only one, ever.

Felix drops his glass on the floor and walks quickly out into the garden without saying a word.

The glass rolls along the parquet. Minoo hardly dares to look at Viktor again, but when she does the sudden wave of feeling drains away. He is just Viktor. And he looks uncomfortable. But not as uncomfortable as Sigrid, who has gone bright red in the face.

‘That was awkward …’ she says.

‘I’ll go and talk to him.’ Viktor hurries outside after Felix.

Minoo watches him go. Then she turns to Sigrid, whose blushing has begun to fade.

‘Poor Felix,’ she says.

‘What happened just now?’ Minoo asks.

‘Didn’t you feel it?’

‘Feel … what?’ Minoo asks. Her ears are starting to glow.

Sigrid looks teasingly at her.

‘Come on. Or maybe you feel like that all the time? Fair enough. At school,
everyone
was crazy about Viktor. I was too, for a while. But it passed.’

‘I’m
not
in love with Viktor,’ Minoo says.

‘Fine,’ Sigrid says and shrugs. Then she takes another bite of the sandwich. ‘But you did feel in love with him just now, didn’t you?’

Minoo stares at her.

‘I did, too.’ Sigrid suddenly looks thoughtful. ‘What I’d like to know is, does Viktor himself feel it? Does he fall in love with himself? Come to think of it, it’s probably his natural state.’

She laughs and then become serious again.

‘Lucky Clara wasn’t here. That would’ve been so gross.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Minoo says. ‘What happened?’

Sigrid glances at the garden door before leaning closer to Minoo.

‘Did your hand hurt when Walter demonstrated his power on Felix?’

Minoo had almost forgotten that pang of sharp pain. It had come and gone so quickly that – compared to the other extraordinary events of the day – it seemed insignificant. She nods.

‘Felix, he …
infects
people,’ Sigrid says. ‘What I mean is, he can affect other people’s feelings, but only by influencing them to feel what he feels. And he’s pretty hopeless at controlling it.’

‘So, when Walter …’

‘… we all hurt from Felix’s pain. And what you felt just now was Felix’s crush on Viktor.’

Minoo looks outside, but the only person she sees is Nejla, who is walking up and down with her mobile pressed to her ear.

‘How awful for him.’ She can’t think of anything worse. To be completely exposed. And Felix developed his powers in
middle
school.

‘Oh, yes,’ Sigrid says. ‘It must be especially grim for someone like Felix. You may have noticed that he doesn’t care for … well, people.’

‘Perhaps that’s why. I mean, of course that’s why he wants to keep himself to himself, with powers like that.’

Sigrid looks at her and doesn’t speak at first. Minoo wonders how she can stand sitting so straight-backed all the time.

‘You know, I never thought of that angle. You might be right. What I do know is that Felix had a terrible time at school. Everyone knew that he was in love with Viktor. It didn’t improve one bit when he and Viktor had a thing in the final year. At least, people say they did. If it’s true, I think it was wrong of Viktor, since it didn’t mean anything to him.’

She glances quickly over her shoulder before leaning close to Minoo again.

‘What Walter did this morning was awful,’ she whispers in such a low voice that Minoo can hardly pick up individual words. ‘I mean, he bust Felix’s finger, and he must have known that we’d all feel it.’

When Minoo thinks back on that episode, she has to agree. It
was
an awful thing to do. But when it happened, it didn’t seem so bad. It even seemed
normal
. After all, Felix had agreed. But she realises that if she were to try and explain that to the other Chosen Ones, they would never understand.

The double doors open. Clara and Adriana come in.

‘We will have a group meeting shortly,’ Adriana says. ‘Sigrid, would you please tell the others to join us in here?’

Sigrid gets up at once and calls to the others from the top of the steps to the garden.

Adriana starts arranging some of the juice cartons on the table. Minoo suspects that she is the one who put them there in the first place.

Minoo speculates about where Adriana might be keeping the box. She hopes it won’t be at the bottom of one of the removal firm’s big boxes, stuffed away in some closet. She has to try to lay hands on it as soon as possible, get that task out of the way.

She suddenly feels that Adriana is looking at her. Minoo turns her head and meets Adriana’s dark eyes. An antique brooch, pinned to the lapel of her suit jacket, glints in the sun. The brooch belonged to Adriana’s mother, whose surname Adriana uses. Her mother saved her from execution, but died herself soon afterwards.

Everyone who has shown Adriana love and loyalty has disappeared from her life now.

The door to Walter’s office opens and Walter enters, immediately followed by Alexander. Both men look stern, and when Minoo meets Walter’s gaze, she feels frightened. Something has happened.

The others have all returned from the garden by now.

‘We have an exceptionally serious situation,’ Walter announces. ‘Olivia Henriksson has escaped.’

Minoo feels cold all over. Matilda told them that Olivia would be back; even so, she is shocked.

‘Who’s Olivia?’ Nejla asks.

Walter casts an irritated glance at her.

‘You should know that, Nejla. Before you joined us, you were given the same briefing as everybody else,’ he tells her, while Nejla stares sourly at the floor. ‘But since I obviously need to repeat myself, Olivia Henriksson was the one to be blessed by the demons after Max Rosenqvist.’

‘And she’s escaped from where?’ Viktor asks. He is leaning against the wall near one of the tall windows.

Walter sighs, then turns to Alexander.

‘Over to you. This was your little project.’

Alexander looks taken aback but recovers quickly.

‘We have been holding Olivia Henriksson in secure conditions at the Council headquarters in Stockholm. We provided necessary medical care and kept her under constant supervision until she was due to be taken to court.’

‘And now she’s on her way here, isn’t she?’ Viktor asks.

‘But surely we can’t be certain of that?’ Sigrid has a shrill note of panic in her voice.

‘I’m afraid Viktor is right,’ Walter says. ‘The guardians inform me that everything indicates that Olivia will be blessed by the demons once again. It means that every member of this circle is at risk. All natural witches are. And we know that she will definitely try to get you, Minoo.’

Minoo stares blankly at the piece of sandwich she’s still holding. What is it like to be blasted with thousands of volts? Is it like being burned from the inside? Is that how it was for Ida?

‘I suggest that we disperse for the rest of the day,’ Walter continues. ‘As I’m sure you understand, I’ve got quite a few calls to make. We have already started hunting for Olivia and I expect we will capture her without much delay. She won’t have got far.’

But Minoo knows that he is wrong. They will not capture Olivia; she feels that in every cell of her body. And she is just as certain about who Olivia will be coming for first when she arrives in Engelsfors. Everyone who stopped her the previous time.

‘Tomorrow we’ll meet here at eight in the morning, to make up for lost time today,’ Walter says before leaving the ballroom, accompanied by Alexander and Adriana.

‘How do you feel?’ Sigrid asks Minoo.

‘I’m fine,’ Minoo says. ‘I’m kind of used to people wanting to kill me.’

She smiles but nobody smiles back.

‘I’d better go now.’

‘Do you really want to walk back on your own?’ Viktor asks. ‘Let me drive you.’

‘No thanks,’ says Minoo. She hurries out of the room and switches on her mobile in the hall.