Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

ELODIE

The notebook was worrying. It reeked of dark magic. The pages seethed with it.

From the moment she had grabbed it from Wren in the bedroom, from the moment her fingers had touched the leather cover, it had reached out to her. Elodie could feel it tucked away in the pouch she carried at her belt, little threads of magic probing her consciousness, trying to see how it might use her. Oh, it shied back from her the moment it realised who and what she was, when it noticed her noticing it, but the energy was still there. Still looking for a crack, seeking out a weakness.

The sentience attached to it chilled her. It recognised her and she recognised it, somehow. Like a ghost, or a memory. Like hearing a voice from the past. She would have lit the damned thing on fire there and then, except she knew it would take more than natural flames to destroy it.

They stopped to rest soon after midday, filling the canteen with water from the stream and sitting in the shade. Elodie had almost gathered enough strength to work the travelling spell again. She'd decided on the southern mountains. She could picture the place perfectly, a lake surrounded by high crags, desolate and isolated. Somewhere they could start again. The problem was, every time she felt almost strong enough, that power drained away. Not entirely but enough to stop her casting the next travel spell. Perhaps she was just exhausted. She had done too much in a short time. But there was still so much to do.

Wren still wasn't talking to her above what was necessary. Which was fine. She'd raised Wren on her own. She had seen every adolescent tantrum the girl was capable of, which had been not so very dissimilar to every toddler tantrum, truth be told. More words, no doubt, much more swearing. Letting her spend time in that wretched village had always been a mistake but she'd read that children needed the company of other children and so it had seemed a good idea at the time. She had never had that herself, apart from Roland. So she should have known better. Besides, Wren had never been like other children.

How could she be?

The sulking now was silent and cold, and it hurt to have it turned on her, but Elodie calmly told herself it was no worse than she'd seen before. Wren would get over it, eventually.

Threads of magic wound about Wren's body, holding her to Elodie's will. If Elodie squinted she could see them still, like gossamer. It was an old spell, and one that she hated using.

But sometimes there was no choice. Which was also the point of the spell. For all Elodie's talk of free will and never using magic to subvert it, when she needed someone to just do as they were told, she had that option. She used it now and hated herself for doing it to the girl. But there wasn't time to reason with her. Of course maintaining the spell meant it was taking longer than she would have liked to gather up the strength to work the travelling spell. But so be it. If, in the end, she got Wren to safety, she would make it up to her. Eventually. Wren would forgive her. She had to believe that.

With nothing better to do, Elodie took out the book and opened it. The pages inside were blank. She flicked through it, looking for some trace of the words Wren had insisted were in it, these so-called messages from her, telling her where to go, how to meet up.

There was nothing.

‘Where did you find this?' Elodie asked.

Wren looked over at her then. She had been staring into the trees as if listening to something far away, her hands playing with the ragged ends of her now short hair. Elodie hated cutting it. Wren's hair had always been so beautiful. But it was also unnatural and, left too long, it invited disaster. Magic had to be controlled, measured. She'd thought she'd taught Wren that, but the moment they'd been separated, the girl had apparently forgotten everything. Or maybe Finnian of Ilanthus had stolen her wits.

‘In your room. In the chest.' She grunted out the words grudgingly and Elodie ignored the resentment. This was for the best.

That was exactly where she would have hidden something like this – something precious, something dangerous – but Elodie had never seen this book before. Oh, it looked like something she would have owned, long ago. It carried the mark of the Aurum, embossed into the fine leather, and the pages were a lush creamy paper, heavy with cotton fibres. They whispered as they turned and felt smooth as skin beneath her fingers. It was a pleasure to hold.

Except… except there was nothing pleasurable about it. The whole thing made her flesh crawl.

Reluctantly, because she needed answers, she held it out to Wren. ‘I can't see anything in it. Show me what it says.'

Wren eyed her suspiciously for a moment and then snatched it out of her hands. She opened the book wide, holding up two pages as clear and unblemished as new fallen snow. ‘There.'

‘There's nothing there, love.'

Wren frowned, her brow knitting together in puzzlement as she studied the pages herself. ‘Yes there is.'

‘What does it say then? Read it to me.'

Wren's eyes moved over the empty page as if she was reading, or at least trying to read. But instead of speaking she frowned even more deeply and her mouth moved slowly, like a child trying to sound out something she couldn't understand.

‘I don't… I don't get it,' she said at last. ‘The words aren't our tongue but… they aren't othertongue either. I thought…' She looked up then, meeting Elodie's steady gaze. She looked worried, as if she was finally coming to grasp the seriousness of all of this. ‘I thought I read it earlier. It was a diary. Or at least it seemed like one. About when you were young but every time I tried to read it… it changed. It became a warning.'

Magic then. Well, Elodie had known that much. This just confirmed the details. A thing of magic tuned somehow to Wren alone. Elodie had really been hoping for something else. She ought to have known better than to hope, even for a second. Because that thing, whatever it really was, had not been in her possession and should not have been among her belongings. If it had been she would never have left it for Wren to find.

Darkness rolled off it in waves. The touch of the Nox, its power, ghosts of the past, malicious and determined. It sent chills through her.

‘What is it, Elodie?' Wren asked at last.

‘That, I don't know. What do you see now? What's it saying?'

‘It… it says I shouldn't trust you.' Her voice shook. ‘It says you're lying. And that I should go to the Seven Sisters.'

‘I think, my love, that's the last place you should go.'

‘Why's that?'

Because the book bound with dark magic was telling her to go there, of course. And because Wren was… well, Wren was what Wren was, but Elodie couldn't tell her that. She'd promised herself right from the start. The less Wren knew about her origins the better. Nothing had happened to change her mind about that.

‘The Seven Sisters is an old place of ancient magic. Part of the first magic. Before the Aurum brought us order and light, there were lots of stone circles and people went there to draw on the powers of darkness and light. Like the stone circle in the darkwood at home.'

‘There's a stone circle in there?'

Elodie smiled. Even now Wren didn't know as much as she thought she did. ‘Right in the heart of it. It's where pacts are made, where people die.'

Wren frowned. ‘Where I found Finn?' It was a whisper, perhaps an admission. It made sense, but this entanglement got worse and worse, Elodie realised. The further she could keep Wren from this boy the better. They needed to move soon. The Sisters were too strong and something – something truly terrible – had its eye on Wren. Perhaps it always had. Now, it was luring her in. And perhaps it had help.

‘Probably. Maybe it used him to draw you there. Maybe he was just unlucky. Maybe you both were. It's old magic, magic bounded by the stones, sunken deep into the ground, reaching for the stars. Most of them have been destroyed, or co-opted. The chamber of the Aurum itself was built around one such circle. But it was one dedicated to the great light already. Others… others bend in a different way.'

Which was an understatement, but she didn't want to terrify Wren. She needed what little cooperation she could still get from her.

‘But if there are answers there, about me, about us and what we have to do…'

Elodie shook her head firmly. ‘It's too dangerous, love. Even if it wasn't a vortex of magic, it's wide out in the open. The knights will no doubt look for us there. As will the Ilanthians if they're still circling.' And they were. She knew they were. Leander would not give up that easily. Not if he suspected the truth about Wren. Or even a fraction of the truth. ‘And I believe… I believe that book wishes no good for you.'

It felt strange to talk about the thing like it was sentient. But that was how it felt, she realised. She wished she knew what it was, and now she saw it back in Wren's hands she wished she hadn't let it go. It felt wrong, and if it was somehow communicating with Wren that was wrong too. Dangerous.

The problem was she was also relieved to let it go, not to have it anywhere near her anymore. The strange sensation of slowly being drained of energy had started the moment she'd taken it from Wren. And now it had stopped. That couldn't be good. She needed every scrap of power she had to protect them, and to get them away from this place.

But Wren didn't seem impacted at all. The thing was trying to communicate with her. Clearly. Elodie shivered, her nerves on edge. She had to believe in Wren, that she had raised her right. ‘You're my little bird, remember? I'm just trying to look after you.'

To her dismay, Wren dropped her gaze to the pages again and she frowned. For a moment she didn't say anything, but the words found their way out all the same. Wren had never been able to keep anything from Elodie, and that, Elodie thought, might be their one saving grace.

‘It says… it says you're lying.'

Elodie laughed. She had told so many lies over her life that sometimes she wasn't sure what was the truth anymore.

‘I'm sure it does. But you know me, Wren. I will do anything and everything to protect you, no matter what the cost. Even if you hate me for it. Now, time to move on. Put that thing away and don't pay it any mind. We'll find a way to deal with it later.'

They would have to. Some kind of spell to unravel the enchantment on it. Elodie didn't want it getting its nasty claws any further into her little girl.

But Wren wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a woman. With a woman's body and a woman's heart, and a mind of her own. The spell of binding might hold her now, but in the end… in the end Elodie would have to release her, and pray Wren would forgive her.

Elodie had to admit, she was no longer sure that was a given and, somewhere deep inside, her heart was breaking at the thought.

But right now, there was no choice. No choice for either of them.