We stare at the stake. The magic I used is exceptional. I know I have done it correctly. Beryl will not sleep for years as I once did. The spell was perfect, and weaving in filaments of my own power was the right choice. And yet…
Harriet edges closer. “Miss Beattie? Can you hear me? Can you speak?”
Silence.
Beryl?My voice cracks. The stake glows, then dims. Panic rises. What if that fragment of Beryl I took ruined everything? What if?—
The stake twitches, lifts, and somersaults in the moonlight.
I can hear you,Beryl says, her voice inside me like a bell.
Harriet gasps. “I can hear you too!”
You are all right.If I had a body, tear ducts, I would weep. The relief is almost overwhelming.
Relief, however, is laced with guilt: what sort of creature consigns a friend to its own half-life?
At least she chose this fate, and that choice soothes me. Though it does not heal me. I fear she may one day hate me for it, but that day is distant and may never come.
I hope.
Chapter Seven
Thirty-Nine Years Ago
From my front bay window,I watch the ward of the Magic Sector—a pale-grey line marching across the hills.
Two years ago, it was a rumour. Now the Ministry of Magic, together with the shifters, the vampire clans, and the ‘pure’ human government, has sliced the country into sectors, locking everyone inside prescribed borders.
Shifters claim the north, raising not one but two concrete walls that bite the sky. The Magic Sector lies to the southwest, where the ley lines run strongest. Vampires hold the southeast. Humans are penned in the centre.
The human government says pure humans are dying in droves; the news insists shifters and vampires hunt them for sport. My own trawl of death notices shows only this:everyoneis dying more. Humans, shifters, vampires alike. The tighter the borders pull, the harder they fight over scraps of land and power.
The whole country feels like a miscast spell someone walked away from.
I sit on the very edge of the Human Sector, a few streets from the new line on the maps. Once that was convenient, Harriet could reach me in a single train journey. Now it is… complicated.
People have noticed me.
The mysterious house with suspiciously neat gardens and very strong wards.
“’S not natural, that place,” mutters Mr Jenkins three doors down, cigarette glowing while his dog does its business against my gatepost. “Look at that lawn—no weeds, no brown patches. Never seen anyone mow it.”
That is because I do it myself, blade by blade.Snip. Snip. Snip.
His friend snorts. “Probably some bloody wizard. We ought to ring the council. Or the Ministry of Magic. Can’t be lettin’ ’em set up wherever they like, not with the new rules.”
They drop their voices, but I hear every word.
“Reckon we should just torch it one night,” the friend says, too casually. “If they’re human, they’ll leg it right quick; if they’re not… well, fire sorts most things.”
My wards would not let a spark touch my bricks, yet a tremor ripples through my foundations—fear, anger. These are ordinary humans, frightened and flailing. It would take me half a second to pinch the gas line in their kitchen, or drop a shelf on their heads.
I do nothing.
Fear brings out the worst in people. I learned that lesson far too well.
Beryl’s voice drifts from the parlour.You going to let them talk about arson on your front step, or shall I introduce myself?
