Dreska swallows. ‘What I could have become. You’re saving them, the wraiths?’
‘Trying to. Me and Nova here,’ she says, glancing to the familiar at her side. ‘Althoughshe’syet to prove her usefulness.’
All in good time, Hunter.
‘Did your coven send you to do this? I’ve never heard of any coven caring about anything but coin.’
‘They did not,’ Brielle says with a small smile. ‘It’s a personal assignment. I’m building a new coven, one based on a different set of values. One that does notjust stand by and allow things tohappen.One that gets involved and helps to make things better.’
‘That sounds like the kind of coven I’d like to be part of,’ Dreska says with a smile. ‘I could still become a wraith, couldn’t I? If I don’t train?’
‘I’ll train you,’ Brielle vows, trying not to think of Lowri and the last time she saw her, drained and depleted, a husk of a witch. ‘I’ll train all of you, as I promised.’
lowri gulps the fallow fogbrew. This piece of the fog, the shadow magic of Fallow, is only enough to give her the strength to eat and get up. Her veins are still ink-riddled, her eyes like chips of obsidian. Pallid and weak, she knows she cannot restore herself on these sips of magic. She needs a better solution. And perhaps the grimalkin of this world are exactly the cure she needs. Perhaps they are like familiars.
She cannot speak to Eli or Ethlet. She cannot give away the secret Nova whispered to her as a child, of that on which a familiar feeds, and how they bond with their witch. But if Gracious fed too much, too voraciously, it could follow that he ended up like this. A creature bloated with shadow magic. She did not know it was possible; Nova never spoke of this. She had only ever taken what she needed and what Lowri, her witch, could offer up.
‘How do I know you won’t give me too much?’ Lowri whispers to Gracious when Eli and Ethlet both leave thesitting room. The grimalkin is not bonded to her. The push and pull of magic between them is not intuitive. Gracious could expel shadow magic and weigh Lowri down with far too much.
I suppose you will have to trust me.
‘Trust a creature so greedy he took so much magic that it changed his form?’
Gracious hisses, tail twitching.
‘You have a temper. That bodes well,’ she remarks dryly.
And you’re extremely stubborn. Every hour you refuse the deal, you sink further towards death.
Lowri shrugs, but her nonchalance is a front. She taps her fingertips against the empty mug, considering her options, which are all too few. If she doesn’t accept this creature’s help, she knows the Fallow Fog brews will only preserve her strength temporarily, but not restore her. And she will leave Eli here alone. She will never return to Nova, or Brielle or Caden … which to her is intolerable. She’s only just left Coven Septern, only just tasted freedom. And, given what they have discovered about the ruling council, the depictions they found of the Rexilium brothers in the Fallow Museum … well. They have to return. They have to warn everyone.
Are you ready yet, witch? Or must you be crossing death’s threshold before you agree to the deal.
Lowri closes her eyes, wanting to shut this world out. Wanting to be back at Ennor Castle when she opens them. But all she can see is her own demise. ‘Is this going to hurt?’
Probably.
‘Excellent.’
So, you agree?
She opens her eyes and stares at the grimalkin before finally nodding.
When the grimalkin reaches out a paw, brushing her fingertips, her mind implodes with darkness. She cannot breathe. Her thoughts turn to panic as Eli bursts into the room, as dark blots out her vision. She tries calling to him, but she cannot. And she realises she may have made the biggest mistake of all in trusting this creature from another world.
Lowri senses storm and shadow, a construct of thunder and rain, but no light. Then the darkness recedes, her vision returning, and she watches Gracious as he places a soft paw on her chest. In the stillness between heartbeats, there’s a shift, deep within her. A weight, the harsh edges of burnout, begin to peel away, and she feels warmth skipping over the ice in her blood. Looking down at her arms, she gasps as the black ink of her veins fades slightly, as her magic sparks inside her.
She is suddenly aware of Eli shouting her name and she looks up at him, standing there across the room. But she is in an impenetrable storm of magic with Gracious.
I have given enough, witch. Now, it’s up to you.
All at once, the heavy storm surrounding them lifts and she blinks steadily at the grimalkin. Now, Gracious is not only shadow. She can see his features, a pale twitching nose, a fleck to his fur. And, if she’s notmistaken, there’s an amber sheen to his eyes. Before, he seemed almost formless as he moved. Now there are bones and claws shifting within all that shadow. She realises how like Nova he is.
Thank you, witch.
‘You can call me Lowri,’ she says as Eli exhales in relief across the room. ‘Is a grimalkin another name for a familiar? You are very like Nova.’
Not exactly, although you could say they are sisters to our kind, he says, then licks his paw delicately.Familiars are always hungry, siphoning slowly but consistently, unless they have not bonded with a witch, whereas we absorb too much all at once. And here there is only shadow. In another world, perhaps I would be a house cat and would spend my time catching mice.
