Isaiah Kellinick
‘Excuse me?’ Eli says, and the figure turns towards them. Lowri’s breath catches. She’s staring into Eli’s mirror image. Black-brown hair, the same deep, soulful eyes – but green rather than blue – set under thick brows, the same set to her shoulders. But this girl is slightly younger, Lowri’s age. The girl blinks away her shock, seeing what Lowri sees, similarities that outweigh the differences between them.
‘I’m afraid you just missed him. He’s been waiting. He always hoped …’ The girl’s gaze drifts to the necklace in Eli’s hand, then to Lowri’s obsidian eyes, before she jerks up her chin, lower lip trembling. ‘You’re too late by five days. Your father is dead. You … you shouldn’t have crossed over.’
A sudden breeze ruffles the girl’s collar, casting the scent of ink and parchment towards Lowri as she feels Eli’s arms tense round her. She burrows deeper against the chill, regarding the world surrounding them in swift blinks. A stone garden of death, grave after grave, all painted in bleak, colourless lines. She tries to remember where they were, all the places they stepped through to reach here. The side of a mountain, a library and perhaps somewhere else, but she cannot think right now, can’t quite grasp the details. She is not just burned out.
She is dying.
‘I had no choice,’ Eli says, voice thick, glancing down at Lowri. She meets his eyes for a moment, catching them fray at the corners with worry before he looks back up at this unknown girl that seems so much like him. ‘She needs … Lowri needed him.Ineeded him.’
‘We all did.’ The girl shrugs helplessly. ‘Come with me. I’ll see if I can do anything to help your friend.’
‘Who are you?’ Eli asks hesitantly, and Lowri’s heart expands, wanting to comfort him, wanting him to know that he’s not alone in this moment, as it hits him that his father is dead. He’s too late by only a handful of days. ‘Were you related to my father?’
‘I’m Isaiah’s niece,’ she says, nodding. Lowri notices that the uncanny similarities between this girl and Eli extend even to the way she dips her chin. ‘And his apprentice. Come on. We really should leave, get your friend inside. She seems unwell.’
The world around Lowri stutters in and out of focus as the rain drips down her cheekbones, until, like a flickering candle flame, it’s finally snuffed out. Lowri hears nothing more as she slips further away into the beckoning pool of cold, dark nothing.
When Lowri wakes, it’s seemingly full night. A fireplace flickers with black flames. As her awareness trails over her surroundings, she finds she’s huddled under a heap of blankets, dark wooden floorboards just below her, a small crooked window looking out on to a night skywithout stars. There is a collection of books scattered on a small table next to her, one with a pen tucked in to mark a place, and a ring from a mug that’s tattooed its past contents on to the wood.
She’s still so tired. Her thoughts are fragmented, twisting away when she tries to grasp them, a headache prickling at her temples. They stepped into Eli’s father’s world – that’s all she knows. But that was in a graveyard. She cannot remember reaching this house.
Eli sits across the room, eyes closed. He seems to have slumped into his clothes, as though he has tried very hard to stay awake, and perhaps only drifted off momentarily. A door to Lowri’s left clicks open, light rushing through from a hallway.
In stalks a creature.
Entirely made of shadow, but in a cat sort of shape, the creature leaps on to the books piled up on the table beside her. Balanced precariously, it sniffs Lowri, whiskers quivering as it emits a delighted sound that could almost be a purr.
Oh, you’ll do nicely, the creature says.
Lowri blinks, then quickly reaches out, swatting at the creature. But her hand moves through the space where there should be fur and bones, meeting only something that feels like a thunder cloud. Damp sparks crackle over her fingers and she flinches, eyeing the creature warily.
The creature leaps again, this time on to Lowri, pattering across her hip to drape itself over her chest.She has the peculiar sensation of being wrapped in shadow, storm and strange magic.
You won’t get rid of me that easily, witch.
‘He’s called Gracious,’ a voice says from the doorway. Lowri cranes to look and finds the girl from the graveyard standing there, a silhouette against the light spilling over the threshold. The girl crosses to the fireplace and heaps on more coal from a scuttle, ebony flames enveloping them hungrily. ‘He won’t hurt you. He belonged to my uncle and now, I suppose, he just belongs here.’
‘You suppose?’ Lowri asks faintly as the girl tuts at Gracious, shooing him off Lowri’s chest. She crosses back to the doorway before disappearing for a moment, then returns holding a tray.
‘He’s a grimalkin,’ the girl says by way of explanation, as though Lowri should understand what that means. Setting the tray down on the floor, she passes Lowri a plate of buttered bread that looks more like a wedge of cake. Lowri shuffles up against the cushions, feeling the prickling headache become a stubborn thump as she accepts the plate, then a mug of steaming tea. The girl smiles. ‘The tea will help restore you a little, temporarily. It’s Fallow Fog.’
Ignoring the mention of the grimalkin, which looks and moves suspiciously like Nova, a creatureassumingthe form of a cat, rather than being anactualcat, she drinks the tea and finds it tastes like sugared fruit and cream, yet slips down her throat like warm smoke. ‘Why is this tea called Fallow Fog?’
‘It’s named after our city – Fallow. And it has a few drops of the fog in it.’
‘The fog?’ Eli asks quietly from the armchair by the fireplace. Lowri’s attention slips to her cousin, who stretches and rubs his eyes.
‘You’re awake! Good,’ the girl says, hurriedly passing him a plate of the cake bread too. ‘And to answer your question, the fog is above us, covering everything.’
Eli frowns. ‘I thought that was just because it was night time when we reached the city?’ His gaze fixes on Lowri, concern marring his features. ‘You’d passed out by that point.’
The girl shakes her head, eyes wide. ‘No. The fog is eternal. It lingers over the entire city of Fallow, has done since long before I was born. A remnant of the war that no one can shift.’ Then she turns to Lowri. ‘I’m Ethlet, by the way. You were out before we even left the graveyard. Sorry if this all feels a bit unsettling.’
‘She helped carry you here, Lor,’ Eli adds, getting up to stretch his limbs even further, then putting his hands in his pockets. He regards Lowri. ‘How are you feeling? Traversing, let alone world walking, can take a toll.’
Lowri frowns at the girl, then at the grimalkin, who appears to be licking his paws. ‘Are you sure you got the right world, Eli?’
