‘I can see you’re in pain,’ said Dot. ‘And I know that you’re upset about Belchamber and I know that you’re in some kind of trouble with Salamander, but given everything that has happened to me because of you and this tea shop, I need the truth.’
Theodora rubbed her eyes.
‘Bring me some coffee,’ she said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’
‘No,’ said Dot. ‘It’s six o’clock at night and I’m not your servant.’
‘You were so accommodating in the beginning,’ said the witch. ‘I have barely eaten since that day at Hemmington’s. I want something warm and soft like pasta, or sweet. Ice cream?’
Dot seized Theodora by the arm and pulled her out of bed. Her vision swam with the effort. She lost her balance and the pair of them toppled onto the floor.
‘There you go,’ said Dot. ‘Just as you did for me – although you’ll have to summon your own towel and run your own bath.’
‘I quite hate you,’ said Theodora.
‘No, you don’t,’ said Dot. ‘Give me some money and I’ll go to the restaurant at the end of the road.’
Theodora sighed and pulled herself off the floor. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve caused you far too much pain to make you carry a fleet of noodles by yourself. I will go and, when I get back, I will give you the honesty you deserve.’
An hour later, Theodora set down two porcelain bowls and a number of side dishes. Her ringlets were damp and her eyes were red.
‘We could have eaten in the kitchen,’ said Dot. ‘Surely there’s enough to share.’
‘That,’ said Theodora, ‘is why we’renoteating in the kitchen.’
Dot looked pointedly at the witch.
‘I left Rupert money as I came in,’ said Theodora. ‘Those two will be just fine.’
Dot took up her bowl and sat in the chair by the window. Theodora sat in the alcove. Cool, autumn air tumbled in and Dot stared out at the night-time city. Unlike her north-facing window, this one gave a view of the east, over the rooftops of the Market District. They ate in silence while Dot glanced curiously around the witch’s bedroom, now illuminated by lamps and candles. She found her eye drawn to the wardrobe beside Belchamber. It covered the north wall and was bigger than any wardrobe she had ever seen.
‘I really should ask about Salamander,’ said Dot. ‘But it’s clear that there is so much going on here that you’re quite paralysed by it all. So, let’s start at the beginning. Who is Cate, who is Opal and what did Acanthi do to you?’
Theodora looked down at her noodles.
‘They raised me.’
INTERLUDE
The little girl made her home in the forest with the witches. The bloodied bread knife had been her only relic brought from home and the ragged wound upon her hand healed into a wine-red grimace. The memory of the grimoire faded and now she slept in a tent beside another girl her age and was taught, rune by rune, to wield magic. Her library was the leaf litter; her bedroom, the belly of the forest.
On her eleventh birthday, the little girl returned to the valley of willows from where she had come. She knocked on the door to the home that no longer belonged to her. Her mother opened it. The woman shrieked for her husband and collapsed on the girl, clutching her, crying:My darling. My darling, we’ve missed you.
Her father watched, a few steps away.
Mum,said the girl,I’m not here to stay.
Her father sprang and seized her, but his embrace was not a thing of love. It was a cage. The little girl flapped and shrieked and broke the hold, and her coven leader appeared and took her, and into the night they flew.
Her mother and father howled and the girl knew she was loved. She returned on the annum – when she turned twelve, then thirteen – until their tears dried up and their resentment stoked, and they began to blame her.
How could they not?
If they did not blame her, they would have to blame themselves.
On her fourteenth birthday, they did not answer the door at all. She found them instead in the church hall, in progress of a funeral. Looking through the window, she spotted the children she’d known, the big bosses, the matronly secretary. The girl realised that they cried forher. Her mother and father did not. So, the girl ran. She left behind her the valley of willows. She did not care; she had someone better to love. The girl she shared her tent with. The girl named Opal.
Opal had eyes like her namesake, iridescent with bolts of blue flame. Her hair was dark like the girl’s, identical always in length and texture, though Opal’s skin was much lighter. Opal laughed in explosions and was honest in stabs. It was her cruelty that drew the girl in, arrow-sharp. It made the girl feel safe. She was no disappointment; Opal would have said so.
