As if watching this reminded Theodora of her own talent, she dropped to the floor, placed her hands against the wood and gasped the incantation. The walls shook and the wards, however weakened they were, slid back into place.
Theodora did not look back at them before diving into her own portal and vanishing.
Silence hung thick in the air as Dot, Rupert and Lio glanced about at each other.
Lio reached for Belchamber, the spirit still unconscious against the floor. Rupert, rising, said to Dot, ‘Are you alright?’
Dot stared at the blood. An ugly cut divided the scales of her afflicted forearm.
‘Lio,’ said Rupert. ‘Fetch a cloth or a towel, would you?’
Lio did not respond, and so Rupert lurched to his feet and bounded out of the hidden room. He came back with one of Theodora’s clean blouses. He ripped it in two and bandaged Dot’s arm.
It was then that Theodora stepped out of a portal and back into the hidden bedroom, clutching at her own wounds upon her chest, which bled still through her bandages.
‘I couldn’t follow,’ said Theodora, babbling. ‘Opal went straight back to Salamander. Cate and Moira are there, trying to break into Hemmington’s. They won’t get in. It’s almost a fortress. I don’t knowwhat Salamander means to do with Dorothy’s blood, but we need to get it back – we need to fix the wards. I need to do something. Maybe Casimir can help? Maybe I can – oh—’
‘Opal was alive,’ said Lio in a quiet, quaking rage. ‘The whole time.’
As if the sound had ignited a match, Theodora rounded on him.
‘Get out! Get out of my house. You helped to break my wardsagain.’
‘Neither of those were my fault!’ shouted Lio, now on his feet. ‘It is notmyfault Acanthi stole my blood from a wall! And it is notmyfault that I was delivered a letter from a dead girl. The moment I saw that raven just now, I remembered what happened: she sent me a packet spell last night. I was stupid enough to open it becauseyoudid not tellany of usthe truth. I’m not you,“Theodora”.I wouldn’t stand before you and lie to your very face!’
‘You did lie!’ shouted Theodora. ‘You would doanythingto help Opal, butIwas the one who was forced to hold her here! To build all of this! To keep all these secrets on my own! I neverwantedto lie to anyone!’
‘Stop it,’ said Dot, struggling to stand. The whole room rocked, and she slipped and caught the wall.
‘Dorothy,’ said Theodora, her voice breaking.
‘You are taking the Lunaria,’ said Dot, cold magic pulsing at her afflicted fingers. It stung her wound. ‘You are going to tell us the truth. All of it, starting with your name and finishing with that monster and how she ended up in this room.’
‘She wasn’t caged here,’ said Theodora, stepping toward Dot. ‘I promise. I’m not Salamander. I’m not the King. There was a reason.’
‘Take the Lunaria,’ said Rupert.
‘Rupe,’ said Theodora, now reaching for him. He dodged her, and the witch’s shoulders fell.
‘I will,’ said the woman who had been Theodora. She reached one hand upward and a small phial of milky, white liquid appearedin her hand. Lio had taken three drops; Theodora downed the whole bottle. She flourished her hand and a fleet of bandages, a large phial of tonic and a pot of salve flew in and landed before Dot. Rupert untied the makeshift bandage and began to properly treat Dot’s wound, and while he did, Theodora told them all of it. She started with her true name, and did not finish until the sun was high in Alliaster’s sky.
INTERLUDE
They sat in a small café with wiry black chairs and a board advertising poached eggs on slices of toast. The spirit, Belchamber, purchased for her a small cup of coffee and cold rice pudding. The girl had never liked her name. It was quite ridiculous, in her opinion, that the very epithet designated to reveal the quintessential essence of who one was as a human creature was always chosen by someone who knew absolutely nothing about them. When the spirit asked, she told him anyway. The word felt sibilant against her tongue.
‘How did you come to this city?’
She had no answer. Only bitterness and apathy to everything before and around her like the blue-grey fog of a winter morning, softening and blotting out all.
The girl did notwantto die.
She simply did not feel like living.
She shrugged, and so the little spirit brought his hands together.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ said Belchamber. She braced herself for whatever lewd or illegal activity a spirit of this city would ask of a vagabond girl. ‘Ollianne Shrine is in need of some assistance – polishing the tiles, shooing the foxes, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You’re offering me a job? As a shrine hand?’
