I’ve still got the wand and I hold it up to him.
“It’s a stick,” he says. “I was trying to enchant it, but couldn’t get it to work. It’s just a stick.”
I touch the stick to the base of the dome and say with as much emotion as I can muster, which is a lot, “Dome, liquefy.”
Nothing happens except perhaps that Wallend’s grin widens.
He says, “The dome recognizes two masters only. Me and Soul. It won’t do what you say.”
I pick up two bottles and throw them at the dome. It reacts the same way as when something hit its outer surface, becoming opaque for a second or two and then becoming clear again.
“I’ll destroy all the bottles,” I say.
“Then the Hunters will lose their ability to turn invisible but they’ll still be Hunters. And you will still be my prisoner.”
Well, I’d rather the Alliance fought a visible army so I lash out at the bottles, kicking them at the dome. There’s glass flying all around me but the dome doesn’t show any hint of a weakness.
Eventually I’m done; there are no more bottles to smash. I’m panting with rage and frustration, standing on crushed glass and bits of flesh as the dome returns to its clear smoothness. And Wallend is still there grinning at me. I thought he might take the opportunity to run and get help but he’s not in a rush. He’s confident I’m not going anywhere.
He sits on a chair and looks at me. “You’ve made a mess of your new home.” He smiles. “Soul would like to see you here. He was expecting you but I’m tempted to not tell him you’ve arrived until after you run out of air. It’ll be a few hours, I think. You lived a long time in a cage and now you’re going to spend the rest of your days, or should I say hours, in this one.”
I swear at him.
“Soul thinks we can use you, have you work for us, but”—he holds up his hands—“I know you for what you are: an evil Black Witch, just like your father.”
“You want to see evil? I’ve not even started.” And I take the Fairborn and leap at the dome with all my strength. Where the knife hits the dome it becomes opaque for a second and then it throws me back so I land among the glass shards, which shatter beneath me but feel like a feather bed. I get up and raise the Fairborn again.
Wallend comes closer now, studying me. I think he’s noticed that I’m not cut by the glass.
I move to stand opposite him and stab the Fairborn at the dome. It bounces my arm back again.
He says, “You’re wasting your time. You can’t break out. It’s impossible. The magic is too strong.”
Now I grin at him and I say, “Want to bet?”
I try being gentler this time. Slowly putting the tip of the knife to the dome and pushing it down, still using all my strength. I’m thrust back again but not as forcefully.
There’s no mark on the dome. It turns opaque briefly and then returns to its clear self. But I can feel the Fairborn in my hand and its desire to cut, to rip the dome. To the Fairborn, the dome is alive, and the Fairborn doesn’t like alive.
I repeat the same slow cut and the same thing happens, but I still sense the Fairborn’s desire, its fury. It’s madder than I am. I make the same cut again, and the dome doesn’t throw me back this time, and I see there’s a small opaque line that stays longer than last time, and when it disappears there’s a fine scratch in the surface of the dome. A weakness. The Fairborn seems to sense it too, and it wants more, wants to go deeper.
I repeat the cut, slowly and forcefully, pushing the Fairborn into the dome and pulling it down. I’m thrown back, almost to the other side of the dome, but this time the opaque color takes longer to clear and the scratch left behind is deeper and longer than before. I stab once more and, with the weight of my body behind it, the Fairborn’s tip is embedded in the dome. I lever the knife up and down, my arms shaking, my whole body shaking. The dome has become opaque and white and I lever faster and push harder, and sweat blooms out of me but I keep levering. And then the dome cracks from floor to floor, right over its peak, and is opaque all along that crooked line. I lever the Fairborn from side to side now and the dome cracks again, crossing the first. Then I take the Fairborn out and thrust it hard at the point where the two cracks meet and I kick high at the place where the blade first went in, and a hole appears in the dome and through it I see Wallend already at the door. Leaving.
I send out lightning. Wallend falls, stunned, not dead. I kick at the dome to make a hole big enough to get through. By the time I’m out, Wallend is groaning and trying to crawl.
Kill or capture are the options now, so I go to Wallend and let the Fairborn choose.
Blue
Wallend is dead and I’ve destroyed all the bottles that were in the dome. No one has come to investigate the noise; the doors are thick and we’re at the top of the building, away from everyone else.
I go invisible as I leave Wallend’s office, and the corridor is as silent and empty as before.
Now for Soul.
I make my way toward the ground floor and the main Council Chamber where I used to have my Assessments. Behind that is a series of private offices and small meeting rooms. Soul’s office is there; I have to hope that he is too. From what Wallend said, Soul knows I’m coming and the Hunters must be here to protect against an attack.
I’ve come down the main staircase now and I stop in the foyer. The Hunters are still here. I see Gabriel. He’s perfect in his disguise as a brutish Hunter. I watch him for a few seconds. He holds his head up and looks around but not at me.
I head to the Council Chamber and am soon in a series of corridors like the ones I remember from my Assessment days, with stone walls and stone floors and many doors off to the left and right. I stand tight against the wall as two Hunters patrol past, then turn left, then first right, and here is the corridor and the bench where I used to sit and wait with Gran.
It seems strange to see it now. I sat there every year, humiliated and afraid. The last time I was here, I sat there cuffed and Annalise came through the far door with her father. That must have been one of the days she was brought in for questioning. I’m sure it wasn’t an accident, that they came this way and reminded her that I was still alive and a danger to society. Or was it all a setup? Was she a spy even then?
Now everything feels different. There’s a Hunter near me and another one at the far end of the corridor. Two women come out of the Council Chamber, smiling, and sit on the bench, my bench. The women are talking about their children.
The door to the Council Chamber is open and, just like at my Assessments, a guard is standing inside the door. I move into the room and still it manages to make me feel small as it always did, although the room is laid out differently from when I’ve been here before. The large table is where it always was, but adjoined to it are three other tables, making a sort of square. Most of the seats are empty, including the three that look like thrones, the three that were occupied for all my Assessments and which I now am sure will be occupied by Soul and Jessica and possibly Wallend, though of course he won’t be coming.
I need to get on. Soul isn’t here and I need to find him, preferably in a place a bit more private than this.
As I make my way back to the door, I see a man I recognize. I’ve only seen him once before, only for a few seconds, but the memory is clear in my mind. Annalise’s father. He looks older and much more tired than when I last saw him. Is that how you look when your daughter is a prisoner or a spy? Or maybe it’s how you look when two of your sons are dead. I’m not sure what I want to do about him, but I can’t do anything at the moment. I’ve got to find Soul.
Back in the corridor, the women are still talking. One says, “I heard he’s going to demonstrate the blue.”
The other woman lowers her voice and replies, “Yes, but on whom?”
I turn right down the corridor, to the door at the far end. I can’t risk o
pening it with a Hunter right there. I have to wait for someone to come out and it’s a few minutes before that happens. But then the door opens and I manage to slide through without touching anyone.
I walk fast now, round the corner, right and right again, to Soul’s private office, and it’s all exactly as in the mock-up. There’s a guard at this end of the corridor and another outside the door.
I’ve prepared for these guards, just as Celia told me to. The guards look bored but they also look to be the biggest men I’ve ever seen. Still, I’m invisible and invincible. I walk slowly and silently past the first, take hold of the doorknob and turn it slowly. The nearest guard might not notice the knob turning but he will notice the door moving. I open it and slide through, leaving the door ajar.
And now I face my enemy.
He’s sitting behind his desk, pen in hand. He looks up at the door and it seems as if he’s looking at me. The desk, a huge mahogany thing, has some papers on it and also a large glass bowl containing a turquoise blue liquid, and over the top of the bowl is a sheet of glass.
Soul frowns. The guard appears in the doorway behind me.
“Yes?” Soul asks. “Did you want something?”
“No, sir. I . . . I didn’t open the door.”
Soul shouts, “Get reinforcements!” But I’m already letting the Fairborn thrust itself into the guard’s neck. Soul stands, whipping the glass sheet off the bowl and throwing it at me. It slices sharply through the air, and I send a blast of lightning that hits the glass sheet and another that hits Soul. The other guard appears in the doorway and I blast him with lightning too.
It’s silent and still again. Shattered glass is strewn across the room, smoke coming from the jacket of the second guard.
I wait a few seconds, expecting someone to come running, but nothing happens except that Soul rolls on the floor by his desk and groans. I walk over and check he hasn’t got a gun. I know he can’t hurt me with it but I don’t want any more sound.
The first guard fell sideways into the room but I have to drag the second in and out of sight from the corridor. It’s ridiculously difficult because he’s the weight of a small buffalo. I’m using all my strength and can barely budge him, but slowly and with a lot of effort I get him far enough into the office so that I can shut the door.
Soul is stirring. The man who has killed so many, ruined so many lives, tortured so many of his own people, as well as many Black Witches and Half Bloods and me, is at my feet. The Fairborn in my hand is slavering at the sense of blood close by.
Soul doesn’t move but I see his eyes open just a little. It’s a movement I recognize. The movement of someone used to being careful, to being watched, wanting to know who is watching him, someone whose brain is working hard, on full alert, when it looks like it’s only half awake.
I nudge him with the toe of my boot and then feel annoyed with myself for being weak and soft with him and kick him hard.
He doesn’t grimace and I think he must be healing straightaway as he turns his face to look at me. Yes, he’s healing; I can see a look in his eyes, that thrill, his eyes sparkling brightly for a split second.
“Nathan! What a lovely surprise.”
“Is it?”
Soul smiles. “Well, of course it’s not so lovely to be lying here on the floor, but I have been looking forward to meeting you again.” He raises his head and body further, saying, “Are you alone, Nathan? I don’t hear shooting. I don’t hear screams. Is this an attack?”
“Where’s Jessica?”
“Your sister? Half-sister, I should say. She really doesn’t like to be called your sister.”
“Where is she?”
“I’m really not sure.”
“Is she here in the building?”
“She comes and goes . . .”
I kick him again. “Let’s try something else then. Where’s Annalise?”
Soul looks at me and smiles, then raises himself further to rest on his elbows. He looks at the guards then back to me.
“It seems that you have more than one Gift. You can become invisible. And throw lightning. Gifts that you have obtained from your father. You ate his heart. That must have been difficult. Annalise told me what happened.”
“Where is she?”
“Are you here to rescue her or kill her?”
“None of your business. Where is she?”
“Somewhere safe. But it won’t be so safe if I tell you, will it?” Soul shuffles up a little further to rest on his hands rather than his elbows.
I put my boot on his chest and push him back down. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, there’s no point in you being alive.”
“If I tell you, what will you do?”
“Talk to her.”
“I meant what will you do to me?”
“I’m thinking about that.” But I’m not. I realize now I’m not thinking about much at all. There’s a smell in the room that reminds me of something. The scent of the forest maybe, but more than that. And then I know: it’s the smell of Annalise when we were together, her jumper, and I see her and we’re sitting together on the outcrop and she’s catching the leaf and I want to stop her leaning over the edge.
I step back from Soul and look toward his desk and the bowl of blue liquid sitting on it. “What is that?” I ask, and move round to look at it a little closer.
Soul doesn’t answer and I sense that the blue liquid is giving off fumes that are affecting my concentration, but surely they’ll affect Soul as well.
“What does it do?” I ask, and I look around the room for something to cover the bowl with.
“Ah, my new potion. It’s rather special and been a long time in production—Mr. Wallend does take his time over things but, then again, perfection can’t be rushed. It’s rather beautiful to look at, don’t you think?” And Soul’s now sitting up, I realize, but still he can’t harm me. “It’s called blue, for obvious reasons.”
“What does it do?”
“It has several uses. It can . . . change your mood, bring memories, things like that.”
“How?”
“How? Well, how does any potion work? But I think what you’re really asking is how is it affecting you now?”
And is it? Affecting me? I remember I was looking for something to cover the bowl with. I walk around the room and from the bookshelf take a large thin book and approach the bowl. The blue liquid seems alive, swirling round and round and drawing me down. I shake my head and look away. Walk around the room again. I need to do something but I’m not sure what. I stop at the door and listen but hear nothing. I’ve got a book in my hand but I don’t know why.
Soul says, “Do you remember that I wanted to give you three gifts on your seventeenth birthday?”
“Yes.” I never really understood why.
“I wanted to do that very much. I saw great potential in you, Nathan, and I still do. You are the son of a powerful Black Witch but you are also the son of a powerful White Witch. I know many people ignore that and only see the Black half, but I see both, and I see that the White part of you is good and can be brought to dominate the Black. As it should. If a White Witch became a powerful and significant part of your life, perhaps the White part might rise further in your soul.”
“My father gave me three gifts. It didn’t make me any Blacker.”
“No? Are you being completely honest with me, Nathan? Are you sure it didn’t change you?”
And even though a huge part of my brain is saying it’s a trick question and I shouldn’t even enter into this conversation, another part of me feels I have to answer.
“Maybe it did.”
“Maybe it did. But I can see that there’s still a lot of White Witch in you. You are battling with yourself even now. Your father would have killed me in a second. But you have not. Even with his influence on you
, your White side is strong, fighting back. It’s good to see, Nathan. You are, or at least you can be, a good person. You do want to be good, don’t you, Nathan?”
“I don’t know what I want.” And I don’t know why I’m saying that. I ask, “The blue . . . is it in the air?”
“Why, yes it is. Quite strong, I should think now; though, of course, I’m immune to it. Or perhaps I should say that I control it and those who breathe it in. Look how it’s swirling around, giving off its fumes. Step closer, Nathan, and look.”
And I know that’s a bad idea but I find I’m moving toward the desk and looking into the potion and watching how it swirls.
“You really are a good person, Nathan. And you could become a truly great witch. I have always seen you as someone with great power. Someone who could help me. And I’d like to help you. The Alliance doesn’t care about you, Nathan, but I do. I want very much to see you realize your full potential. Working for me you could do that.”
“I don’t want to work for you.”
“In time you’ll come round to my way of thinking. Already you are, Nathan. Already you see how easy it is. How good it feels.”
And he’s so right. It feels good.
The Beginning of the End
I feel relaxed. I’ve been too tense for too long—my whole life it seems. It’s good to feel the tension ebbing away. I roll my head and loosen my shoulders. Soul is watching me. I know I shouldn’t trust him, can’t trust him, but I can relax; I’m invulnerable after all. He can’t hurt me.