We can face it together this time.”
Novel nodded, but his next words were not what Lily had hoped for.
“Give me until the end of this month,” he said gently. “If I can’t find the solution, I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
“A promise is no good to me,” Lily answered, tears finally choking her throat as she bit them back. “You can either be a man who keep secrets, or a man I can trust. Not both, Novel. Never both.”
And she left him standing there in the darkening, empty attic. As Lily strode away, it was her turn to feel the bite of guilty lightning when it sparked against her palms.
The Wandering Girl
Novel’s four-poster bed was usually empty at night, for the illusionist kept strange hours, and liked to absorb starlight on the Imaginique’s roof around midnight. It was at this strike of twelve that Lily settled between the soft black sheets of the bed, and reached a pale hand out to draw the crimson curtains all around her. After a few weeks of returning to the term-time lecture schedule, the shattered student had finally given up on making every night a late one. Tomorrow, Lily’s history lecture with Bradley Binns was set for nine a.m. sharp, and she was determined that she wouldn’t fall asleep in this one.
It felt lonely to lie there without the familiar weight of the body that ought to be beside her, and Lily turned on her side to face the curtained veil she had drawn, so she didn’t have to look at the space where Novel usually lay. If things kept up the way they were with university, there was a very real possibility that he and Lily may end up sharing the bed in shifts rather than together, and if he didn’t keep his promise to her at the end of October, then Lily had to admit it was probably for the best. A heaviness shifted in her chest at that sad realisation, sitting somewhere between her heart and her throat as she wrestled with her comfort, and the thoughts that were already threatening to keep her awake.
Somewhere, in a fanciful part of her mind, Lily had assumed that being Kindred Souls – the shadeborn equivalent of soul mates – automatically meant that the course of true love would run smooth for her and Novel. Now, in the great anti-climax that had settled since he’d saved Lily from the brink of death, she was starting to wonder if the whole soul mate thing was purely about the magic. As much as she was drawn to Novel’s bright eyes, his sharp-angled features and the mastery he possessed when he performed, he was difficult to live with, even at the best of times. She loved him – of that she was certain – but loving someone, and being with them, so totally with them , were two very different things.
“You look troubled.”
The voice that spoke was reluctant, and a little hoarse, but it still made Lily leap half out of her skin. The silken sheets fluttered away as she jolted, eyes wide open and looking for the source of the words. When she remembered that she had closed the crimson curtains of the bed all around her, panic set in, freezing her in place where she lay on her side. Her lips ran dry in seconds, and she had to move them to and fro a little before they ceased trembling enough for her to ask the empty air before her.
“Is someone there?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the voice replied, sounding deeper, and a little bolder.
Lily reached towards the curtains, but the voice grew louder still.
“Ah, I wouldn’t do that,” it suggested, “I might lose my place here.”
Slowly, realisation sank in, and Lily knew the voice and its owner. She let her eyes rove over the dark, shadowed folds of the crimson curtain before her, until she found a place where the velvety material had crumpled into a kind of knot. Here, two deep shadows sat side by side, with one dark crease of fabric spread beneath them in a long, dragging shape. The combination of the shadows looked something like the face from Scream, until the two shadowed eyes blinked,
Novel nodded, but his next words were not what Lily had hoped for.
“Give me until the end of this month,” he said gently. “If I can’t find the solution, I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”
“A promise is no good to me,” Lily answered, tears finally choking her throat as she bit them back. “You can either be a man who keep secrets, or a man I can trust. Not both, Novel. Never both.”
And she left him standing there in the darkening, empty attic. As Lily strode away, it was her turn to feel the bite of guilty lightning when it sparked against her palms.
The Wandering Girl
Novel’s four-poster bed was usually empty at night, for the illusionist kept strange hours, and liked to absorb starlight on the Imaginique’s roof around midnight. It was at this strike of twelve that Lily settled between the soft black sheets of the bed, and reached a pale hand out to draw the crimson curtains all around her. After a few weeks of returning to the term-time lecture schedule, the shattered student had finally given up on making every night a late one. Tomorrow, Lily’s history lecture with Bradley Binns was set for nine a.m. sharp, and she was determined that she wouldn’t fall asleep in this one.
It felt lonely to lie there without the familiar weight of the body that ought to be beside her, and Lily turned on her side to face the curtained veil she had drawn, so she didn’t have to look at the space where Novel usually lay. If things kept up the way they were with university, there was a very real possibility that he and Lily may end up sharing the bed in shifts rather than together, and if he didn’t keep his promise to her at the end of October, then Lily had to admit it was probably for the best. A heaviness shifted in her chest at that sad realisation, sitting somewhere between her heart and her throat as she wrestled with her comfort, and the thoughts that were already threatening to keep her awake.
Somewhere, in a fanciful part of her mind, Lily had assumed that being Kindred Souls – the shadeborn equivalent of soul mates – automatically meant that the course of true love would run smooth for her and Novel. Now, in the great anti-climax that had settled since he’d saved Lily from the brink of death, she was starting to wonder if the whole soul mate thing was purely about the magic. As much as she was drawn to Novel’s bright eyes, his sharp-angled features and the mastery he possessed when he performed, he was difficult to live with, even at the best of times. She loved him – of that she was certain – but loving someone, and being with them, so totally with them , were two very different things.
“You look troubled.”
The voice that spoke was reluctant, and a little hoarse, but it still made Lily leap half out of her skin. The silken sheets fluttered away as she jolted, eyes wide open and looking for the source of the words. When she remembered that she had closed the crimson curtains of the bed all around her, panic set in, freezing her in place where she lay on her side. Her lips ran dry in seconds, and she had to move them to and fro a little before they ceased trembling enough for her to ask the empty air before her.
“Is someone there?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the voice replied, sounding deeper, and a little bolder.
Lily reached towards the curtains, but the voice grew louder still.
“Ah, I wouldn’t do that,” it suggested, “I might lose my place here.”
Slowly, realisation sank in, and Lily knew the voice and its owner. She let her eyes rove over the dark, shadowed folds of the crimson curtain before her, until she found a place where the velvety material had crumpled into a kind of knot. Here, two deep shadows sat side by side, with one dark crease of fabric spread beneath them in a long, dragging shape. The combination of the shadows looked something like the face from Scream, until the two shadowed eyes blinked,
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