Lio brought Dot’s hand to his mouth and he kissed it.
And Dot, for all her many months of imagining conversations with him, memorising the number of sugars in his tea or how many steps he skipped as he climbed the stairs, now saw Lio truly as he was: a desperate and hollow young man, even more insecure than herself. He was handsome, of course. He stood elegantly, even now in his borrowed clothes and half-healed pneumonia. But in an instant, all of him turned suddenly, shockingly plain, and Dot’s attraction to him extinguished.
Dot gently pulled her hand away. She covered her face and let out a laugh.
‘Dot,’ said Lio, ‘I – have I said something funny?’
‘Heavens you have,’ said Dot. ‘Whynow,Lio? Now, when Rupert is freshly buried and your first love is back in Alliaster with my finger, of all things?’
‘I suppose I see the truth of it all now,’ said Lio, stepping forward.
‘I suppose you are simply grieving,’ said Dot, and she sighed heavily. ‘Youwereterrible to me, Lio, but I have since heeded your advice.’
‘My advice?’ he asked.
‘To no longer chase after people who don’t love me.’
‘Dot,’ said Lio, ‘I should never have said – I meant my words just now.’
‘That I was good to you?’ laughed Dot. ‘How complimentary.’
Lio smiled in an embarrassed sort of way. ‘I shouldn’t have said any of this to you, should I?’
‘I miss Rupert as well,’ said Dot, taking back the mug of coffee from the sill. ‘But we will have a lifetime to miss him. Theodora needs help and there is a mess in Alliaster that’s ours to clean up. My whole body hurts, Lio. I amtired,but whatever patience or placidity I had is gone. We are going to Alliaster. We have to break Theodora’s contract, and I think I have a way. Lio, have you heard of the hierarchy of spirits?’
‘. . . We are now receiving word from the opposition party that the daemon Salamander has proposed to assist in further clean-up efforts to the city if Article Thirteen is altered! An amendment would allow Salamander’s own daemotion to be absolved, listeners. Still no word from our allies abroad. It seems all radio waves and telephone communication outside the country have been cut off by this strange assault on the capital. The motivations of the disgraced Minister De León are presently unclear. Still, we wait on word from Grand Magician Valiente, who is abroad. Meanwhile, the Royal Institute’s own licensed Magicians are working around the clock to—’
In the next room, Dot heard the kitchen door open and the sound of the witch’s familiar pointed boots upon the tiles. The rest of them – Archie, Belchamber and Lio – were in the living room, and Dot stumbled across to the kitchen and shut the door behind herself. She caught the witch with the lid of the bread bin open, crumpet already in hand.
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Dot. ‘What was on the radio?’
‘I did,’ said Theodora.
‘They’re blaming you,’ said Dot.
‘Let them.’
‘Theodora, would you stop acting like a baby?’
‘My name is—’
‘Your name is Theodora!’ shouted Dot, which made the witch jump and drop the crumpet. ‘You can sulk and hate yourself all you want, but you arestillTheodora, and when Salamander rips all of your magic away and uses you to do foul things to poor little spirits like Belchamber, or to strange women like me, you willstillbe Theodora. You are the person Rupert loved. The tea shop is gone, but you are not.’
The witch stared at her.
‘Build another bloody tea shop!’ bellowed Dot. She swayed from the exertion and caught the kitchen counter with her hand. It stung at her amputation, and she felt a shock of cold and then hot. Theodora made to leave, but Dot forced herself forward. ‘Do not walk away from me.’
Theodora paused. She turned. She paused again. She said in an earnest voice: ‘I don’t know how to fix it all, Dorothy. I thought I did for a moment there, and then Rupert . . .’
‘We will find a way together,’ said Dot, softening. Then she turned and shouted, ‘Lio!’
The door to the kitchen opened.
‘Why are you yelling?’ asked Lio. ‘I was simply in the next room.’
‘We need to make a plan,’ said Dot.
At last, they gathered in the living room and Belchamber shared with them the final pieces of Dot’s strange puzzle.
