‘Opal,’ gasped Cate through the scrying glass. ‘My girl! What has she done to you?’
‘Salamander did this,’ said Theodora. ‘He has a lair beneath the department store. You will find the way in through the top-floor bistro. Down the corridor by the kitchens, there’s an elevator. It’s behind a thick, metal door. Wait for us there. We can, all of us, end this. We can work together.’
A silence came.
Cate stared through the mirror at the creature her daughter had become. Distantly, they heard the voice of a man from the other end of the scrying, and Dot saw Cate glance sideways.
‘Were we not who you were expecting?’ arose Moira’s nasty voice. A bang, a shout.
‘I will end this,’ said Catherine Weyer to Theodora. ‘I will find the daemon myself. You ruin everything you touch, child. You wait exactly where you are with my daughter.’
The scrying glass became a mirror once more.
‘Damn!’ shouted Theodora, casting it aside.
‘Who did Moira attack?’ Lio asked and then seized his hanky and coughed violently into it.
Theodora’s expression darkened. ‘I didn’t see him clearly.’
‘Will Cate make it down the elevator?’ asked Dot.
‘With us? She could have,’ said Theodora, rubbing her eyes. ‘Without, I do not know. Her magic is vicious and scrappy and Salamander will end hers and Moira’s life in a moment. Perhaps it was ridiculous to hope that she would help us at last.’
‘So, what do we do?’ asked Lio.
‘We go to Hemmington’s anyway,’ said Theodora, now pacing. ‘We don’t depend on Acanthi for help.’
‘If Salamander takes Opal,’ said Dot, ‘then we might be condemning her to a lifetime caged.’
‘We can end her life before that happens,’ said Theodora, gazing down sadly at the afflicted woman.
‘And if we fail? Or if she wakes along the way?’ asked Lio. ‘She will be vicious; she’ll be distressed.’
Dot kneaded her temple with her knuckles, staring between Opal and the books upon the floor. What was the most humane way to bring the doomed young woman along with them?
At last, she looked up at Lio with a frown. ‘Did you ever master those memory charms?’
Lio’s eyes widened. ‘Only on dormice,’ he said. ‘Never on a person.’
Theodora nodded slowly, understanding.
The three of them exchanged glances and then looked down at Opal.
Lio took out his chalk.
CHAPTERFORTY-TWO
Theodora, Dot and Lio stepped out onto the roof of Hemmington’s department store. The sky was gloomy in the dim afternoon light. The witches of Acanthi were gone. Theodora set down Opal, who stirred, addled and half-alive, covered in scales of white. They climbed down to the balcony that was overlooked by the bistro; the sea lapped at the edge of it, every third or so wave washing over their feet.
Within the bistro atop Hemmington’s department store, a revelry was underway.
‘It’s like they’ve won a war,’ said Lio, peering in at the spirits. Salamander’s allies in their hundreds danced and chanted and smoked and rang their bells. Dot expected to see Casimir sat at a table, cigarette in his mouth. He wasn’t. Instead, she spotted a spirit who looked like a turkey crossed with a library; a chimera-type creature the colour of plums; an angular spirit with legs like razors; a fur-covered spirit singing vibrato; and a fish-like spirit bopping about on a nearby table.
‘Some of these spirits lived at Ollianne,’ said Theodora.
Dot chewed her bottom lip. ‘I suppose I don’t entirely blame them for joining Salamander.’
‘I do,’ said Lio.
