CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR
Dot and Theodora clambered back up the stone stairs, accompanied by Thistlethwaite and hundreds of grateful spirits who wanted to ensure their safe return to the city. They found Lio waiting where they had left him, stood beside a beastly corvid the height of a man. Theodora tried and tried to turn Casimir back, but in her fatigued state, Cate’s magic was too much to reverse.
‘Oh, Cas,’ said Theodora, tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
Opal’s body, and the body of Moira, had been collected by the final witch of Acanthi. There had come no vengeance for Lio. No fanfare. Opal’s mother had simply picked up her daughter and sister and taken them away.
Lio held the old bread knife out to Theodora.
She took it.
And together, they all climbed up and out of the dungeon, Lio limping, Dot levitating, Casimir hopping and cawing. They emerged once more through the door beside the kitchens. The revelry at the bistro raged on, the spirits having not noticed that beyond the windows, the enchanted water had leached away.
Before they cast the portal, Theodora came to the wide windows overlooking the city. She cast a scrying spell in the mirrored reflection. There they were: Archie and Belchamber still on the train to Seafarthing, chugging past apple orchards. She smiled to herself.
‘Theodora,’ said Lio, tugging at her arm. The witch turned to see Casimir cawing and flapping over the celebration, sending the dancing spirits scattering.
‘We need to catch him,’ said Theodora, but before she could raise her hands, the crow that had once been Casimir burst through the glass and soared out into the night sky. He did not come back.
At sunrise, Lio led Archie and Belchamber out of a portal and onto the grounds of the Ollianne Shrine.
‘Where is she?’ asked Archie, already teary, one hand on his hat against the wind.
‘Inside,’ said Theodora. ‘She collapsed after everything, but she’s alright.’
‘I’ll show you to her,’ said Lio, leading the old man to his granddaughter.
They left Theodora and Belchamber standing on the stone steps of the shrine where the little spirit had once gotten her a job. ‘Eggs,’ he said, ‘I knew you would right it all.’
Theodora scooped him up. He threw his arms around her, and the witch hugged him back fiercely, clutching the hollow body which was shaped like his namesake.
Thistlethwaite and the other spirits of the shrine had conjured beds in the little wooden gate house. Dot woke in snatches, and when she did, it was painful. To move at all was to lift oceans. Mostly, she did not dream, but when she did, it was of the Ancient Spirit’s voice, ebbing and flowing in the dark, muttering in the strange language now printed on the underside of Dot’s consciousness. There had been a bargain struck – the Ancient Spirit had seen Dot dive intothe waves after Emily, and so, in an act of mercy, She had delivered Dot to the safety of the beach.
A bowl of soup was set beside her.
It was spooned into her mouth.
‘Might be a bit hot,’ came Archie’s voice, and Dot smiled at the absurdity of this remark. That after all that had gone on, something as domestic and beautiful as a bowl of soup could hurt her.
Somewhere else in the room, Theodora and Lio talked in hushed tones.
A hand – Archie’s or perhaps Belchamber’s – stroked her hair.
Dot’s eyes peeked open and she watched Theodora and Lio settle down on the beds beside her. They were wrapped in the robes of the shrine, both of them bruised and tired. Lio lay on his back and closed his eyes. Theodora lay on her side, her own eyes flicking to Dot. The contract had been broken. Opal was gone. Dot breathed deeply. She closed her eyes and, with great effort, tugged the heavy quilt over herself. She slept for days.
Theodora and Lio were quick to help in the restoration of Alliaster. They rested for three days, their wounds and depleted magic treated by the spirits, and then they were back in the city. Lio chalked runes onto the sides of trams to tip them back upon their wheels, and others to sweep the salt and restore the glass and scrub the benches. No one asked for his licence. Theodora reprised her role as the Grand Magician Valiente, the King having accepted her excuses that she had been on holiday, somewhere far away from the southern hemisphere. She had apologised fiercely, and he, for all his many deficiencies, believed her. She released a statement informing the public that Minister Bianca De León had been killed by Salamander – the true perpetrator of the flood – in his hidden menagerie beneath the city. The amendment to Article 13, which had been rushed through parliamentby the allies of Salamander, and had been on the very precipice of passing, was promptly thrown out. The opposition minister, the spirit Marcidus, was placed immediately under investigation. Prime Minister Balarby was stood down. Several members of the cabinet resigned. The King, upon hearing of Salamander’s demise, had in a disappointed rage smashed his own menagerie to bits.
A new Minister for Sorcerie and Magic was selected: a stranger with an almost unbelievable curriculum vitae named Ruth Armstrong. She had raven black hair and discerning eyes, and, startlingly, not a single member of the Lower House had met her before, although they voted her in almost unanimously after she promised to reopen the Raven’s Attic to honour De León’s memory.
The newspapers went out.
The headlines were amended.
Casimir never returned.
A week and a half later, Theodora sat with Lio atop the steps of the Ollianne Shrine. Still, Dot slumbered. Archie fed her tonic and sent telegrams home to Seafarthing, but the girl was almost entirely separated from the world of the waking.
‘We still need to tell Rupert’s family,’ said Lio.
