‘I hope not,’ said Lio. ‘But remember the maroon envelope I found months ago?’
‘The one you had the row over,’ said Dot, recalling it.
‘It was a debt notice,’ said Lio.
‘So it is true.’ Dot’s heart sank. Lio nodded. She glanced at Rupert beside her. He was glowering at the floor as if he meant to argue but had no proof with which to absolve the witch.
Dot closed her eyes and, after a moment, mumbled, ‘Salamander still has the use of his magic.’
‘If he does, it’s only a fraction of it,’ said Lio, cracking eggs into the frying pan. They sputtered as they hit the hot oil. ‘Imagine, then, if he weren’t a daemon and had the rest of it.’
The memory of that wet barb lashed her, and she winced.
‘What kind of deal did Theodora strike with him?’ asked Rupert.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dot, slumping further against the icebox.She wants to sell you to me, Dorothy.‘I’m sure it was a misunderstanding. Salamander attacked me by mistake. He must have.’
‘Just because you want to see the best in her,’ said Lio, looking down at Dot, ‘doesn’t mean you should.’
‘Did he even give you answers?’ asked Rupert.
‘All he said is that the ambergris belongs to a South Sea spirit.’
Dot looked down at the scales of her afflicted arm, dark and dappled with colour, spraying up just past her elbow. Now, almost the whole arm felt cold and strange. Gently, she prodded the new scales. They were smooth and a little sore, as if each had a bruise beneath it. Dot was dying, she knew, one scale at a time, and as she leaned back and listened to the popping and crackling of the frying pan, she could not bring herself to feel terror at the prospect. All she wanted was to sleep.
Theodora would not come down from her attic. Dot lay awake, listening to the creaking above until, at last, she hauled herself from her bed and into the hall. Dot half fell against the wall. Slowly, she made her way to the ladder and, after pausing, she climbed.
‘Theo?’ called Dot, knocking against the trapdoor.
No reply. Dot rested her head against the top rung for just a moment. She called again and, at last, gave up. She climbed back down. A ringing rose in her ears and then the floor swelled and she missed the bottom rung, collapsing painfully against the dusty floorboards. Dot lay there in the moonlight, wrapped up in herwoollen jumper, watching the pendulum of the grandfather clock swinging back and forth.
Dot had memorised over a hundred runes since she had come to the house. If she’d had the ability to control her magic, she could have severed the pendulum, shrunk it, cleaned it, shattered it and repaired it all at once. If she had the control of her magic, she could have repelled Salamander before he’d even touched her.
She closed her eyes and felt a stab of anger at all of it. Emily’s death, her brother’s hatred of her, the affliction, the threat of Acanthi, the attack on Belchamber, the witch somewhere above her ignoring her. It all collected within her chest and ignited a warm wash of rage. The sensation radiated down her unafflicted fingertips and it struck her how opposite it was to the cold, dull, sad feeling of the ocean magic.
Dot ruminated on this as she watched the pendulum swinging back and forth, over and over, like the waves crashing against the sand or perhaps like the hands of a drowning girl, left, right, diving like dolphins in the moonlight.
Dot’s fury grew. Over the next few days, she worked in the mornings and rested for long hours afterward, with Lio or Rupert bringing her salve. Still, Theodora would not open her attic door. Still, they knew nothing of Belchamber’s welfare.
Maroon envelopes began to arrive en masse through the side door off Ethel Avenue. Salamander, Dot supposed, was having a little fun. How could there be a debt? Theodora was the Grand Magician, a Member of Parliament, and a professor at the Royal Alliaster Institute of Magic. The salary fromoneof those jobs should have cemented her wealth. Then there was the income from packet spells at the factory on Stirrup Street, at the Raven’s Attic, in the tea shop, the paintings by Justine Allonse sold to galleries and foreignbenefactors, and heavens knew what other aliases the witch had not told Dot about. Yet, the house was half-falling apart and Theodora was increasingly overworked and the staff were never paid on time. Dot was even beginning to wonder if Theodora refused to pay Lio not just out of spite but out of scarcity.
Why had Dot never stopped to run the arithmetic against the witch’s enterprise? This made her feel quite stupid, which made her even angrier.
Now, Dot was furious at everything: the dripping of the workshop tap, the pinching of her lace-ups, the incessant need of the tea shop customers to stare at and comment on her strange hand.
‘How much debt could she possibly be in?’ demanded Dot to Lio, five days after the encounter with Salamander. She stood beside the statue of the maiden, with that bottomless anger bubbling away.
‘She’s been in this city over ten years,’ said Lio, closing his notebook. Dot caught a glimpse of its contents: memory charms, again. ‘What was it, nine years in the tea shop? I suppose it depends on how long ago the debt started. The terms, the interest.’
The next day, Dot was in the basement workshop with Rupert.
‘What do we do if she never comes down?’ he asked. ‘What if Salamander storms the shop and casts us out and the wards fail and Acanthi get at us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dot. ‘If we live beyond all of this, I’ll take you back to Seafarthing.’
‘Why there?’ asked Rupert.
‘One day, I’ll have to return,’ said Dot. ‘Perhaps, I will take back my old job and save for a cottage somewhere along the coast and live in perfect solitude with a pet seagull. You could work at the trout cannery.’
