Chosen (9781742844657) (16 page)

It seemed to take forever, but eventually, Thursday morning arrived. I was awake and dressed before the other girls had even woken up. To use up my extra time before breakfast, I spent as long as I could manage inside the bathroom, trying out different hairstyles with the assorted ties and clips Angela had packed for me. Finally, I settled on a look, and checked my watch.

I'd only wasted fifteen of my extra forty minutes! Annoyed, I strode from the bathroom and headed for the door. My letter for Angela still sat patiently beside my bed, waiting for me to work out how to send it. I grabbed it. With the other three girls still sleeping quietly, I opted to go to breakfast early rather than risk waking them by pacing agitatedly. I slipped on my shoes and left for the dining hall.

As I walked, I tried to admire the tapestries on the walls and to read the dates on the older-looking portraits – anything to take up more time. I noted with vague surprise that even those paintings that appeared positively ancient were dated as no older than from the late nineties. The oldest painting I found, a Renaissance-style epic of fat baby angels and a cowering man, had
1997
scrawled beneath the artist's unintelligible signature.

Unfortunately, the more time I tried to waste, the less time seemed to actually pass. All too soon, I was walking into the dining hall.

I had intended to sit around for a quarter of an hour in the silent and empty room and try my best to not go insane, but when I arrived, I saw that the hall was not empty. A maid was attending to the long buffet table, adding a plate of fried eggs to the array of dishes. Nearer to the door, an older maid was speaking to a tall figure I recognised as Renatus.

‘It can't have been a nice thing to see,' the woman was saying as I entered the room. Her tone implied a level of intimacy not usually present between an employer and his staff. ‘You could have told me. It's not like a simple bad dream, now, is it?'

‘No, it's not, Fionnuala, but I'm fine,' Renatus said in his soft voice, laying a hand briefly on her shoulder. He glanced over at me, having obviously felt my presence as I walked in on their conversation. I quickly looked about for somewhere to sit as he second-glanced me. ‘This is my job. I'm good at it. I can handle it, I promise.'

‘Since you promised,' Fionnuala said, and turned away with a smile and a respectful bob of her head. Renatus turned back to me as I began charging towards the table.

‘Aren't you going to get something to eat before you sit down?' he asked, sounding very slightly amused.

‘Yes,' I said, turning and hurrying back towards the buffet table and feeling like an idiot. I grabbed a plate, then stopped, and turned back to face Renatus. He was still standing in the same place, watching me. ‘I'm sorry if it seemed that I barged in on your conversation. I didn't mean to. I didn't think anyone would be here.'

He didn't answer, so I went back to choosing my breakfast. There were still a few spaces on the buffet table, spaces for the dishes not yet brought out from the kitchen, but the pancakes looked great and so did the sliced strawberries, so I loaded my plate up with these and went to sit down. Renatus hadn't moved, but now followed me and, to my surprise, sat opposite me as I started on my breakfast.

‘What's your name?' he asked, just as I took an uncomfortable bite of pancake. I chewed quickly and swallowed.

‘Aristea,' I said nervously. ‘I haven't done anything else wrong, have I?'

‘No. Can you see auras?'

‘No. Can you?'

Renatus almost smiled.

‘It's not difficult once you have unblocked your senses,' he said. ‘Your aura looks familiar to me, although I can't think why.'

I didn't really know how to answer this, so I pulled Angela's letter free of my pocket.

‘How do I send letters here?' I asked. ‘I already put a stamp on it.'

‘Usually, just give it to one of my staff,' he said, taking it from me, ‘but I'll send this one for you.'

‘Thanks,' I said. A few White Elm councillors entered the room, and Renatus stood as Emmanuelle approached him. She looked as though she hadn't yet slept.

‘Good morning, Renatus. This would ‘ave to be your first interaction with a student, wouldn't it?' Her tone was slightly cool, and I got the impression that these two were not on the best of terms.

‘Aristea and I were just having a little chat,' Renatus said. He stared at her meaningfully but said nothing else. I wondered if they were communicating telepathically. Emmanuelle's bright blue eyes narrowed in his direction, but when she turned back to me, she smiled.

‘I ‘ope you ‘ave an enjoyable day,' she said. She strode from the room, followed closely by Renatus. At the door they stood together for about half a minute, speaking quietly, until Emmanuelle shook her head, smiled thinly and left.

I finished off my pancakes and strawberries as maids brought out the rest of the food and the White Elm councillors helped themselves to an early breakfast. The seven o'clock bell's ring brought a steady stream of students into the hall.

As the students ate breakfast and prepared for the first class of the day, Lord Gawain strode towards Renatus's office, where, he could see, Qasim and Lady Miranda were already waiting outside. The Healer looked worried; the Scrier looked annoyed.

‘Who are we waiting for?' Lord Gawain asked as he approached. Qasim scowled.

‘You, apparently. He must know that we are here but he hasn't let us in. I need to get to my first class.'

‘We're not waiting on anyone,' Lady Miranda said, with a reproving look at Qasim. ‘We thought it would be best to keep this amongst ourselves until we'd spoken to Renatus and compared his vision to Qasim's. I assumed you would like to be present for that.'

‘Yes, thank you for calling me here,' Lord Gawain said. He had been at home, enjoying a pleasant breakfast with his wife Davina and their youngest daughter, twenty-seven-year-old Radella, but the news Lady Miranda had contacted him with was very concerning and required his immediate attention.

Without hesitation he knocked twice on Renatus's office door. Almost instantly, the magical lock released and Lord Gawain was able to push the door open and enter the office. Behind the massive desk sat Renatus himself, poring over yet another pile of paperwork. Due to the others in the White Elm taking on the responsibility of teaching classes, Renatus had offered to take on more of their usual tasks in order to reduce their overall workload. Now he spent most of each day carefully analysing every home-written spell sent to them for approval; he read and answered dozens of letters; he organised upcoming trials and researched reports of dangerous or illegal magical activity. This morning, already, somewhere amongst all of his other jobs, Renatus had managed to find time to receive psychic visions. He did this as a normal state of being, much as Qasim did, but Lord Gawain had wondered whether the excess workload would dampen Renatus's natural gift of perception. Apparently, it had not.

‘There's been a report of a mortal teenager most unusually injured in a fistfight with a sorcerer of the same age,' Renatus said without greeting, looking up at Lady Miranda. ‘The hospital cannot explain why his cuts won't heal despite weeks passing since the incident. No weapon was found and the victim's testimony has brought up no mention of a knife, but the injuries are described as ‘“deep lacerations inconsistent with the victim's memory of open-hand strikes”.' 

‘I'll have to investigate further,' Lady Miranda said with a slight frown. ‘I might be able to do something for the young man. Hopefully it's not what I'm thinking of. Where is this report from?'

‘One of ours; a nurse in Budapest,' Renatus said, handing her the relevant paper. ‘The attacker is being charged with assault by the mortal authorities, but if he's used dark magic aside from assaulting the mortal, we'll have to take it even further.'

‘I'm told that you experienced a vision today, Renatus,' Lord Gawain said as his co-leader scanned the report. The young man looked to him and nodded.

‘Will you share with us what you saw, or should we go and stand outside for a while until you're ready?' Qasim asked scornfully.

‘Next time you'd like to see me, Qasim, perhaps you'll try knocking,' Renatus responded coldly, before turning back to Lord Gawain. ‘Peter is certainly dead. Lisandro must have shrouded the incident at the time, because I have only just received the images.'

‘You are certain that Lisandro murdered him?' Lady Miranda asked, pocketing the report from the Hungarian nurse and looking concernedly between Qasim and Renatus. Qasim nodded.

‘Absolutely. My vision was very clear; Lisandro drowned Peter,' he confirmed.

When both Qasim and Renatus, two of the world's most gifted scriers, experienced the same vision, Lord Gawain could always be certain that their visions were correct. This time, though, he found himself hoping that somehow, they might both be wrong.

‘We'll need to compare the two, and ensure they're not false visions sent from Lisandro,' he said, scratching his stubbly chin and considering what repercussions could come of these tidings. Peter's family would need to know about this. Emmanuelle…what would he tell Emmanuelle?

Qasim and Renatus looked at one another coldly, but did what they had to – unblinkingly holding the other's gaze, their minds met and shared images of their ghastly vision. Within a few seconds they had broken eye contact and turned back to the White Elm leaders.

‘His is the same as mine,' Qasim reported solemnly. ‘Lisandro drowned Peter in waist-deep seawater by holding him under the waves. There were a dozen or so others standing around, wearing dark red cloaks.'

Lord Gawain felt his morale sinking. Peter was now lost forever. He had retained slim hopes of Peter's feelings for Emmanuelle dragging him back into the light eventually, but now that hope was dashed. Lisandro was a murderer – Lord Gawain had known that his former friend was indeed ruthless, but to have his true capabilities revealed was quite crushing.

It had been devastating to discover that Lisandro was a traitor. It was even worse to learn that he was able to kill a loyal friend, but somehow Lord Gawain found it much easier to take in. He had been slightly more prepared for this blow. Lady Miranda sat down on one of the cushy chairs and rubbed her temples.

‘Do you know
why
?' she asked finally.

‘We aren't empathic,' Renatus said. ‘Qasim and I can only scry and receive images and sounds – the solid and the physical. Feelings and thoughts are beyond our grasp.'

‘But we can guess,' Qasim added, confirming Lord Gawain's terrible fear. The Elm Stone. Peter had been its keeper when he'd disappeared, and they'd all immediately assumed the worst. The Stone was an ancient store of intense energy, and if tapped, could grant its keeper unknown power. No White Elm council in living memory had ever needed to use it, but they still kept it, still fuelled it, forever strengthening it. The Elm Stone was a weapon. Insofar as the public knew, it was their
only
weapon. They weren't to know about the Dark Keeper; they weren't to know that when Lord Gawain had lost Lisandro and Peter, he'd lost
two
weapons.

But when Lisandro hadn't suddenly risen up and blown them all apart in the days, weeks, and then months following their disappearance, Lord Gawain had begun to wonder and hope. Maybe Peter hadn't given the Elm Stone to his new master – because the Elm Stone could only be given, never taken. Maybe Peter was holding out until the right moment to return. Maybe Peter, a talented Seer, knew something they did not.

But no.

‘Does Lisandro have the Elm Stone?' Lady Miranda asked worriedly. Renatus shook his head and Qasim said, ‘He searched Peter for it but he didn't have it on him. He said it was no longer his, so who knows where it is now.'

Lord Gawain sighed and wandered over to the large arched window. Renatus's beautiful estate of hilly, green pastures dotted with large trees stretched into the distance until it met the orchard. The branches of the ancient trees, stripped by the season, swayed in the early morning breeze. It was a stunning property. By looking at it, one could never guess the tragedies that had occurred here – the bad memories, the pain, the loss, and the stain of hundreds of years of dark practices were invisible to the naked eye. But Lord Gawain had a better idea than most as to the truths behind the beautiful scenery.

‘We should keep this amongst ourselves for now, at least from Emmanuelle, until the council next officially meets,' Qasim mentioned. ‘By then we'll have given this situation further investigation. Emmanuelle doesn't need to know yet. I see no reason to accost her at breakfast and tell her in front of the whole council and the students that her old friend has been murdered.'

‘She knows something is wrong,' Renatus said immediately. ‘I just saw her. She said she dreamed of Peter's death last night and asked whether it was a vision.'