Page 30 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)

‘I … I dunno,’ Solar stammered. ‘My arm wasn’t like that before. What’s happened to it?’

Pingot ignored the question and asked another of his own. ‘Where did you get the bracelet? It doesn’t look like something you could afford.’

Solar was so panicked by the horrific sight of her arm that she didn’t even react to the mention of her poverty. ‘I … I took it. From Gib Ralston. I found it at the bottom of a sack. I didn’t take anything else, just this.’

‘Throw it on the fire,’ Pingot ordered.

Solar recoiled instinctively, but Bear was quicker.

He tore the bracelet from Solar’s arm, making her cry out as it scraped her flesh.

He tossed it on the flames and manipulated the campfire’s temperature to increase.

The three of them watched as the bracelet turned to liquid, the intricately detailed leaves holding their form to the very last .

‘You stole jewellery from a dark sorcerer and wore it?’ asked Bear incredulously, once it had been destroyed.

‘Now we know what caused the apparitions of Binns and your father. Ralston had obviously put a curse on that bracelet that would kill whoever put it on,’ said Pingot, excited to have solved the mystery.

‘I … we don’t know that for sure …’ said Solar, not wanting to accept Pingot’s reasoning.

‘It’s been with you night and day, prying into your every thought and feeling – including those about your father. That’s how it conjured up such a lifelike image of him. Binns could never do that – he never met your father before he died,’ persisted Pingot animatedly, speaking over Solar’s doubts.

‘You really have to tell Loveday about your arm; it could now be carrying the curse,’ said Bear.

‘Enough!’ Solar said in a fierce whisper.

She felt exhausted. She had nearly died twice in less than a month, after all.

She had saved her whole encampment from the sorcerer Gib Ralston, and all she got in return was her friends lecturing her for stealing a piece of jewellery.

For a couple of wonderful, terrifying hours she had thought her father had returned. Now he was lost again.

She couldn’t take it anymore. ‘I don’t need to hear this from you!’ she hissed at them. ‘I’m not stupid, and I don’t care what you two stuck-up little lords think of me for stealing a bracelet. I’m going to bed, before I give in to temptation and come at you both with Fury!’

She picked up her wizardry manual and stormed off to her tent, leaving Bear and Pingot sitting dumbstruck behind her. Before she drew back the flap, she turned to face them one last time.

‘And Pingot, about my father. He! Is! Not! Dead!’

*

The next morning, Pingot brought Solar a breakfast of fried eggs and bacon.

She was sitting on the riverbank, staring at the jut of rock where she was so sure that she had seen her father.

It was a different place in the morning sunlight.

The waters sparkled, fish that were a myriad of different colours swam below the surface and birds flitted in and out of the overhanging trees.

‘He smiled at me,’ she said when Pingot sat down next to her and handed her the food, the smell of bacon filling her nostrils. ‘He smiled at me and signalled for me to go to him.’

Pingot didn’t respond. They sat in silence, feeling some strength return to their bodies as they chewed on the food.

‘I’m sorry for what I said last night,’ said Pingot finally. ‘I don’t believe he’s dead, not really. I wasn’t acting myself – none of us were. Finding you face down in the river like that really scared me.’

A chill ran down Solar’s spine as she remembered the terrible sensation of throwing up river water onto the bank. ‘Well, you were right,’ she said dejectedly. ‘That wasn’t my father across the river. It was just a trick played by the bracelet.’

‘If you think your father could still be alive, if you have even just a shred of hope, then so do I. When we’ve finished our training and apprenticeships, when we’ve earned the right to carve staffs for ourselves, you’ll be free to go anywhere you choose.

You’ll have mastered magic that most people could never dream of.

You can find your father then. And I’ll go with you, even if it means scouring every corner of the Arid Lands.

If the two of us can’t find him, then no one can. ’

Solar looked at him with teary eyes. ‘You really mean it? You’ll come with me to the Arid Lands, and help me bring him home? ’

Pingot nodded solemnly. ‘And Bear too, of course. You know, I think you really mean a lot to him. To everyone here, in fact, though the others may not realise it yet. But to Bear especially. Loveday’s encampment was a very different place before you arrived.’

‘I doubt I mean much to Cal,’ said Solar, prodding at an anthill with a twig.

‘Well, people are complex. There’s always more to them than meets the eye. Cal has an interesting story, about his life before Loveday’s encampment and how he came to be here. You should ask him about it sometime.’

Solar looked at him in surprise. ‘Surely you of all people have reason to hate Cal. He, Oswald and Wyman almost killed you in Binns’ duelling sessions, before our trick with the dusk leaf potion.’

‘Well, maybe I do have good reason. And, after all, resentment is far easier than forgiving, or even merely forgetting. But as wizards and witches we have careers ahead of us in which we will be mainly taking the hard road, not the easy. We may as well get some practice in now.’

Solar had nothing to say to that.

‘Anyway, this isn’t why I came here to see you. I brought you something – something besides breakfast.’ He fished from within his cloak a bundle of herbs and a bandage. ‘Hold out your arm.’

Solar obeyed, drawing back her sleeve to reveal the wound. It looked even more hideous in the light of day.

Pingot applied the herbs directly onto the flesh and then the bandage over the top. It was horribly sore, but Pingot’s fingers were deft and gentle.

‘The herbs have magical healing properties. We’ll have to take the bandage off and apply new ones every second morning for about a week, and by then the wound will have healed and you will be left with no scar.

Of course, Loveday could do a much better job if you want to ask him; he could work a spell to enhance the herbs’ magic …

’ He broke off, letting the suggestion float in the air.

‘No, you’ve done a great job. Thanks. This’ll do fine.’

It was completely irrational, she knew, but the thought of Loveday’s reaction to her wound kept her from going to him.

He would think her stupid for wearing the bracelet.

She was conscious that, after Ravenbridge, if anything she ought to be angry with him .

After all, he, the qualified wizard, had got drunk on ale and potion before their investigations in the town had even begun, ultimately leaving her to face Gib alone.

Yet, despite this, she yearned for his approval and praise.

The necklace she now wore around her neck was a token of her success in his eyes, and he was certainly always quick to recognise her progress and accomplishments in class, but somehow she found herself wanting more.

And there was another reason – a reason she didn’t want to acknowledge, but one that kept rearing its head.

She was no longer sure if she could entirely trust the wizard, though her only grounds for doubting him were the opinions of Captain Grubber and Gib Ralston – hardly reliable sources.

Her desire to please him fought with the urge for caution, wrestling for control of her heart, until she could stand the silent struggle no longer.

‘Pingot, can I tell you something? About Loveday?’

She told him about Captain Grubber’s comments in the forest all those months ago, when she had stumbled upon Earl Archdale’s camp whilst searching for dusk bush leaves, and about Ralston’s assertion that Loveday had dark plans for her.

‘And,’ she said, suddenly remembering something that she had brushed aside when she first arrived at Loveday’s encampment, ‘on my first day in camp, when I went into my tent, I found a whole load of armour and clothing that fitted me perfectly. It was almost as if Loveday had been expecting me all along and never had any intention of recruiting anyone but me. Not Hroth, not any other aristocrat, or even a boy street urchin. Just me. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?

How long had he had all those things prepared for me? ’

‘I think every one of us at camp has pondered over the same questions: why would Loveday recruit you when he can take his pick of students from the kingdom’s most powerful families?

But, on the other hand, I can see no evidence for Loveday having anything bad in store for you.

If anything, you seem to be his favourite.

Maybe Grubber and Ralston were just trying to rattle you? ’

‘Maybe,’ said Solar. He was right; she did seem to be Loveday’s favourite – his protégée, even. And yet Pingot’s words had failed to put her misgivings to rest. ‘I think … I think the time has come for me to do a bit of rooting around.’

‘Rooting around?’ repeated Pingot, eyebrows arched.

‘Spying. To find out what Loveday really sees me as – model student, or … something else.’

Pingot looked at her seriously, worry etched across his brow. ‘I really don’t think that would be wise. If he catches you …’

They heard running footsteps coming from the camp and looked over their shoulders to see Bear, flushed and looking thrilled at something.

‘Loveday’s just announced we have another mission from Storrbury, the head of the king’s Magic Circle!

’ he exclaimed as he came to a halt where they sat, beside himself with excitement.

‘We’re to go to the city of Wolfport, not two weeks to the north-west of here.

Apparently most of the townsfolk who are seventeen years of age have mysteriously gone missing.

The city authorities are on the case, but we’ve been ordered to go there at once and join the investigations! ’

‘Brilliant!’ said Solar, eager for the chance to win a second pendant. ‘And that means there are two mysteries for us to solve.’

‘Two mysteries?’

‘Solar thinks she’s going to spy on Loveday, to find out why he would enrol a useless lump like her into his encampment,’ said Pingot, flashing her a grin that did not disguise the worry in his eyes.

‘I need to understand if he has any plans for me, beyond regular training. Anything that could be sinister, or at least out of the ordinary. We all know how unusual it is that he recruited me in the first place.’

The excitement faded from Bear’s expression.

‘Are you sure that’s necessary?’ he said, sitting down next to them.

‘I know it’s unheard of for someone like you to study at an encampment.

But that’s precisely why there’s no need to be suspicious.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but carpenters’ daughters are simply beneath the interest of the likes of Loveday.

It’s just inconceivable that he has some grand plan for you, sinister or otherwise.

The truth is as simple and obvious as it appears: you impressed Loveday in Falcontop.

Hroth did not, so he enrolled you instead.

Unorthodox behaviour for a wizard, but logical in its own way. ’

‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Solar, and she filled him in with what she had already shared with Pingot.

‘It’s still pretty thin evidence, if you ask me,’ said Pingot once she’d finished. ‘Don’t you think, Bear? The word of a captain who Loveday had slighted, and that of a self-taught sorcerer likely jealous of his training and privileges? Not exactly opinions I’d trust.’

‘Maybe …’ said Bear, but he no longer looked quite as certain.

‘Perhaps you’re right, Pingot,’ said Solar.

‘I hope so. I really do. But, in my experience, hoping for the best is always worse than taking matters into your own hands. I’ve made up my mind.

I’ll only do a little digging, just see what else I can learn that shines some light on this whole thing.

If I need you, can I count on you both to help me? ’

Pingot and Bear shared anxious looks.

‘I won’t ask you to spy or anything. Leave that to me. But it may be I’ll need you to cover for me, or provide a diversion or the like.’

Pingot and Bear looked no less troubled, but they appeared to have come to a silent agreement.

‘If you feel that’s what you have to do,’ said Pingot, ‘then yes, we can cover for you.’

Solar hugged each of them in turn, feeling a rush of gratitude for them both. Bear looked shocked, then mildly pleased. ‘We’d better head back to the tents,’ she said. ‘Loveday will be expecting us to break camp.’