‘I’ll live with it,’ he says, his voice getting drowsy.
I wonder how much he’s taking in. His skin has gone a greenish colour; I guess the raksasa venom didn’t leave when we closed the rift.
‘We should find Aoife—’ I begin, and then as if she heard me the door bangs open and she strides in.
‘What on earth are you two doing?’ she demands, staring at us in our huddle on the floor. ‘What is going on in this house?’ She stops, and turns pale. Looks at the blank wall next to us. ‘What did you do?’ She gasps, holding a shaking hand out to the space where the rift gaped. ‘Bavar, what did you do?’
‘We closed it.’ He smiles, giggling a bit.
‘You closed it,’ she murmurs. Her hand glides over the wall. Blue patterned paper, a few cracks near the ceiling, but otherwise intact. ‘Well.’ She stands there for a moment, looking down at us, her grey eyes lost. Suddenly she marches back to the door.
‘SAL!’ she shouts. ‘SAL, come HERE!’
Her voice echoes through the corridors, in an ordinary sound-carrying way. No cackles or protests, no carping from the portraits.
‘It feels odd,’ she says, looking back at the wall.
‘We cut the magic,’ Bavar says.
‘All of the magic?’
‘Mm-hmm, think so . . .’
‘Gosh,’ she says, reaching up, smoothing her hair, looking from the wall to us and back again. ‘Oh, my.’
‘Aren’t you pleased?’ I ask, a bit crossly, making myself stand. ‘I mean, did you want the raksasa here every night?’
‘No, no!’ she says. ‘Of course I’m pleased. I’m . . . I’m astounded! I didn’t think it could be done. I know Father rumbled on about it sometimes; I thought it was some sort of malformation of the bronze . . . I never considered it would be possible. What a thing!’
She looks completely frazzled.
‘Well, we did it,’ I say. ‘It took a lot of effort, and also Bavar got clawed in the back by one of the raksasa earlier so . . .’
‘All of the magic, you say – all gone?’
‘That’s what they said,’ I say. ‘But about Bavar . . .’
‘Oh, yes – oh dear, yes,’ she says, turning to him, putting her hand on his forehead. He bats her away. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she says absently. ‘We’ll get him some of that potion. I suppose we’ll still have potions, won’t we?’ She stares at the wall again and frowns, and then starts pacing, her hands on her cheeks, paler than ever. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear me. Oh, Sal!’ she wails, as he marches into the room, pushing his glasses up, looking very put out about all the fuss.
‘What happened?’ he asks, peering around.
‘The rift! The rift is gone,’ she says. He stares at her, and the sight of him seems to calm her a bit. She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. ‘It’s gone, Sal. All of it. It’ll be fine. It’s a bit of a shock . . . We need to get Bavar some of that potion, and then . . . and then, Angel, you must tell me exactly what happened. We’ll work it out. It will all be fine. Are you all right? You’re rather pale!’
They both stare at me.
‘It was a tricky spell,’ I say with a shrug.
‘The spell, of course!’ she says. ‘Of course it was a spell – no wonder you both look so peaky . . .’
‘A spell to close the rift,’ Sal says. ‘Well, and we thought it couldn’t be done! Well done, both of you!’ His chest swells as he takes a deep, luxuriant breath. ‘I thought it was rather peaceful.’ He darts back out into the corridor. ‘This is permanent, is it?’ he asks, peering back round at us.
‘Pretty sure it will be,’ I say.
‘Well, it’ll be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet about the place,’ he says, sliding his glasses back on to his nose. ‘This family was very loud, sometimes. Distracting.’
‘Oh, to your very important work, I suppose,’ Aoife says with a sniff. ‘I don’t even know what it is you do in that study of yours.’
‘General world domination,’ he says, with a wicked little smile. I think he’s joking, but honestly, I’m not sure you can ever tell with Sal. ‘But for now we need to fix up these two. Where is that noxious healing potion?’
Aoife glares at him, and he sighs.
‘I’ll get it,’ he says. He walks off, humming, as Aoife stoops to Bavar.
‘All right,’ she murmurs, stroking his hair back from his face with a sigh. ‘You’ll be all right now.’
‘Will we?’ he asks, his eyes dazed.
‘Yes, we will,’ she says. ‘Once I’ve patched you both up. I supposed it called for blood, and sweat . . . all sorts of things . . . Very crude – these spells always are.’
‘It took a lot,’ I say, looking at Bavar. ‘I’m sorry about the magic . . .’
‘Angel!’ She reaches out and squeezes my arm, her eyes glittering. ‘None of this was down to you; none of it except for the better! I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry if I was a little distracted, when I came in. I never thought I’d see the day we’d all be free of it!’
‘But he’s going to miss them all,’ I say, biting my lip, my mind going to his grandfather, up in the library, silent now. ‘Was it really the right thing to do?’
‘It was Bavar’s choice,’ she says. ‘And yours. You did it together. I don’t know how.’ She shakes her head with a pale smile, looking me up and down. ‘You’re such a small thing. Such a wisp of a girl. But you changed everything, Angel. You were his catalyst – he needed you as much as you needed him. And I don’t think anyone could have done better.’
When I wake, my back is agony.
It’s been a while, apparently. Aoife flits about the bed, tidying and cajoling, trying to fill the silence in the house with conversation, but it falls flat, and I can’t lift my head.
Sal comes and goes. Sometimes he shouts at me to get out and get on, and stop with all my fussing. Sometimes he sits on the bed and stares at me. Sometimes he just comes in to bicker with Aoife.
‘Where’s Angel?’ I ask finally, when the heat has gone out of me and dust motes spin in the sunlight that streams through the window. It’s so bright now in here. Without the magic.
‘She came, a couple of times,’ Aoife says, pausing in her rearrangement of the cushions on the settee below the window. ‘She’s adjusting.’
‘To what?’ I stare out at the fields beyond the house. There’s a low mist and it adds to the silence that seems to gather tight around us now.
I can’t believe I’ll never hear that noise again. That shriek that tore the night in two; the flurry of wings in the air above the house.
Aoife sits, fingering the embroidery on the settee.
‘It wasn’t just your mission, Bavar,’ she says slowly. ‘She put herself into it too. She put herself into it, when there was nothing else she had the heart for. What’s she going to do now?’
‘Live!’ I say, sitting up. ‘She’s going to live!’