Like A Curse E-Book

Elle McNicoll

• Herausgeber: Knights Of
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Like a charm
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 286

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

From multi-award winning author, Elle McNicoll Equal parts thrilling and heart-warming, this fantastical conclusion to the Like A Charm duology follows Ramya as she seeks to rescue her beloved Edinburgh from the deadly grip of the Sirens. Stuck in Loch Ness while Edinburgh falls under the control of a terrifyingly powerful Siren, Ramya Knox is frustrated. She's supposed to be learning magic from her Aunt Opal, but that isn't going as smoothly as she'd hoped. As she pushes to rescue her Hidden Folk friends in the city, long-buried secrets come to light and legends come to life. Ramya knows she's different; she knows she's a witch. But now she must learn the true meaning of her powers... before all she loves is lost. Nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing

Leseprobe

Published by Knights Of

Knights Of Ltd, Registered Offices: 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5PU

www.knightsof.media

First published 2023

001

Written by Elle McNicoll

Text copyright © Elle McNicoll, 2023

Cover art by © Kay Wilson, 2023

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

Typeset by Thy Bui

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. If you are reading this, thank you for buying our book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book will be available from the British Library

ISBN: PB: 9781913311377

ISBN: ebook: 9781913311667

ISBN: ibook: 9781913311711

Like A Curse

Elle McNicoll

Author's Note

The protagonist of this story has been diagnosed with Dyspraxia, more formally known as Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD).

It affects motor skills and processing. I was diagnosed at the age of 9. It makes my handwriting messy but, like Ramya, no one has ever been allowed to tell me what I can or cannot do.

To my family, here and beyond.

Prologue

Edinburgh in December

Evil arrived in the city with a beautiful voice and a golden key around her neck.

Saint Giles was the patron saint of Edinburgh and the cathedral that bore his name stood in the Old Town like a towering elder, disapproving and intimidating. The rain lashed against the ancient stonework; a building that had been there for centuries, longer than any of the people who lived in its city.

With the exception of a few Hidden Folk.

Marley Stewart-Napier was inside. One of his many extra-curricular activities at school was singing in the choir; the reason he now sat inside the great cathedral. His choirmates sat all around him and he could sense they were as eager as he was to sing. As soon as they sang through all the carols, it would be over. They could have a quick glass of orange juice, while the parents and visitors drank mulled wine, and then they could all go home. They had wasted an entire day rehearsing and they were all well and truly sick of the building, no matter how impressive it was.

He was ready to go home.

The cathedral was full of people, every seat occupied by an expectant face. Marley searched and searched, but could not find the ones he wanted.

His cousin Ramya was with their aunt and grandmother up in Loch Ness, that he knew. However, his mother and Ramya’s parents had promised to be there.

Marley could not see them.

He did, however, clap eyes on a face he had not been expecting. He blinked and then squinted, wondering if he was imagining it. An older boy with blonde hair and cold eyes.

“Welcome to this year’s highly anticipated Christmas Carol Service,” boomed Mitch, their choirmaster, pulling Marley’s attention away from the other boy. “We are ready to begin with our first selection and ask that you please turn off your mobile phones.”

Parents did just that, whilst others inspected the order of service sheet. Marley and the rest of the choir began to take their positions, standing in accordance to voice range. They were about to receive their first note from the organ, Mitch standing before them all like an overly serious metronome, when everything changed.

Everything.

The enormous, heavy doors at the entrance of the cathedral burst open; the noise and sudden movement causing people to turn with shallow gasps. The candlelight in the large hall quivered and shrank away from the sudden, uninvited arrival of the outside storm.

Marley realised what they were witnessing before anyone else. For, standing in the entranceway was someone he had only ever heard stories about. Terrible stories.

She stood with a man who was gaunt and frightening, a man who made no attempts to hide the dark magic that so obviously resided in him.

When she smiled, Marley could see people in the rows closest to her smiling back and he knew the room was a barrel of powder merely awaiting a lit match.

“Good evening,” she said, her voice causing physical reactions from almost every person in the great hall. “Sorry I’m late.”

Porta. Portia had come to Edinburgh. A flame ready to burn everything down.

Marley was about to move when he felt someone grab his arm and haul him behind a pillar.

Freddy Melville. His cousin’s Siren friend. The boy he had seen sitting in the crowd.

“Are you a part of this?” Marley hissed, feeling indignant and scared all at once.

“No,” Freddy murmured, glancing out at the congregation and its newest arrival. “But I had a suspicion.”

“What do we do?”

“We get you out of here. Leanna and Cassandra are waiting outside.”

Marley’s mother and his aunt. Two of Edinburgh’s witches. The former mildly gifted with healing magic and the latter a rather fearsome commander of fire.

Then there was Aunt Opal. The most powerful witch Edinburgh had seen for some time. And his cousin Ramya was now Opal’s apprentice. She was the chosen one, Marley thought to himself. He was just the one who ran around behind her. Ramya could see through Glamour. Ramya could command water. Ramya could fly.

All Marley could do was stand by her side and be impressed by all of it.

There was no other reason for Portia’s arrival. She was clearly there for his cousin. His gifted cousin who would grow to be one of the most powerful witches of Scotland. And, thereby, was a threat to Portia and other supernatural creatures who wanted to overpower the Hidden Folk.

Marley’s eyes narrowed as he peered at the Siren boy. He was far more reluctant to trust Freddy than Ramya was.

“We need to sneak out the back,” Freddy said, ripping his eyes from Portia to direct Marley towards the exit behind them. Marley swallowed and started to crawl, careful to remain hidden from Portia, her henchmen and the rest of the congregation. He felt guilt and worry for all those innocent people fill him up, as he dragged himself to the door.

He knew what it felt like, to be under a Siren’s spell. He would not wish it on anyone.

As he reached the heavy wooden door, he realised Freddy was not beside him. He glanced back and froze. The other boy stood in the heart of the cathedral, staring down the other Siren with a defiance that made Marley feel ashamed. He slipped out of the door and dashed, slipping as his harried feet met the wet stone of the city.

Then he saw them. His mother and aunt, gesturing frantically from his aunt’s sophisticated car. He bolted for them, flying into the backseat with the speed of a bullet.

“Freddy’s still inside,” he panted, putting his seatbelt on without thinking and pressing his nose against the car window.

“He’s staying behind, sweets,” Leanna said softly.

Marley’s head snapped around to stare at the two witches. “What?”

His Aunt Cassandra was already driving, causing the car to rip away from the Royal Mile and the noble cathedral that had now fallen to a Siren. Marley bellowed a cry of despair for the Siren friend of his cousin, appalled at the abandonment.

But, a plan was in motion.

Freddy stared back at Portia inside of St. Giles. Two Sirens facing off. while humans watched on in fear and confusion.

“Ramya and Opal are gone,” he told her flatly. “But they will soon know that you’re here.”

Portia smiled and it was clearly not what Freddy had been expecting, as it knocked what little triumph he had been feeling clean out of him.

“Fabulous,” she said smoothly. “I’m relying on it.”

Then she opened her mouth and sang. So rich and compelling was the song, that all the humans were helpless.

The golden key around her neck caught the light, flashing showily as the city fell under a Siren’s spell.

Chapter One

The Oak Tree

I can see that the tree has moved. It’s a little closer to the house than it was yesterday.

“Ramya? Ramya!”

I know Gran is asking me something. Or telling me something. Yet I cannot stop staring at the tree. Pondering how it could possibly have moved since last night. It’s an oak tree and I noticed it when Mum and Dad first dropped me off here. Mum said it wasn’t there when she and her sisters were younger. Even Gran had seemed a bit puzzled by it.

“Ramya, stop daydreaming for five seconds and try the spell again.”

I’m sitting at the eating nook in Gran’s large kitchen. There’s an AGA stove and a large fireplace. I know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m not Mum. I’m not so good at fire.

Gran is pretending to be preoccupied with her mortar and pestle, getting the seasoning ready for dinner, but I can tell by the way her shoulders sit that she is concentrating on what I am about to do.

I’m not allowed to attempt fire by myself, not ever.

I focus on the empty space in the wall, where the wood is waiting for a flame.

I do what Aunt Opal always says. I focus on the doing and not the trying. She always says we don’t try to do the things that are most important, we just do them. Magic is no different.

But this still feels more like trying than doing.

Gran must sense my growing frustration, because she briskly moves to the window and says, “Were you looking at that oak tree?”

I glare down at my empty palms but take the olive branch. “Yes. It looks like it’s getting closer to the house.”

“It’s probably just growing taller,” she counters, but she doesn’t sound completely convinced.

It’s winter; in Scotland that means the dark creeps in during the afternoon. It’s dusk and we are so remote, far from any urban life at all.

That does not include Hidden Folk. They are scattered all around, and they like to visit Gran’sgiant house.

Loch Ness is so different to anywhere I’ve ever been. While other lochs in Scotland are little blotches on the map, Loch Ness is a long and straight splinter. I expected it to look like a traditional lake, a wide body of water that lets you see the other side. Like the Forth in Edinburgh or Loch Morlich near Aviemore.

But Loch Ness is long and endless. Slender, but as deep as fresh water can be.

I haven’t asked any of the Hidden Folk about the rumours Loch Ness is famous for. I’m a little afraid of what they might say.

I see some coming towards us, carrying a basket.

“What are they?” Gran asks carefully.

She can’t see through their Glamour, their human disguises, like I can.

“Troll,” I say nonchalantly. “One Blue Man. Anda Hulder.”

They reach the door and knock. This seems to be a regular occurrence at Gran’s house, and it made me nervous at first. However, Opal says the house is protected by Old Magic. An ancient spell from an ancestor, making the house untraceable to anyone who wishes its occupants harm.

That’s the kind of spell I want to learn to cast.

I fling the door open and welcome the Hidden Folk into the foyer. They are friendly and warm and they drop their Glamour for Gran, but we’re not who they are here to see.

“Is she about?” asks the Troll. “We’ve brought gifts for the Winter Solstice.”

Gran directs them to the large table in the middle of the hall. It’s more of a foyer than a hall – I like that her and Grandpa’s house is like the one from Cluedo. Two doors on the right, leading to the kitchen and dining room. Two on the left for the living room and Grandpa’s study.

It’s dusty because Gran never lets anyone inside it.

There is a fireplace in the hall, and I try to start a small fire. I concentrate with ten times the might it takes me to bring water.

I don’t understand why fire is so much harderfor me.

“Opal is indisposed,” Gran says curtly, inspecting the basket of goods these Hidden Folk have brought for the hearth. “Is there a problem?”

Her voice is flinty. She is someone who insists on the house always being warm, and the meals that she prepares always piping hot, but there’s a coolness about her at all times. She seems as cold as the water of the loch. Her white hair and pale eyes make me think of a snow queen.

“No problem,” the Blue Man says cheerfully. He looks directly at me and his brow furrows. “Are you a little witch?”

I open my mouth to proudly claim so when Gran cuts across me. “No, she just has Sight. Only one witch in this house at present.”

I glower at her, but say nothing. That was the condition of coming here to learn. My powers were to be kept a family secret.

As if we needed another.

“Well, it’s not a problem,” the Hulder says, and her voice is nervous. Nervous enough to make Gran look over at her with a sharpness; a look that demands the facts and none of the dressing. “Not a problem, per se.”

“Speak.”

Gran has no time for tiptoeing around a topic. She enjoys conversational sledgehammers.

“There’s Fae in the area,” the Troll says quietly.

The words are enough to freeze the entire house. The Blue Man and Hulder both wince at the blunt words. I can no longer feel the warmth coming infrom the kitchen.

Gran is as still as the water in the loch outside our front door. It’s strange to see her so motionless. She’s always busying herself with something. There’s always something to check, something to test, something to manage. Now, she stands too still. Waiting.

The fire in the hearth suddenly crackles and flares, burning brightly and causing most of us to jump. The Hidden Folk stare behind my head, up at the staircase.

“Who has seen them?”

I turn to gaze up at Aunt Opal. She’s wearing a long dressing gown and her hair is damp. She looks calm and collected, but her green eyes are fixed on the Troll. I know what it feels like to be on the other end of her intense gaze.

“You’re here,” the Hulder says breathlessly. “We heard rumours you came back—”

“Who has seen the Fae?” Opal cuts across the fawning with the direct question.

“By the loch,” the Blue Man says. “I barter with some Hidden Folk there. One said she saw them.”

“What would they be doing all the way up here?” I ask. I speak mostly because I want Opal to look at me, but she does not.

Faeries are dark creatures that cannot lie. I met too many for my liking back in Edinburgh. Sinister and malevolent, I was hoping to never run into them again.

“They’re looking for something,” the Hulder says. The other two Hidden Folk throw her glances that seem to say ‘keep quiet’. “Well, they are! And we all know what they want to find…”

“What?” I ask, hungrily.

The Hulder looks over at me and I can see my own curious expression reflected in her wide eyes.

“A monster!”

“That’s enough,” Gran says smartly. “Ramya? Ramya, where are you going?”

I move to the front door, ignoring Gran’s curt calling of my name. I rush down the stoop towards the stones and trees and the water. The vast loch stretches out before me like a flowing road. It’s as calm as my aunt, but water holds secrets better than anything. I glance around for Fae, knowing their Glamour will not conceal them from me.

I see nothing but the stillness of the water.

My cousin Marley once told me it is deeper than you can imagine. Deep as the sea.

“Ramya. Come inside this minute!”

“What do they want to find?” I call back over my shoulder, my eyes scouring the loch, searching for any sign of the unknown. “Why would they come here? What monster?”

My feet are suddenly an inch off the ground. I yelp, wondering if one of the very creatures we were discussing has grabbed me. However, as I slowly float back towards the open front door of Gran’s enormous house, I realise who is casting the spell.

Opal is leaning in the doorway, using only one hand to conduct her magic. Gran and the three Hidden Folk watch from the hall of the house, until Opal shuts the door with a pointed click so that the two of us are alone outdoors. I wriggle against invisible bindings, before she drops me unceremoniously on the steps in front of her. I glare up into her face and she looks coolly down into mine.

“Don’t run off around these parts,” she finally says, her voice soft and laced with a little menace.

I’m not entirely sure why I do it, but I turn andblast as much magic as I can muster. It becomes a little ball of light, rocketing towards the great loch and breaking like a small firework, high above the wide, murky surface.

I turn triumphantly back to Opal, frowning as I see that her face is blank of any reaction.

“Why not send up a red flare so they can really know where we are?” she finally says.

I grimace. “You said this house is impossible for bad people to find.”

“Let’s not test that theory, shall we?”

“When do lessons start again?”

“Have you read the books I gave you?”

“No.”

“Have you done your schoolwork?”

I grunt and flex my hands. “No.”

“Then lessons are not back on.”

“Why should any of that matter? Why do I need to do English homework in order to do witchcraft?”

“No one likes an uneducated witch.”

“Says the witch who dropped out of school.”

Her mildly amused expression darkens and she grabs my wrist, jerking me forward a step. “Exactly.”

I should not have said it, but I get riled by her. I can see through Glamour; but not her. Her walls are rarely ever down.

“I want to try flying again.”

I say the words with as much pleasantness and peace as I can manage. I’m trying to behave. I know I don’t act the way they want me to all the time. so I need to show them I can be better. If they want me to earn the right to witchery, I’ll do it. I’ll show them.

“Not yet,” she says. I’m about to argue but she shushes me, her eyes darting about. She moves down the stairs and onto the path. Out of the gate and along the bank of the loch. I listen, trying to pick up on whatever it is she can hear.

A car. A car driving speedily along the road towards the house. The road leading to Drumnadrochit. The road situated between the bank of the loch and the great slabs of land that are steep and tall.

“Tell the Hidden Folk to leave,” Opal instructs me, her eyes never leaving the faint headlights that are presently far away but are only growing nearer. “Now.”

I move to obey. As I reach the door, I look once more to the oak tree.

It has, at some point this evening, moved closer again.

Chapter Two

Reunited

Gran leads the Hidden Folk through the kitchen and out of the back door, without asking a single question. I find that quite amazing; if I told my mother to do something, I would be hounded with a thousand follow-up demands, and then I’d be told not to give orders.

No one in the family questions Opal when it comes to the weird or witchy.

When Gran returns to the hall, I cannot stand it anymore. I run to the front door and fling it openonce again.

Three witches and my cousin Marley stand at the gate to the house.

Aunt Leanna. A healer who can make plants and flowers bloom.

Cassandra, my mum. Hard, tough, and capable of setting this entire house ablaze.

Then, Aunt Opal. Who can do anything.

I don’t look at them for long; I turn to my cousin. We’re the same age but that is probably all we have in common. Right at this moment, he looks dazed and a little afraid.

Which worries me.

“What’s happened?” I fire the words at them.

Leanna and Mum exchange a glance and there is hidden communication there. I can see through Glamour but I cannot read minds, and it needles me when the three of them have their secret conversations.

“Sirens. Portia.”

My gaze jerks to Marley. He was the one who said the words, clearly going against the wishes of his mum and mine.

“She’s here?” I ask. “In Scotland?”

“In Edinburgh,” Leanna says quietly. “We’ve been planning—I mean we always said if she came, we would have to leave.”

“But we’re just regrouping here, right?” I say, stepping back to let the four of them enter. “We’re going back to fight!”

All four adults turn to stare at me. Leanna looks worried, Gran and Mum look as if they are about to reprimand me and Opal’s face, as ever, is unreadable.

“I don’t know, Ramya,” Marley says. “She’s scary. Different.”

“I know, I’ve met her,” I snap. I feel instantly guilty when he flinches at my tone.

But I have met her.

I met her so many years ago. A party in our house, when I was small. She could put all the adults in the room under some strange sort of spell with her voice, even Mum and Dad.

But not me. I saw through her. Even if I couldn’t quite say what I was seeing.

*

We’re all sitting around the table. Marley is behaving himself and eating his stew. I can barely touch mine.

“We are going to stop her, right?”

I ask the question loudly, enough to startle Aunt Leanna out of a trance. Mum exhales and glances at me. “Don’t be silly.”

“What do you mean?” I look at all of them; none of them will look back. “Who knows what she’s going to do to—”

“There’s no point being hysterical or jumping to imaginary conclusions,” Mum interrupts me. “Best to just lay low.”

Gran gets up to leave the kitchen, but I’m too stunned at Mum’s words to take much notice. “Lay low? Because that worked so well last time. Letting Ren waltz in and almost kill—”

“Enough.”

I stare at Opal, who was the one who spoke the word softly but with great intention. “It’s true.”

“You don’t have to speak every opinion that you have, Ramya. Not everything is black and white.”

None of us have ever really spoken about what happened on Inchkeith Island. Aunt Leanna’s partner, and Marley’s would-be stepfather, was secretly a Siren. A magical creature that looked, sounded, and behaved like any other human. Except a Siren’s voice holds extreme power. They are deeply persuasive and influential and, if they are strong enough, they can make people do things that they do not want to do.

Ren abducted Marley and lured me to the island, and he probably would have killed me if Aunt Opal hadn’t arrived. She used her witchery to turn Rento stone.

Now, no one speaks of it. Even though it changed everything.

That was the night I discovered the true nature of my own magic. It was so much more than being able to see through Glamour. It was an affinity with water. The ability to move things without touching them.

Flying.

Opal says I’m not allowed to even attempt flying without her present. The whole thing is frustrating. I’m special. I’m different. I should be allowed to celebrate and bask in that glow, but the whole family wants me to be quiet and cautious.

And Hidden. Just like other magical creatures.

I don’t want to be hidden.

The phone in the kitchen rings shrilly, causing the adults to jump and start in their chairs. I get up and grab the old receiver and let out and exhale.

“Hello?” I say, grumpily.

“Hey, kid!”

I smile, despite the bad mood I’m determined to be in. “Hey, Dad. How’s London?”

“Oh, it’s…it’s fine. Listen, bub, your mum isn’t answering the landline at home, I was wondering—”

“Yeah, she’s here. So is Aunt Leanna.”

I hear him exhale in relief, while Mum gets to her feet and holds out her hand for the phone. I clutch it more tightly and shake my head at her. “And—”

“Can you put Mum on, Ramya? I need to tell her—”

“About Portia? Yeah, we know. She’s in Edinburgh.”

I can hear Dad’s shocked silence on the other end of the line and Mum starts clicking her fingers at me, which she knows I find enraging.

“Dad, they’re saying we all have to lay low. It’s not fair, I want—”

The phone suddenly flies out of my hands, and I spin around to watch it soar into Mum’s hands. I still have to get used to the fact that she is also a witch. She kept it from me for so long.

Her affinity is fire.

The opposite of mine.

“Hi,” she says stiffly into the receiver, fixing me with a cold look. “She’s fine, just overexcited.”

Aunt Leanna pulls me into her lap and gives me a squeeze. I don’t know if it’s her particular brand of witchcraft but some of the anger and tension releases out of me. She jiggles me until I roll my eyes and smile slightly. I look over at Marley and my smile slips as I see he is staring into space, completely expressionless.

“Marley?”

He glances at me. “Yeah?”

“Did you… did you see her?”

He doesn’t answer because he does not have to. His face tells it all. I don’t even need him to answer or explain.

I remember what it is that he’s feeling. It was years ago, when I saw her for the first and only time. I still remember it.

Mum finishes her conversation with Dad and hands the phone back to me. I get up from Leanna’s knee and take it. “Dad?”

“Hey, kid. Listen. Go easy on everyone, all right? I know you want to help—”

“I’m the only one immune to her,” I say fiercely. I catch Opal’s eye. “Well, one of two people immune to her.”

“I know. But you’re not grown. And Opal is still teaching you to control everything. So you’re where you need to be right now.”

I swallow the unfairness. It would also be unfair to tell Dad that, as he has no magic, he has no business telling me what to do with mine. I’m the one who is special. I’m the one this is all about. Therefore, I am the one who has to go out there and stop her.

“I’ll see you before Christmas,” he says.

“Fine,” I reply. “Bye for now.”

I hang up the phone before he does.

“I think,” Mum says loftily, holding open the kitchen door, “someone is overtired.”

“All right,” I say innocently. “You’d better get some rest then, Mum.”

She glares at me. I glare back. The fire in the hall crackles, we all hear it. The tea in Aunt Leanna’s cup vibrates and pulses, causing her to clutch the china.

Then the phone interrupts us all once again.

“He must have forgotten something,” Marley says.

I pick it up once more. “Hey, Dad. Did you—”

“Hello, sweetheart.”

My throat closes and my entire body chills. It’s not Dad’s voice. It’s a woman’s voice. A powerful voice. A voice full of ancient magic and cruelty. A voice that I last heard when I was really small and my grandfather was still alive.

“Portia.”

Chapter Three

Siren Call

I say her name and it causes everyone in the kitchen to act. Mum leaps up, Leanna grabs hold of Marley, and Gran swears. If it were not so frightening to hear the Siren’s voice again, I would laugh. Gran never uses bad language.

Opal is at my side, the only other family member who will not feel the effects of Portia’s supernatural voice.

“You’ll never find us,” I tell the Siren, trying tostop my voice from shaking. My hands are. “What do you want?”

“Well, right now, just a lovely hot bath,” she says, and it’s so conversational, so casual, that I almost drop the phone. “I wasn’t quite ready for just how rainy your little city is. I haven’t been back in such a long time.”

I say nothing. I don’t know what she knows and I don’t want to give her a single hint.

“Ramya,” Opal speaks gently. It’s the gentlest she’s been since I arrived here. “Put the phone down.”

I can’t. I don’t know why. It’s not magic compelling me, it’s something else. I want to say something that will hurt Portia. I want her to feel as scared as I am. I want to spit out the poisonous anger in me and see it land in her eye.

“If you don’t want to come out to play with me, Ramya, that’s fine,” Portia goes on, silkily. “There are plenty of your little Hidden Folk friends here. Some of them may even be able to help me find you.”

“Why me?” I ask and Opal makes a grab for the phone this time. “You, Ren, the Fae. What’s this about?”

I want her to say that it is because I am special. I want to be important. I can see no other reason as to why she would hunt me.

If an answer was forthcoming, I would not hear it. The curly cord of the telephone snaps into two pieces, severing my connection with the Siren and rendering the phone useless.

Opal pulls her hand away, having cast the little spark which caused the wire to snap.

“We don’t converse with her,” she finally says. “We don’t negotiate. We don’t argue. We do not communicate. Understood?”

“How did she get our number?” I demand. I’m too afraid to process the fear so I mask it with anger. “You said Old Magic was protecting the house.”

“Yes,” Mum chimes in. “Old Magic that was cast before Alexander Graham Bell.”

I turn to ask Gran a question about her telephone when I spot something by the kitchen door. I can see some suitcases in the hall. My brain feels foggy as I stare at them. Luggage. Packed and ready to be loaded into the car.

“Are we going somewhere?” I finally say.

Gran and Leanna exchange a glance before Mum answers me. “Well, your grandmother and I are.”

I stare at her. “And where exactly do you need to be jetting off to while we’re all in danger?”

“No one owes you explanations while you’re in this mood,” Mum replies sternly. “We can discuss it in the morning. You need to sleep.”

“No one answer any unknown numbers on your mobiles in the meantime,” Gran says practically. “And Opal, as soon as my number is changed, you’re buying me a new landline.”

*

Marley and I are sharing the tower. It’s the highest part of the house; a large bedroom in the only turret. It can be a little dull up there by myself, so I’m secretly glad we will be sharing.

I’m glad he’s here in general. Not that I’ll tell him that.

There is only one window in the turret and it’s a deadly drop to the grass below. Clearly, despite the plentiful number of bedrooms in Gran’s massive house, I was put in here for a reason.

I wait until the aunts have gone down to their own rooms, I wait until Mum says goodnight to me and follows them, and only once Marley and I are alone do I speak.

“We need to break out of here.”

Marley is used to me by now. When we first began our quest around Edinburgh, he was a little afraid of me and my antics. I think he would sometimes wonder if I would get us both killed. Ironically, he was the one who was abducted and used as bait to lure me onto an abandoned island.

I’ve never asked him if he was worried I wouldn’t come. I just hope he knows that I always will.

“Are we sneaking out?” he asks me, his voice a whisper.

I move to the single window, lifting up the pane. “Yes.”

We both stick our heads out and look down, wincing in chorus as we register just how high up we really are.

“They know what they’re doing,” Marley murmurs and I can hear in his voice that he’s already given up.

“We can sneak out when they’re asleep,” I retort. “Down to the front door and out that way.”

He nods and flops down onto his bed, on the other end of the large room. I sit carefully on my own, letting the quiet hang between us for a moment. Quiet after a surprisingly loud and eventful evening.

“You saw her?” I finally say.

He bends down to scratch his ankle, avoiding my stare. “Yeah.”

“And?”

He sits up straight and coughs once. “And she was just like you said.”

I feel validated. Sometimes, when I think about the Sirens, I almost fool myself. Maybe they don’t have the potential to be as bad as I imagine. Freddy is one after all, and he is a good friend. Ren was terrible, but he could have been an outlier. Then I remind myself about what happened with Portia.

She didn’t actually do anything horrendous. She only triggered the rift that kept our family apart for years. That’s all.

But it’s hard to articulate how she did it. How their voices can be weapons of chaos if they choose to use them.

As far as I’m aware, Portia is too clever to get her hands dirty. Ren said she had “plans”, but I don’t know if I want to find out what they are.

I don’t want to realise that I’ve made up a monster in my mind. So, hearing Marley say that she is exactly what I said… it’s a relief. It helps.