Michael Scott - The Necromancer

“He didn’t.” Sophie glanced at her quickly. “And you made Bernice hire me at the Coffee Cup.” It was a statement, not a question, but she wanted to hear the Sorceress admit the truth.

Perenelle’s head moved in the tiniest of nods. “I suggested that she needed you, that is true.”

“Suggested?”

“I can be very forceful.”

“When were you and Nicholas planning on telling us?” Sophie asked, a note of anger in her voice. The idea that she and her brother had been manipulated by the Flamels for months was chilling.

“Actually, we were going to break the news to you in a couple of weeks’ time: at the summer solstice.”

“Litha.” The name popped into Sophie’s head.

“Yes, the ancients called it Litha. And it is the time of year when your auras-the gold and silver-will be at their strongest. We thought that would be the best time to Awaken you with the least danger to yourselves.”

“But there would be dangers…”

“There are always dangers.”

Sophie looked into Perenelle’s cold green eyes. “And you would still have gone through with it?”

“Yes.”

Sophie felt sick. This woman, whom she had liked, admired, even respected, had just admitted that she’d been prepared to put her and Josh in terrible danger. Sophie saw the Sorceress in a new light. Perenelle’s cool beauty suddenly took on an almost threatening aspect.

“Do you smell that?” Perenelle asked suddenly.

“What?” Sophie said, drawing in a deep lungful of air. “Vanilla,” she answered. “It smells sour.”

“Your anger has tainted your aura. You must learn to control that. And before you rush to judgment,” the Sorceress continued with an icy smile, “ask yourself what you would have done if you and Josh were in our position. Nicholas and I have spent centuries looking for the two people who can save this world from total destruction. And yes, we have made mistakes, terrible mistakes,” she added sadly, “and we will live with those mistakes for the rest of our lives. But I ask you, what other option had we? Would it have been better if we had not looked for those two people? We were given a terrible responsibility: we accepted it.”

“Gilgamesh said those other twins didn’t survive the Awakening. You Awakened them knowing that they would most likely die.”

“Some survived,” Perenelle said coldly. “But we never forced anyone to go through the Awakening. We explained the risks. All of those twins accepted those risks-accepted them gladly, too,” she added.

“Well, I wasn’t warned,” Sophie said angrily.

“Was there time?” Perenelle asked. “From the moment Dee burst into the shop last Thursday, events have moved at such a pace.”

“I should have been warned,” Sophie persisted.

“And if you had been warned about the risks, how would you have decided? What would you have done?” Perenelle took a step closer, looking into Sophie’s eyes. “You are a good person, Sophie Newman. You are Silver-just like Joan. Like her, you are caring and considerate, and like her, you would have wanted to do what was right. If Nicholas and I had waited until Litha and explained the situation to you, as we’d planned, I believe you would have gone ahead with the Awakening.”

Sophie opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Perenelle was right; even if she had known the risks, she would have gone through with it.

“Would Josh?” Perenelle asked, her voice so soft that Sophie had to strain to hear it.

Sophie turned to look at her brother. She didn’t have to think about an answer: if he had known the risks, Josh would not have even attempted the Awakening. Despite his bluster and bravado, he wasn’t brave. But then she thought about him in Paris and London: he had shown extraordinary courage in both cities. This was a new Josh, a Josh she’d never really seen before. The old Josh, her brother of last week, would never have been able to do those things. He wouldn’t even have tried.

“So I think it best that you not tell him about Prometheus,” Perenelle finished. “Let’s not scare him.”

The security guards fell at the almost inaudible sounds from Virginia Dare’s wooden flute. She kept one awake, mesmerizing him with an ancient Native American lullaby, and he obediently turned off the security cameras, disarmed the alarms and opened the gates to allow her and Dee inside. The soothing lullaby ended with a single piercing note, which dropped the guard unconscious to the floor, face twisted in agony.

The Magician stepped over the crumpled body, looked around at the sleeping guards and nodded in approval. He turned to regard the flute, tilting his head to one side to look at the hints of a spiral design running the length of the instrument. “I’ve always been fascinated by your flute,” he said. “You never told me where you got it.”

“No, I didn’t,” Dare said firmly, and turned away, forestalling the discussion.

Dee followed the woman through the empty Tower of London. “A gift from your master, perhaps?” he persisted.

“I don’t have a master,” she said slowly; then she glanced over her shoulder, eyes cold and angry. “But you know that, of course.”

“Oh, that’s right: you killed him.”

“Only a fool kills an Elder,” she snapped. “And I’m not a fool… unlike you!”

Dee shrugged. “You’re referring to Hekate? What’s done is done and cannot be undone. And technically, I did not kill her-the Yggdrasill fell on her.”

“You always were a master of weasel words, John,” Virginia said softly. “Even Shakespeare said you should have been a playwright. I heard you had an encounter with him and the Saracen Knight, and that you didn’t come off too well,” she added with a sly smile.

Dee fell into step beside the immortal. “You knew they were in the city?”

“I make it my business to know whom I’m sharing the city with.” They were back outside under the night sky, and directly ahead of them was a red-and-black-paneled Tudor building. The sound of water slapping against stone was clearly audible, and the air smelled damp. “Shakespeare has been here since the sixteenth century; Palamedes comes and goes.” Dare walked across the flagstones, completely silent in flat leather moccasins. She leaned on the metal rail and looked down into a pool of black water; then she pointed over to where an arched opening in the opposite wall had been sealed with a heavy-looking metal gate. The two halves of the gate sagged in the middle, and through the struts a second black pool rippled like oil. “And you are now about to tell me that the entrance to the Shadowrealm is in the pool behind that gate?”

“It is. You’ve never been here?” Dee asked, surprised.

“I have never had your dangerous curiosity,” she said.

The Magician smiled. “We learn through curiosity.” Leaning his elbows on the metal rail, he looked at the barred entrance to the pool. “If I could use my powers, I could-”

“If you even think about using your powers, you will draw everything in this city right here,” Dare reminded him, “and this time, I won’t rescue you.”

Dee looked at her quickly. “You? Rescued me? Is that what you think you did?”

Virginia twirled the flute like a baton in her fingers. “I rescued you. You might have been able to fight one or two of them-but there were hundreds of the creatures closing in on you. Every cucubuth clan in Europe must be in the city. I even saw some rogue Torc Madra in there, and you know how dangerous the dogmen are. You would have been captured, and most of you would have been delivered to your masters.”

“Most of me?” Dee swallowed hard at the sudden image.