Page 97 of The Dagger and the Flame
‘Maybe I’ll move to the plains.’ Val conceded a fleeting smile. ‘Do you reckon I’d make a good farmer?’
‘You could try your hand at being a scarecrow. Just wave your arms about and scream really loudly whenever you see a blackbird.’
Val snorted, then chewed on her lip, as if she was really considering it. ‘I suppose I can’t decide which is better,’ she confessed. ‘Being alone somewhere beautiful and free. Or being with the only people I’ve ever loved, here in the darkness.’ She looked up at Sera, as if she was waiting for the answer.
‘I don’t know either, Val.’
‘Never mind. I’m overthinking everything. Birthdays always make me misty-eyed.’
‘I can stay a while,’ offered Sera. ‘If you want to talk some more?’
Val waved her off, reaching for that mask of invulnerability, the careful smirk and deadpan voice, the veneer that told the world everything was all right, even when it wasn’t. ‘Go get your sleep, monster slayer. Sounds like things are about to get interesting.’
‘Tomorrow’s going to be a big day,’ said Sera. ‘I’ve got to make Lightfireanda birthday cake.’
‘I didn’t know you could bake,’ said Val, almost suspiciously.
‘I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. What do you think I was doing all that time while Mama was making Shade?’
‘Poisoning the wine?’
‘Ha ha.’ Sera stuck her tongue out. ‘Laugh it up, but tomorrow, I’m going to bake the best damn cake you’ve ever had.’
‘Looking forward to it,’ said Val, a smile, true and beautiful, blooming across her face. Sera turned to leave, when she spoke again. ‘I’m glad you came to House Armand, farmgirl. For however long, for whatever reason. It was getting boring around here. I reckon we needed a bit of excitement.’
Sera smiled. ‘Thanks, Val. You’re a good friend.’
‘You too, Sera. Sleep well.’
Upstairs, with the embers of Val’s words still warm in her chest, Sera washed and got ready for bed. Then she turned on her lamp and began to flick through the journal. It appeared to be a mix of Lucille’s personal musings as well as notes onher studies at the Appoline – the contents varying from daily observations of her new life in Fantome to feverish scribblings about magic.
In the village, the elders speak of boneshade in hushed tones as if they’re terrified that my brothers will hear them from half a world away. The plant comes from Halbracht, but it does not belong to us any more. Even Papa does not whisper of it. His eyes have grown tired, wary. He is as afraid of Hugo now as he is of the brown bears that stalk the Pinetops. The boneshade grows all around us, but we are forbidden from touching it. Even Armand will not suffer my curiosity about it.
That’s how I know there are more secrets to be found. Not in the root, where the dark magic grows. But in the bloom, golden as the summer sun.
When I was a girl, Mama used to cut and dry the leaves, and lay them out along the chicken coop, until they grew crisp at the edges. Then she ground them into dust and stored the vials in the back of her closet, along with her treasured pearl necklace and the sapphire Father gave her the day they married. ‘We must take care to hide the light, my little firefly,’ she whispered to me once. ‘Just in case the darkness returns…’
I know now what darkness she meant. It only occurred to me after her death that Mama knew of the properties of boneshade long before the rest of us. She must have known about the power of its bloom, too. Only she took that secret to her grave.
Sera’s fingers were trembling so badly, the pages shook as she turned them. Lucille Versini had spent her short life chasing the secrets her mother had taken to the grave. In her neat, looping scrawl, Sera saw her own frustration and determination reflected back at her.
In Athapales’ Study of Ancient Alchemy, the truth is set out plainly: there must be balance in all things. Every force of magic has its equal and opposite. We have known that since the Age of Saints. If darkness can grow from an ancient plant, then so, too, can light. I am surer now than ever before that this light magic – this antidote – resides in the bloom of boneshade. And more than that, it can be extracted just as Shade is. All it takes is an enquiring mind and a dauntless spirit.
I will bring the truth into the light, and shatter the darkness that hangs over my family name. And when I find this secret – this old magic made anew – I will call it Lightfire.
Sera turned the pages until she found the next mention of Lightfire. It was near the end of the journal.
Each day brings me closer to Lightfire. Today, with this mix of charcoal and bloom, I’m sure I felt a spark between my fingers – the warmth of something more than just heat. It was magic. I almost caught it. Tomorrow I will try again.
She turned to the last page, its edges crumbling in her fingers. Her eyes darted around, scanning the final feverish scrawlings of Lucille Versini, while the last embers of hope flickered inside her. And then she saw it, a single word circled under a list of crossed-out ingredients. It was darker than the others, as if it was demanding to be read:
Gunpowder
Sera reeled backwards, as a memory exploded into her mind. A cloudless summer’s day, the sun beating down on the plains and bleaching the stones in the garden. Her mother was hunched over her workbench, sweat matting her dark curls. She was tinkering with a strand of gold wire, surrounded by the remnants of the day’s experimentation. And there, by her elbow, the head of a boneshade plant. Bloom. The leaves were dried and curling, shining golden in the sunlight. The smell of gunpowder lingered in the air. Sera knew it from the shotgun Lorenzo used to scare off the crows in the cornfields, but she couldn’t seem to place it intheir garden between the peonies and the honeybees.What’s that strange smell, Mama?
Mama had smiled, excitement trilling in her voice.That, my little firefly, is the smell of creativity.
‘No,’ Seraphine muttered, with a sudden shock of clarity, and Pippin looked up from the end of the bed, to see if she was talking to him. ‘That was the smell of Lightfire.’
