them or lashed out at them. He would not have attacked Lex late one night, thinking him to be an intruder in their home; he would not have almost drowned them both one day when he became agitated in the bath, and he would not have refused to eat dinner with his grandsons one evening because he was waiting for his son to come home with Lex and Lucius…
‘Adam is coming for dinner soon with his wife and their sons,’ Alistair protested agitatedly when Lucius tried to persuade him to sit at the table. ‘I don’t know who you are but you’ve got to go. My family will be here soon.’
‘Adam is dead!’ Lex exclaimed as he pushed food round his plate with his fork. ‘A waterwitch sank their boat, Gramps, remember?’
‘Dead? Adam’s not dead, he’s coming for dinner. He’s… ’ Alistair trailed off for a moment before suddenly gripping Lex’s arm hard, making him drop his fork as he twisted him around to face him. ‘What about the boys?’ he asked desperately, shaking Lex a little in his fear. ‘Are the boys all right? My grandsons, Lex and Lucius, do you know where they are?’
Lex could do nothing but stare at him. There was a very special kind of misery in having someone you loved look at you without any hint of recognition whatsoever.
‘We’re right here, Gramps,’ Lucius said, trying to prise his fingers from Lex’s arm. ‘Please just sit down at the table and eat your dinner.’
Lex had never been able to decide which was worse: those moments or the very few occasions when he spoke in a different voice — hesitant and stumbling over his words as if unsure of how to use them. When Alistair had mistaken Lex for an intruder one night, he’d managed to hit him several times with an old wooden bat before Lucius and Zachary, roused by the noise, had managed to drag him away.
‘What did you do to him?’ Zachary asked as Lex picked himself up off the floor.
‘I did nothing,’ Lex replied, not even having the heart to snarl as he spoke.
As Zachary persuaded Alistair to get back into bed, Lucius tried to help his brother but Lex pushed him away and went to the bathroom on his own. He had managed to duck most of the blows so that there was nothing more serious than some bruising on his ribs and a small cut above one eye, but it was the shock of the experience itself that hurt more. Lex knew that fifteen year olds shouldn’t cry but, thinking everyone else was back in bed, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub, covered his face with his fingers and tried not to make any noise. He would pack a bag and leave. Now. Tonight. He couldn’t stay here another day longer.
He jumped when someone spoke his name hesitantly from the doorway. When he lifted his head and saw his grandfather standing there he fell off the bath, an unpleasant and totally alien tremor of fear shooting through him at sight of the man who had raised him. But this time there was concern in Alistair’s eyes rather than aggression.
‘Lex,’ he said again. His mouth worked silently for a moment and from where he lay, sprawled on the floor, Lex could see the frustration on his grandfather’s face as he valiantly tried to piece the words together. ‘Are… you… okay?’ he managed at last.
For some reason that one sentence hurt Lex almost as much as the physical blows had done. Alistair Trent was still in there somewhere — they just couldn’t get to him.
‘Yes, Gramps,’ he said, getting up from the floor. ‘I’m fine. Let’s get you back to bed… ’
‘Stop it!’ Lex cried, pushing at the enchanter as hard as he could. ‘ Stop it! ’
Those memories were making him feel sick. It wasn’t the fact that Alistair Trent had died — for everyone had to die sometime — it was the time it had taken and all the bitterness that had had to come first.
‘The soulless wake?’ the enchanter asked, removing his fingers at last. ‘An interesting choice.’
Lex glared at the enchanter, hating him. Over his shoulder he could see Lucius wringing his hands on the platform above and Schmidt rummaging through Lex’s bag beside him.
‘You don’t have the power to curse someone with the soulless wake,’ Lex said to the enchanter, desperately hoping that that were true.
‘Watch me,’ the enchanter said softly. ‘Just watch. I told you you’d suffer for crossing me.’
The words: ‘ I beg you ’ rose up in Lex’s throat, but he couldn’t say them. A mixture of shame and fear stopped him from speaking them aloud. Lex Trent beg? He’d see himself dead first! The defiant thought made him raise his chin just a little. It was easier to be proud and defiant when he knew full well that begging the enchanter for his life would have no effect whatsoever. The worst was going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it. And that knowledge sent a sudden icy calm through him so that when he looked the enchanter right in the eye and said a couple of choice expletives that would have got him into a huge amount of trouble if his grandfather had heard him, his voice didn’t even shake.
The enchanter simply smiled coldly as he raised his staff and prepared to punish the thief who’d stolen his boat and made a fool out of him.
Whilst Lucius had stood wringing his hands uselessly on the platform above, Schmidt had stuck his hand into Lex’s bag in the wild hope that his fingers would come into contact with something, anything, that might be helpful. Things had been thrown out all over the place, including at one point a whole flock of doves that had fluttered off nervously into the maze of ladders.
But then, at last, the lawyer’s hand came out of the bag clutching a small, fat bottle. Schmidt could hardly believe his eyes and the thought shot through his brain that Lex Trent really must be the luckiest person on the Globe.
As the enchanter pointed his blue staff towards Lex, who couldn’t stop himself from backing away even though he had nowhere to go, Schmidt drew back his arm, took aim and threw the little bottle down at the enchanter where it shattered against his back. The enchanter glanced over his shoulder, looking mildly annoyed, but when he saw the broken bottle on the floor all the colour drained from his face and he looked up sharply, recognising Schmidt at once despite the many years that had passed since they’d last met.
‘ Briggs! ’ he hissed in one venomous whisper.
That word was all he had time for, however, before the little bottle on the ground suddenly became whole again and, although the enchanter raised his staff in an effort to protect himself, he was suddenly and violently sucked into the bottle, staff and all, shrinking into what appeared to be a small, stitched enchanter doll. Lex blinked and bent down to pick up the bottle.
‘Lex, are you okay?’ Lucius called from above, his voice echoing in the new-found silence. ‘Are you all right? Did he hurt you? Lex, are you-’
Lex tore his eyes away from the bottle impatiently. ‘Lucius, do I look like I’m hurt in any way?’
‘No, but-’
‘I’m fine.’
He turned his attention back to the bottle, examining it whilst Schmidt and Lucius slowly made their way down the ladders towards him. The little enchanter inside was no more than a few inches tall. His white beard was made out of cotton wool and his coat and hat even had little white stars stitched onto them. It was rather a good likeness although he was, perhaps, a little overstuffed so that his arms and legs stuck out from his body at rather odd angles.
‘What did you do?’ Lex asked when the others stepped onto the platform beside him.
Schmidt took the bottle from him and examined the doll inside with a distinct look of satisfaction. ‘This,’ he said, holding up the bottle, ‘is living proof that you really are the luckiest person in the world, Mr Trent. It’s a faery bottle — technically for catching faeries to turn them into dolls for children but it works on any magical person, even if they’re bigger than the bottle. You just have to break the glass on them and they get sucked in. They’re very rare,’ Schmidt said, glancing at Lex. ‘The enchanters destroyed most of them because they’re just as dangerous to them as they are to faeries. But this enchanter obviously decided to keep one for his own use and I found it at the bottom of your bag.’
‘Well, I suppose I should thank you for saving my life,’ Lex said.
‘I suppose you should.’
There was a little silence. ‘Thank you,’ Lex said.
‘You’re most welcome.’
‘I bet it made you feel good after having to serve him like a slave for two years.’
‘It does give me something of a warm glow,’ Schmidt agreed, putting the bottle in his pocket.
‘Do you think this means I can keep the ship?’ Lex asked.
