-CHAPTER 1-
Warwick Malcolm

“ I know he still has a list, there are at 
least two left, I know it. I need the lists, 
without them I have no hope of finding 
them all. No hope. I’ll be a Lattimer for ever…”
                                                       The Diary of Miriam Lattimer, Page 46

  “And you’re sure you can cast the spell right?” James asked for the millionth time that day, whether out of anxiousness or habit it was hard to tell at that point.
  “Yes. Well, I was sure ‘till you kept asking, and now I feel like I’m going to do it wrong.” Daniel said, staring straight ahead at the graffiti stained and chewing gum besmirched plastic back of the seat in front of him and pulling on his earlobe like he always did when he was nervous.
  James turned slightly to look at him better “Yeah, but you won’t mess it up? Pronounce it wrong or something?”
  “I don’t know, do you want to try doing it?” Daniel said, gritting his teeth slightly.
  “’Course not.” James said quickly.
  “Well be quiet then.” Daniel said and James huffed slightly, but fell back in his seat, his knee bobbing around nervously, eyes darting around the scenery outside, looking for a bus stop sign. He had been sitting up slightly every time the bus came to a stop, clearly worried that they would either miss their stop completely, or not actually exit the bus before it started moving again. Daniel himself had only been on a bus a few times, but he certainly wasn’t anywhere near as anxious about it as James. 
  When it finally was their stop, Daniel nudged him on the shoulder and he almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to get to the doors. Daniel might have laughed if he wasn’t so nervous it felt like there was acid in his stomach. They’d gone over the worst things that could happen, and they weren’t really all that bad, and they had a plan for each eventuality, but he couldn’t help feeling like they had missed something, something important. 
  The city streets were loud and bustling, and a foul smell hung in the air, but Daniel was grateful to have James out of the bus before he set fire to something by accident. The only time his magic seemed to work was when it was unintentional and when he was nervous.
  “Alright, now what?” James said almost instantly, his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes darting around, as if he expected every single one of the million strangers around them to pull a weapon.
  “We get a train, remember? Malcolm lives outside the city.” Daniel said.
  “Yeah... right.” James said absently, following a hobbling old lady with his eyes, clearly taking her pull-along trolley for some nuclear bomb.
  Daniel sighed, he knew James was not used to the city, or having people out to kill him, but his jumpiness was doing nothing for Daniel’s own nerves. James had never been far from his aunt’s house for two years, and never this near to his old home. Stubborn as anything, he wouldn’t admit he was scared, but Daniel could tell.
  “James, relax. It’s not like we’re hardly storming the cempan headquarters are we?”
  “No, for that to work you would need to know where their headquarters is.” James said a little coldly.
  “Hey, if anyone should know where –“
  “Yes, alright, I get your point. Where’s the train station.”
  It took them barely five minutes to find the train station, but they had to wait thirty minutes for the actual train to arrive, most of which James spent pacing the platform and chewing his lip nervously, and Daniel spent muttering the spell under his breath as often as he could.
  “Wilcume!” he whispered again and again. He didn’t dare point his finger at anyone, he had no idea what would happen if it worked, god forbid if it went wrong.
  Finally the train pulled in, and James practically leapt over the gap when he spotted the signs. 
  “Have you never been on a train either?” Daniel asked him incredulously. 
  James glared at him, which Daniel immediately took as a yes.
  The train ride didn’t take all too long, and they got seats quite early on, though James did end up giving his to an old lady, who had situated herself next to them, and was already wobbling on her shaky legs before the train even started moving. An act of unquestionable chivalry... had James not then walked right to the other end of the carriage, eyeing her trolley suspiciously.  
  When they got out, it took them a short while to find a taxi, and that twenty minute drive was spent mostly with James watching the back of the cabby’s head like it could blow up at any second.
  All in all, Daniel was more relieved than anxious by the time they did finally reach the small cottage it had taken them weeks to track down.
  They were surrounded by hills and bushes, a town and a big road could be seen not far away, but if you ignored them, it looked like you were deep, deep in the country. It was lovely.
  The cottage stood alone in the corner of a small field, with a low stone wall around it, and a thatched roof. To look at it you wouldn’t think anyone lived there. Daniel just hoped they hadn’t come to the wrong place.
  Nervously, the two boys stood in front of the door and gathered themselves.
  “You can do the spell?” James said after a second.
  “James, I swear if you don’t stop asking that I’ll curse you, and turn your nose green.” Daniel said and James snorted, then Daniel reached up, raised the large knocker, and banged it on the door three times quickly, before he lost his nerve.
  For a few, excruciating seconds, nothing happened, then they heard shuffling steps on the other side of the door, and it swung open with a low creak. 
  “Yes? What do you want?” a voice snapped impatiently, and Daniel had to look down to see a tiny little man with fading white hair and a scowl. Daniel had to look down. Daniel was a small boy as it was, barely reaching James’ chin, so this man must be tiny. James certainly wasn’t expecting it, and stared over the small man’s head for a second, scowling when he couldn’t see who was talking. The man did not look pleased at this.
  Daniel cleared his throat “Warwick Malcolm?”
  “Yes, who are you?”
  “I’m Daniel King, this is my friend James Latt-“ James kicked him in the leg before he could finish the word.
  “James what?” the man said suspiciously, but Daniel suddenly seemed to conveniently have become deaf.
  “We were just wondering if we could maybe bother you for a minute.” he said politely.
  The man looked deeply disgusted by the thought “Certainly not! No guests allowed, can’t you read the sign?”
  Daniel was fairly sure there wasn’t a sign, but didn’t think it would be wise to point this out.
  “Please, we just want a word.”
  “No!”
  “Do it.” James hissed, and the man’s head snapped around.
  “Do what?”
  “Now!” James said.
  Daniel reluctantly pointed his index finger at the man’s temple and muttered “Wilcume!”
  Warwick Malcolm’s disagreeable scowl disappeared from his face almost instantly, to be replaced by a kind, if a little absent, smile. His eyes fogged over slightly, and he seemed to sway in the breeze.
  “Come on in, boys, come on in. Would you like some tea?” he turned around and vanished into his house, Daniel and James right behind him.
  The cottage was even smaller on the inside than it had seemed. The ceiling was low, all the walls were covered in pictures, or clocks, or shelves, and every surface was absoloutely coated with dust. All the colours, a lot of reds and greens, had been bleached a grey-ish tinge, and the corners had cobwebs in them. One chair in the little sitting room they were lead into wasn’t covered in dust, and that was the one Warwick Malcolm plopped himself into. When Daniel and James fell onto a small sofa next to him, as gestured by the tiny man’s hand, an enormous cloud of dust rose around them, and the bottom sagged almost to the floor. Everything stank of damp, mold and stale cake.
  “So tea?” Malcolm asked.
  “No thanks,” Daniel said, shooting a glance at James who looked like he had been about to say yes “we’re really only here, because you have something we thought we might be able to borrow. If it’s no problem…”
  Malcolm looked slightly confused, and his dazed smile wasn’t quite as dazed as it had been a second ago “And what, pray tell, might this be?”
  Daniel repositioned himself slightly on the sofa, so he was leaning closer to their host “A… a sort of list. Of names.”
  Malcolm’s face darkened “Why… what names?” he said shrilly.
  “Something… something called the Company of Blood, we think and-”
  The man shot to his feet with more agility than you would expect from such a crumpled old man “Who do you think I am? I… you should leave, now!” 
  Great. The plan ruined in about ten seconds. They had expected him to hand it over when he was under the spell! This was possibly the least time it had ever taken him to get someone angry at him. And the least time it had taken for one of his spells to wear off. Suddenly they didn’t feel so welcome anymore. 
  “I’m really sorry if I offended you, I didn’t want to. I was just curious.” Daniel said quickly, and Malcolm seemed to calm down a bit, and sat down again.
  “Yeah, that’s not really why we’re here.” James added.
  Malcolm looked doubtful, but didn’t tell them to leave again, which they thought must be good. Daniel suddenly had a thought “Actually, I think we would quite like some tee, I’ll help you make it.”  he said kindly, and stood up.
  “Alright…” the man said slowly, struggling to his own little legs, ignoring Daniel’s outstretched hand, suddenly seeming very decrepit again. 
  The two of them walked across the small corridor into the kitchen, leaving a slightly bewildered James behind them. Daniel just hoped he would figure it out and start looking. He would have stayed with him and helped search, if he wasn’t sure Malcolm would make the tea by magic if no one else was watching, and that would give them practically no time at all. This way he could stall.
  As Malcolm lead him to the dusty old sink bellow the only window he had seen so far, Daniel’s eyes raked the room. He knew it was a long-shot that they would simply happen upon the list, a near impossibility in fact, but maybe if James used a summoning spell…? Scratch that, maybe if James learned a summoning spell. This was never going to work. Such a bad plan. Well, too late to turn back.
  “What tea would you like? Earl Grey? English Breakfast? I have chamomile…”
  “Anything would be fine, thanks.” Daniel said, though he knew James would only drink Earl Grey. That’s what the picky rich life had done to him.
  Malcolm put three English Breakfast teabags into a cracked old tea pot and filled the kettle. Then he set it on the stove with Daniel’s awkward attempt at help, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. With Malcolm’s eyes upon him, Daniel didn’t dare look for the list, instead he tried to seem casual, which he had always been bad at when he wasn’t feeling casual.
  What felt like years later, the kettle started to whistle, and Malcolm reached over to take it off the stove. As his wrist slipped maybe half an inch further out of his sleeve, Daniel noticed a small, black ink tattoo on the inside of his wrist. A tiny, old-fashioned key.
  “What- what is that, sir?” Daniel asked,pointing at it.
  Malcolm quickly pulled his sleeve back over it “Nothing, nothing. Now, help me with this tray, would you?” he said absently as he took a few mugs from a mug tree, and reached up to a cupboard for some biscuits. Daniel privately wished he had made up the tray in the excruciating silence that had past a few seconds before, but took it wordlessly. 
  When they arrived back in the sitting room, James was standing at the mantle piece, staring intently into an old vase. When he noticed they had returned he was so shocked he almost dropped it. Then he set it back on the mantle piece and mumbled something about his mother having a similar one, and sat down.  
  “So what do you boys want?” Malcolm said as he poured the tea.
  James and Daniel looked at each other. Ah yes, they had forgotten they needed a good lie.
  “We… uh… we are…” 
  “Traveling around, needed a bit of a break. I was wondering, could I use your loo?” James said quickly.
  Malcolm nodded slowly “Just down the corridor, right at the end. The light’s not working, but there’s a little window.” 
  James smiled and walked out of the room. 
  Daniel smiled politely at Malcolm and took a sip from the mug he had just been offered. He desperately tried to think what to do. They needed that list, and if Malcolm really wasn’t going to give it to them… a summoning spell? No, he was rubbish at those. Could he maybe enchant this man? Make him think he wanted to give them the list? He doubted it, he didn’t even know if there were spells for that.
  “So where are you boys traveling to?” Malcolm asked, and Daniel jumped slightly.
  “Oh… we’re just visiting family in London.” he lied quickly.
  Malcolm nodded “What did you say your name was?”
  “Daniel King.” 
  “That sounds familiar… did your family ever live around here?”
  “I… I don’t think so. It’s a common name, isn’t it?” he said casually.
  “Yes, I suppose so.” 
  There was a short silence again, and Daniel wished James would hurry up. He presumed he had gone to look more thoroughly for the list, which was good, but you never could tell with James. He might just as easily have gone to the loo like he said.
  About a minute later, there was a knock on the door.
  “Oh, I’m sorry, you were expecting other company?” Daniel said, but Malcolm was looking just as confused as he felt.
  He stood up, swaying lightly “I’ll just get that, then…” he said.
  Daniel followed him with his eyes until he left the room, then leapt to his feet and ran to rifle through any ornaments or piles of paper he could find. Out in the hall, dull voices were talking, but Daniel didn’t pay attention, until there was a loud BANG! and something hit the floor.
  Daniel hurried across the room, and stuck his head out into the corridor, to see Malcolm, lying on the floor, thrashing slightly. There were three figures standing over him, the one in the middle had his hand stretched out, and at the sight of Daniel, he twisted his wrist. A snap like the breaking of a twig came from Warwick Malcolm’s thrashing form, and he suddenly went very still. For a second, Daniel just stared, shock stopping him from doing anything else, then his eyes snapped up at the three figures standing at the other end of the corridor. Two men and one woman, and they were all smiling.
  “Hello, little boy.” the man who had killed Malcolm rasped, still grinning. The left half his face was completely inked in black, a perfect straight border running between his eyes and down his nose. It was the same on all their faces. Cempan.
  “James!” Daniel shouted, turning and running up the small, creaking steps, where he could hear James pottering about on the floor above.
  He found his friend, or rather his friend’s feet sticking out from under a small sagging bed in a small room.
  “James! Cempan!” Daniel panted, pulling James’ long legs out from under the bed.
  “What the hell?” James tried to kick him away for a second, before he noticed who it was and shot up “Cempan?” 
  Daniel nodded, breathing hard “Downstairs. They killed Malcolm. I think… they want the… list.” 
  “I haven’t found it!” James said, but just then the three cempan appeared in the doorway.
  “Two little boys.” the biggest said, as if they were two especially big slices of triple-chocolate cake. He started to walk towards them, and Daniel desperately tried to ignite a flame in his palm behind his back, but he couldn’t do silent magic yet, and he knew if he said the word aloud they wouldn’t come close enough for him to use it. Shooting spells weren’t his forte either.
  “Stop, Mortimer! Look at that boy! Is it… is it the boy Lattimer?” the woman said slowly and James took a step back.
  “What? No!” he said “Who’s Lattimer?”
  The man who had killed Malcolm laughed “You’re right! The other boy called him James, that was the brat’s name, wasn’t it?”
  “And look at the eyes!” the woman was getting excited now “Just like his father’s! We will get a reward if we bring him back to his family, I’m sure of it!”
  “And the other one?” the big man named Mortimer asked, looking slightly annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to kill one of them.
  The woman in black studied Daniel “Kill him.” she said passively.
  Mortimer giggled stupidly and started back toward them. He raised his hand threateningly, and it started to glow red hot. Daniel desperately wanted to jump into action, but forced himself to wait, his heart hammering against his chest and in his ears.
  James did not wait. He couldn’t do spells, not properly, but dangerous defense magic certainly wasn’t beyond him. He whipped his hand out and a stream of green flames shot from his palm, catching on Mortimer’s black clothes and setting him alight. The man screamed excruciatingly, and though Daniel wanted to vomit at the smell, the sound, the sight, James’ face didn’t change. Sometimes it scared Daniel how little James was fazed by violence. He knew it was because of how he was brought up, and that he was a hell of a lot better than the rest of his family, but pain never seemed to impact him as much as Daniel.
  The other two cempan stared at James, and he stared at his hands, clearly slightly surprised that it had worked.
  “James, we need to get out now!” Daniel hissed, but just then the woman sent a curse flying towards them. They both dropped like sacks of potatoes, hitting the dusty floorboards hard, a few more curses whizzing over their heads. 
  The fight that ensued was a mess of broken glass, feathers from a pillow that exploded when one of James’ curses missed its target, and clouds of dust, lit up in bright colours by the spells flying through the air. Daniel heard a scream from the woman, but her curses came back a few seconds later, so clearly it hadn’t been fatal. 
  Daniel ducked behind a dresser that had been blasted from its position against the wall, and found James next to him, the sleeve of his shirt smoldering and a bleeding cut above one eyebrow.
  “We can’t beat them.” he panted, and Daniel knew he was right.
  “Maybe we could escape out the window.” Daniel suggested. The cottage wasn’t very high, and if they landed right, maybe Daniel could flit them away? James nodded once.
  Cautiously, Daniel peered over the top of the dresser, and almost had his head blasted off.
  “She’s in front of the window. There’s no way out.” Daniel said. James nodded again, grimly, then they both shot out from behind the dresser, taking the advancing cempan by surprise, but only for a second. They shot a few curses around them, but none seemed to find their target, and did try to reach the window, but there was no way past the woman. The two cempan herded them into a corner with their magic. The boys tried to fight, but Daniel could still barely send his spells a foot away from his hand before they disappeared in the open air, and James could barely muster up a spark anymore. 
  “I say we kill them both!” the woman screeched. 
  “No! Dammit, no. He may be treacherous scum, but any Lattimer blood spilled could be punished, that one needs to be left alive.” the man said grudgingly. 
  “He killed Mortimer!” the woman screamed. 
  “I know, you dozy cow! But that won’t go unpunished. Master Lattimer will make him pay for that, it’s not our place!”
  The woman screamed loudly, the noise sounded a bit like a cat being stepped on.
  Daniel blocked out the screams and closed his eyes and tried desperately to think, but there was no way out, the door and window were both blocked, they couldn’t fight anymore, he was going to die, and James was going to be given back to his family on a plate. There was nothing they could do.
  “Besleap!” a girl’s voice said nervously, but it didn’t sound like the cempa woman. Then there was a thud.
  Daniel opened his eyes, and saw the woman lying in a heap on the floor, still breathing, but clearly unconscious. Daniel looked around and saw a girl standing behind the last remaining cempa, the latter staring in shock at his fallen comrade.
  “Besleap!” the voice said again, still nervous, and before the man could turn around, a burst of navy blue sparks hit him in the back of the head, and he fell to the floor.
  Breathing hard, James and Daniel stared at the girl who had saved them, but she didn’t wait to be introduced. She ran forward to them “I don’t know how long the spell will last, we have to hurry.” She said in an authoritative voice, and gestured urgently for them to follow her to the window.
  “Hang on-” James began, but Daniel tugged him forward to the smashed window.
  “Who are you?” Daniel asked the girl when they were all standing at the windowsill.
  “My name is Evangeline Windsor, it’s nice to meet you, but we really need to hurry and get out of here.” she said formally.
  Next to him, Daniel saw James frown as if trying to remember something. Noiselessly his lips formed the word Windsor.
  “Um… nice to meet you too, but I still don’t quite understand-”
  “Oh god, they’re waking up!” she interrupted when something moved behind them, then turned to each of them, muttered wandrae twice, pointing at them both separately.
  “What was-”
  “Jump!” she said and pulled the two boys out the window.
  Daniel almost screamed as they fell for not even a second, and were caught up by some force maybe a foot from the ground. They landed quite comfortably after that, but Daniel was so shaken by the sudden and unplanned fall, that he careened into James beside him and they both fell to the ground. The grass was slightly damp, and it was only then that Daniel realized it had become dark while they were in the cottage for that short space of time. Right enough, the sun had been going down when they arrived.
  James staggered to his feet “What the bloody hell was that? You threw us out a window!”
  The girl, Evangeline Windsor, looked quite offended and bristled indignantly “I caught you! And saved your lives before that!”
  “You’re right, thank you.” Daniel quickly interjected before James could say anything “but we can’t stay here.”
  The girl turned back to Daniel in a way that suggested she would only be dealing with him from now on “Your right, I know a cafe we can go to. Can you flit?”
  “Yes.” Daniel said.
  “Good. Follow me.” Then she disappeared in a streak of light, shooting over the hills.
  Hesitating only slightly, Daniel grabbed James by the shoulder and followed, the cold air whipping his face as he went.
  

-CHAPTER 2-
The Cafe

“Two of the oldest magical Houses are
the houses of Windsor and Lattimer.
It is not known when their Rivalry
began, but it has lasted many Centuries
and cost both great houses many lives…” 
                                                                      A History of the Magical Houses, Chapter 3: Rivalries

Daniel almost ran into the side of a brick wall when he noticed the light in front of him had stopped and ground to a halt. The run made Daniel slightly nauseous, but nothing compared to James, who was retching a few steps away, the only contents of his stomach already lying in a puddle at his feet. James still couldn’t flit, and any time he travelled with Daniel he was sick as a dog and vowed never to do it again.
Evangeline Windsor was standing patiently next to the boys, looking at James’ sick like it was… well, sick.
“Why didn’t you flit on your own?” she asked him.
He glared at her, blushing furiously, but didn’t say anything.
“Well I suppose it doesn’t matter. Come in, we can talk here.” she said, leading them into a small french cafe a few steps down the road. It was in fact the side of the cafe that Daniel had almost run into.
The three of them sat down in a corner of the lovely candlelit room. There were barely any others there and only a low hum of conversation could be heard. It smelled like candle smoke and roses and was so warm Daniel just wanted to drift to sleep.
“I thought this would be a good place.” Evangeline said as they sat down.
“It’s putting me to sleep.” James said.
“Well pinch yourself then.” Evangeline said sharply, her eyes betraying that she would be quite happy to do the honors if James didn’t feel up to it.
Evangeline Windsor was thin, with a pretty face and a pointed chin. Her eyes were big and chocolate brown, intelligent but still tired. She had brown curls that fell just past her shoulders and thin eyebrows that were slightly raised as she stared at James who was picking dirt from under his nails. Clearly aware she was staring, James looked extra casual.
“Thanks for saving us.” Daniel said and she smiled brightly at him.
“Um… yeah, thanks… though you did throw us out a window.” James said. He may not be a real Lattimer, Daniel thought with a sigh, but he certainly has enough pride to pass for one.
Evangeline looked a lot more pleased “Well I didn’t kill them or anything, I only put them to sleep, so they can still follow us.”
James smiled smugly “I killed one.”
She looked at him shocked “You actually killed one? I assumed a different cempa had hit him by accident and only blamed you!”
“Nope, sizzled him to a puddle.” 
“That’s horrible!” she said flabbergasted “Is that what that was? It smelled ghastly! How could you burn someone alive?”
James frowned at her “He killed an old man, and was going to kill us! And besides, he’s a cempa!”
“Actually it was the other man who actually killed Malcolm.” Daniel interjected before Evangeline could say something back. 
“Well I bet he helped!” James said, on the defensive.
“Oh so that means it’s fair to cook someone? Maybe I should have left you to them!” she snapped.
James snorted “Coming from a Windsor?” Evangeline looked shocked “Yeah, I know who your parents are.” He looked very pleased with himself, which was infuriating for Daniel because he had no idea what he was talking about, and it was always infuriating when James was smug.
Evangeline shot to her feet, and in a burst starting from the roots her hair turned blood red “Don’t you dare talk about them! Anyway, who are you to talk of parents, I heard what they said! You’re a Lattimer, so you can be quiet about cempan being evil!”
James’ face turned from smug to angry “I’m not a Lattimer!” he said, shooting to his feet as well.
“James, please, sit down!” Daniel hissed and tugged his friend back down on the red cushioned bench. Heads had swiveled to stare at the two shouting teens, and it was making Daniel uncomfortable. James fell back into a sitting position and glared at their savior as if she had been the one to try and kill them.
James had a lot more knowledge of the magical families than Daniel did, even if his information did come from a shamelessly prejudiced source, at least he had heard of most of them. His Uncle Barney, who had taught Daniel magic had had no idea that anyone else had magic, let alone whole families. Daniel himself had only found it out when he had met James. 
“I’m sure neither of you are like your families.” he said diplomatically, but that seemed to insult Evangeline more. She managed not to say anything though, and sat down again, her hair turning brown again.
“Why does your hair do that?” James asked bluntly, their fight of seconds before out of his mind already.
Her gaze still held a little ice, but she answered politely enough “It’s done that since I was small. It changes colour with my emotions, but usually I can keep it brown if I want.”
“That’s brilliant.” James said, grinning brightly.
Evangeline looked like she wanted to smile, but didn’t, turning slightly pink. Ah to be young and still surprised by James’ constant mood swings, Daniel thought wistfully, smiling a little himself.
“So… you know, how did you find us and… well… who are you?” Daniel said, trying to think of a simple question that could get her to tell them everything he wanted to know.
Evangeline looked at him, as if deciding how much he could be trusted to know “I… was hunting the cempan.” She said carefully, eying James.
He didn’t actively hoot with victory, but you could see that annoying smugness in his face again.
“I’ve been following them for a while, not just those three, there’s a whole group of them on the move at the moment. I knew they were after something, and I knew they were following you two to get it, so I thought it was probably you they had in mind. But… well now I think it’s whatever you two were looking for. Some list, I think? When the cempan went in the door I didn’t think anyone lived there, but then I heard the fight, and thought I’d best help you. Well anyway I’ve been on the road for a while, and I managed to sneak into their base a few times, enough to find out what they were up to.”
“Hang on, you sneaked into a cempan base?” James interrupted, and she nodded “I used an stealth spell. They couldn’t hear or see me.”
James puffed out a breath of air and leaned back in his seat, clearly impressed but too proud to say so.
Feeling embarrassed that she seemed to be so casual about a spell Daniel had tried and failed to use so often, he urged her to continue.
“Well, they were being led by this couple the… uh… the Millers I think it was? Well anyway, they were staying at their house and kept talking about an ancient spell called Aerist. I still have no idea what that was about, I’ve been reading up on it for ages but I can’t find anything and…” she suddenly stopped as if she had been woken up “I… sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you all this. The point is, I was following those three, and when they nearly killed you… I saved you. So come on, what were you all after? What was it a list of?”
“Hang on, what’s this about a spell?” Daniel asked, leaning forward.
“Tell me what you know, first.” she said in a voice that wasn’t giving him an option.
Daniel opened his mouth to answer, but James got there first “How do we know you aren’t a cempa?” he challenged.
“Does my face look like half of it’s been tattooed to you?” she snapped, clearly offended.
“Maybe you haven’t been initiated yet. You don’t look fifteen.” he said.
She looked heated again “Well you’d know about that sort of thing, wouldn’t you?” 
“And what’s that meant to mean?”
“It’s meant to mean that I’m not a cempa and if you suggest it again, I’ll-”
“You’ll what? Put me to sleep?”
Her hair was turning red again, and Daniel had the feeling she had more than putting him to sleep on her mind.
“Excuse us for a second.” he said, pulling his friend out of the booth and away to a different corner “What are you doing?” he asked incredulously.
“I don’t know, Dan, there’s something odd about her. We shouldn’t trust her.” James said, looking at her.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder at her, and saw her staring down at her clasped hands on the table, possibly muttering something, her hair slowly turning back to complete brown. He had the feeling she was ignoring the two of them on purpose.
“James, she saved our lives!”
“And why would she do that, if she isn’t evil?” James asked.
Daniel rolled his eyes “Why don’t we wait until we catch her helping injured puppies before we actually call her evil? She helped us because she isn’t evil!”
“Saving people is never a selfless deed. She’s not Mother Theresa, is she, and I have my suspicions about her right enough. I’m telling you, she wants something from us.”
“How is it in your paranoid, pessimistic little world? Do you have fun there?” Daniel said.
“Not really, but the survival rate is much better than in unquestioning-faith land. How is it there, by the way? The weather nice?” James said coldly.
Daniel sighed in frustration and tugged on the end of his red scarf “Oh alright. We don’t trust her. But we owe her at least some of our information, she told us what she was doing there.”
James looked reluctant to tell her anything, but returned to the table wordlessly.
“Sorry about that.” Daniel said, sitting down again.
“That’s quite alright.” Evangeline said, glaring at James.
“What I wanted to say was; we were there looking for a list. Just like the cempan. We didn’t find it before you ask, and I think those two we left behind will have it by now. We reckon they don’t want it because they want the information, they just need to stop anyone else finding them. Anyone like us. James has an aunt, she was looking for one too… they um… well they killed her. But we found a few things of hers and we’ve been trying to find one for a while. That was the last one we had any chance of getting.” Daniel rattled off, and as he said it he understood the truth of it. That was their last chance to find one of those lists, and it was gone. 
Evangeline absorbed this information with a quick nod, and Daniel had the feeling she was making notes, though she clearly wasn’t, because he could see both her hands “But what were the lists of, exactly?”
“Sorry, that’s none of your business.” James interjected and Evangeline looked like she might kill him.
Daniel sighed “I’m sorry, he’s right, we can’t tell you any more until we know we can trust you.”
“I saved your lives! Isn’t that proof enough?” she said incredulously.
“Yeah, but you could have saved our lives for this information, you could kill us as soon as we hand it over.” James said.
“Some of us object to murder.” she snapped.
“Yeah, and some of us have learned not to trust a pretty face.” James said.
Daniel expected her to snap back, but she’d suddenly gone rather pink. “I… well I won’t kill you, alright?”
“Oh well that settles it, that’s all my concerns out the window. We can certainly believe you now.” James said, his voice laced with sarcasm.
Evangeline looked ruffled “I’ve never met anyone so… objectionable.” 
“Yeah, and this is him in a good mood.” Daniel said, but neither of them were listening to him. He had the feeling that if he left, neither of the two would so much as look up they were so engaged in their glaring match.
A few seconds later James stood up “Come on, Daniel,” he said, and started to walk to the door.
Feeling annoyed, he got up and smiled at Evangeline “Sorry about him.”
“It’s fine,” she said, clearly still angry.
“Thanks again for saving us. He is grateful, he’s just… proud, I guess.” Daniel said, cursing James inwardly for having to make his excuses for him.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed?” she said dryly and Daniel chuckled “No one likes him when they first meet him.”
Well, that wasn’t true, James and Daniel had been friends from the moment they met pretty much, but he had never seen him hit it off with anyone else particularly.
“I can’t possibly think why.” Evangeline said, still following him with her eyes “look, while he’s out of earshot… I was wondering if I could… well… could I help you?” she said, suddenly looking nervous.
Daniel frowned “What do you mean?”
“Well… well you two seem to have an idea of what you’re doing, and seeing as I know things you don’t, and you know things I don’t… well it would make sense, wouldn’t it? I’m really not a cempa, I’ve just been living on the streets for so long and, well… I really need somewhere to stay. And I can help you in other ways too. I’m good at spells and I have a portable library, so I can read up anything we need to know. Please.” she said it all so quickly, Daniel barely had time to keep up, but the general idea came across.
He glanced at James, who was standing at the door and looking at the two of them conversing as if he was trying to lip-read. Well, he could hardly agree without James’ permission, seeing as they were staying at… well not exactly his house, but close enough. But there was no way James would say yes if asked. Daniel looked at Evangeline again, she was politely looking away, as if she was trying not to pressure or scare him by staring at him when he made the decision, but her hands were wringing in her lap, and he could tell she was anxious. She seemed smart, and she was right, she did know things they needed to know and… 
“Hang on, portable library?” he asked.
“Yes.” she said “Sorry, I have it hidden in the back, but I can go and get it if you like.”
“No, no, that’s alright.” Daniel said, wondering what the hell she was talking about.
He knew James was right, and that they technically had no reason to trust her other than that she saved their lives, which would be working to her advantage if he accepted. Was this her plan all along? It didn’t feel like it. Something about her was very easy to trust, and somehow he got the feeling she wasn’t a very good liar. Obviously, he couldn’t judge this just from looking at her, but he couldn’t help feeling it.
“I… I can’t make this decision without James, I’m sorry. It’s his house.” Daniel said, genuinely apologetic.
Evangeline nodded, letting out a small, sad breath.
“James! Come back here!” Daniel called and James walked back over reluctantly.
“Yes?” he asked politely, not looking at Evangeline.
“Um…” Daniel tried to think of the best way to convince his mistrusting friend to let a complete stranger in on their biggest secrets “Alright, so you know how we lost that list?”
James nodded once, shooting Evangeline a look as if it were her fault.
“Well… maybe… we might be able to think of a new plan if we used the information Evangeline could give us.” he said, choosing his words very carefully.
James frowned “You can’t do that tongue-loosening spell yet.”
“Yeah, that’s not what I had in mind.” Daniel said.
James frowned for another second, then realization dawned “No! Absolutely not, Daniel! We agreed we wouldn’t trust her!”
“Yeah, I know, but you took me in! I could just as easily have killed you.” Daniel pointed out hopefully.
James looked annoyed “When I did that, I thought my only enemies were my family, and an ally would do me good. She could be a spy!”
“I could have been a spy.”
“Do you want me to throw you out or something? I know I can trust you. She’ll wait till we give her all our information, and then she’ll slit our throats in the night!”
“Don’t tempt me!” she said shrilly, standing up “I just want to help you, you idiot!”
“Yeah right.”
“You know, all these hilarious jokes about murder are a bit rich coming from someone who has actually killed somebody this evening!” she said.
James turned on her “I killed him in self-defense, and if you had had the guts to do it to the other two, we might have that list! What did you think saving them would help? They’re scum!”
“Why? Because they kill people? Who does that remind you of? Killing is evil, no matter who it is! But I wouldn’t expect that to faze a Lattimer. I don’t care what you say, you’re just as evil as the rest of your family!” she almost shouted.
Daniel flinched, knowing that was possibly the worst thing she could have possibly said at that point. He waited for the explosion.
…it didn’t come.
Confused, he turned to look at James who was so angry he had almost bitten through his lip,then he spoke, quietly and calmly, but his voice was so cold it was like the temperature in the cafe had plunged “I am nothing like my family, you’ve never met them, and you can’t judge me by one action in self-defense. Please don’t compare me to them again. You can come with us.”
Daniel was so surprised that the first few sentences weren’t screams, that it took him a second to even notice the last one. By the time he had registered it, James had turned on his heel and vanished out of the cafe, a few heads turning to follow him. Evangeline stared at the space where James had been, her mouth open slightly. Clearly, that was the last thing she had been expecting as well.
“Right… guess you’re coming with us then…” Daniel said slowly.
“Thank you.” she said. 
“Don’t thank me, you’re the one who somehow managed to change his mind.” Daniel said, still amazed.
Evangeline didn’t look pleased, if anything she looked very guilty.
“So… we should probably go and get your library then.” Daniel said, feeling stupid saying it.
She nodded and smiled at him, but he had the feeling she still felt bad. Together they walked out the back door of the cafe, James would undoubtedly be on his way back to their house already. Maybe he was right, maybe this was an awful decision. He glanced over at the girl with light-brown curls, chewing her bottom lip in worry at the thought of having insulted James. Somehow he doubted it.

-CHAPTER 3-
Aunt Miriam’s House

“I don’t like it. There’s something wrong
 with that house, and that old bat who
 lives there. I can always hear creepy
 music, and there a odd lights in the 
windows. I don’t like my grandchildren
 playing in the street outside…”
                                Official Police Report, File No. 27

Evangeline followed the small black boy - Daniel King, she thought his name was - her library in tow. She couldn’t believe how guilty she was feeling about that infuriating boy! She’d done nothing wrong! Murder was evil, even in self-defense… But she had said he was as bad as his family, and she didn’t even know him. And then he had let her come and live in his house. She felt awful. She could barely be happy that she would finally have a roof over her head and someone on her side. 
The wheels of her suitcase-library rumbled weakly as the trundled down the pavement, and Evangeline wondered where they were going. She might have suggested flitting if she hadn’t seen how nauseous it made Daniel, and she had the feeling if they reached the house before James, it wouldn’t go down too well. So they just walked.
Evangeline hadn’t been living in the city for very long, so she did know where they were when they finally stopped walking about an hour later. A light rain had started up while they were in the cafe, and the tarmac around them was lit up with spots of white and orange light. Puddles were forming at the side of the roads, and they looked orange too. The ground seemed to be on fire. Evangeline took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Not fire, reflections! 
“Evangeline?” Daniel called, and she noticed she had been standing still with her eyes closed for almost twenty seconds.
“Sorry, I’m coming.” she said, hurrying forward again.
“Well um… this is it.” Daniel said and pointed up at a big and quite beautiful old red-brick house. It stuck out like a sore thumb from all the other houses in the area, and Evangeline was surprised she hadn’t really noticed it before he pointed. All the tall windows were obscured by curtains and there were a lot of locks on the door. Yes beautiful, but also lonely.
“You two live here alone?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Daniel said.
She frowned “But… it’s so big.”
“Well, James’ Aunt lived here alone when she ran away, so we’re almost a crowd.” Daniel said and walked up the steps.
Evangeline picked up her suitcase by the handle and climbed the stairs after him. She heard Daniel whisper “onlucan” and let his hand slide down the line of locks on the side of the door and the noise of turning keys rattled eerily through the wood, as if someone was really unlocking them.
Daniel turned back to face her “If you don’t know that spell, I can make you a copy of the keys, James has a ring…” he said.
“I can do the spell.” she said, wondering vaguely why James needed a ring of keys. 
“Alright then.” Daniel said a little awkwardly, and opened the door.
Evangeline followed him into the hallway, and was immediately stunned. From the outside, she had expected to find it grey and dusty, like the cottage they had recently left. It was anything but. The walls of the hall were painted bright yellow, and scribbled all over in different shades of blue ink. Some of the scribbles were quotes, but some, Evangeline was sure, were the ravings of a lunatic. Things like Nets are holes surrounded by rope and If you tell the lie of another you are telling the truth. A great many wind chimes and mobiles were hanging from the ceiling on such long strings, that they knocked into her head every now and then. Each of the four doors on the sides of the hall was painted a different colour. One a forest green, the next a deep brown, and the last two a midnight blue and a bright red. At the very end of the corridor was a smaller white door with four little windows in the top, but somehow that seemed too plain to take notice of. Next to the white door was the foot of a narrow staircase, that turned in on itself and vanished steeply. 
As she walked down the corridor, she noticed that each of the doors had a small golden plaque nailed in the middle. The green one said “Forest Room”, the brown door “Art Room”, the midnight blue door “Moon Room” and the red room was labeled… Evangeline took a sharp breath of the thick, warm and hurried on. Fire Room.
“It’s a little strange, granted.” Daniel said.
“Not at all.” Evangeline lied politely, and slightly sarcastic.
“Well, you can sleep upstairs if you like, but it gets pretty cold up there. We can bring down a bed into one of these rooms. You can have the purple one or the red one if you like.”
“The brown one.” Evangeline said very quickly, as if someone else might take it before her and leave her with the red one.
Daniel frowned slightly “If you like. So anyway, the loo is one floor up, but the kitchen is on the other side of that white door. We don’t use it, there’s a chippy down the road, but maybe you can cook…?”
Evangeline raised her eyebrows “Because I’m a girl? Well I can’t cook, for your information.” she said a little huffily. She never liked admitting there was something she couldn’t do, but she’d never really had the chance to learn to cook.
“Right, well anyway, if you can’t find something you can ask me or… actually, better just ask me.”
As if on cue, James suddenly came stomping down the staircase. “Hey, Daniel, I think I’m going to get something to eat. Want anything?” 
“No thanks.”
James nodded and started to walk past Evangeline, ignoring her completely. She bristled slightly, but knew it would be very rude to mention anything. 
“James…” she said.
He turned around and looked at her “Yeah?”
“I…” she began, trying to force down her feeling of pride “I just wanted to apologize. You’re right, I shouldn’t judge you on that one action, and I have only just met you. I’m sorry I was so… harsh.” she managed to say relatively politely, she thought.
If she didn’t know better she could have sworn James was blushing a bit “Well… y’know. Just… right.”
Then he vanished out of the door.
She had half been expecting him to apologize himself, but wasn’t really all that surprised when he didn’t. It looked like one of her first impressions of him had been correct. Stubborn and argumentative. 
When Daniel didn’t seem to have anything else to say, Evangeline pushed open the purple door, and backed into it, pulling the suitcase along with her. As soon as she was out of the hall, the lighting changed. The room was full of about a dozen little lanterns, all different shades of brown and red and a range of sized, hanging from the thick wooden beams spanning over the ceiling (these she quickly extinguished, her heart racing). There were more scribbles, quotes and nonsensical sentences covering the walls, barely recognizable against the nice wallpaper. Thick, furry brown carpeting stretched from wall to wall, and there was a window opposite her, with thick red curtain blocking out the light. All in all, it was rather lovely.
Thinking she would rather not bother Daniel when he was being so nice to her, she tried to remember a spell she had learned a while ago. She went over the word in her head a few times, then took a pin out of her hair, and set it down on the ground. This was one of her last two pins, and she was reluctant to give it up, but it was the only metal she had on her, and decided it wouldn’t take up too much of her time tucking her curls behind her ear every now and then.
She pointed at hair pin on the ground and muttered “Beddstow.” 
The hair pin twitched a little, then started to lengthen and distort, twisting and thickening, and separating and reconnecting. When it was finally still, a plain, metal bed frame stood before her.
Next, she tore a small piece of cloth off her shirt, and placed it on the bed frame. Then she pointed at this and whispered “Bedreaf.” The cloth grew and distorted just as the pin had, and when it was still, a mattress and duvet had appeared, and the scrap of cloth was gone. She thought she still had a pillow in her library...
She had found that spell in a book, and had used it once when she was first living in her suitcase, but the bed didn’t fit in her library, so she left it, and just slept on the floor with a pillow. She rested the suitcase up against the wall and unzipped it. Then, she slowly crawled in. As she got bigger, it was a tighter squeeze to get in, but it wasn’t too difficult, and soon she could straighten up and stretch. 
The library was quite small, and if it had ever had wallpaper she could never see it, the walls were so totally covered with the book shelves, even all around the little entrance. The books were mostly spell books or history books, but there were a few novels she had added herself too. This suitcase-library had been a present from Alfred Mawp, her teacher, a great magician.She had never found out how he had made the inside so much bigger than the outside, or how light he had made it, but it had never been hard to transport, and her most treasured possession.
The pillow was lying on the floor as she had remembered, so she picked it up and ducked back into the Art Room.
She threw the pillow onto her bed and went back out into the hall. There was no point staying in her room, she wanted to start comparing notes with Daniel straight away. She found him sitting in the kitchen.
It was a meager room with dirty white walls and a small round table with a stained cloth. Daniel was sitting with his chin propped on his fists, reading a little book with boredom written all over his face. He looked like he had read it many times before.
She sat down across from him.
He looked up from his book “Like your room?” he asked.
“It’s lovely, thank you.” Evangeline said, and then “What are you reading?”
Daniel slid the book over the tabletop towards her, but there was no title.
“What-” she began, but just then, James walked through the door. He placed a polystyrene box on the table in front of her, another still in his hands, and sat down casually on the counter. Evangeline flipped open the lid and saw a piece of fish lying on top of a pile of chips covered in vinegar and salt.  
“Thanks.” she said, slightly surprised.
“ ’Welcome.” James muttered, a little self-conscious.
Daniel cleared his throat “So anyway, that’s his aunt’s diary.” he said, gesturing at the little book “She was completely off her rocker, but she was right about these lists.”
“What were they lists of, you still haven’t told me.” Evangeline said.
“Well, we’re not entirely sure. It’s like a list of members we think, of something called “The Company of Blood”. We really don’t know very much, just that Malcolm was a fairly important person in all this and that he had a copy.”
“What’s the Company of Blood?” Evangeline asked, the name ringing a very faint bell right at the back of her mind.
“Well as I said, we don’t know much ourselves-”
James interrupted with a loud yawn from behind her and she felt quite angry, before she realized he was genuinely tired.
“Could we maybe do this tomorrow?” he suggested.
Evangeline was impatient to know more of what was going on, and she thought she knew why James was angling for bed now, even if he was actually tired.
“Good idea. I’m exhausted.” Daniel said.
“So you finally trust me not to kill you in your sleep then?” she asked James, her voice sounding harsher than intended. She didn’t know why she felt the need to snap at him, especially since he had just brought her food, it just slipped out.
“Well, I reckon you’d want to find out if we know anything else before you kill us.” James said, stuffing a few chips in his mouth.
“Well, aren’t I clever?” she said shrilly. She didn’t like the way her voice got shrill when she was annoyed, but she never seemed to be able to do anything against it.
James looked at her, annoyed “Last time I bring you something to eat.”
Evangeline sighed “You’re right, I’m sorry. I guess I’m just tired.” She ate a few chips herself, and looked at the piece of fish, wondering how she was meant to eat it without cutlery, but not wanting to ask for some.
“As are we all. I’m off to my room.” James said, taking his fish and chips with him.
Daniel stood up and started to leave, then turned back and said “Could you not kill us in our sleep maybe? I’m telling you, he’s poisonous when he’s right.” 
“Don’t worry.” Evangeline said, chuckling ever so slightly. She decided she quite liked Daniel.
The small boy smiled kindly at her, and walked out of the kitchen, and vanished into the Forest Room.
Evangeline pottered about in the kitchen for a bit, opening shelves and drawers in search of cutlery, but she didn’t find anything, so she ate the fish with her hands, grease and vinegar running down her fingers. By the time she was done eating, there was no sound to be heard throughout the house, and she suspected the boys had gone to sleep. Quietly, she trudged down the corridor and disappeared into her own room. 
Deciding she wasn’t actually that tired, she ducked into her library, and started pouring through some of her more general history books for some mention of The Company of Blood. When she found nothing she was a little disappointed, but wouldn’t be discouraged and started searching in some more obscure books. It took her the best part of two hours, and her eyes were itching by the time she finally found a reference in a book called A Brief history of the Dark Magical Families and Their Rivals. Evangeline thought “brief” was maybe stretching it a bit, but she didn’t mind, thick history books were her favorites. The passage read as follows:

Among some of the most famous magical houses is the Cargast family. The family had always been feared and respected, but it was in 1929 when they were first properly acknowledged by the other magical houses. Caesar Cargast VI started their brief reign of terror when he killed 23 non-magicals in one strike in a train station. Killed by Richard Windsor II three years later, his daughter Maleficent Cargast III took over his place and comited many such murders, and even wiped out the houses Baldwin and Claythrottle before she too was killed by a nameless hero in 1938. Sadly not before she himself  had a son and taught him her ways. Benedict Cargast was to be known as the “blue devil”, though where this nickname came from it is impossible to tell. He tortured and killed his way to the very top of the magical houses, anyone brave enough to stand against him instantly killed by his many followers. Closest to him perhaps was the Lattimer house, close relations of the Cargasts. During this seven year reign, a band of magicians and mages formed a resisting army, calling themselves The Company of Blood, so named because they believed that there were no separate families when it came to war, and they were all joined by blood. Many lives were lost on both sides, but finally The Company of Blood prevailed in 145 and the ancient Cargast bloodline was destroyed forever. The events that past were hushed up for a long time, from anyone who had not heard of it as it happened. To this day, nothing more has been heard of the company or Cargast. More information on the Cargast family can be found on page 1263.

Evangeline stared blankly at the page, read it again and again. Cargast. She knew that name, she knew who it was. Of course she did. It was so obvious! Of course the company must have something to do with Cargast if the cempan were interested! And she’d read this book before! It wasn’t like her to forget something, especially not something to do with Cargast. She couldn’t imagine how she had forgotten this. Frantically she turned to page 1263 and scanned the page and a few before and after it for another reference to The Company of Blood, but there was nothing. Quite a few mentions of the cempan and the Lattimers though. And her own surname popped up a few times. She knew this could be important. What she was reading right now. These sentences, these words… these words that were coming closer quickly as her head started to fall on the page. She was exhausted. Nothing of the last page she had read had stuck between her ears.
She wanted to keep reading, or to tell the boys what she had found, but she was much too tired. Her mind going fuzzy and her muscles complaining when she urged them into motion, she bent down the corner of the page and placed the book aside, wondering vaguely since when the strangers who had taken her in about three hours ago had become “the boys” in her mind. She supposed they were simply the only things like friends she had at the moment. Even James Lattimer.
Feeling stupid and sentimental she exited the library with the pillow in her hand and flopped down onto her self-made bed, a little less carefully than she might have been, testing the result of a rarely practiced spell as she was, had she not been so tired it felt like her limbs might fall out of her body if she didn’t get them in a horizontal position.
As the warm, foggy blackness crept into the edges of her mind, something occurred to her. Something important. Something she needed to read up on. Something…
Fire was everywhere. Flames, her world crumbling. Smoke clogging her lungs. Screams. It was happening again…

2 years previously

-CHAPTER 4-
The Little Homeless Boy

“From my own experience with the
 Lattimers, I think it is safe to say
 they are some of the most inhospitable
 people I have ever met, and their 
bad reputation does them justice…” 
                                                   My Travels Through the Magical World, Edgar Moltov

James Lattimer felt rubbish. The house he was living in was too big for him, and everything was dusty or shrouded in spiderwebs. In fact, there were so many spiderwebs in the house, that it looked a bit like a camping site, made up entirely of white tents. The thought scared James a little. He couldn’t decide whether it was creepier to think he was completely alone in the world, or surrounded by strangers. He knew he had made the right choice when he left his home but he had expected nobility and bravery to have more of a reward than living in a ghost house with scribbles coating every wall. He was miserable.
When he moved he left tracks in the dust, everything creaked and rumbled. It was impossible to believe someone had lived here but two years previously. But then again, magic attracted dust. His mother had always said that when she was shouting at the maids for complaining that even when they cleaned the house from top to bottom it already looked foul by the next day. He wondered if that was true.
He didn’t miss his mother, which possibly depressed him more than anything else. Children were supposed to love their parents, be sad when they disappointed them, proud when they received a pat on the back. A pat on the back from his father made his skin crawl, because he knew that must mean he had done something repulsively immoral or evil. 
Yes, it was good he had left.
Still, this house…
He had flicked through the book of spells he had stolen before running away, and had found a few spells for housework, but just like every other spell, he couldn’t do them. His lack of magical ability was so frustrating, made him feel so weak, that he almost thought about going back once. He obviously couldn’t survive on his own. But then he remembered the last thing his father had said to him, the words that had made him flee. No. He was never going back, not to that. Not ever.
But he couldn’t stay cooped up in this house much longer either. He felt like he shouldn’t go outside, in case someone from his family saw him. Honestly he doubted they cared enough to follow him, but he couldn’t help being scared that if he took one step over the door frame his father would jump out and grab him and never let him go. 
Leonardo Lattimer. A man with long black hair and sharp, pale green eyes like every other Lattimer. He was like an ice statue, cold and stiff and unloving. James had made the mistake of hugging him once, in an effort to feel like his father wanted him - maybe he would hug him back? - and in the second before he was brutally pushed away, his father’s chest had been so still, so cold, he thought that must be what it is like to hug a corpse. He hadn’t even felt a heartbeat.
James shuddered and trudged into the room he had made his. It was the one with the blue door that said Moon Room on it. The walls were painted a dark blue and had white speckles all over them, like stars, along with a great many white scribbles and quotes. The light seemed to come from a great many sapphires hanging from the ceiling on glinting silver chains, reflecting light onto each other, though the source of the light, James had never been able to find. He supposed it was a lovely room, but the beautiful blue light just seemed cold and hostile to him. He supposed he might have taken the Fire Room, but it was too warm. Years in the Lattimer Mansion had made him accustomed to icy cold, and heat was just too alien to him. The Art Room had been tempting, but the odd lanterns hung too low, and he knocked his head against them if he stepped in. That just left the Forest Room and the Moon Room, and he certainly wasn’t staying anywhere green after his old house. That just left the cold blue room, that, though hostile, seemed preferable to all the others.
Maybe he should go outside, he thought as he threw himself onto the thin, stained mattress and squeaky springs of one of the beds he had found upstairs. It might have been easier to leave it upstairs, and sleep on it up there,but he wanted a quick escape if he needed one.
He certainly needed the fresh air, he deliberated, but he still felt like he shouldn’t. Memories of when he left the house without permission, and had been hit or cursed as a punishment, were still branded fresh in his memory. What would happen if they caught him after he downright ran away? He shuddered and snuggled his face deeper into the pillow like a pathetic little five year old who was scared of the Willow-witches their mother told them about.
For maybe an hour he lay there and thought. He hadn’t eaten the three days he had been there, and the hunger was making him mad. Though you wouldn’t think it to look at him, he had never gone hungry in his whole life and had ingested whole roasted fowl on a few occasions, to the great embarrassment of his refined mother. That was part of the fun. He had never feared her like he had feared his father, so to wind her up was just sport.
He thought he might have seen a few restaurants not far from the house, maybe he could sneak out for a few minutes, just a few. He could try a stealth spell!
…actually, better not test a new spell out on himself, structured magic had never been his forte. It was all heat of the moment defense magic for him, completely uncontrolled and lethal.
His stomach gave an approving growl when he thought of buying food though. Stealth spell or no, he really needed to eat.
He groaned slightly as he rolled unceremoniously off the bed and flopped carelessly onto the carpeted ground. Despite being fueled by the thought of food, it took him a second or two to stand up, so tired and weak from lack of nutrients, and still a little reluctant to leave he safety of his mad aunt’s house.  
When he did reach the door, he paused again to work up the nerve, then he undid all the locks as quickly as he could with the ring of keys his aunt had had made for him when he used to visit her in secret, and threw the door open, jumping back a step just in case. Nothing happened. He took a few, tentative steps further into out of the door, and peered down both sides of the street before the house. No one to be seen.
He bolted, forgetting to lock the door behind him, aiming for the chippy down the road, his footsteps sounded incredibly loud to his ears. Surely, if his family wasn’t already waiting to ambush him, they would hear him run and attack him now. Nevertheless, he reached the brightly lit chippy without any curses hitting him. Only when he had ground to a screeching halt inside, his trainers sticking to the plastic floor, did he remember he hadn’t brought any money. In fact, he didn’t have any money. 
Thinking he could probably outrun the fat man at the counter, he took a few steps forward and ordered three portions of fish and chips and four battered sausages. He could definitely eat it, even if he made himself sick doing so. Looking suspiciously at the wild-haired, thin-faced youth in front of him, as if he knew he was planning to bolt as soon as he had the food, the fat man behind the counter passed over the food in a hit plastic bag, and told him the amount of money it cost. James wasn’t listening, he’d already spun around and pushed through the glass door by the time the man shouted out for someone to “grab that thief!”
The run back to his house was made all the more scary, because this time someone really might be about to attack him, but he had already vanished through the door by the time the dazed customers and the fat man had made it out onto the street. He didn’t think they had seen him vanish into the house, so he locked all the locks and leaned against the back of the door, breathing heavily, but grinning at the bag of food he had dangling from his fists, hanging open where one of the spindly handles had snapped in his short dash. Plastic bags, he thought, what rubbish.
He was just opening the bag, the thought of food filling his mind completely and making his mouth water, when he heard a noise over the rustling of the plastic bag: He stood completely still, his heart hammering, listening intently. A few seconds later, there was another clang, and a loud clatter from the end of the hall, and someone cursed.
James mind went mad. He frantically tried to come up with an explanation. It couldn’t be an animal, animals couldn’t swear, and it couldn’t be any one from his family, he realized with a sigh of relief, because frankly they were less likely to swear than an armadillo. Still, that just meant he had no idea who it was. He could run, he deliberated, but they were probably still looking for him out there. Maybe he could get a peak of the intruder without being spotted himself. 
Deciding this was the best course of action, James crept slowly down the hall as quietly as he could, until he reached the white door with the windows. Mustering his courage, he pushed it open. In a moment of terrible tension, he didn’t see anything, then he spotted a little boy with dark skin rummaging in one of the lower cupboards, clearly oblivious to James’ presence. James frowned, ver relieved. He had been expecting a cempa at the least.
He cleared his throat loudly and the boy hit his head on the top of the cupboard in shock. Then he quickly pulled himself out onto the kitchen floor and stared at James, terrified.
“I… don’t come any closer!” the boy said defensively, jumping to his feet “One step and I’ll… I’ll kill you!”
James raised his eyebrows “I don’t need to come any closer to hurt you.” he said.
“Me neither.” The small boy warned.
“What, have you got a gun?” James said, trying to sound sarcastic, but he thought some of his worry might have seeped in.
“No… have you?”
“No.”
The boy frowned.
Then so did James. Were they both thinking of the same thing?
“Are you…” the small boy began, then he seemed to hesitate, held up a finger, and set it on fire, without so much as glancing at it.
James suddenly felt scared again. If the boy could do that so easily, he must be better than James “Yeah.” James said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
“Look, I was just in here because I’m hungry, I swear I’ll leave straight away, I don’t want any trouble.” The boy said, his eyes had wandered to the plastic bag in James’ hand. He seemed to have guessed what was in it.
“What’s your name?” James said slowly.
The little boy looked up at him again, maybe a little hopeful “Daniel King.” he said.
James stuck out his hand “Jame L-… James.” he said.
Daniel King took his hand hesitantly and shook it, with more strength and energy than James was expecting “Sorry about breaking into your house.”
“You didn’t I left the door open, I know.” 
James didn’t feel very safe being nice to someone who might have robbed him, and probably had stronger magic than him, but his impulse to fight the family stereotype seemed to be stronger than his survival instinct. He had to be kind, he just had to, or he would be like his father…
“Do… do you want to share this?” he asked Daniel King, who was back to staring at the bag with hunger in his eyes. Suddenly he looked suspicious.
“Why would you give me food?” he asked, scowling.
James rolled his eyes “Look, do you want some food or not? I’m trying to be nice, take the bloody offer.” 
Daniel still looked doubtful, so James reached into the bag, fumbled around in it for a bit, and pulled his hand out again a few seconds later, a greasy battered sausage clasped in his fist. He took an enormous bite, barely chewing before he swallowed more than half of the sausage in one ravenous gulp. The delicious food suddenly made him remember how hungry he was and temporarily forget the little would-be-thief in front of him, he started stuffing his mouth with whatever he found in the bag.
Daniel watched him eat for a few seconds, before he pounced on the bag himself, apparently no longer caring whether the invitation to eat was still extended to him. James let him eat, if a little grudgingly, and soon the bag was completely empty.
“Fanks.” the small boy tried to say through a mouthful of fish.
“No problem. I stole it, so I suppose it’s only fair.”
“I was going to steal from you.” Daniel pointed out.
James chuckled “You’re not very good at it, are you?”
Daniel blushed slightly “Well I haven’t been homeless for long.” he said a little defensively.
“You’re homeless?” James asked.
“Yeah,” Daniel said, blushing even more.
James had a little argument with himself in his head. He’d just met the boy, but he certainly didn’t seem sinister… no, letting someone into the house might be his undoing, but he could use someone on his side, someone to watch his back… it was ridiculous, this boy might just steal anything that wasn’t nailed down and sell it, and where would that leave him? But being inhospitable and mistrusting strangers, that was a Lattimer thing, and James wasn’t a Lattimer… but still…
“So… you haven’t got anywhere to stay?” James said slowly.
Daniel shook his head.
“…Bloody hell, I can’t believe it… the lengths I go to.” James muttered “Fine, I’m definitely going to regret this, but you can stay here. If you want.” he offered a little reluctantly.
Daniel looked a little shocked, though James thought he had probably been hoping he would say that.
“Really?”
“Yeah, go on. But if you kill me I’ll come back and throw vases at you!” James threatened, and Daniel laughed, just a little bit.
“I won’t, promise.”
“Alright then...” James cast about for something to say “So how come your homeless?” he said eventually, and very suddenly every trace of laughter left the boy’s face.
He didn’t answer for quite a while, so James took that to mean he didn’t like talking about it “Sorry I asked.”
“Thanks for letting me stay,” Daniel said briskly, as if nothing had happened “I think I’ll go an get my bag of things… thanks. And for the food, th-”
“If you say “thanks” one more time, I’m retracting my offer.” James said quickly. No one had ever told him being a good person meant being thanked excessively and annoyingly.
Daniel looked like he was about to say “sorry”, but seemed to think better of it. James was grateful, people treating him like a good person was maybe preferable to how his family had treated him, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.
When Daniel was gone, James racked his brain for the name “King”, but he didn’t think it had ever come up in his studies of the magical houses. That was odd. Maybe it was a fake name? He couldn’t blame him if it was, he hadn’t told him his surname at all.
Daniel came back a minute later with a ratty bag and a jacket he hadn’t had on a second ago. Then he put all his stuff in the Forest Room.
The two boys didn’t tell each other their back stories until they had known each other three months, and when they finally did, they promised not to talk about them. At first they took it in turns to steal food, until Daniel learned a convenient spell that could actually let small amounts of money appear. It cost him a lot of energy though, so they didn’t do it very often. When James finally told his friend he was absoloutely awful at magic, Daniel agreed to work on it with him, but nothing came of their practice sessions, so eventually they gave up. While staying in the house, Daniel taught himself to flit, and James pretended not to mind.
By the end of one year they were thick as thieves, and about half a year after that they found James’ Aunt Miriam’s diary. 
All in all, it was much better than either of them had dared hope for, and though they both sometimes felt like the other was a complete stranger, they were the only company they had.
Sometimes James wondered how things would have been different if he had done as his father would have told him to. Left Daniel out on the streets with nowhere to go, because hospitality was for the weak apparently. Well, he would certainly be a lot worse off. For maybe the millionth time, he felt immeasurably pleased that he had not stayed at home. He didn’t feel rubbish anymore. 

-CHAPTER 5-
Night Terrors

“I think someone is coming after us.
 I’ve told Harold, but you know 
what he’s like, he thinks I’m being 
paranoid. What do you think? I 
suppose I must just be paranoid,
 I just want Evangeline safe…”
                                                                                          Letter from Harriet Windsor to her friend Robert Moyce

James jerked awake from a dream he forgot the second he opened his eyes. At first he couldn’t remember what had woken him up either, then another piercing scream reached his ears and he shot to his feet, as effectively as he could with his legs wrapped in a blanket. That certainly wasn’t Daniel screaming unless someone had just kicked him between the legs, which meant it must be Evangeline.
Still half-asleep he bounded to the door and fumbled with the handle until it clicked and he stumbled out into the hall, just as she screamed again, this time even louder and more excruciating. Daniel was standing in the hall too, looking tired and confused. The two boys looked at each other for a second, nodded and rushed to her room, throwing the door open.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. A cempa probably, or maybe some dark creature ripping her apart. It certainly sounded like she was being tortured, but when they burst into the room, she was just lying in bed, on her side, kicking and grabbing handfuls of bedding, screaming awfully. Her hair was falling in her face, but James could see she still had her eyes shut, and presumed she was sleeping.
Daniel clicked the lights on and looked at him sideways, and James returned the nervous glance, just as Evangeline let forth another blood-curdling wail, that sounded like it might have started off as a word beginning with “M” but didn’t really go anywhere.
We have to wake her up Daniel mouthed. Actually, he probably said it, but Evangeline’s screams were so loud James was forced to lip-read.
He nodded, and took a step forward, closely followed by Daniel.
“Evangeline?” Daniel tried, but the girl went on screaming regardless “Evangeline!” he tried again, this time louder.
Still she didn’t wake up.
“We have to shake her!” James bellowed over a particularly high wail as she kicked out, bending a bar at the bottom of her bed, which he didn’t recognize as one from upstairs.
Yeah, ‘cause that’s what’s important now, her bed James thought scoldingly.
Daniel nodded, and James took a few steps towards her, and awkwardly put his hands on her shaking shoulders, his ears hurting horribly from all the screaming. Feeling stupid, he shook her a little bit, and she kicked out like a frightened horse, her surprisingly hard foot catching him in the stomach and sending him tumbling backwards. As he struggled back to his feet, severely winded, he thought he heard Daniel laugh, but it was hard to tell over Evangeline’s shrieks.
James watched her warily as he tried to figure out what to do, and saw tears streaming down her face as she screamed. She must be shredding her voice box, James thought. Her fists were balled and every now and then she would lift one and smash it into the mattress beside her head, and her legs kept kicking and flailing wildly. She seemed possessed. 
“Let’s get a bucket of water and tip it over her head!” he bellowed to Daniel, who shook his head disapprovingly. 
“There’s got to be an easier way!” he shouted back.
James rolled his eyes. Surely it wouldn’t kill her to get a little wet? “Try a spell!” he shouted.
This time it was Daniel’s turn to roll his eyes “Why would I know a spell for this? You don’t have night terrors!” he called. They were standing maybe five feet away from each other but it was very hard to hear anyway, and James found he had to insert a few guessed words here and there in Daniel’s sentences because he missed the real ones.
James cursed under his breath -though no one would have heard him if he had said it out loud anyway- and walked a bit closer to the wailing Evangeline again, keeping wary eyes on her spasmodically kicking feet.
“EVANGELINE?!” he shouted loudly, but she completely ignored him and screamed on regardless. 
Do girls always scream like this? James wondered grimly, and noticed he had never actually spoken to a girl who wasn’t at least twenty years older. This slightly depressing realization almost landed him with another kick, this time slightly below the belt,but he managed to jump out of the way. The he quickly stepped up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her very hard.
The screaming dwindled and her brown eyes opened sleepily, then she screamed once more, a little high yelp, and hit James in the face.
“Ow!” James exclaimed, though the hit had been fairly weak, her fingernail had caught him in the corner of his eye. He rubbed the spot where she had slapped him and glared at her “What the hell was that about?” he said loudly, and very annoyed.
Evangeline frowned, spotted Daniel, looked between the two of them a few times, then her mouth fell open “Oh gosh! I didn’t, did I?” she gasped, turning an impressive shade of scarlet.
“If you mean “you didn’t scream the house down”, I have to let you down. What the bloody hell was that?!” James said, still sounding angry.
Evangeline looked very embarrassed “I… I have nightmares.” she said lamely.
“You mean that’s going to happen again?” James groaned “You kicked me in the stomach!”
“I did? Oh, sorry…” she said, and James had the faint impression she wasn’t that terribly sorry really.
Daniel smiled cheerily at her (why was Daniel always so cheerful? It must be exhausting) and said “What were you dreaming about?”
“Nothing… I can’t remember.” she said, extremely unconvincingly, looking down at her hands.
“Yeah right.” James scoffed, and Evangeline glared at him.
 “I really am sorry,” she said as if he hadn’t said anything “I’ll put a sound-proofing spell on my room, if you like, just in case it happens again.” 
“Please do.” James said, and Evangeline looked very annoyed again, though she was still blushing.
Why was she being so ungrateful? He had woken her up from some awful dream, and she was already glaring at him again! And he had tried to be nice to her and everything, bringing her food, and letting her stay in the house after she had insulted him. Now she was just being rude.
But even Daniel was looking at him strictly, with a you’re-being-insensitive facial expression in place.
Moodily, James shrugged. Bloody sensitivity… and tact, there was another one. No matter how good he tried to be there was always something he was doing wrong. Did no one understand he had no idea how to act in situations where sensitivity was required?
“What time is it?” Evangeline asked after a pause, and Daniel consulted his wrist watch.
“Four in the morning,” he said “I probably won’t get back to sleep, I’m going to eat. C’mon James.” 
Still wanting to know what on earth Evangeline had been screaming about, James followed him grudgingly. 
“What d’you reckon that was about?” he asked almost the second Daniel had closed the door.
“I’ve got no idea.” Daniel said “But it was odd. Also, would it kill you to be nice to her?”
“She kicked me in the stomach, and slapped me!”
“Not on purpose.”
“She was awake when she slapped me.” James pointed out.
“Not very.”
James rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything else. The two boys walked into the kitchen and sat down.
“I want to go back to bed.” James said after a second. His eyes were drooping and he kept trying to suppress yawns unsuccessfully “You can’t really want to stay up from now.” 
Daniel yawned himself “I don’t, but I think it will make her feel less guilty.”
James groaned and rested his head on his folded arms, lying gracelessly on the table “Why would our being exhausted stop her feeling guilty? Wouldn’t that make it worse?”
“This way it’s more like she woke us up a bit early, if we went to sleep again now she’d probably think she ruined what would have been a long night’s sleep.” Daniel said, his eyes still drooping as he fought to stay awake.
James looked up from the table “She did.”
“She doesn’t need to know that.”
“Why do you have to be so bloody empathetic?” James said irritably.
“I don’t know, why do you have to be so insensitive?” Daniel challenged.
They were both quiet for a while after that, both of them almost asleep and annoyed. Almost ten whole minutes later, Evangeline drifted in, seeming nervous, but clearly trying to hide it. Daniel engaged her in some polite conversation, but James was tuning them both out. What he would give for a little sleep now. The kitchen was cold, and he had goosebumps prickling his arms below his short T-Shirt sleeves. The constant shivering was making him even more tired, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and look for something warmer. What a ridiculous time of day.
James noticed a few seconds late that Evangeline was sitting on a chair next to him, and his eyes got stuck on her elbow, leaning against the table. He yawned loudly.
“Sorry about waking you.” he heard Evangeline say, and Daniel answered something along the lines of not at all, we’re only up an hour or so earlier than usual, but probably politer. Bloody liar, James grumbled in his head, then felt a little guilty. Daniel was only trying to be nice, he should be too.
“Um…” Evangeline said nervously “I was doing some reading last night, and I think I know what The Company of Blood is. It was the name of some organization back when Cargast was trying to take over. Here, I found it in this book.” She dropped a heavy volume onto the table with a loud bang that woke James up a bit.
“Yeah, we know.” James said, trying to sound polite and failing miserably. 
Evangeline looked disappointed “Oh…” she said “So… what else do you know?”
James felt a jolt of mistrust. This was it, this was the time when Daniel gave up any and all information that just might be the only thing keeping them alive.
Daniel took a deep breath “Alright, so this is all we know.”
“Well, it might be.” James added before he could stop himself. Daniel shot him a meaningful glance, and James decided to shut up.
Evangeline looked expectantly at Daniel, and he began to talk again “Alright. So when James and I found his aunt’s diary, we didn’t know what the company was, or anything, but she seemed obsessed. She kept saying something about “reuniting” them or something. We guessed it was probably important, y’know, ‘cause she might be batty as a vampire-hotel, but she was a Lattimer for most of her life, so she probably got involved in quite a few serious things. So we looked around for some information about the company, but we couldn’t get to any magic books, none except the spell book James nicked from his family’s library.”
“Doesn’t this house have a library?” Evangeline interjected.
“No, his aunt thought books were tree-corpses.” Daniel said, not exactly as if this were reasonable, more as if he had come to terms with it.
Evangeline scoffed “What rubbish! I bet half the house is made of wood! By that reasoning she lived in a tree graveyard. And not to mention the wallpaper! And what’s her diary made of?”
“Yeah, that was her only book.” Daniel said, as if he too seriously doubted the sanity of the woman whose house they were living in.
“Oi! My aunt may have been a bit on the weird side, but if it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t know any of this, and I would be evil like the rest of my buggering family! And not to mention this is her house, and I can kick you both out if you don’t show some respect!” James said heatedly. He was sick of everyone treating his aunt like she was an escaped mental patient. Just because she was a little strange, that didn’t stop her being the best person he’d ever known, including goody-two-shoes Daniel.
Evangeline still looked unconvinced, clearly repulsed by the idea of someone who didn’t read books, which James could tell she did excessively by the enormous and very boring-looking history book she had slammed onto the table, and Daniel looked apologetic “You’re right James, we do owe her a lot. She just seems to have been a little…”
James raised his eyebrows warningly, and Daniel cleared his throat uncomfortably “Well never mind. So anyway, we tried to figure out what it was for absolutely ages. We went over her diary a million times over, but we got absolutely no where. Well, until James noticed something in his aunt’s old room.”
“What?” Evangeline asked very quickly when Daniel paused briefly to draw breath.
“Well,” Daniel said slowly, clearly taken aback slightly by her eagerness “you know how all the walls are written on all weirdly?”
“Yes,” she said briskly.
“That’s because she never used any books except her diary. In her room, she had written a whole wall on the company. Most of it’s complete nonsense, and some of it’s been smudged, but we got the gist. We know they were a group of some united magical houses that defeated Cargast when he was taking over. What we didn’t understand immediately was why she was suddenly so obsessed with finding the list of members. We guessed most of them were dead, right? But we found out on one of the bathroom walls, that the lists actually magically update. Addresses, and new people who’ve been secretly taught the beliefs of the company, people who would help defeat any evil Warlocks trying to take over basically. And anyone left from the original order, but we think Malcolm was probably the last of them. We haven’t got the foggiest how his aunt knew they even existed, or that Malcolm had one, but there you go. Looks like she was right.”
Evangeline nodded “So why was she looking for the lists in the first place? She didn’t think there’s another evil witch or warlock trying to take over, did she?”
“Worse.” James said, and Evangeline jumped slightly as if she had forgotten he was there. James scowled at her.
“She thinks there are some of his inner circle, and some cempan trying to… resurrect him.” Daniel said, clearly expecting this to have some great impact on her. Frankly James did too. They were both mistaken.
Evangeline simply scoffed again “That’s preposterous. Resurrection is impossible, it’s one of the first laws of magic! Everyone know that, it’s been that way since… well since forever. Not to mention illegal!”
“Why would they make something illegal if it was completely impossible?” James snapped impatiently.
Evangeline looked taken aback “Well… just for safety’s sake.”
“What’s the point of being safe from something that’s impossible?”
“Well you might as well ask why make it illegal if only people who don’t care about the law would do it! It’s just a precaution.” Evangeline said huffily. 
“Can I get back to the story?” Daniel said impatiently.
“Please do.” Evangeline said, shooting a reproachful glance at James, which he did his best to ignore. 
“Right, so anyway, his aunt thought that some of Cargast’s follower’s descendants wanted to bring him back. But she also seemed to think she was the only one that knew about the plan. Well, at first we thought it was weird, but then in the news we read that one of the three people she had written in her diary as having had a list had been killed under very suspicious circumstances, and his house was ransacked. We figured it must have been some cempan, destroying any lists they could, so no one has time to build up an army before Cargast returned. So that’s why we went to Malcolm’s house. We thought if we had a list we had a chance of helping.”
A chance of defeating my family James thought, almost hungrily. If he helped bring down Cargast, bring down his family, his aunt would be proud of him, and he could finally be proud of himself.
“So I think that’s all we know…” Daniel said slowly.
James euphoric fantasies were cut short very suddenly, and all his muscles went tense. If she really was evil, this would probably be when she would attack. Paranoid thoughts that she had maybe faked night terrors just to ensure they weren’t well rested, and therefor less likely to defend themselves went through his head, but nothing happened.
“How come you two are doing this alone? Haven’t you asked someone older and more… practiced for help?”
“We don’t know anyone. Except… well we did meet this one warlock once, and we warned him we thought Cargast might be coming back, but he laughed in our faces and told us he would believe us if we had any kind of proof.”
Evangeline mulled this over.
“Right, your turn.” James said quickly “We’ve told you all we know. What do you know?”
“I told you everything yesterday. I’ve been trailing some cempan, all I found out was that they were looking for some lists and they were planning to use an Aerist spell, whatever that is. I’ve looked in all my spell books, but there’s nothing!” she looked deeply distressed by this, and James was a little worried she was off her rocker for a few seconds.
“You ever heard of that, James?” Daniel said.
“Referring to your dark-magic expert are you?” James said, not entirely sure why he was annoyed.
“This time of day doesn’t agree with you.” Daniel said, then glanced at Evangeline as if he were worried he had blown their story that she hadn’t actually woken them. Something about Evangeline’s intelligent, well-read eyes told him she certainly wouldn’t have fallen for it anyway.
“Well anyway, I haven’t ever heard of it, no.” James said, still a little moody “My father never really told me much about his plans when he found out I wasn’t a sadistic maniac. He was really put out.”
Daniel snorted with laughter a little, which would have annoyed James if anyone else did it, but because it was Daniel, he just smiled.
“But… didn’t you say three lists?” Evangeline said slowly “What about the third one?”
“Completely unattainable. You can forget it. We need a new plan.” James said quickly.
Evangeline looked very suspicious, and a little over-curious, but she didn’t press him for more information. 
The three of them spent the most of the rest of the day, eating, talking and reading books from Evangeline’s library, which no one would explain to James, but apparently was in a suitcase. The day didn’t really have any results. James still didn’t entirely trust or like Evangeline by the time they went to bed at ten, and was seriously fed up with her squealing that he had to be careful of the spines whenever he opened a book further than an inch. They hadn’t found anything about an Aerist spell in his own spell book either, but he had never expected they would, it was a book of practical spells. He had been careful not to steal one full of dark-magic. Nonetheless, he had a disturbing feeling he knew what the spell did, even though he couldn’t be sure. He’d almost suggested it once, but with Evangeline sitting next to him he didn’t want to, fearful of another stern talking to about the impossibility of resurrection. Like she knew everything.
His head falling against the pillow was the only thing he had been looking forward to all day. Studying and concentration had never been his thing, and he was so bored of dusty old volumes that used words with over ten syllables on a regular basis, and where the sentences were as long as chapters of a normal books, that he was thinking almost dreamily of storming a cempan base, just for something to do.
Daniel had clearly been bored too, but tried to concentrate, and answered politely when Evangeline asked him how he liked A History of Magical Wars, that looked so dull the mere thought of reading it had almost put James to sleep.
Evangeline had been in her element though, and James couldn’t help but be amazed at how interested she seemed to be by everything. When he dozed off for a second, his cheek pressed on the pages of Spells and Curses of the Ancient Warlocks, he had decided to stop reading for a second, and had ended up watching as Evangeline’s face went through a series of emotions as she read something.  Unless she was reading some great novel, hidden within the covers of A Time Line of Basic Magical History, James couldn’t imagine why she looked sad, then concerned, then happy, and then shocked all on one page.
When he finally was permitted to go to sleep, his creaky, uncomfortable bed felt like a big warm hug, and he didn’t think he had ever spent a day doing something he hated more. He had nothing against reading novels, but history books were taking it too far. Not one single word had stayed in his mind. If Evangeline or Daniel asked him tomorrow he couldn’t tell them anything he had read. That sort of reading seemed to him, like it should be performed entertainingly for anyone to be interested. If they made a play about spells and curses, that might be a laugh, but a book about their origins? There weren’t even any funny side effects listed! 
All in all, he was very relived to be able to go to sleep.
But he was woken up again not a long time later, by Evangeline screaming again.
When Daniel and James had woken her up again, she was all apologies, and said she had completely forgotten to put a sound-proofing spell on her room. The boys went back to bed,and woke up again the next morning, without their sleep being interrupted again.
The next day was wiled away in a similar fashion, to James’ great dismay, and what made it worse was that Evangeline was screaming again.
She said she had no idea why it hadn’t worked, she had put on the spell, and it had definitely worked when she went to sleep! James rolled his eyes, and went to bed, leaving Daniel and Evangeline to talk it over.
The upshot was, that the spell seemed to stop working when Evangeline got thoroughly distracted by whatever she was having nightmares about (which James still wanted to know) so Daniel agreed to attempt the spell that night, and another day of boring reading was ensued.
Daniel did try, repeatedly, but despite Evangeline’s encouragement and tips, he didn’t manage it, so Evangeline cast it again, all of them hoping their theory about the dreams being wrong. It wasn’t.
“We have to do something about her!” James said to Daniel when Evangeline was out of the room “I’m exhausted!”
“Me too,” Daniel admitted “But we can’t kick her out, she’s helping us!”
“No…” James said slowly, wondering how to suggest his plan to Daniel without being immediately shot down “But maybe if we found out what the dreams were about, we could help, right?”
Daniel frowned “I don’t think that would help. Besides, you’ve been pestering her about it for the last two days, she won’t tell us.”
“She doesn’t have to.” James said, and held up a little blue dream-catcher.
Daniel snorted “You know they don’t actually work, don’t you?”
James rolled his eyes “Magical ones do. If you put it in someone’s room when they’re sleeping, it really does catch their dreams. Then you cut out a bead from the web bit in the middle and swallow it. Then you can see their dream.”
Daniel looked doubtful “It’s her business, I don’t think we should…” he said slowly, but James could see the curiosity burning behind his eyes and pressed on.
“It really might help if we knew what the dream was about. Especially if it’s something… well, something we should know.” James didn’t want to add his paranoid belief that she had been tortured into spying on them by cempan, and that was what she was remembering. It was quite far fetched, but James just couldn’t shake the feeling of mistrust he got whenever she was in the room.
Daniel tugged on his earlobe nervously, glancing around as if someone might be watching him as he agreed to do something bad “Yeah… yeah, go on, put it in her room while she’s on the loo. Hurry!”
James nodded, relived and hurried through the door into her room.
For a few minutes he couldn’t see anywhere hidden he could hang it, sure she would notice it if it wasn’t well hidden, and also sure she would immediately understand what they were trying to do if she did see. Finally, he decided to hang it on one of the bed springs, so it was hidden by the shade her rickety bed cast. Then he heard footsteps outside and quickly ducked back out into the hall. Evangeline would undoubtedly have seen him close her bedroom door if she hadn’t had her nose buried in a book. She completely ignored both guilty-looking boys and vanished into the kitchen, still reading. James gave Daniel a quick thumbs up.
That night when they were both woken by her earsplitting screams they waited for a while before they woke her, thinking the longer dream they had to work with the better. When they did wake her up she apologized repeatedly, which James thought was getting a bit unnecessary, but he was too pleased that he might soon find out what she was dreaming about to get properly annoyed. The next day while Daniel and Evangeline talked over what they had all three discussed a million times already, James excused himself, saying he needed the loo. Daniel glanced at him, and he winked almost imperceptibly. 
He stole back into her room and unhooked the dream catcher from under her bed. He grinned as he saw the line of glittering white light that was moving along the string-web, desperately trying to escape. It looked like a snake made of starlight, constantly twisting and moving along a different line. He’d only ever seen a dream like this once before, when a doctor had been trying to cure his mother’s own nightmares, and he had sneaked into the room to watch. He watched Evangeline’s dream for a few more seconds, before he quietly exited her room, hiding the dream catcher in his own.
When he pushed the kitchen door back open, he heard Evangeline explaining nissa to Daniel. James felt a little bitter, having explained the term to Daniel almost five times already, but never with such polite and interested responses. Nissa were the small metal insects each cempa owned. A small piece of the cempa’s  soul was put into the little, shining, iron body, and the niss was from then on completely under his or her command. They could see through their niss’s eyes, and were very useful from a spying point of view. James shuddered at the thought.
“I’ve told you what a niss is a million times.” he grumbled as he sat down.
“I just wanted to be sure. It’s been coming up the whole time on this book about cempan.”
“Oh I wonder why.” James said sarcastically. Minutes before he had been happy at his victory with the dream catcher, but something about Evangeline telling his best friend all about something James had explained to him put him back in a bad mood. Not to mention the fact that she seemed to be doing it better and more interestingly than he did.
“I’m just trying to help.” Evangeline said quietly, not quite quietly enough for James to be able to pretend he hadn’t heard her, but he did anyway.
He picked up a book and pretended he was reading, secretly just wondering what Evangeline was dreaming about, glad he would soon know. It had become the thing he had been thinking of most recently, while desperately trying to ignore the mind-numbingly boring facts and figures he was meant to be reading and remembering.
Daniel seemed to have fallen for it, always asking James whether he had found anything worth mentioning, or if had had found anything to contradict this theory, or this one, and James usually stalled until Evangeline jumped in with her ridiculously extensive knowledge of all that they were reading. Occasionally he did actually know something, or was able to make some informed guess, and that satisfied Daniel as well. Evangeline was not fooled though. It didn’t take James long to notice she was reading all the books James had pretended to read when he was “finished”. 
That day passed just as the last, only James was looking forward to the time they decided it was time for bed more than ever. When they finally did decide to turn in, after another greasy portion of fish and chips each, the boys waved Evangeline goodnight casually, but as soon as her bedroom door shut, they sped into James’ room.
“Did it work?” Daniel asked excitedly.
James raised an eyebrow and smirked “I thought it was bad to invade people’s privacy?”
“Shut up.” Daniel said, and seeing the dream catcher on James’ bed, he snapped it up excitedly “So we just swallow one of the beads?” he asked, and James nodded.
“I think so. That’s what the doctor did when my mother had nightmares…” he said somewhat doubtfully.
“No spells or anything?” 
“…errr… yeah, probably not. Just pull out a bead already, you’re making me nervous.” James said, and Daniel did as he was told. Two other beads fell out when Daniel broke the string-web, and James picked one up from the floor.
“Oh, hang on.” Daniel said, and pointed at James’ bedside table. “Amel.” He whispered, twice and two cups of water appeared on the night stand.
“Show off.” James muttered, but he was grateful he didn’t have to go and get a glass of the metallic-tasting tap water from the kitchen. As he had expected Daniel’s water was crystal clear and delicious as he swallowed the bead in one gulp.
Daniel did the same, and for a second nothing happened.
“What do we do-” Daniel started to ask, but a second later the world around them started to crumbled and flake away. Daniel yelped as the floor fell away from under their feet and they were launched into a wild free-fall, the world around them a burning white.
For a space of time that could have been anything from a second to an hour, James felt nothing around him, except every now and then when he bumped into Daniel. He had no idea what was up and what was down. Even when he closed his eyes the blinding light burned his retinas. 
Finally, when he thought he could take no more, the world around shaped, the light vanished, and his legs smashed into beautiful hard ground, making his knees buckle. He gasped a lungful of air he hadn’t noticed he had been in need of and staggered into Daniel, who was gasping next to him.
If he was honest, he had sort of hoped that was it. After all, if you dreamed that all night every night,it would be pretty awful. He was mistaken.
As he looked around he noticed how unlike anywhere he had ever been it was. A small-ish room lit by a fire in one yellow wall. The floor was wooden, but mostly covered by a cream, fluffy carpet, and there were comfy-looking armchairs and sofas set around a small, dark wood coffee table. There was an enormous bookshelf up against one wall. It was stiflingly warm and cozy. Obviously, all this was enough to make this place quite different from his aunt’s odd, book-less house, even more so from the cold marble halls of his first home, but then he saw a small family sitting around the coffee table. Not a group of people related by blood, an actual family. It made his heart ache.
A man with enormous glasses and floppy-light brown hair was sitting, laughing at the small girl sitting on his lap as she yelped and squirmed as he tried to brush her hopelessly curly hair. Hair that kept changing colour, red when she yelped, then bright yellow as she laughed with her father. It was Evangeline, no older than six years, in pajamas. Across from these two was a pretty woman with equally messy curls, though hers were black, and a very slightly swollen stomach, reclining on a sofa, and laughing at her husband’s vane attempts at taming their daughter’s hair. She was holding a book, one finger keeping her place. It was strange, James had never met these people, but he just knew they were married, that Evangeline was their daughter, that the woman was pregnant, and that they were all in terrible danger. 
“We shouldn’t be here.” Daniel said.
James jumped a mile, he had forgotten he wasn’t the only unwelcome intruder on this scene.
“I know.” James breathed, worried someone would suddenly notice them, though some gut instinct said they wouldn’t “But I think we have to stay here until the dream is over.”
Daniel seemed to shudder slightly “Am I the only one suddenly noticing that this was a very bad idea? Do we honestly want to see whatever… well, you know.”
James shook his head “Definitely not, but we can’t go back now.” The two boys stood and watched the lovely scene, expecting something awful to happen at any second. Almost ten whole, suspenseful minutes later, there was a crash outside. All five faces turned to the window.
Slowly Evangeline’s mother stood up, ignoring the protests of her husband, and walked over to the dark windows, pushing back a corner of the curtain to get a better view of whatever had made the noise.
For a while she squinted out into the darkness, oblivious to James and Daniel peering over her shoulders. All three of them saw what was out there in the same second, and gasped. The boys stepped aside as the woman screamed “Harold!” and sped to her husband.
“What’s wrong, my love?”
“Mum?” Evangeline asked, no longer laughing.
Oh god, James thought.
“They’re here, Harold, I told you they would come!”
“Mummy, what’s going on?” Evangeline said, scared.
“They’re surrounding the house, Harold.” Mrs Windsor said, kissing the top of Evangeline’s head.
Her husband stood up urgently and placed the little girl in her mother’s hands. “Get yourselves out, my love, hurry!” 
Evangeline was looking terrified, but she didn’t say anything. James glanced out of the window again. The cempan were still outside, and now they were moving. Each of them was raising their right hand at exactly the same time.
“All of you, get out!” James shouted before he could stop himself, and Daniel shushed him, though neither of them knew why.
The small family was still talking, but James couldn’t listen anymore, he was trying to open the window, Daniel helping too. Their hands just slipped through the handle. James wasn’t even sure what he was hoping to achieve, he was in a dream. A memory. Something he couldn’t couldn’t change. Then he heard the words my love again and remembered why he was trying desperately to do anything but listen.
Suddenly James noticed the cempan’s hands were starting to glow orange. 
James swore loudly and spun around to see Evangeline’s mother hurrying out of the sitting room door with Evangeline on her waist. Her father was muttering spells, clearly terrified. Then quite suddenly the smashing of glass sounded behind him and a ball of flame went flying through James’ chest from behind and set a chair on fire. Several more sped through the smashed window, crashing into parts of the house, crumbling the walls, burning everything. 
James could feel the heat, but it wasn’t burning him. He screwed his eyes shut, wishing he was anywhere but here. People were screaming, names, spells, just screaming.
“Get Evangeline to safety!” a man’s voice bellowed over the crackling, roaring flames.
James pressed his hands over his ears. He thought of his family. His horrible, ridiculously rich, fortunate family. Their house had been cold, sterile, there was no love within a five mile radius, and they had been so… lucky. Nothing bad happened to them. And this, lovely, happy family was being killed! James tried to block it all out. He had done this to someone. Maybe Evangeline was right. Was he as bad as the cempan?
“Daniel! Get us out!” James shouted when the screams all around them didn’t stop.
“I can’t!” Daniel shouted back.
A horrible scream filled his ears, worse than all the others, and a foul stench he recognized from Malcolm’s house crept into his nose.
“Harriet!” an anguish-filled voice shouted, followed by another heart-wrenching bellow, that escalated into a screech of pain. 
That was her parents. Dead.
But where was she?
“Daniel! Where’s Evangeline?” James shouted, and though it didn’t exactly restrict his breathing, he felt smoke fill his lungs.
“I think… I think her mother pushed her out of a window. James we need to leave!”
“How?!” James bellowed, he just wanted to leave. He wanted to leave. He wanted to…
The blinding white light was back. He was falling again. He couldn’t breathe.
But he was leaving. Leaving the crumbling house, leaving the corpses, leaving the dream. He’d never been so happy to be falling.