Sophie watched Tala disappear in search of Blue with utter fascination. The girl had scrambled up a tree like a squirrel, nimble fingers finding purchase on nothing, trailing twigs failing to scratch at her face.
She seemed to cling to branches with her toes, unbelievably balanced, unable to fall. Then she had flown. Or perhaps not. But she had leapt from tree to tree, swinging and diving and twisting and remaining airborne for far too long.
It seemed to Sophie that branches appeared where she needed them, just long enough for her to use them. They would be there, for one instant, a brief flash of existence, and then vanish. Sophie wished she could learn how to be like Tala.
“What is Blue Last like?” Chrysanthemum asked Celia. “I mean, despite being irritating and arrogant.”
Celia shrugged. “He’s another natural. Not as good as Tala, not by a long shot. But he’s good. He took a bit of training and got bored. Teleporting is his real forte. Other than that, well, he’s a fifteen-year-old boy.”
“What are Travellers?” Sophie asked, annoyed by how few answers she was actually getting. “I mean, I can guess at the others. But Travellers?”
Celia sighed. “Some are Teleporters, like Blue. Some can create passageways through the earth. Some can run fast, very fast. A select few, maybe one or two in the world per generation, can fly. They are all about moving, about getting away or going somewhere.”
Sophie nodded slowly. “Fear. Yes?”
“Yes,” Chrysanthemum supplied. “But traveller magic converts. Elemental accents. Necromancy heightens, or so everyone believes. Sensitive strengthens. Linguist satisfies. Warrior controls. But traveller is the only one that really converts.”
“Meaning…Warriors still get angry but that anger is controlled by the power they have?” Sophie frowned, trying to work it all out.
“Yes,” Chrysanthemum nodded encouragingly. “You know, I really want you to learn Necromancy. I want you to find out what you can do with it.”
“You don’t know?”
“Necromancy is an illegal practise,” Chrysanthemum explained. “Very illegal. Even I can find no records or books on it. They were burned by the Society or taken by the Necromancers.”
Sophie put her hands on her hips. “In the Dovecot Museum, yesterday.”
“Hmm?”
“You said you need the Necromancers back. You also said you’d explain why.”
Chrysanthemum sighed. “Not now. Not now.”
Sophie glared at her. “Then when? I’m sick of this! Sick of you never explaining anything, just expecting me to do what I’m told!”
Chrysanthemum’s face flashed with rage and she opened her mouth to reply but was drowned out by a snapping noise and a cry of, “Hey, Celia!”
“Hello, Blue,” Celia sighed.
“Long time, no see,” the boy grinned. “What’s up?”
“We’re being chased by a load of evil Necromancers and a few Society maniacs,” Celia snapped.
Blue shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, got that part. I was hoping there was something interesting.”
Blue was good-looking in a slightly vain, over-styled way. His clothes were precisely the right sort of untidy. His blonde hair had been painstakingly fixed into disarray. He grinned and Sophie half expected his teeth to flash, like someone from a television advert.
“So,” he looked her up and down. “You’re the Necromancer girl?”
“Blue,” Tala gave him a hard look.
Blue rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, where are we going?”
“We don’t know,” Celia answered.
“Oh-kay…” Blue hesitated. “Why are we going there?”
“We’re not too good on that point either,” Celia admitted.
“And…what are we trying to find?”
“No idea.”
“So…basically, we just want to keep this girl away from pretty much everyone but we don’t have any goals, safe-houses or anything?” Blue raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds about right,” Sophie sighed. “And no one answers my questions either.”
Blue winked at her. “Celia never answers any questions.”
“Yes, thank you, Bluebird,” Celia glared at him. “Are you ready to go or what?”
“Dude, tell me where we’re going and I’ll be there in a second,” Blue rolled his eyes.
“Well, we don’t know. So you’ll have to travel nice and normally with us. In a car. Got that?”
Blue groaned. “In a car?”
“Your name is Bluebird?” Sophie tried not to giggle.
Blue looked at her. “Do you think my name is funny?”
“Yes,” Sophie said, honestly.
“So do I,” Celia agreed.
Tala nodded. “Yup. Blue, even you think your name is ridiculous.”
“Chrysanthemum?” Celia glanced at the only real representative of the adult world. “Do you think Bluebird Last is a silly name?”
“Yes,” Chrysanthemum admitted. “I’d say it was. Particularly when accompanied by silly hair.”
Blue huffed. “Oh, thank you very much. This hair is very stylish. Not that you unfashionable fugitives would have a clue.”
“Fashion is boring,” Sophie said.
“I make my own fashion,” Chrysanthemum said, coolly. “And I happen to think it works rather well.”
Blue didn’t an excellent goldfish impression while Chrysanthemum twirled lightly and the other three girls collapsed laughing.
“Come on,” Celia rolled her eyes. “Places to go, Disney movies to watch…”
“Some of us have a cake to decorate,” Sophie added.
They all looked at her.
“Oh, sorry,” she turned pink. “Inside joke.”
The car purred smoothly along the road through the beautiful countryside, serenely, silently…
“Oh, come on! You call this music?”
“Yes, actually, I do.”
“This isn’t music! This is ridiculous! Let me change it!”
“Ow, you can’t just elbow me! Blue, you can’t just elbow me!”
“Oh, can’t I? Really? I can’t just do this, can I?”
“Blue, stop it! Just listen to the music!”
“I will not! Chrysanthemum, change the music!”
“I like the music.”
“But I don’t! Sophie, you don’t like the music, do you?”
“It’s alright. Not great, but alright.”
“There! That’s two votes for music change!”
“And four for you to shut the hell up!”
“Will the lot of you just be quiet and let me drive the car?”
The occupants of the vehicle settled back in their seats.
“Sorry, Chrysanthemum,” Blue muttered, unconvincingly.
Sophie leant against the window, watching the road streaming past in a grey blur beneath them. Tala sat on her left, watching her without bothering to hide it.
“What?” she asked, eventually. “Why are you staring at me?”
“I can see it,” Tala answered, almost dreamily. “When your eyes go unfocused, you start to change. Subtly. And you have to be looking for it. But it’s there.”
“What does that mean?” Sophie glared at her.
Tala didn’t look perturbed. “It means you are a natural, powerful without being taught. And I’d say that the look in your eye is pure shadow.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that you’ll make one hell of a Necromancer,” she gave Sophie a quick smile. “In the fate-of-the-world-hanging-in-balance kind of way.”
“How many times in one day have I been told that I’d make a good Necromancer? Four or five?” Sophie shook her head. “I hope this record doesn’t keep up. I think I’m beginning to get the message, you know?”
Tala laughed. “You want to learn some elemental magic?”
Sophie stared. “You think I could?”
Tala nodded. “Until you reach about Celia’s age…”
“What is Celia’s age?” Sophie interrupted.
Blue cracked up laughing.
“I’m nineteen,” Celia said, from the front of the car.
“About nineteen or twenty,” Tala continued, “you can learn and use all types of magic. If you have the time and the will power. Some will come easier. Sensitive and Linguist mix quite well. Warrior and Elemental mix well. Necromancer and Elemental mix well. Traveller and Warrior are quite good.”
“So…I could use elemental magic until I’m nineteen?” Sophie felt excitement jolt her heart. “Rather than messing around with dribbly candles and skulls?”
Tala laughed. “Necromancy is more complicated than that. It’s to do with shadows. True shadows, not ones caused by light and an object. Deep shadows.”
“Oh, right,” Blue nodded. “Like the kind caused by elephants and the like.”
Tala turned round. “You are being deliberately stupid!”
“No, I really am this stupid.”
Tala opened her mouth to argue but Chrysanthemum interrupted.
“Please,” she said, exasperated, “don’t get Blue started again.”
Tala stuck out her tongue at the older boy for good measure and turned back to Sophie.
“Anyway, I don’t know more than a little bit. But anyway, elemental is useful till someone can tell you how Necromancy even begins to work.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“You’d need a Necromancer for that,” Tala said, ruefully. “A powerful one, too.”
“Does everyone have their seatbelts on?” Chrysanthemum asked, suddenly.
“What?” Sophie stared. “Why? I mean, yes. But why?”
“Because there is a car behind us and it has been following us since we left the forest. Whoever is in it will know we have Tala and Blue now. They’re tracking us.”
They all looked grim and Sophie wondered how they could be so sure. I mean, the car might just be going the same way as them.
“Don’t say it, Sophie,” Celia caught sight of her expression in the mirror. “We’re not about to take the chance.”