The High Master scoffed. ‘What nonsense. Silas seize power? Magic here, in Wolkana? We have tried for centuries to rid Starfell of this filth, this evil from the world. We would never allow it here … never.’
It was just a second but Willow saw the anger on the young Brother Silas’s face. ‘No, that’s true. You wouldn’t,’ he sneered.
The High Master looked at him with a frown.
From Nolin Sometimes’s prone form they heard him mutter. ‘The Lost Spells of Starfell were kept out of sight for a thousand years in a gilded box, hidden in the fortress, until the boy named Silas found them and sought to use them for himself … ’
The High Master turned ashen. He seemed to stagger slightly. His mouth fell open and he looked at Silas, blinking. ‘I-it can’t be true? What they are saying … You wouldn’t have … you couldn’t have found them, and actually used them?’ His hand was on his heart. Willow could tell that he was finding it hard to breathe.
Silas scowled. He looked at Willow and Nolin Sometimes, who had passed out again, with something close to a mix of frustration and amusement. ‘You just had to bring a forgotten teller along.’
Willow frowned. ‘What?’
He sighed. ‘I had hoped for a bit more time … or at least preferable surroundings,’ he said, eyeing the dungeon in some distaste. A few of the other Brothers shared a knowing sort of smile with him.
Willow felt something inside her turn cold as he continued.
Silas looked at the High Master, his mouth turning up into a thin, humourless smile. ‘There is no need for this pretence any more, High Master. I fear the secret is out, don’t you? The truth always comes out in the end … no matter what lengths one goes to.’ He reached inside his robes and withdrew a small box.
The High Master’s face blanched as he saw what was in Silas’s hands. ‘W-what secret? Silas, think of what you are saying … and who you are speaking to,’ he said, shooting a meaningful look at Willow and her friends, his eyes then straying back to the box. ‘You don’t want them to leave here with the wrong impression. We can’t have them thinking that magic would ever be permitted in Wolkana—’
‘ENOUGH!’ thundered Silas. He didn’t look nearly as frightened or as young as he had when they’d seen him in Beady Hill. In fact, he didn’t even look all that young any more. His spots were gone, and his face was lean and hard, like the expression in his eyes.
Willow blinked. It was as if he’d used magic until now to make himself appear less powerful. But how could that be?
His voice was cold. ‘LIES. All of them, and I grow weary of each one. Seize him,’ he ordered, and three of the Brothers stepped forward to take the High Master away.
‘Silas? What is this – a rebellion?’ His voice cracked. ‘So it’s all true – what they said? Silas, my boy, my child, why?’
‘Now he claims me,’ said Silas, gritting his teeth. ‘Wol help me. But it is too late for that, Father, much, much too late, I’m afraid. Perhaps if you’d thought, just once, to let go of your reputation, to accept me as your son and heir … perhaps things would have worked out differently. But you are weak and that is something that we can no longer afford to have in a leader.’
Willow frowned. The High Master was Silas’s father?
The High Master blinked. ‘I-I, Silas, I thought you understood – a man in my position, I couldn’t just come out publicly and say you were my son …’
Silas shook his head. ‘No, Father, you chose to keep it a secret because you were ashamed of who my mother was.’
‘I-I was afraid of what anyone would do if they found out … how it would seem. You must understand … It wasn’t because I didn’t care about you!’
‘Yes, how would it seem if they all discovered that the High Master had fallen in love with a witch and had a child with magic running through his veins?’
Willow and Essential gasped. A Brother of Wol, the son of a witch?
The High Master’s cheeks turned purple. He bounced on the balls of his feet and tried waving his hands as if he would scrub away Silas’s words, but one of the guards held him back.
‘Silas, stop this – please.’
Silas looked from the High Master to Willow and Essential. ‘The High Master, of course, was the only one who knew the truth … about who I am. But he kept it a secret for years – even from me.’
The High Master stuttered. ‘S-Silas … I did it for your own good. To protect you.’
‘No,’ said Silas, his eyes cold. ‘You did it for your own protection, in case anyone found out that my mother, Molsa, was the sister of the infamous witch Moreg Vaine—’
‘Moreg?’ cried Willow.
Inside the carpetbag there was a small audible gasp.
Silas nodded. ‘Yes, Moreg, my “loving” aunt brought me here after her sister died and left me here with him,’ he said, pointing at the High Master. ‘My father, though he never told anyone, of course,’ he scoffed.
The High Master blinked. ‘Silas, you must understand I was worried about what people would do to you if they knew—’
‘Oh. I understand … more than you know. Remember I was raised to believe that people like me were tainted, impure. I came to you in the beginning when my magic arrived … when I was worried, afraid. But hopeful too – perhaps this meant something else. I was a Brother of Wol, after all. Surely then magic couldn’t really be evil? And what did you tell me, when I needed you the most?’
The High Master grew pale, his mouth opening and closing.
‘You told me you were disgusted, that I should rid myself of my unnaturalness … And you made me pray every day for Wol to take it away … Oh, how I cursed you when I found out the truth about who I really am – where I’d come from.’
‘I wanted to help you, that’s all. I—’
‘Help? No, you wanted to punish me, for what you’d done. Never once did it occur to you to tell me that my mother was a witch, or to find a way to really help me. But … I learnt to rely on myself, and in the end, Father, you were the blind one,’ Silas spat, ‘so blind. And under your very roof too. Did you never wonder about any of it – how we were able to acquire these, for instance?’ he said, brandishing a pair of manacles that glowed blue in his hands.
‘They were gifts … from Wol, hidden in the … dungeons, for centuries …’ said the High Master, though he was sounding less sure of himself now.
Silas looked amused. ‘Wrong again. I made these. You believe too much in the lies we were told. Which is what keeps us weak. Shying away from the truth always does. But I know the truth now, why the war began all those years ago. It was not to rid the world of magic because it was evil, but to take it back,’ he breathed, ‘Back to where it belongs – with us.’ His smile was great and horrible and seeing it made Willow shiver.
‘No,’ gasped the High Master. ‘That’s a lie – we were never meant to use the magic, never. Only to protect others from it.’
Silas looked at him, then allowed himself a small smile. ‘That’s what you said the first time too. You are nothing if not constant.’