They Who from the Heavens Came (The Wisdom, #1)

Eurydice curled up on one of the bookshelves in the lounge and watched as Seth leaned in toward a large sheet of paper tacked onto a tall easel. In his hand was a long paintbrush.

He tended to paint what Oz had dubbed auras. Recently he’d taken to staring into lampshades while the lamps were lit underneath and then squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as possible. Then he would paint the images that swam up in his vision. The result was usually black smeared with eerie reds, blinding whites, and ominous looking creatures that reminded one of pond water under a microscope. It left the viewer feeling a little unsettled at the secret world that rested on the eyeball.

Today, though, he’d been inspired to do something he hadn’t done since the day he’d discovered his powers in his A-Level Art class: a portrait. It was of a girl with skin the colour of a sandy beach and hair like tar. Her eyes were midnight peering out of a face of sunlight. The expression she wore was…well, hard to describe.

Seth had started the portrait as a way of exorcising the thoughts of Itzy running rampant in his head. He couldn’t sleep; he was so caught up in her. He needed to let it out somehow.

The Itzy who looked out at him from her paper prison wore an expression he hadn’t intended to give her. It wasn’t bad; it was even painted well. But she looked so…enraptured, he supposed was the word for it. There was a story that went behind that face. Seth just wasn’t sure what it was. She looked like she’d just experienced something that had set her heart on fire and every inch of her body trembling.

Oddly, she didn’t appear to look at him, but at someone else in the room. It was uncanny, like an inverse Mona Lisa: wherever he walked around the portrait, her gaze seemed to be somewhere else.

Why do I matter so much to you? she had asked, and Seth had been unable to answer her. It would have sounded mad to have told her the truth: that his fascination with her had started long before they’d met; that he’d watched her from across the room, at the funeral, and noticed the way she’d hung back out of everyone’s way, like a gate-crasher rather than the daughter of the deceased; and he found it endearing the way she kept nervously pushing her hair behind her ears; and he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to have that long hair fall all over his face.

It would have sounded mad to have told her he’d felt drawn to her, as if he’d known her before; that he was hit with the impression that everything he might ever say to her, she already knew it without him having to speak; or that he thought her name suited her very well, because every time he was with her, he swore he could see a faint rainbow of colour glowing around her, like those fairy lights in her room.

Why do I matter so much to you?

Because even Oz – who Seth knew had not been looking forward to seeing his sister at the funeral – had fallen so easily under Itzy’s spell. Because Seth hadn’t felt in control of himself when he’d stolen her phone; something had driven him to do it. A voice in his head had shouted at him that he must force himself into her life, and he hadn’t known why, but the voice was so loud, he had to obey.

Because she had mastered her powers almost overnight. And when she’d made him kiss her, it had felt like she was slipping into his head as it touched hers and reaching in to tear out his own desire; she’d given him what he wanted, more than made him do what she wanted. And it wasn’t merely that there had been a kiss; it was the sort of kiss it was. It had felt like she’d taken part of his soul along with his breath, and it had frightened him that she could see into him so deeply.

He wasn’t sure why, but most of all, more than anything he wanted from her, he wanted to do something for her. He wished he could see into her heart and divine what it was she most wanted, and be the one to give it to her. He wanted to be the one to take away all her pain and help her see she was more than she thought she was. He wished he could wipe his arms through the air and erase all the hurt inside her, all the memories that had scarred her.

How could he have told her that? After all, you didn’t feel that way about someone you barely knew.

Seth exhaled heavily and touched the brush to the paper, to add the finishing touches, when a loud banging noise jolted his hand and made it skid across the page. He cursed under his breath and dropped the brush on the easel tray. He knelt down and wiped his hands on a cloth Eurydice was happily attempting to kill on the floor.

When he examined the easel, a long fat black brush stroke marred the top-right corner of the page. All that work – ruined in a moment.

He crossed his arms and stared at the disaster. He thought perhaps there was a way of using it. On instinct, he added more black strokes to the page. In minutes, Itzy was haloed in streaks of darkness.

He stood back and frowned. The trouble with painting, Seth decided, was the pictures never quite came out the way he visualised them in his head. In an absurd way, it was easier to draw things into existence than it was to steady his hands and meticulously put down on paper the images swirling around in his mind.

Seth also wasn’t always convinced it was him doing the painting. Now, for instance, he seriously doubted it, because he’d somehow managed to paint the lines he kept seeing in the air when Descendants used their power.

He tapped his foot on the ground. What the hell did those lines mean?

He threw the paper over the easel to reveal a fresh sheet of paper. He leaned forward, wondering where the next artistic journey would lead him, when there was a splintering sound outside the house, followed by a great shudder. Seth’s hand shook across the easel, streaking yet another canvas with an ugly black line. If things carried on that way, he was going to have to rethink his whole artistic approach.

Perhaps he could do it intentionally next time and start a new collection of anti-art – people would say it was so bad, it had to be on purpose and have great meaning.

Eurydice decided his foot might be a toy and took a swipe at it. Seth turned sharply and hissed at her, and she scampered out of the room to hide from the evil cat man.

Frustrated, Seth slammed the paintbrush down on the tray and stomped across the house to the front door, to see what was going on. When he saw, all he could think to do was call out Oz’s name.

Oz came pounding down the stairs to the doorway and said, breathlessly, ‘I know. I saw it too. Out the window.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ Seth wondered.

He tried to process the sight of four giants leaping down their road, ripping out the lampposts and fencing with them. When one of them was struck, it fell to the ground, shaking everything for miles around. Seth and Oz were both bounced an inch into the air. They gripped the doorframe, their fingers turning white under the pressure, until the land stilled again.

‘I haven’t the foggiest,’ said Oz, ‘but…I think I know who they are.’ He pointed at the giants.

Seth couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene. ‘Who?’

Again, the ground shook and he was thrown into the doorframe. He rubbed at his head, thinking there would be a lump in the morning. There wasn’t time to worry about that, though, because he could hear people screaming everywhere. It rose up in a great cacophonous chorus he thought might stay with him for years to come.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Oz said, somehow unruffled by the latest spasm in the floor. He was dependably cool. ‘They’re from Norse mythology. I’m sure of it. Ymir, I think his name is; that’s the father. They’re from the story of creation. They came out of some sort of, er…blank space filled with ice or something.’

‘Ri-ight,’ said Seth. ‘And now they’re, what, roaming loose on the streets of Ealing?’

Oz threw him a weighted look. ‘Hey, you’re watching it happen, too. What’s your explanation, then?’

‘Magic,’ Seth told him. ‘But I’ll still let you have the Norse mythology thingy. It’s just, they can’t actually be the same giants. Someone’s made them. Someone like us.’

‘You think there are some megalomaniacal Descendants wreaking havoc on the city?’ Oz questioned.

Seth bit his lip. ‘Where’s Itzy?’ he asked.

‘At home. I just rang her.’ Something passed over Oz’s face. He dug his mobile phone out of his pocket and started punching in numbers.

‘Who are you ringing?’ Seth asked.

‘My mum.’

Seth’s eyes widened. He hadn’t heard Oz mention his mother since the funeral. ‘You’ve been speaking to her?’

Oz shook his head and pressed the phone to his head. ‘She’s ignored all my calls. I went back to the house to check on her afterward, but –’ He put up his forefinger as if to say, Just a moment, and spoke into the phone. ‘Mum, if you get this message, please tell me you’re okay. It’s….’

His face contorted with emotion. He angrily punched a button on the phone and stuffed it back in his pocket.

Seth cleared his throat. ‘But…?’

Oz blinked. ‘But what?’

‘You went to the house, but….’

‘Oh right.’ Oz sighed. ‘There was a For Sale sign out front.’

Seth started at this news. Another tremor rumbled under their feet.

When the ground stilled, Seth said, ‘You know…you’ve never told me what really happened with her, just after your dad died.’

‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Oz said.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that –’

‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ Oz repeated.

Seth nearly jumped at his friend’s tone. He put up his hands in surrender. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘In that case, do you think we ought to do something about –’

He gestured to the giants playing leapfrog over the cars, very badly, and crushing most of them. The ground shuddered again. Oz and Seth were thrown backward in the doorway and landed on the floor. Seth winced at the pain.

Oz pushed himself up onto all fours and forced himself to stand, while Seth used the wall to right himself.

Oz had already mentally recovered and now asked, ‘Like what?’

Seth looked at him with great patience. ‘Oz, mate. We have powers.’ He patted his friend on the shoulder. ‘Now’s the time to use them for something other than cleaning the house.’

True to form, Oz complained. ‘But everyone will see. We’ll blow our cover.’

Seth’s blue eyes grew large. Despite their predicament, he laughed. It was hilarious. Our cover. It made them sound like comic book vigilantes. If Oz protested, maybe Seth could whip up some spandex costumes for them both. With capes.

Actually, aside from the spandex, that wasn’t a bad idea. Seth had always wanted a cape. Maybe he would make himself one just for the sake of it.

Before he could slip too far into his own head, Seth said, ‘You’re really concerned about that now? They’ve already seen them!’ he reminded his friend, again gesturing outside.

Oz ran his tongue over his teeth in consideration. ‘Good point,’ he said.

Then he stepped forward.