Silver woke the following day it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. Then he hoped, childishly, that it had been a dream, that Razor was still there and had never left. Yet by turning his head on his pillow he could see Razor's deserted bunk. It was like a dead body in the way it seemed to draw his eyes. Coral, who was already busy in the kitchen, did not wish Silver good morning, but turned her face away quickly as he went by. "He's gone" Silver told himself. "He's gone" he had to keep thinking it, as though repetition would dull the shock of it. He's gone and he's not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, Silver knew, because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they vacated this spot, for Razor to find them again. He and Coral ate breakfast in silence. Coral's eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept. They packed up their things, Coral dawdling. Silver knew why she wanted to spin out their time in the riverbank several times he saw her look up eagerly, and he was sure she had deluded herself into thinking that she heard footsteps through the heavy rain, but no one appeared between the trees.
Every time Silver imitated her, looked around (for he could not help hoping a little, himself) and saw nothing but rain-swept woods, another little parcel of fury exploded inside him. He could hear Razor saying "We thought you knew what you were doing!" and he resumed packing with a hard knot in the pit of his stomach. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Coral seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay. She and Silver grasped hands and Chaos Control, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. The instant they arrived, Coral dropped Silver's hand and walked away from him, finally sitting down on a large rock, her face on her knees, shaking with what he knew were sobs. He watched her, supposing that he ought to go and comfort her, but something kept him rooted to the spot. Everything inside him felt cold and tight. Again, he saw the contemptuous expression on Razor's face. Silver strode off through the heather, walking in a large circle with the distraught Coral at its centre, casting the spells she usually performed to ensure their protection.
They did not discuss Razor at all over the next few days. Silver was determined never to mention his name again, and Coral seemed to know that it was no use forcing the issue, although sometimes at night when she thought he was sleeping, he would hear her crying. Meanwhile Silver had started bringing out the Chaotix Map and examining it. He was waiting for the moment when Razor's labelled dot would reappear in the corridors of Soleanna, proving that he had returned to the comfortable castle, protected by his status of pureblood. However, Razor did not appear on the map, and after a while Silver found himself taking it out simply to stare at Blaze's name in the girls' dormitory, wondering whether if she would somehow know he was thinking about her, hoping that she was all right. By day, they devoted themselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Excalibur, but the more they talked about the places in which Locke might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became. Silver could not remember Locke ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There were moments when he did not know whether he was angrier with Razor or with Locke. Silver could not hide it from himself. Razor had been right. Locke had left him with virtually nothing. They had discovered one Core Shard, but they had no means of destroying it. The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness threatened to engulf him. He was staggered now to think of his own presumption in accepting his friends' offers to accompany him on this meandering, pointless journey.
He knew nothing, he had no ideas, and he was constantly, painfully on the alert for any indication that Coral too was about to tell him that she had had enough, that she was leaving. They were spending many evenings in near silence. Silver had stolen a radio which sometimes gave them music to listen to but other times it told them about reports of more deaths and accidents the Muggle were facing because of the Nocturnus. Coral took to bringing out Silvanus' portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Razor's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit them again, Silvanus did not seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Silver was up to, and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days or so. Silver was even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. They relished any news about what was happening at Soleanna, though Silvanus was not an ideal informer. He venerated Infinite, the first Raiju headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticize or ask impertinent questions about Infinite, or Silvanus would instantly leave his painting. However, he did let drop certain snippets. Infinite seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Blaze had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Infinite had reinstated Veruca's old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Silver deduced that Blaze, and probably Antione and Marine along with her, had been doing their best to continue Locke's Army.
This scant news made Silver want to see Blaze so badly it felt like a stomach ache; but it also made him think of Razor again, and of Locke, and of Soleanna itself, which he missed nearly as much as his ex-girlfriend. Indeed, as Silvanus talked about Infinite's crackdown, Silver experienced a split second of madness when he imagined simply going back to school to join the destabilization of Infinite's regime. Being fed, and having a soft bed, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at that moment. But then he remembered that he was Undesirable Number One, that there was a ten-thousand-Gold Ring price on his head, and that to walk into Soleanna these days was just as dangerous as walking into the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Silvanus inadvertently emphasized this fact by slipping in leading questions about Silver and Coral's whereabouts. Coral shoved him back inside the beaded bag every time he did this, and Silvanus invariably refused to reappear for several days after these unceremonious good-byes. The weather grew colder and colder. Silver started wearing the Poncho Mari-An and Rob had made him. It was very warm. They did not dare remain in any one area too long, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a loch, where snow half buried the tent in the night. They had already spotted Christmas trees twinkling from several sitting room windows before there came an evening when Silver resolved to suggest, again, what seemed to him the only unexplored avenue left to them. They had just eaten an unusually good meal. Coral had been to a supermarket under the Chaos Emerald (Scrupulously dropping the money into an open till as she left). She was wearing the Locket but the fact that they now had full stomachs meant she was only a bit more irritable.
As Silver finished his meal he heard music come over the radio. Silver watched Coral for a moment and then got up from his chair. He walked around, stood next to her and held out his hand. She looked up at him and took his hand looking very annoyed. Once she stood up Silver gently removed the locket from her neck and tossed it onto one of the chairs. Silver then took both her hands and guided her to the middle of the room "So take me back in time. To another world" the radio sang. Silver smiled and slowly began swaying from side to side, he hoped it was in rhythm with the music, aside from the Yule Ball he never did much dancing "We don't have to worry. When you're by my side". Coral despite her own effort not to, smiled and began moving with him "There's nothin' I don't know. There's nothin' to decide". It wasn't long before the two of them let go completely and were dancing around the room with abandon. Silver's dancing was very clumsy but that just managed to make Coral laugh. They went on for a while when "So take me...Back in time...So take me...So take me...Back in time...". The two got closer and were now resting their heads on each other's shoulders "So take me...So take me back in time...". The music was dying out. Coral's grip on Silver tightened as if holding onto him would make the music keep going but it didn't "Back in time...Back in time". The song was over. Coral lifted her head and back away from Silver. Her smile was gone. She was staring at him with a numb, emotionless expression before turning away and leaving him.
It was another few days before any meaningful words were shared between the two "Silver!". Coral woke him up early in the morning "What? Something happened?" "No. I need your help. Look at this". She held out the Book of Myths and pointed at the top right corner of the first page Above what Silver assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, he could not be sure), there was a symbol "I never took Ancient Runes, Coral" "I know that, but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. Look, it's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?". Silver looked closer "I…Wait…Isn't it the same symbol Marine's dad was wearing round his neck?" "Well, that's what I thought too!" "Then it's Mephiles' mark". She stared at him, open mouthed "What?" "Reynard told me". He recounted the story that he was told at the wedding. Coral looked astonished "Mephiles? I've never heard that Mephiles had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him" "Well, Reynard said that Mephiles carved the symbol onto a wall at Grimm". She fell back into the old armchair, frowning "That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?" "Yeah, it is weird. And you'd think Saline would have recognized it. He was Head of the Diamond Cutters, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff". Coral did not speak but continued to pore over the strange mark.
Silver then thought he should say what he's wanted to for a while "Coral, I've been thinking. I…I want to go to Vigil's Hollow". She looked up at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and he was sure she was still thinking about the mysterious mark on the book "Yes. Yes, I've been wondering that too. I really think we'll have to". Silver thought he must have heard her wrong "What?" "I agree, I think we should. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else it could be either. It'll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it's there" "Uh…What's there?" asked Silver. At that, she looked just as bewildered as he felt "Well, the sword, Silver! Locke must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Vigil's Hollow is Vigil Shinobi's birthplace" "Really? Shinobi came from Vigil's Hollow?" "Silver, did you ever even open A History of Magic?". Silver managed a smile at this "I might've opened it, you know, when I bought it…Just the once" "Well, as the village is named after him I'd have thought you might have made the connection". She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late; Silver half expected her to announce that she was off to the library "There's a bit about the village in A History of Magic, wait". She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy of their old school textbook, A History of Magic by Siwa-Ra, which she thumbed through until finding the page she wanted "'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Vigil's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Vigil Shinobi the Chameleon was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Ga. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries".
She closed the book "A place connected to both you and Vigil. That seems like the perfect place to hide Excalibur" "Great. We should go then" Silver said in an overly happy tone. Silver did not want to admit that he had not been thinking about the sword at all when he suggested they go to Vigil's Hollow. For him, the lure of the village lay in his parents' graves, the house where he had narrowly escaped death, and in the person of Siwa-Ra. Silver finally said "Remember what Kali-Ca said?" "Who?" "You know…Blaze's great-aunt. At the wedding. The one who said you had skinny ankles". It was an awkward moment. Coral knew he almost said Razor. Silver rushed on "She said Siwa-Ra still lives in Vigil's Hollow" "Siwa-Ra?" murmured Coral, running her index finger over Siwa's embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. "Well, I suppose-". She gasped so dramatically that Silver's insides turned over; he raised his hand, looking around at the entrance, half expecting to see a hand forcing its way through the entrance flap. But there was nothing there "What did you do that for? I thought you'd seen a Nocturnus unzipping the tent or something" "Silver, what if Siwa's got the sword? What if Locke entrusted it to her?". Silver considered this possibility. Siwa-Ra would be an extremely old woman by now, and according to Kali-Ca and Harvey she was a bit senile now.
Was it likely that Locke would have hidden the Excalibur with her? If so, Silver felt that Locke had left a great deal to chance. Locke had never revealed that he had replaced the sword with a fake, nor had he so much as mentioned a friendship with Siwa. Now, however, was not the moment to cast doubt on Coral's theory, not when she was so surprisingly willing to fall in with Silver's dearest wish "Yeah, he might have done! So, are we going to go to Vigil's Hollow?" "Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully, Silver". She was sitting up now, and Silver could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted her mood as much as his "We'll need to practice Chaos Control together under the Invisibility Cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use Metamorphia Potion? In that case we'll need to collect hair from somebody. I actually think we'd better do that, Silver, the thicker our disguises the better". Silver let her talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause, but his mind had left the conversation. For the first time since he had discovered that the sword in Nameless was a fake, he felt excited. He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family. It was in Vigil's Hollow that, if not for Finitevus, he would have grown up and spent every school holiday. He could have invited friends to his house. He might even have had brothers and sisters.
It would have been his mother who had made his seventeenth birthday cake. The life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place where it had been taken from him. After Coral had gone to bed that night, Silver quietly extracted his rucksack from Coral's beaded bag, and from inside it, the photograph album Big had given him so long ago. For the first time in months, he perused the old pictures of his parents, smiling and waving up at him from the images, which were all he had left of them now. Silver would gladly have set out for Vigil's Hollow the following day, but Coral had other ideas. Convinced as she was that Finitevus would expect Silver to return to the scene of his parents' deaths, she was determined that they would set off only after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possible. It was therefore a full week later, once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from an innocent couple of Muggle wolves who were Christmas shopping. They were to Chaos Control to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Metamorphia Potion. The beaded bag containing all of their possessions (apart from the Core Shard, which Silver was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Coral's buttoned-up coat. …
They appeared invisible standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in which the night's first stars were already glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden streetlights indicated the centre of the village. The two snuck into an empty alley and Silver put the Emerald away. The two then casually walked back out. Silver stared at all the Cottages they passed. Any one of them might have been the one in which Shadow and Tikal had once lived or where Siwa lived now. Silver gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their front porches, wondering whether he remembered any of them, knowing deep inside that it was impossible, that he had been little more than a year old when he had left this place forever. He was not even sure whether he would be able to see the cottage at all; he did not know what happened when the subjects of a Fidelius Charm died. Then the little lane along which they were walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to them. Strung all around with coloured lights, there was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.
The snow here had become impacted. It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church "Silver, I think it's Christmas Eve!" said Coral. Silver stopped, he had lost track of the date; they had not seen a newspaper for weeks "Are you sure" "I think so" said Coral, her eyes upon the church. She paused and then "They'll be in there, won't they? Your mum and dad? I can see the graveyard behind it". Silver felt a thrill of something that was beyond excitement, more like fear. Now that he was so near, he wondered whether he wanted to see after all. Perhaps Coral knew how he was feeling, because she reached for his hand and took the lead for the first time, pulling him forward. Halfway across the square, however, she stopped dead "Silver, look!". She was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people, a male hedgehog, with untidy quills, an Echidna woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby Hedgehog boy sitting in his mother's arms. Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps. Silver drew closer, gazing up into his parents' faces. He had never imagined that there would be a statue. How strange it was to see himself represented in stone, a happy baby "C'mon" he said when he had looked his fill, and they turned again toward the church.
As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial. The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Silver's throat constrict, it reminded him so forcefully of Soleanna, of Charmy bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armour, of the Great Hall's twelve Christmas trees, of Locke wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Razor in a hand-knitted sweater. Coral pushed open the gate as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows. Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. Silver moved toward the nearest grave "Look at this, Beauregard Rabbot, could be some long-lost relation of Bunnie's!" "Keep your voice down" Coral begged him. They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were unaccompanied. "Silver, here!" Coral was two rows of tombstones away; he had to wade back to her, his heart positively banging in his chest. "Is it them?" "No, but look!". She pointed to the dark stone. Silver stooped down and saw, upon the frozen, lichen-spotted granite, the words Jenna-Lu and, a short way below her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Desi-Ca.
There was also a quotation "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also". So Breezie and Kali-Ca had got some of their facts right. Locke's family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here. Seeing the grave was worse than hearing about it. Silver could not help thinking that he and Locke both had deep roots in this graveyard, and that Locke ought to have told him so, yet he had never thought to share the connection. They could have visited the place together; for a moment Silver imagined coming here with Locke, of what a bond that would have been, of how much it would have meant to him. But it seemed that to Locke, the fact that their families lay side by side in the same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he wanted Silver to do. Coral was looking at Silver, and he was glad that his face was hidden in shadow. He read the words on the tombstone again "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also". He did not understand what these words meant. Surely Locke had chosen them, as the eldest member of the family once his mother had died. Coral kept watching him "Are you sure he never mentioned-" "No, let's keep looking" and he turned away, wishing he had not seen the stone. He did not want his excited trepidation tainted with resentment. After a few moments "Silver, over here!" Coral called. Silver ran over to another gravestone. The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Silver could hardly make out the name. Coral showed him the symbol beneath it "Silver, that's the mark in the book!".
He peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be the symbol of three emeralds inside each other "Yeah, it could be". Coral made a light to see the stone "It says Galahad, I think" "I'm going to keep looking for my parents, all right?" Silver told her, a slight edge to his voice, and he set off again, leaving her crouched beside the old grave. Every now and then he recognized a surname. Sometimes there were several generations of the same Wizarding family represented in the graveyard. Silver could tell from the dates that it had either died out, or the current members had moved away from Vigil's Hollow. Deeper and deeper amongst the graves he went, and every time he reached a new headstone he felt a little lurch of apprehension and anticipation. The darkness and the silence seemed to become, all of a sudden, much deeper. Silver looked around, worried, thinking of Prelates, then realized that the carols had finished, that the chatter and flurry of churchgoers were fading away as they made their way back into the square. Somebody inside the church had just turned off the lights. Then Coral's voice came out of the blackness for the third time, sharp and clear from a few yards away "Silver, they're here. Right here". And he knew by her tone that it was his mother and father this time. He moved toward her, feeling as if something heavy were pressing on his chest, the same sensation he had had right after Locke had died, a grief that had actually weighed on his heart and lungs. The headstone was only two rows behind Jenna-Lu and Desi-Ca. It was made of white marble, just like Locke's tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark. Silver did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.
SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG
Born 27th March 1960
Died 31st October 1981
TIKAL THE ECHIDNA
Born 30th of January 1960
Died 31st October 1981
And then under the dates was the phrase "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death". Silver read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud. A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic "Isn't that a Nocturnus idea? Why is that there?" "It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Nocturnus mean it, Silver. It means, you know, living beyond death. Living after death". But they were not living, thought Silver. They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' mouldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Shadow and Tikal lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them. Coral had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at her, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Coral played her flute. No words came out, just beautiful music and then a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Silver caught it and laid it on his parents' grave. As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave. He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Coral's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Locke's mother and sister, back toward the dark church.