It was going to be a bad night.
The White Queen shrugged, more out of melancholy than disinterest.
“We’d like you to consider all the trouble we’ve been to,” said Bill.
“Indeed,” said Jim, “we helped you put the finishing touches to your Game—”
“And then we led Wilkinson by the nose to all the places you told us—”
“And whispered in his ear about what was important and not—”
“And then we went over to Germany and started whispering again, and—”
“I get the point,” said the White Queen. “You’ve been very good. Veritable treasures.”
“I mean,” said Jim, “where would this country be without us?”
The White Queen burst into laughter, making the imps’ eyes widen in startlement. “In a great deal of trouble to be sure,” she answered finally.
“But,” said Bill, “all will be lost if Brutus-reborn can’t manage—”
“Or his girl doesn’t carry through—”
“Or if Catling—” both imps hissed as one ”—gets wind of what’s about!”
“Who’s to say, then,” said Bill, “that we won’t get eaten up instead of Catling?”
“No one is to say,” said the White Queen, very quietly. “No one can tell. I certainly can’t. We’re either going to win or lose with this one, my fine black fellows, and from this point on there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
“Nothing?” squeaked Jim.
“Well…” said the White Queen. “I do need several more rather fun air raids organised, if you could manage it.”
“Just tell us when!” said Jim, and both imps brightened.
ONE
Copt Hall
March to April 1941
GRACE SPEAKS
After that terrible morning in the crypt of St Thomas’, Jack withdrew into himself a little for a few days. He felt so guilty, and so helpless, and so desperate, and that made me feel worse. Jack kept protesting that he would find a means to break me free from Catling’s hex, but, oh, the emptiness of those protests. He hadn’t been able to do anything before, how could he now?
I tried not to think about what the White Queen had said. I would do the right thing, and continue to ensure my own destruction, together with Catling’s, once I’d been dragged into the dark heart of the Shadow Game. If I thought about that, if I let even a single contemplation of it scamper across my mind, then I knew I would succumb entirely to despair.
I couldn’t think of it.
I couldn’t.
So I had to believe Jack. There had to be a way, and Jack would find it.
He would.
He must.
For at least a week we kept apart from everyone else, save Malcolm. Harry was desperate to see us, no doubt to tell us of the latest disaster to befall the Faerie, and my parents pestered, but Malcolm turned away all of them. I know my mother’s creed and very reason for existence was to provide shelter, but that week Malcolm made a damn good job of it himself.
After three or four days Jack and I began to spend hours each day walking Epping Forest, often well into the night. We rarely spoke, but we did not need to in order to communicate. After the shock of our meeting with the White Queen, we used those walks to draw gradually back together again. We might start out walking side by side, but by the end of the walk, after hours spent on the paths and under the trees, our steps would slow and we would link arms, and walk so close that our bodies bumped and touched in myriad different places. Spring had arrived, and the increasing warmth of the sun and the bright green of new, vibrant growth pushing through the mouldy leaf litter increased our spirits until one day, without thinking, we laughed at a tiny fawn that had stumbled into our path and stood staring at us until his mother nudged him back into the undergrowth.
These walks helped as nothing else. Just being close to Jack, trusting in him, feeling his strength and determination, made me feel as if there might be a way, and I wouldn’t need to spend eternity trapped with Catling…No! I couldn’t even think of that. I couldn’t.
I mustn’t. I would go mad if I allowed that thought to intrude.
One night, after a long walk, when we’d felt closer than previously, we made love for the first time since we’d rented that little room in Southwark. Very gently, very slowly. Afterwards, dozing in Jack’s arms, I imagined myself lying in a glade in the forest on a warm summer’s day, looking up through the forest canopy to the sky so far above, and every time Jack moved slightly in sleep, so the forest moved very slightly about me. When I drifted into a deeper sleep my dreams took over where my imaginings had left off, and I spent that night in the warm embrace of the forest, feeling more loved than I had ever thought possible.
In the morning, Jack rose, kissed me, and said that he needed to go out this evening.
“Where?” I asked.
“To see Ariadne,” he replied.
I sat up in the bed. “Jack? Of what did you dream last night?”
He stood the longest time, not answering, looking with unfocussed eyes at the pattern of the bedspread.
Eventually he raised his eyes to me. “I dreamed of hope,” he said.
TWO
The Robin Hood Inn, Epping Forest
Wednesday, 2nd April 1941
The Robin Hood Inn stood at the entrance to Epping Forest, to one side of a roundabout on the A11. Ariadne met Jack there, just after dusk. She had driven herself, and was drawing off her driving gloves when she walked in the door of the inn, pausing just inside to look about for Jack.
The five or six other patrons of the inn all turned to stare at her. Jack, sitting at a table in the shadows of a shuttered window, wasn’t surprised. Ariadne cut an exotic figure in what was a fairly rundown establishment.
He didn’t think the Robin Hood would see many like her.
Ariadne caught sight of Jack almost immediately and walked over. He rose, and helped her slip out of her ermine coat (only Ariadne, he thought, could have worn ermine to a casual meeting in a pub).
“A drink?” he said.
“Martini,” she replied. “Dry.”
Jack fetched her the cocktail, then sat down on the other side of the table with a pint of ale for himself.
“I’m assuming a disaster,” said Ariadne, taking a sip of the martini and leaving a smudge of her bright red lipstick on the glass. “I can’t think why else you’d want to see me so fast, and alone. And…here.”
She arched an eyebrow, and looked about.
“The Shadow Game’s purpose is to trap the Troy Game within its dark heart—” Jack began.
“Which is under the remains of old London Bridge,” Ariadne said. “I admire the concept, if only for its dramatic appeal. But we have not yet arrived at the disaster.”
“The new Game does nothing to release Grace from the hex with which Catling has bound her. If Grace and I dance the Shadow Game, raise it into life, then it will trap Grace, with Catling, in this dank chamber. For eternity. When Catling is dragged in, so also will Grace be dragged in.”
“But that means that…”
“It means, Ariadne, that Catling will be dragged in as the Flower Gate closes, but so will Grace, although the White Queen claims her Game can save the land and the Faerie. Apparently—” Jack had to pause to regain some control of his voice “—Grace can still complete her part of the dance inside the Game’s dark heart. The White Queen sat for years by Grace’s bed to make sure she could rely on Grace to do the right thing—continue the dance even though she was trapped.”
Ariadne looked at Jack, her scarlet lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. “Dear gods.”
Jack gave a slight shrug: he didn’t trust his voice at the moment.
“I bred cruel daughters with Noah,” he said after a few minutes. “Catling and the White Queen are true sisters, indeed.”
“Well,” Ariadne said quietly, and Jack thought it was the first time he’d ever heard her speak without a hin
t of affectation in her voice, “that is a disaster, and no wonder that you and Grace have cut each other off from everyone else. Noah is quite frantic. And no wonder you chose this ancient edifice in which to meet. You didn’t want to travel too far from Grace, yet you didn’t want her overhearing our discussion.”
“You should turn to writing detective fiction, Ariadne. You are too, too good.”
She laughed softly, then took another sip of her martini.
Jack didn’t even raise a smile. “Ariadne…”
“I don’t know how to help you, Jack, and I don’t know how to help Grace. I would give anything to be able to help her. I have spent sleepless nights wondering how Catling’s hex could be removed. I had opportunity to study that hex when Grace lived with Silvius and me.” She paused. “Although possibly not the same kind of access I believe you might be enjoying now.”
“Ariadne!”
“Sorry. Jack, I don’t know how to help. If I’d had the magic solution I would have applied it long ago. You know that. Why ask me now?”
“Because you’re sly and devious and cunning, Ariadne, and I need all that to help Grace.”
“Ah, and I thought you weren’t the complimenting kind. Any chance of another?” Ariadne held up her empty glass. What Jack had told her had truly shaken Ariadne, and she needed time to think.
Jack rose, and fetched Ariadne her drink.
“Thank you,” she said as he set it down before her.
“Ariadne,” Jack said, “when the Flower Gate closes on a Game, it traps everything inside, yes?”
“Of course.”
“The Shadow Game is powerful, stunningly so. Catling will be trapped inside so tightly that she could extend none of her influence outside it.”
Ariadne paused with the glass halfway to her mouth. She set it down again without drinking. And Grace will be trapped in there with Catling, she thought. “And…?”
“What if Grace wasn’t in there with Catling? The hex would be broken as the Flower Gate closed. Catling’s power would be confined to the dark heart of the Shadow Game. If Grace was still outside, then the hex would be broken.”
Ariadne thought there was a hint of desperation in Jack’s voice. “Maybe. But such speculation is pointless. Grace will be in the dark heart of the new Game with Catling.”
Jack didn’t say anything. One hand shifted his half-drunk glass of ale idly about in circles as he gazed at Ariadne.
“Jack?”
“Bear with me…I’m thinking this out as I speak. If Grace was on the outside when the Flower Gate closed, as the Shadow Game completed, the hex would be broken. So long as Catling remained trapped, then Grace would be free from the hex. Free.”
His voice was more confident now, but Ariadne didn’t understand why.
“Jack. Catling will drag Grace through into the dark heart with her. The Shadow Game will trap both of them. You need to break the hex before this Shadow Game begins to drag Catling through to its dark heart.”
Jack was silent, studying Ariadne, his hand continuing to turn his glass of ale about in idle circles.
“For gods’ sakes, Jack—”
“Just let me think aloud, Ariadne. If, as according to the White Queen, Grace can still dance the Shadow Game to completion while she is trapped in the dark heart with Catling, then she can also dance it to completion somewhere other than the dark heart. Somewhere safe from Catling.”
“Well, theoretically, yes. But how are you going to get her away from Catling? Catling is not going to let go that hex. She will do everything in her power to drag Grace inside the dark heart with her, because she thinks it will be the only way to save herself. She’ll be certain you won’t complete the Dance to trap her, if it means trapping Grace as well.”
“Yes, yes, yes…but what if I could get Grace somewhere safe where Catling couldn’t pull her into the dark heart with her? Answer me, Ariadne, please.”
“Damn it, Jack. In theory, yes, it would work.”
Jack had dropped his gaze now, and was staring at the table. As he’d been twisting his glass of ale, it had left concentric damp rings on the pitted, scarred wood.
“Jesus bloody Christ,” he muttered. Then he looked up at Ariadne with what she thought was an expression of mad hope, leaned forward, kissed her hard and briefly on her mouth, then strode out of the inn.
Jack drove through the night and the forest, forsaking the road, using his power as Ringwalker to guide the Austin smoothly over territory it was never meant to traverse. His eyes were flat and unblinking, his hands rested white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his mouth moved silently, as if he rehearsed a speech in his mind.
He immersed himself in a memory of the night he’d taken Grace dancing in the Savoy. Noah and Weyland had been there, and Ariadne and Silvius also, and the Savoy had witnessed the strangest of ancient spectacles, three Mistresses and three Kingmen, circling the floor of the ballroom to the soft music of the Orpheans.
Then, something had tugged at Jack’s mind, as if he should have learned something from this oddity. Then, he’d not grasped it.
Now he did.
Damn it, this was so dangerous, so dangerous.
But it might just work.
It would be Grace’s only hope.
THREE
Copt Hall
Saturday, 5th April 1941
GRACE SPEAKS
Idon’t know what happened at the Robin Hood Inn. Jack came home as if drunk, but with excitement rather than alcohol. I was waiting for him, sitting on the lower step of the stairs, and rose slowly as he came in the front door. He walked over, took me by the shoulders, stared at me a long moment, then smiled—so gently and sweetly it brought tears to my eyes.
“Go to bed,” he said. “I want to sit up a while yet.”
“Jack.”
“Don’t ask, please. I have to work something out. Grace, I think I have something, but let me work it out.”
“Jack…”
He cuddled me to him, rocking me back and forth, kissing the top of my head. “I think there’s a way,” he said, “but I need to nut it out. Please, trust me.”
So I did. I went to bed, where I didn’t sleep, but sat up with Malcolm all night playing cards and refusing the biscuits he tried to press on me.
There were no answers in the morning. Jack spoke to me, and kissed me, and reassured me, but said he needed more time. He looked haggard with lack of sleep, but his eyes still shone with that wild, intoxicated excitement.
I left him to it.
Malcolm took care of me, keeping me reasonably calm, keeping me company, taking me for long walks in the forest and telling me druidic tales that were so strange I think he made them up. He fielded the phone calls from my parents and from Ariadne and Silvius, and refused the Lord of the Faerie entry into the hall. He kept me quiet, and he kept a buffer of quiet around Jack, who emerged from his study only to use the bathroom or snatch a bite from the kitchen.
Jack stayed in the study until Saturday morning, then came out, kissed me again, asked Malcolm to ring my parents and Ariadne and Silvius, and to contact the Lord of the Faerie, and request that they all meet with us at the hall in the evening.
“I have it,” he said. “Believe me.”
Then he went up to bed, and slept through the day until the late afternoon, when he rose and bathed, and only emerged from the bathroom as my parents were arriving.
I wish he could have told me beforehand what he’d discovered, but it was only much, much later, when we were all sitting stunned about the fire, that I realised why he hadn’t.
What he had to say was so incredible, so complex, and so dangerous, that I wouldn’t want to have to explain it twice, either.
“We can do this,” said Jack, leaning forward in his chair, his keen eyes shifting slowly about the group, “but it is going to take most of us, and it is going to take everything we have. Everything. Nothing can go wrong, and none of us can take a misstep.”
We were sitting i
n the drawing room, the chairs and sofas pulled, as usual, in a semicircle about the fire. My parents were here, as were Ariadne and Silvius and Stella and the Lord of the Faerie. Malcolm had abandoned his usual listening post in the hall to sit on the arm of my chair.
“I want to go back over some things,” said Jack. “I’m doing this so that everything is very clear in our minds. I want no shadows, no puddles of murkiness. I want everyone to walk out of this room tonight with our course of action so unambiguous that you can have no questions. Okay?”
Nods all about, and also a few shared glances of concern.
“Noah’s and my daughter,” said Jack, “who we know as the White Queen, has spent the past two thousand years building a Shadow Game so powerful that it can trap the Troy Game. The White Queen requires Grace and me to dance this Game—to open it and to bring it to a conclusion. The only problem, as you all know, is that Grace is also bound by hex to Catling…to the Troy Game. Its fate is her fate. Grace will also be trapped inside the dark heart of the Shadow Game with Catling, for eternity.”
Jack explained that while the weaker part of Catling’s hex (that which bound everything I had touched to my shared fate with Catling) could be shattered, the White Queen could do little for the original and far more powerful hex.
“Grace will even have to complete the final Dance of the Flowers of the Shadow Game inside its dark heart,” Jack said, “as she will be dragged in with Catling during the process of raising the Flower Gate.
“On the face of it, bad news. Not what we want to hear. But it told me something else—that Grace can complete her portion of the Dance of the Flowers elsewhere. She doesn’t have to be with me.”
He reached out to me then, taking my hand and smiling at me with such warmth that my heart skipped a beat.