Beyond the walls he could hear the fireworks exploding. Sarah’s words rang in his head. How could Janus be here? And Venn?
“This is it,” she hissed. They had come to a set of spiral stairs winding around a gilt railing—they raced up, burst through a small door at the top, and found themselves in a silken boudoir where every surface, or so it seemed to Jake, was draped in chiffon and velvet.
Moll swept them straight to an iron door in the paneling.
“There’s the safe, Tom.”
He was already working at it, expertly sliding the tools into the lock. “Kid’s stuff this, Moll,” he muttered. “Not even sweating.”
“You may not be,” Jake muttered. He had taken up his place at the door, sword in hand. His heart thudded with every crack of the fireworks.
“Relax, Jake,” Moll said, arms folded. “Not long now. Straight to your dad when we’re done, Jake. I promise you.”
He looked back at her.
“What’s wrong, cully?” she whispered. “That girl down there?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t like the stealing, eh?”
“Not really. You’re better than this, Moll. You could be . . .”
She lifted her white skirts and held them out. “What else does a kid from the gutters know, eh Jake? A girl too. Can’t be anything except a thief or a trull. Can’t have a brain. Brains are for men. That’s the way it is in my time.”
“Not in mine,” he whispered.
Her eyes met his. She stared at him.
“Got it.” Something metal cracked. Tom swung the door open.
Moll turned. His gloved hands were already groping among the papers and documents. He drew out a scatter of gold and diamonds, a bag of gold coins, then a case of red leather and flipped it open.
Moll gave a hoot of delight.
The Sauvigne emeralds were a glittering green dazzle, a great supple collar of stones with matching earrings. She lifted them on her gloved hands and held them up for Jake to see. “Dosh, Jake. That’s what the world is all about. Them that has it, survive. Them that don’t, starve.”
A sound outside.
Instantly she thrust the jewels in a bag under her skirt and flattened herself against the dressing-table; Jake stepped back behind the door, sword ready. The hilt was sweaty in his hand. This was it.
The door opened. The tiny vicomte scurried in. “Ma chére, I had your note but this is no time . . . surely . . . my guests . . . the fireworks—”
He froze. The tip of Jake’s foil gently touched the folded skin of his neck. He saw three masked figures in the darkness.
“Do you understand English?” Jake said softly.
Silence. Then “A little.”
Jake nodded. “Good. Please listen carefully. We now all go downstairs, together. We go to the front steps of the house—not where the guests are. You have your coach brought round. We all get in. Do you understand?”
“Do you think to kidnap me! How dare—”
The sword point pressed harder. The tiny man swallowed.
“Just do it, luv,” Moll’s voice said pityingly from the dark. “And be thankful. Without us, you’d be carted off to the guillotine with all the rest of them.”
The guests streamed onto the lawn. Among them the Shee flitted, under cascades of shimmering gold and explosions of turquoise flame.
Sarah, shoving her way among them, cannoned into Gideon. “I saw Venn. And Wharton. Where are they? Where?”
“I don’t know. We have to leave here, Sarah!”
But he knew it was too late. Already his keen hearing could hear a new sound, the low tread of many marching feet, the mutter of angry voices.
“There! I see him!” Sarah turned away; in an instant she was a dark shadow among the bright dancers. Gideon cursed and pushed after her. “Sarah! Wait!”
But she had struggled out of the crush to an empty expanse of lawn, and racing by a fountain of gold and scarlet, she found Venn. He was surrounded by Shee; Summer was there too, clutching Wharton. The Shee crowded close, greedy. But as Sarah walked among them, they fell back and let her through, gazing at her with the cold, bright curiosity of infants.
Venn turned. “Sarah! At last! Where’s Jake?”
“With Moll.”
“Moll!”
“He’s caught up some plan to find his father.” Her eyes flicked to Summer, hanging possessively tight to Wharton’s arm. The big man looked thoroughly embarrassed.
“Hello, Sarah,” he said. “Thank God you’re safe.”
“Yes. How lovely,” Summer said in a voice of pure venom, “to see you again.”
“This is ridiculous,” Venn snapped. “Let that man go.”
“Not until I have my changeling back. Where’s Gideon, Venn? Isn’t he here? Can’t I hear his breathing?”
Sarah looked back. Gideon was nowhere to be seen.
But she saw something else. Roaring in like a dark tide of ragged shadows, the poor of Paris were invading the party. The cry they made as they came chilled her; it was a barely human murmur, a low deliberate threat, the growl of the starved and the forgotten, a raw blood-lust for revenge. There were armed men at their head, red-capped in some ragged attempts at uniform—all had muskets and pikes and crude clubs, even the women.
Venn took one look and whirled on her. “Where’s the mirror? Where, Sarah?”
She stared at him, aghast. “I don’t know! Somewhere in Paris. It’s not here.”
“Poor Venn.” Summer turned calmly away, leading Wharton with her. “You’ll just have to stay and see all the fun. The rest of you—home! Now.”
The Shee dissipated like cobwebs in the wind; they scattered like starlings before a hawk. Wharton’s look of despair struck Sarah to the heart.
“No!” She leaped forward. “Wait. You can’t take him back there.”
“Really?” Summer smiled. “Do you have anything you could exchange for him?”
There was only the half coin. Sarah was silent.
“No, I thought not.” Summer shook her dark head in mock sorrow. “These are supposed to be your friends, George, and they won’t even help you. Believe me, you’re better off with us.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Wharton muttered, defiant. “Just find Jake.”
“We will,” Sarah began, but Venn pushed her aside and said, “Summer. I thought we understood each other.”
Summer laughed up at him and pulled Wharton closer. “Too late. I have a new mortal now, Oberon.”
She turned away.
And came face-to-face with Janus.
He was wearing a blue uniform jacket slashed with a tricolor sash; a red cap covered his tangle of greasy hair. The scrutiny of his blue lenses was calm and close.
Summer did not flinch. “So! It’s you! The fascinating tyrant from the end of the world!” she said with cool amusement.
He bowed to her. “And the beautiful Queen of the Midnight Court.”
Summer raised a perfect eyebrow. “You know all about us, it seems.”
His eyes behind their blue spectacles stared at her curiously. “On the contrary. I know very little. I think I told you once that there are no Shee in my world.”
Summer tinkled a laugh. “That’s what you think.”
“I assure you. Any magic there belongs to me.”
Summer glanced at Venn. “Hear that, beloved? What a future the world faces! Nothing left of the Wood and the Wild. And all because one man owns the mirror, and feeds it with his own greed and his own darkness until it becomes a monster.”
Venn’s stare was bitter.
She turned back to Janus with dark disdain. “Not that it worries me. There is no world where we’re not hidden somewhere.”
Janus frowned. Behind him revellers fled. A woman screamed. Red flames beg
an to lick the eastern façade of the château; Sarah smelled the drift of smoke. Guests were running, many being rounded up and forced into their carriages at sword point.
Then, before anyone could realize what he had done, Janus reached out and took the purple flower from Wharton’s buttonhole. He twirled it in his fingers. “How strange this is. A flower that doesn’t die.”
Venn took a breath; his hand reached out to snatch it, but Janus drew the flower close. Wharton’s face was white.
Sarah had no idea what the artefact was, but she saw clearly its effect on Summer. The fey queen’s face flickered; as the small man slipped the flower into the gilt braid of his uniform, she stared at him with slowly considering eyes, her disdain seeming to kindle into a new fascination.
Venn whipped out his sword. “Give me that.”
Janus smiled. “I see it has more power than I thought.”
Venn moved; the sword jerked up, but the Replicant laughed as the blade sliced through him harmlessly. Then he shouted, a great cry in French. Venn roared in frustration but already the mob was on him. As Sarah gasped, two men hauled him back, snatched the weapon away, and then began dragging him, kicking and struggling, toward the sobbing prisoners.
“No!” she screamed. “Let him go!”
Wharton too was yelling, but Summer’s small fingers held him, a tight vise. As she turned away he managed to yell, “Sarah! Get that flower!” and then he was gone with Summer into the acrid smoke and the moonlight.
Sarah took a breath, twisted between the men, and threw herself at Janus. The Replicant was startled, for a moment almost off-guard, but then it grabbed her wrist, and its grasp was like a manacle of ice.
“Venn!” she yelled, terror bursting out of her in a scream.
Venn saw, struggled, but he was struck down and dragged away, and now the tyrant’s grip was an agony, and she was sobbing with the pain of it and she knew he would take her back with him, back to the end of everything, and the world would be lost in the black hole of the mirror.
“Let her go!” Gideon was there. He came swiftly out of shadow like a flicker of green leaves. Without a word, he leveled the glass weapon at Janus. The Replicant released its grip.
But Gideon fired anyway.
The flash was brilliant, stunning, like another huge firework. For a moment it dazzled them both. When they could see again, only gray smoke drifted across the empty lawns.
“Did I hit him?” Gideon whirled around. “Is he still here?”
All about them the night was a panic. The château was ablaze now, its windows roaring with flame, its white classical columns blackening and cracking in the heat. Servants and musicians and cooks and entertainers fled in terror, the mob smashing every window with delight.
In a crash of sparks, part of the roof collapsed.
Gideon grabbed Sarah and pulled her back. She held her seared wrist; stared around. “Where’s Venn?”
“They’ve taken him. With a lot of others. The carriages—”
She broke away, raced to the drive, but already the carriages had rattled away, the horses whipped to madness, the terrified coachmen fleeing.
Helpless, she stood with Gideon and watched them go. Toward Paris.
Wharton watched too as Summer led him away from the blazing building. At the edge of the dark lawns they stopped.
“That man Janus,” he said sourly. “He’s your real enemy.”
Summer looked at him as if she had forgotten who he was. “You think so? Actually, Janus is what I call a really interesting mortal.”
As she led him into the Wood he looked back, and for a moment thought he saw the small dark form of the tyrant silhouetted against the flames, staring up in calm satisfaction, and two great beasts, like dogs with eyes of burning coal, racing in and out of the inferno, the flames leaping harmlessly down their backs.
Nor doth this Wood lack Worlds of company.
16
I will not let you go, my lord.
I will not let you flee.
My chains are frail as cobweb,
Strong as ivory.
I will scorch your fevered brow,
Melt your heart of ice.
You will forget the love you lost
and all the world besides.
Ballad of Lord Winter and Lady Summer
JAKE HELD THE sword comfortably on his lap as the carriage jolted. He watched the small man sitting opposite.
The vicomte was in a perfect sweat of terror.
“Monsieur Englishman,” he said at last. “Listen to me. I will give you ten thousand livres in gold for my release. More than that, I will—”
“Save your breath, chum.” From her corner of the carriage, Moll was curled up in satisfied calm. “You ain’t got as much as a church mouse left by now. Not when that mob get into the house.” She grinned at Jake. “Timed it to a whisker, Jake. Spot on.”
He nodded, silent. Her ruthlessness chilled him, but he knew something of it was in him too, and if he could find Dad, all the aristocratic houses in Paris could go up in flames for all he cared. And yet the stench of smoke, the terrible scorch of flames against the sky, crackled in his memory.
“They were there,” he said, bleak. “Venn, Sarah. All of them.”
“Well, we can’t do anything about that now. Got to stick to the plan, Jake. Got to get your dad. They can look after themselves, that Oberon Venn can, anyway. But, blimey, who was the looker in the red dress? Wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of her.”
“That was Summer, Moll. She’s”—he shrugged, despairing—“what you might call not quite human.”
Her eyes widened. “Straight up? Lord, Jake, there’s some loopy stuff goes on in that century of yours! Not human meaning from some other planet?”
“Oh, she’s from this planet all right.” He had no desire to talk about Summer or let worry about Sarah or Wharton distract him, so he glared again at the Frenchman and said, “When we get my father, what happens then?”
“You take him home.”
“How?”
“Well, through the bloody mirror, Jake, how else?” Suddenly she uncurled and wriggled over to him, ignoring their prisoner. “What’s the matter, cully? Ain’t everything going to plan?”
“So far.” He stared into the dark. “It’s just that . . . I’ve been thinking. To snatch me you had to come into the future. How is that possible, Moll? For us to journey backward, well, this world already exists. Or had existed, once. But how can the future be there ready to go into if it hasn’t happened yet?”
“Don’t know and don’t care,” she said. “When you go home you go forward, don’t you?”
“Yes . . . but that’s different, because—” He stopped. Was it?
Moll shrugged. “Maybe all the time there ever will be is in the mirror, all at once, and we just get off and on like stops on the trolley bus. But if you’re fretting we can’t do it again, then don’t, Jake, because like I said, me and Symmes, we worked hard on the Chronoptika. And if the silly old coot hadn’t got married and wasted a few years with some hoity who only wanted his money, we might have done more. Trust me. I’ll get you and your dad home.”
There was a stubborn, determined edge in that that made him smile at her. She had unwound her hair; now it was an urchin’s straggle again. To the vicomte’s interest and astonishment she had pulled on dark trousers and boots and wriggled out of the white dress, replacing it with a ragged coat and a sash with the tricolor colors as soon as the carriage had left the drive of the château. Now she looked more like the Moll he had first known, small and fierce and reckless. And more than a little sad.
“What you said about girls in your time. What’s it really like, Jake?”
He shrugged, rocked by the rapid motion. “They can do what they want.”
“Just like boys?”
; “More or less.” He had never really thought about it. “At least . . . in some countries they can.”
Wistful, she curled a scrap of hair around her finger. “Get educated?”
“Of course. And for free.”
“Bloody lucky them. But not much of a place for pirate-princesses, I don’t suppose.”
He wanted to say “Come back with me, Moll.” He had promised her that once. But somehow the words wouldn’t come, as if he sensed danger in them. So when the carriage slowed and Long Tom leaned down and yelled “We’re coming up to the city gates,” he was almost glad of the distraction.
If Moll noticed, she didn’t show it. She sat up and fixed the vicomte with a glare. “Okay. Don’t make a murmur.”
The marquis nodded, licking dry lips.
Horse-bits jangled. The carriage stopped; there was a murmur of voices outside, a few barked questions, Tom’s laconic answers.
“Sit tight,” Moll breathed.
The door was wrenched open.
Some sort of citizen guard in a dirty tricolor sash stared in, at Jake, Moll, the vicomte. A slow grin spread on his face. “New prisoner?” he said.
Jake nodded. “Our orders are to get him to the Conciergerie prison. So don’t keep us waiting.”
The man eyed him. Jake’s hand closed slightly on the sword. The words had been right, but he knew his accent must sound all wrong.
But the man just nodded; the door was slammed and the carriage lurched on.
The vicomte took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his face. “Sacre bleu,” he whispered.
Jake breathed out.
Moll edged back the blind and peeped out. “Sweetly done, Jake. We’re back in the city.”
When Rebecca had fed the cats she made some tea, grilled three sausages on a makeshift gas burner, put them on a tin plate, and took them to Maskelyne.
The lab was quiet and stuffy. Small green lights winked on the monitors. The mirror, tethered like some monster in its malachite web, reflected only blurs and warped shadows; her hand, her twisted shoulder. One cat on guard watched her as she tiptoed past the cradle where Lorenzo slept. On a shelf safely above, head under wing, the wooden bird seemed to sleep too.