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Azrael frowned, and sat slowly. Finally he said, “I had no idea this was on your mind. The truth is, Sarah, I don’t know. All things are connected in the Great Work, all times and places, all minds. Everything that has ever happened in the world is threaded with everything else in a vast intricate web. Whether things would have worked out differently is not for us to know. You meant no harm. You were only curious.” He glanced over. “I’m sure Tom doesn’t blame you.”

“Of course I don’t!” Tom felt hot. He had never heard anything so ridiculous.

“All right.” Sarah nodded, nettled. “So you won’t tell me.”

“I can’t, believe me. I have no knowledge of—”

“Knowledge! You have plenty of that.” She looked at him sharply. “In a hundred years you get to see a lot of people die. My father. Martha. I know all about you, my lord.” She drank some tea and put her cup down, her hand shaking slightly.

“I see. And the second thing?” Azrael asked gently. His long fingers caressed the cat as it climbed up to him. Sarah was silent a long time. Then, abruptly, she stood up.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He looked devastated. “Not still the old family pride, Sarah! I thought you wanted to ask something of me.”

“Maybe I thought better of it,” she muttered.

Tom couldn’t bear this. “She wants you to let her go,” he blurted out. “Not to . . . take her away.”

“No!” She glared at him. “I don’t! I’m not going begging to him or anyone! I signed his wretched bargain and I’m going to stick to it.”

Azrael looked upset. He put the cat down and it strolled over to Sarah and butted her knees.

“I’m afraid Sarah’s right. The bargain was made, the time has been given, and now it must be paid for. Even if I wanted to change things I couldn’t, Tom, because even I am bound in the web of the Great Work. I must take a soul with me at the year’s end. And it seems Sarah, like her grandfather, would rather die than break her word.” He stood gravely. “And now I’m afraid I have to go. I’m going home for Christmas.”

“To your other estate,” Sarah said coldly.

“Yes.”

“It can’t be far.”

He shook his head. “No. It isn’t.”

Disgusted, she stalked to the door and slammed out.

She was already running down the stairs when Azrael said, “After Christmas, Tom, we’ll need to work harder. To create a shining new element from all our old mistakes.”

“Don’t you care about her?” Tom stared at him in anger. “She’s scared! Why can’t you leave her in peace!”

He got to the door before Azrael answered. “Because I gave her what she most wanted. What is it you want most, Tom?”

He didn’t want to say it. But the words came out, hoarse and stumbling. “To come to this school.”

Azrael nodded. “It can be arranged,” he said.

Tom turned. It took him a moment to gather the strength to say it. “I can do it myself.”

Outside the Hall, there was no sign of Sarah, and even the slowest of the Waits were far down the drive, the distant brass chords of “Hark the Herald Angels” drifting faintly back to him. Behind, the Hall was silent. He was drawn and tired, as if after some struggle. He didn’t want to be here alone, in this emptied place, so he ran hurriedly after the singers, knowing they’d go to the church first, then along the cliff and out to the Black Dog. They wouldn’t be back much before midnight. Sarah was with them. He needed to talk to her.

Ahead, the lanterns disappeared around the corner. And as he ran past the thicket of conifers a shadow jumped out and collided with him, hard.

Tom staggered back and almost fell.

Steve Tate hauled him up. “Right, Tommy,” he hissed, “now they’re all gone you can show me where the money’s kept in your rich little school.”

Tom swallowed. “I can’t get back in,” he gasped. His heart was thudding, his palms slippery with sweat. “It’s locked.”

“No problem.” Steve smiled coyly and held up a small key that glittered in the starlight. “Just look what I’ve got.”

twenty-one

“Is this it?”

Steve prowled around the secretary’s office in disgust, tugging out the few unopened drawers and flinging them down. “Where’s the cash?”

“I told you! They don’t leave money here during the holidays.” Tom shoved a drawer back, terrified. “Scrab might be around. We should go!”

Steve gave him a glare. “No chance!” He came around the desk and grabbed Tom’s arm, close. Tom struggled.

“Maybe we should try upstairs, eh? All those well-heeled little kiddies’ goodies. Come on!”

He was out of the office and racing up the great stairs two at a time; Tom hurtled after him in panic, past the Christmas tree, desperate for Simon to come, or even Scrab. “Where are you?” his mind thumped, over and over. For an instant outside the staffroom he thought Simon was there, but it was only his own reflection in a thin mirror, and Steve was already inside, rummaging in desks and cupboards, grabbing a screwdriver and wrenching open the gray metal lockers.

“Don’t!” Tom whispered, appalled. “It’s just school stuff. Papers. There’s nothing valuable here.”

“Rubbish!” Another locker clanged back.

Tom took a step toward the door.

“You stay put!” Steve swung around with the screwdriver in his hand. Quickly he swept the shelves clear; exercise books and folders of notes came down in a waterfall of paper. He kicked them in disgust. Tom turned and fled. He got as far as the door, before the crash of the screwdriver sliced his ear and splintered a chunk out of the doorframe. Then he had the door open, but Steve had grabbed his hair; his head was yanked back, eye-wateringly hard.

“Don’t think about turning me in.” The voice was cold and quiet in his ear. “Or I’ll tell them it was you had the key copied. And all about your squatter girlfriend.”

Tom breathed out, a shuddering effort. Steve loosened his grip a fraction.

“So then. Where are the computers?”

“You can’t take them.” Tom tried to shake his head; the vicious jerk brought his chin up and water into his eyes. “They’re all marked. They’d be traced.”

“I know people.”

Tom didn’t believe him. Suddenly, Steve let him go, then shoved his face hard into the door. “Show me!”

Pain burst like a star in his forehead; his lip felt bruised and cut. Holding it, desperate for Simon, Tom stumbled down the dark corridors. There were few lights on up here; the Hall was deserted, a dim icy place, with only the cold disdain of the Trevelyans in their dusty ruffs and gowns. Tom tripped on a mat, and thought suddenly of the Waits, roaring out “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” at some pub. Was Simon with them? Was Simon even real?

Behind him, Steve said, “What about here?”

It was the door to the library wing.

Tom’s heart thudded. “No. There’s nothing . . .”

But Steve had flung the door open and shoved him in, and was already flitting from room to room, picking up books and hurling them away in fury. “Books! Nothing but bloody paper in this place. What’s in here?”

It was the lab.

Tom picked himself up and shrugged, praying that Azrael might still be here.

But the room was empty.

A lamp had been left lit, and it gleamed on the astrolabe and bizarre contraptions of glass, the tubes, one still bubbling, the stacked crucibles and open pages of Azrael’s alchemic books.

“More junk.” Steve ran his hand down the telescope, then headed directly for the computer. “This is better. State-of-the-art!”