The Armourer nodded slowly. “Of course you do. He killed Molly’s parents. On the family’s orders. He knows things . . . you need to know.”
“How long have you known, Uncle Jack?”
“Always,” he said. “But I couldn’t tell you.”
“So many things you kept from me,” I said. “And you’re still keeping secrets from me, after all this time.”
“Because some secrets . . . just aren’t mine to tell,” he said.
“It’s time for the truth to come out,” I said. “All of it.”
“It won’t make you happy and it won’t make you wise,” the Armourer said gruffly. “You watch your back, boy. It’s lonely out there in the cold.”
He stepped forward and embraced me. I hugged him back, and then we let each other go. We’ve never been a touchy-feely family. The Armourer went back inside the Sanctity. And I stood there for a long moment, thinking.
• • •
I wasn’t sure where to look for Molly. I listened carefully, but I couldn’t hear any screams, or explosions. Which suggested she probably wasn’t inside the Hall any longer. More likely she’d gone back out into the grounds; the one part of Drood Hall that reminded her of her beloved private forest. I looked at the black oblong box in my hand. I’d snatched it up off the table and concealed it about my person while we were all arguing, and no one had noticed. Sleight of hand is a very useful talent in a field agent.
I studied the box carefully, and it still refused to make any sense. Supposedly my DNA was enough to open it, but my touch wasn’t doing anything. And I really hadn’t felt like experimenting with the box while I was inside Drood Hall. I wouldn’t put it past dear departed Grandmother to have concealed some kind of booby-trap inside. No, I needed somewhere safer . . . like Molly’s forest. I grinned, despite myself. Whatever was inside the black box, I really didn’t feel like leaving it in anyone else’s hands. I wondered if anyone had noticed it had gone missing yet . . .
I took out the Merlin Glass, and told it to take me to Molly. Wherever she was.
CHAPTER THREE
The Merlin Glass dropped me off by the family’s very own artificial lake, where I found Molly Metcalf keeping herself busy by tormenting the swans.
I took my time walking over to the edge of the lake. I didn’t want to startle Molly, or the swans. The lawns stretched away in every direction, broad and gently undulating, like a dark green sea under a brilliant blue sky. The waters of the lake were deep and dark, with mad ripples spreading in every direction. The surface was disturbed by Molly running across it, waving her arms wildly at the retreating swans, and shouting obscenities after them.
I paused, to look down at the Merlin Glass in my hand. Such a small and innocent-looking thing, in its hand-mirror guise. I wasn’t sure why I was so determined to hang on to it. The Glass was a useful enough item, but I’d managed perfectly well without it for years. It had never even occurred to me that I wasn’t going to give it back until the Sarjeant demanded that I hand it over. But now I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to need it. And I also couldn’t help feeling . . . that the Glass wanted to stay with me. Which was just a bit worrying. I put the hand mirror away in my pocket, and stood on the bank of the lake, looking out across the waters.
It’s not an everyday sight, even in the weird and wondrous grounds of Drood Hall, to see a witch charging across the surface of a lake with her dress rucked up to her waist, in hot pursuit of a dozen panicked swans. Their great white bodies shot this way and that, wings flapping energetically, never able to build up enough speed to get into the air, because they kept having to change direction when Molly got too close. She went sprinting up and down the length of the lake, her toes digging just below the surface of the waters to give her more traction. I stayed where I was, if only to avoid the energetic splashing from all concerned. My armour has many fine and useful qualities, but walking on water isn’t one of them.
“Molly?” I said, after a while. “Please stop doing that, and come over here and talk to me. I’m sure whatever the swans did, they’re really very sorry now.”
“Snotty, arrogant, entitled birdy things!” said Molly. Loudly. “They were looking down their noses at me!”
She stopped running, quite abruptly, and glared about her. The swans glided to a somewhat ruffled halt a safe distance away. Molly sniffed scornfully, and stomped across the water to join me. I reached down, and pulled her up onto the bank beside me. She was still scowling, which is never a good sign.
“Swans don’t have noses,” I said mildly.
“Well, whatever they have, they were looking down them at me! They don’t like me. I could tell. Yes, I’m talking about you, you fluffy white bastards! You’d better stay at that end of the lake, or it’s sandwich time for the lot of you!”
“You wouldn’t like them, Molly,” I said. “Swan meat is actually pretty bland and greasy. We have to supplement their feed with a special kind of corn just to make them palatable. Like the Royal swan-keepers do.”
Molly looked at me. “Didn’t I read somewhere that only the Royal family are allowed to eat swan?”
“We have a special dispensation,” I said.
“The Queen told you that you could eat swan?”
“No, we told her that we could eat swan.”
“I’ve had enough of this lake,” said Molly. “And the swans. Let’s go somewhere else, Eddie.”
• • •
We strolled through the grounds together, heading for a pleasantly shady copse of elm trees. It all seemed very calm and peaceful, but long experience had taught me that you can’t trust anything at Drood Hall to be what it appears to be.
“You should be more careful,” I said. “Antagonising swans is never a good idea. Powerful creatures, you know. A swan can break your arm. If it’s got a crowbar.”
Molly laughed, despite herself. “I couldn’t stay in the Hall,” she said. “Far too dark and gloomy. And claustrophobic. And far too many people looking at me.”
“Looking down their noses, perhaps?” I said. “Like the swans?”
“So,” Molly said brightly, in her best I am changing the subject now and you’d better go along voice. “How was the family?”
“Much as usual,” I said.
“Bad as that, eh?” said Molly.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been banished again. Go, and never darken our doorstop-the whole bit.”
“They should know by now,” said Molly. “That never works. So, what did your grandmother leave you in her will? Was it money?”
“No,” I said. “She just left me a keepsake. Something to remind me of the kind of person she was.”
Molly waited until she was sure I had nothing more to say, and then she said, almost casually, “Have you finished your business here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Nothing to hold me here now. It’s time for us to go visit the Department of Uncanny, and have our long-delayed little chat with the Regent of Shadows. My grandfather, Arthur Drood.”
“Good,” said Molly. “I could use cheering up. I am just in the mood for some serious violence and extreme property damage.”
“Never knew you when you weren’t,” I said.
“Flatterer,” said Molly.
“We are going to try talking first,” I said firmly. “If communications break down, then we move on to more distressing measures of persuasion.”
“Wimp,” said Molly.
“The Regent didn’t just decide to kill your parents on his own,” I said carefully. “Someone ordered him to do it. Some specific person, inside my family, condemned your parents to death, for reasons of their own.”