‘The only choices worth making are the hard ones,’ he replied, turning back to Mandraxas. Clearing all extraneous thoughts from his head, he added, ‘And I would have an end to my suffering, one way or another.’
When Will raised his rapier, the King feinted and thrust, though his attack lacked guile or power. His confidence was ebbing, the spy saw. It was time to finish this play. As Mandraxas searched for an opening, Will wiped the sweat from his brow. He had been delaying that moment of no return, he knew.
The mirror glinted, and once again he glimpsed Deortha’s cold, watchful eyes urging him on to damnation. He dealt a flurry of ferocious blows, catching the King off guard and driving him back. With a flick of his wrist, he whipped his foe’s blade from his hand and thrust his rapier towards the Fay’s throat.
Jenny leapt from her throne. ‘Do not kill him,’ she cried. Will ignored her, though his heart ached at her concern for his foe.
The Unseelie Court surged closer, white faces contorted with bestial rage. Sword poised to strike, the spy thundered, ‘Stay back. I will slay your King without a moment’s thought for my own safety.’ Hands hooked, the Fay slowed close enough for Will to smell their loamy odour. ‘Meg. Robert. Some help, if you will.’
Launceston and the Irish woman grabbed daggers from two of the nearest Fay and held the blades against the King’s neck. Stepping back, Will sheathed his sword and then held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Jenny took it. He could feel the fury of Mandraxas’s gaze upon him as Carpenter and Grace hurried to his side. The Fay surrounded them and, Will guessed, countless more were gathering in the fortress beyond.
‘How can we ever escape?’ Grace whispered as if reading his thoughts.
‘Deortha, show me the way out,’ Will commanded into the looking glass.
The surface cleared and he heard the sorcerer speak: ‘First, kill the King.’
‘Do you take me for a fool? Once we have our freedom, you can have your monarch’s life.’ After a moment’s hesitation, the sorcerer uttered the words Will needed to hear. He grinned at the others, a reassuring show of bravado. ‘Stay close at my back. And if any here dare threaten you, prick the King till he squeals. Our Enemy will think twice before daring to lay a hand on you.’ With Launceston and Meg guarding their prisoner, Will slid out his rapier and brandished it in front of him. The wall of Fay parted and he began to lead the way through them. Cadaverous faces loomed from the half-light on either side, hungry eyes staring and jaws snapping. A choking sense of dread enveloped him.
At the hall’s great door, he turned back and looked across the Unseelie Court. Waving the tip of his rapier towards Mandraxas’s face, he announced, ‘Your King has betrayed you. He has conspired to leave your Queen a prisoner of men so that the Golden Throne can be his alone.’
‘Lies,’ Mandraxas bellowed.
With a smile and an arched eyebrow, Meg dug her blade deeper into the King’s neck and breathed into his ear, ‘Quiet now, my sweet. I can cut out your tongue and still keep you alive. For a while.’
‘Trust not my words,’ Will continued, his voice clear and strong. ‘Seek out your court’s wise adviser, Deortha, who is now incarcerated, upon your King’s orders. Free him from his cell where he has been locked away along with the truth and listen to what he has to say. Then you will learn that we are not so different, Fay and men.’
Will turned to Jenny and drank in all the things he had missed, the sparkle in her dark eyes and the way her brow knitted as if she was always questioning, and the colour in her cheeks and her lips, in case this was their last moment. Gently, he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her to him. She showed no resistance. He closed his eyes. Their lips met and he felt a jolt run through him, and all the lost years melted away. Once again he was in Warwickshire with the sun on his shoulders and the future ahead of him. Blood throbbed through his head, driving out all thoughts. And when he opened his lids, he watched a light appear in her face as if she were waking from that dream. All is illusion, and sometimes the truth is hidden, he thought with a surge of pure joy, the first he had felt in many a year. But it is here, now.
Turning back to the ranks of glowering faces, he called, ‘Our time here is done.’ He bowed deeply, flinging out his left arm with a flourish. ‘And so I bid you farewell.’
And with that, he pushed open the doors and led the others out into the dark alleys of a fortress teeming with the Enemy.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
TORCHES HISSED ON the black basalt walls. In and out of swooping shadows, six figures ghosted along the narrow, labyrinthine ways, bundling a seventh. Darkness as thick and impenetrable as the grave shrouded the spaces in between the too-small pools of light. Will ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, wondering how long they had before their pursuers caught them.
At a crossing of the ways, the fleeing figures pressed back into an archway as two grey sentries marched past. Once they had gone, the spies slipped by, but at every turn more Fay drifted like ghosts emerging from churchyards at dusk. Will’s chest tightened. It was only a matter of time until their escape route was discovered.
‘Can you not use the mirror to predict where these foul things lie in wait?’ Meg hissed as they huddled by a wall.
‘Without Deortha’s guidance it is useless to me,’ he replied, ‘but to keep it out of their control is victory in itself.’ He squeezed Jenny’s hand, never wanting to let it go, and she returned a wan smile, but the light of recognition gleamed in her eyes with increasing brilliance.
‘You damn yourself with each step you take,’ Mandraxas snarled. His head was pulled back, his long hair held in Launceston’s fist, his throat bared for a simple, swift slash of a blade. ‘Your agonies will be never-ending.’
‘Keep a close eye on our guest,’ Will warned the Earl. ‘Given half a chance he will violate your wits with his whispered words and turn you upon yourself, or he will use his magics to leave you nothing but a straw man ripe for the harvest bonfire.’
It was then that he noticed Carpenter. The man was tearing and scratching at his face as if insects crawled there. ‘John? Are you sick?’
‘He is well enough,’ Launceston cut in, too quickly. ‘I will watch over him. Your task is to guide us safely through this hell. Or lead us to a quick death, at worst.’
Barely had the words left his lips when the funereal tolling of a bell tore through the hot dark once again. Will felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.
‘The night unfolds and releases its terrors,’ Mandraxas whispered with a low laugh. ‘Run. Run.’
Across the City of Gold, they could hear the wind rising. In the high eaves and along the twisting alleyways it moaned. Doors crashed open. Feet pounded on stone. A high keening, of inhuman voices raised in anger, tugged at their ears.
‘The sands have run out, my love,’ Meg said with an edge to her voice. ‘This is no time for caution.’
Urging the others to follow, Will broke into a run, following the directions Deortha had whispered in his head. But the alleyways twisted and turned in a confusing manner, and the dark lay heavy around them.
Running feet echoed on all sides. Will could feel the rising anxiety of his friends as the activity milled closer. But just as he feared the worst, he saw the landmark he had been searching for, a golden globe spinning with no visible means of support at the centre of a small courtyard. He ran forward, only to be confronted by a high, black, featureless wall. Despairing glances darted among the others as they realized they were trapped.