“And that would be to-?”
“What he was before,” the demon said, and marched down the path.
Shadow had not been expecting the demon to take a siesta, but there were two pallets in the guest hut, in a reasonable state of cleanliness, and Gremory lay down on the first without ceremony. She crossed her hands over her breasts, and her face stilled into expressionless marble. Shadow watched her for some minutes, but the demon did not blink and after a while, watching her began to feel intrusive, so she took the second pallet. She was not expecting to sleep, but the fatigue produced by recent events overtook her and she dozed off, awaking with a start some while later.
The sun had moved round, casting long shadows across the doorway of the hut. Something had woken her, with a note like a bell, and after a moment it came again: a cuckoo. Its two-note song fell upon the air. Shadow felt suddenly wide awake. She rose from the pallet and went out through the door, leaving the demon motionless within the hut.
The sheep had moved on, up the valley. She could hear the distant clank of a bell as they grazed. The sun was skirting the edge of the Devil’s Ears; she judged that it must be close to five o’clock. She looked back at the compound but there was no sign of movement. Then the cuckoo called again and she swung round. Someone was standing motionless on the other side of the valley. It was a woman, dressed modestly in black, with her face concealed.
“Who are you?” Shadow called, but the woman did not reply. Instead, she raised a hand and made a gesture in the air that Shadow could not interpret: it looked as though the woman had written a word. Then the figure was gone, abruptly, as if snuffed out.
Thoughtfully, Shadow went back into the hut to meet the demon.
Thirty
By midnight, Mercy and Perra had found two more rifts, besides the one leading into the Southern Quarter. One led into the east and was visible; when Mercy put her eye to it, she saw a formal garden, with a carefully arranged tableau of stones and pebbles, and a small bridge over a lily-fringed pool. Nothing could have been more serene, but Mercy didn’t trust it. She lingered, but could not see anything that posed an immediate threat, so she reported the rift to security. Nerren had gone home, complaining of an entirely justifiable headache.
The third rift was an anomaly: it didn’t seem to go anywhere. She could see the crack in the air, a dark line with a bright knife-edge, but she could not see anything through it, nor could she hear. Eventually, with some trepidation, she cast a revealing spell at it to see if that did any good. The crack did not widen, somewhat to her relief, but a fragment of text appeared in the air, glowing briefly before fading out:
… tells all things, both past and future, of hidden treasures and the love of women…
Well, that was helpful. It looked like a passage from a grimoire to Mercy, but she did not recognise which one. At a certain level they were all much of a muchness.
“Mean anything to you?” she asked the ka, but Perra shook its head.
As the text faded, the rift narrowed until it was no more than a single dark-bright point of light. We will, Mercy thought nonetheless, be keeping an eye on you.
After the events of the last few days, Mercy kept the Irish sword by her side as she left the Library. No more public transport from now on, either; she planned to walk home. It was now after midnight and the stars were gathered thickly over the Citadel, with the constellation known as the Crown high in the heavens. The lamps were soft and hissing in the summer dusk. Mercy, with the ka at her heels, headed down the quiet stone streets to her home.
She was weary, but too wired to sleep. She made tea and sat in the window seat, then, after a moment’s pause, got up and moved to somewhere less noticeable from outside. The ka watched her, with unblinking golden eyes.
Then she realised, with a clammy sense of dismay, that she could feel Loki in the room. The impression was so vivid that she turned to look over her shoulder: there was nothing there. But it was as though she stood in the grove again, with the old god watching.
“Perra!”
“Yes?”
“Do you-feel anything?”
The ka’s tail twitched. “I do not.”
Mercy looked at the ka, conscious of a creeping and sudden sense of mistrust. “Are you sure?”
The ka blinked. “There is nothing here, beside the usual ghosts. The girl who died; the little dog.”
“All right,” Mercy said, reluctant. The impression was fading: perhaps she’d simply imagined it. But then she looked at the window-the back panes, which looked out over the garden from the kitchen-and knew that she had not.
“Perra!”
Cautiously, she approached the window. Flowers had caught her attention; flowers of frost, which even now blossomed and grew, white across the surface of the glass. Mercy knew winter, of course: the Western Quarter was not immune, though not nearly as chill as the Northern. Towards the height of the year, the solstice, mists came in from the sea, rainstorms lashed the western coasts and the morning air was pale with frost, stiffening the blades of grass and the leaves, and making patterns on the glass. But this wasn’t winter. It was late summer now and the air that night had been sultry and still as she walked down the hill from the Library. No natural change in the weather could have accounted for these flowers of frost. Mercy made sure that the Irish sword was still in reach and when her fingers closed over its hilt, the blade sang a sudden sharp note of warning, as it had not bothered to do that afternoon in the Library.
Then there was a knock at the back door, a single rap, and Mercy froze.
“Who’s there?”
No reply. The knock came again. Mercy brought the sword up.
“I’m not answering the door until you tell me who you are!”
The flowers were blooming across the windowpane, spreading upwards and out until the whole of the kitchen window was whited out. Looking down, Mercy saw frost was beginning to spread under the kitchen door, pallid fingers like a skeletal hand reaching out across the boards. The sword twitched again in her fist, but how do you fight frost? Mercy threw her splayed hand outward and spoke one of the house spells, the warding conjurations which were passed down through the family, peculiar to each household. She increased them in strength, racheting the incantations up in power, but the frost continued to spread.
“… emecherala, halacherala… ”
But it was starting to rise upwards from the floorboards in a thin spray of mist, sparkling and crackling in the air. Mercy took a step back. The ka was watching wide-eyed, like a cat about to pounce. The frost rose up until it was at head height, when it began to take on shape.
Its lips moved. “My name-” The face cracked like a chipped glaze, but then it was solidifying once more, congealing into a human shape. A crown of starlight glittered across its brow. It opened cold dark eyes, brushed a languid hand over the fur collar of its cloak. It was the woman from the sleigh.
“Forgive me for not introducing myself on our first meeting. My name is Mareritt. And forgive my intrusion, but I need to speak to you.”
“I’m at the Library most days,” Mercy said. The frost-woman smiled.
“House call.”
“I was ‘here’ before. You awoke from your journey to the north in your own bed, did you not?”
“After you drugged us.”
“It was necessary.”
“So now you’re here.” Mercy was outraged. “I mean, I’m grateful for you rescuing us, but what are you?”
“I am a nightmare.”
It was a moment before Mercy, bridling, realised that the woman was not issuing a threat, but speaking literally.