by Holly Race
‘I can’t authorise another infiltration attempt,’ says the captain of the apothecaries.
When and who. I desperately wrack my brains for something valuable to contribute to the discussion.
‘Isn’t he repeating the pattern of what he did fifteen years ago?’ Ollie asks. ‘Could we figure something out from that?’
Fifteen years ago … I feel sure that I do know something helpful – it’s hiding in a far corner of my memory …
‘Beltane!’ I blurt out.
Seven faces turn towards me.
‘Beltane’s only a week away, sir.’ I turn to Ollie for backup. ‘Do you remember Mum’s recording from Ithr? They kept on mentioning the first of May.’
‘That’s right,’ Ollie says. ‘He launches his attacks on dates where the walls between Ithr and Annwn are at their thinnest.’
‘It must be easier to use his Immral then,’ the veneur captain suggests. ‘Dreamers’ minds are more susceptible, maybe?’
Lord Allenby nods slowly. ‘That would make sense. Fern, Ollie, can you think of anything else from Una’s notebooks that might be useful?’
Ollie and I shake our heads. ‘We’re still going through the papers we found in Annwn,’ Ollie says, ‘but she doesn’t really talk about Medraut in those.’
‘No, she probably wouldn’t have,’ Lord Allenby says heavily. ‘If she did most of her research when he was Head Thane she would have been worried about them falling into the wrong hands. Still, go back over them tonight. If Medraut’s attack is indeed only a week away we’ve barely got enough time to organise counter-measures. While you do that, I’ll consult with the other thaneships.’
Ollie and I fly back to the knights’ chamber and pull out Mum’s old papers from our lockers, but there are only a few that even mention Medraut. These pages are not neat annotations or research notes; they’re laden with emotion. All of them are dated after March 2005, when the golden treitre took Mum’s best friend as its first victim. About a month after the first attack, she becomes more philosophical.
We are spending too much time focusing on what makes it a monster. As with everything that is frightening to us, the most important thing is to find out what makes it human.
I scribble it down; it makes me think of my own encounter with the golden treitre, and the way it listened to me so intently.
By the time the others return from their patrols we are tossing the final pages back onto their respective piles.
‘Nothing!’ Ollie storms. ‘She must’ve written thousands of pages on bloody morrigans and the philosophy of fear, but she can’t put an ounce of time into figuring out what Medraut might do next?’
‘Well, it was always a long shot,’ Samson says. ‘What we really need is someone on the inside, but we’ve tried all the avenues we can with no luck. Medraut’s rightly wary now, after the stunt I pulled. Well, at least we have a probable date, Fern, thanks to you.’
But Samson’s comment has sparked a plan. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh, you might have more than that.’
46
It doesn’t take long for the harkers to find Lottie at her fancy home in Chelsea. That’s our first bit of bad news. Medraut’s place has been under surveillance for fifteen years, and not only has he never been sighted there but any knights who’ve tried to enter haven’t come back the same; they are alive, but in name only.
Still, we have to try.
‘It’s a long shot, and it’s going to be every bit as dangerous as retrieving Samson was, I’m afraid, but you’re right, Fern,’ Lord Allenby tells us as we mount Lamb and Balius. ‘You could find a memory in Lottie Medraut that might help us understand what he’s got planned. It’s got to be worth a shot.’
It makes me nervous, how galvanised he is. If I’m wrong then I’ve given all of them false hope.
I know the area well from my time at Bosco – I’ve never been invited back to anyone’s home but I hear talk of who lives on which street. All the houses here are terraced Victorian goliaths. Some of them delve deep underground like icebergs, hiding gyms and swimming pools.
Sebastien Medraut’s house, though, is on another level entirely. There aren’t many detached houses in this part of London but he owns one of them. An oak-lined drive leads up to a double-fronted mansion. In Annwn, the trees are filled with parrots and monkeys. In one, a leopard lies on a branch, swinging its tail as it observes Ollie and me.
Medraut’s house isn’t guarded by aventures as his fortress in Royal Arsenal was but it’s impossible not to worry that someone might be watching us. We avoid the path and edge along the hedge of the neighbouring garden. We leave the horses grazing there and leap over the foliage, landing on one side of the house. I look up at the windows.
‘I can’t see anyone.’
We dart to the porch. I look at Ollie. ‘We could lose our minds if we go in here.’
‘Do it,’ he says.
With a crackle of inspyre the lock shunts aside. The door opens noiselessly.
I know immediately that something’s not right with this place. At first, everything looks as it should. A few dreams drift across marbled floors and up a carpeted staircase. Butlers and maids etched in blue. A large dog, more fur than animal, bounds up to us and licks my hands enthusiastically. But I cannot bring myself to set foot inside. Ollie feels it as well. It’s not exactly the same as the nausea that Medraut’s kalends gave us, but it’s a distant cousin. Ollie tugs at my arm and gestures upwards. We’ll try to find Lottie through the windows, instead of entering the house.
While Ollie creeps around the building on the ground, I fly up and press myself against the wall next to one of the bedroom windows. I peer inside. This must be the master suite. It’s an apartment in itself – striped sofas and an antique armchair sit at the end of a king-size bed, while exquisite vases brimming with flowers stand guard on each side table.
I fly on, past a bathroom, another empty bedroom, and another bathroom. Ollie mirrors me from below. We strike lucky with the final window, on the far side of the house overlooking the grounds. Lottie sits on her bed facing away from us, perfectly still. In front of her on the otherwise bare wall is a portrait of her father.
I signal to Ollie to join me, then press my hand gently against the glass. With a twinge in the back of my skull, I silently disappear the glass. I am about to climb in when Ollie stops me and points to something attached to another wall. At first I think it’s a camera, but when I crane to get a better view I can see that it’s some kind of weapon; half gun, half telescope. It’s pointing at the door to Lottie’s room. I use the inspyre from the window to create a mirror, and hold it just inside the frame. Sure enough, another weapon sits above the window on the inside, pointing at the floor where I was about to stand. I raise my eyebrows at Ollie in thanks.
I use a little more of the inspyre to create a cat, and let it pad its way through the window and onto the carpet. It steps forward, prepares to leap onto the bed.
One moment it’s tensing its back legs, the next a pitch-black beam bursts from the weapon with a deep boom, and the cat is shredded into its component inspyre. Ollie and I cry out, not just from shock but from the instant punch of sickness that hit us when the weapon activated. A sickness that is all too familiar.
‘What was that?’ Ollie gasps.
‘I think,’ I answer, still clutching my stomach, ‘that was a kalend.’
So this is how Medraut has been keeping people away from his house. This is why he doesn’t need guards. He has booby-trapped the one thing of interest – his daughter – with kalends, so that anyone getting too close will lose their mind.
Lottie hasn’t moved throughout the chaos going on behind her. I am momentarily reminded of Jenny, who struggled to imagine anything beyond her own bedroom, but this feels different. This feels as though Lottie is being held there against her will. I try to throw my Immral towards her, to sense whether there’s anything binding her. Sure enough, there are invisible restraints around her legs and head
.
I turn to Ollie. ‘I can get her free, but I don’t know how to pull her out without putting us in the line of fire.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he says. ‘Give me that mirror.’
I hand it to him and he carefully inches his way just inside the window. He drops the mirror onto the floor, then looks at me.
‘Get the restraints off her, then when I say go, pull her out as quickly as you can, okay?’
I nod and get to work, using my mind to prise away the bindings holding Lottie in position. It takes far longer than I’d like, but the rope resists my attempts to simply turn it back into inspyre, and because I can’t see it I am having to use my power to sense where it is. At last, though, it’s done. I nod at Ollie, taking a firm grip of Lottie’s waist with my mind.
Ollie nudges the mirror forward, painstakingly slowly.
‘Nearly there,’ he says. ‘Get ready.’
He nudges the mirror forwards again.
‘And … go!’
I pull Lottie with all my might as Ollie pushes the mirror directly in line with the gun above the window. It activates instantly, but instead of burning up the mirror, its beam bounces up and catches the other gun. The two weapons battle with each other, trying to suck each other into their kalends via the mirror. Then, with a great crack, they shatter, casting fragments of thick steel across Lottie’s bedroom.
Lottie herself has landed spread-eagled on the grass beneath her window. For an instant, she just lies there. Then she flops over onto her back, laughing, and rolls down the lawn like a maniac.
Checking that no one has heard the weapons exploding, Ollie and I float to the ground and follow her. I can’t help but like Lottie a little more, seeing her like this. She’s so carefree, so young, so childish. It’s such a contrast to the teenage girl at school who acts as though she’s already in her twenties, or the one just now who was sitting uncannily still, staring at her own father’s portrait.
‘How do you want to do this then?’ Ollie asks.
I take Lottie by the arm, leading her to a bench that overlooks a lake. Koi carp gather at the surface of the water, expecting food. Something huge emerges from the depths and snaps a couple up before sinking out of sight.
Ollie sits on Lottie’s other side.
‘So?’ I say. ‘Work your magic.’
‘Yes, boss,’ Ollie snarks, but he closes his eyes and places his hands on Lottie’s temples.
‘Anything?’ I ask.
‘Give me a minute, will you?’
I bite my tongue. I hate not knowing what’s going on.
‘Does this girl have any friends?’ Ollie says.
‘Tons, why?’
‘Because literally all her memories are of her dad. It’s like she’s obsessed with him.’
‘Is he saying anything useful in the memories?’
‘No, it’s all boring.’ Ollie adjusts his grip slightly and freezes. ‘Wait.’
I wait. He doesn’t say anything.
‘Hello?’ I say at last, prodding his leg.
‘There’s something here. I don’t understand – it’s like one of her memories is blocked. Something’s stopping me from getting to it.’
‘But that’s probably the one we want!’
‘All right, Captain Obvious.’
‘Well, you’re a lot of use, aren’t you?’ I say, and grab his elbow to see for myself. My sight is replaced by Lottie’s memories. Ollie was right. All I can see is Medraut’s face. No one else features; not her mum, not one of her many friends. Then I see what Ollie means. In my peripheral vision I can see other memories, but straight ahead of me is a void. I press against it. I become aware of a taste in my mouth, like I got with Jenny and with the golden treitre. The blockage, whatever it is, is rancid.
‘I think it’s an emotion,’ I say.
Ollie raises an eyebrow as if to say, What do you know about other people’s feelings? but when he focuses on Lottie again it’s with renewed energy.
‘You’re right,’ he says eventually. ‘I think – it’s like a wall made of pure fear.’
I consider the void, rolling it around my senses. Ollie’s right. It’s the kind of fear that only resides in the darkest nightmares – fear of murdering someone and not knowing whether to confess or to try to live with the guilt. Of being taken in the middle of the night and killed slowly, bit by bit, until the mind is screaming for death even as the broken body is holding on to life. Behind that wall, so faint I can barely feel it, is the truth.
I pull away. A trickle of blood is meandering from Ollie’s nose to his mouth. He wipes it away and looks at me. ‘She does know something, doesn’t she? And her dad’s blocked it so she can’t tell anyone.’
‘Looks like it, but I’ve no idea how to get through that wall.’
Ollie considers for a long time. When he speaks, he’s very deliberately not looking at me, as though even he doesn’t like what he’s about to say.
‘You could hurt her.’
‘What?’
‘It feels to me like that’s the only thing that might bring down that wall of fear. If you could … overcome the fear with something bigger. Maybe that would reveal the memory.’
I gape at Ollie. ‘That’s torture.’
‘It’s nothing you haven’t done before, with Jenny.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘Oh, think about it, Fern. I can read minds, remember?’
‘You had no right –’
‘Ramesh said –’
‘Don’t talk to me about Ramesh.’ The thought of Ramesh alongside what Ollie’s asking me to do is too wrong.
We fall into silence, but now I can’t stop thinking about Ramesh, and Emory, and all the knights Medraut has killed. He might do it again if we don’t stop him. Hundreds of potential deaths and I’m wavering over hurting one person? The image of Ramesh’s headless body toppling from his horse plays in slow motion in my head.
‘I don’t like it either, Fern,’ Ollie says, ‘but if she can help us find out what Medraut’s going to do, wouldn’t it be worth it?’
‘We took a vow …’
‘Do you think she’d treat you any differently if she had Immral?’ Ollie continues. ‘She’s just like Jenny, you know.’
‘She’s not actually.’
‘If she grew up like us she would be. She thinks you’re a freak.’
‘You don’t know that.’ I don’t know why I’m so hurt by what Ollie said. It’s not like I ever wanted to be friends with Lottie.
‘Dad always says that if anyone hurt us he’d kill them. That’s what you do when you love someone – he’d do it if he knew about Mum and if he had your power.’
‘He – he wouldn’t. Not this,’ I say, uncertain.
‘Mum would have done it for us,’ Ollie says, leaning forwards. ‘How can you know that Medraut was behind her death and not do anything you can to get justice for her?’
Quickly, not letting myself think, I place both hands on either side of Lottie’s face. I don’t have anything as refined as fire this time, just pure, harsh, nightmare energy lifted from the pool of my soul where all my anger lives, pushed up, out, down, leaping across the divide between my palms and her head, digging into her skull.
Lottie’s scream almost dissolves my willpower, but Ollie takes that moment to grab my wrist, keeping it flush against her skin. Ollie starts feeding me memories. Not Lottie’s memories but memories of Mum being killed. He’s forcing me to relive her murder.
‘Remember what we’re here for,’ Ollie says.
I send the pain deeper into Lottie’s mind, hating myself more with every second that passes. I seek that void, pummelling against the darkness. The barrier seems to have a mind of its own, pushing against me then receding, as though we’re in a tug of war. We start to catch glimpses of the memory beneath it.
An office, one I recognise from the house behind us – Medraut’s office. Lottie is peering through a crack in the door. She’s checking the r
oom is empty. She slips inside and closes the door behind her. Medraut’s desk is spookily tidy: no pens, no family photos. Just a two-tiered tray – an inbox and an outbox, each holding a small stack of papers, and his laptop lying closed in the centre of the desk.
Lottie pulls at drawers, but they’re all locked. Then she opens the laptop and tries a few passwords. At last she finds the right one – SILENCE – and the screen reveals itself. Lottie clicks randomly on files and emails, until she comes across a folder marked Bright Fire. When she clicks on it, a series of websites and scanned articles appear, all amalgamated into a single presentation. Lottie scrolls through them. The first page is population figures for each part of the country, and the rest is lists. Endless lists of places and names. Why on earth would anyone want to hide something so dull?
Then I come across a list of names that I recognise. Politicians, all of whom oppose Medraut’s party. Helena Corday’s name is near the top. I think back over the other entries, and realise that there is a connection. Journalists who’ve written unflattering pieces about Medraut. Scientists at the top of their fields. Actors, writers, musicians and teachers. Further down, the lists become even more sinister. The names become whole addresses: homes for the elderly, schools for people with disabilities.
‘Ollie,’ I say, my voice distant through Lottie’s memories. ‘Beltane means “bright fire” in old Celtic, doesn’t it?’
I think of the portals around the country, waiting to be activated, and of the vision from the puzzle box. ‘Oh my God. He’s going to use the treitres on dreamers. It’s a purge.’
But Ollie doesn’t answer me because in the memory there’s a creak, and Lottie looks up from the screen. Medraut is in the doorway, watching her. She slams the laptop shut, terrified.
