“So much for being reasonable,” I said. “I did try . . . Look, I need the Glass, for now. You can have it back when I’m finished with it. I think, after all I’ve done for this family, I’m entitled to a little latitude.”
“That’s not how it works, Eddie,” said the Armourer. “You know that.”
“Don’t I just,” I said.
“You can’t be allowed to leave here with the Glass!” said the Sarjeant.
“Try to stop me, Cedric,” I said, smiling slowly. And he flinched, just a little.
The Armourer was immediately up on his feet, glaring at me. “Are you seriously prepared to defy the family, Eddie?”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s what I do best.”
Maggie was up on her feet too. “If I’m going to be Matriarch, I’m going to make decisions. They’re right, Eddie. You have to give up the Merlin Glass.”
“You don’t even know what it is,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing!”
“Good for you!” I said. “That’s the trick; sound decisive, even when you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. You’ll make a fine new Matriarch. Just not right now.”
“No one member of the family can be considered more important, more powerful, than the Matriarch or her Council,” said Maggie.
And suddenly she sounded less like a gardener and a lot more like someone in charge.
“Except,” said the Librarian mildly, “Martha clearly thought Eddie was more important, or she wouldn’t have left him the box. Would she? Hmmm?”
Everyone looked at William, but he had nothing more to say. Maggie glared at me, and I glared right back at her.
“Well done,” I said. “Not even officially the Matriarch yet, and already you’ve learned the joys of abuse of power.”
“Why should you have the Glass, and no one else?” she said.
“Because I’ve proved I can be trusted not to abuse it,” I said. “I love my family. I really do. And everything it’s supposed to stand for. But it’s at times like this that I know for a fact . . . I wouldn’t trust most of you further than I could throw a wet camel.” I smiled widely at all of them. “Moments like this . . . are why I prefer to maintain a distance between me and Drood Hall. Good-bye.”
I walked straight at the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and he stepped back and out of the way at the very last moment. I left the Sanctity, and didn’t look back once.
• • •
The doors opened quietly before me, and closed firmly behind me. The two guards were still on duty. They stared straight ahead, refusing even to look at me. Which was probably just as well. I was in the mood to hit somebody, or something. I started down the corridor, and then stopped as I heard the double doors open behind me. I turned quickly and then relaxed, just a little, as the Armourer came hurrying out of the Sanctity. He waited for the doors to close, and then glowered at the two guards.
“Go for a walk.”
“But we were told . . .”
“Go!”
They both left, at speed, neither of them looking back. The Armourer looked at me severely.
“Eddie, there’s a limit to how many times you can walk out on the family and still hope to come back.”
“I keep leaving, and I keep hoping the family will take the hint,” I said. “But somehow, they always find a reason to call me back.”
“And if this is the last time?” said the Armourer.
“I’ll send you a postcard from wherever I end up.”
“What if you need something from us?”
“Then I think I’ve earned the right to just walk back in and ask for it,” I said. “You know I’ll never leave here for good, Uncle Jack. I can’t. Because despite everything I still believe in what the Droods are supposed to be. Shamans, to the tribe. Shepherds, to Humanity. And I suppose . . . there are a few people here I would miss. Like you, Uncle Jack. But I have to go now. I have to go talk to my grandfather, at the Department of Uncanny.”
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
After the Will, a Last Testament
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 th
em.
“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.”
“The Matriarch,” said Molly.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “There have always been advisers and Councils and powers behind the throne, in the Droods. Not to mention wheels within wheels, and departments that don’t officially exist. In a family as big as mine there’s room for pretty much everything. And the Droods have a long history of using outside agents to do the really dirty and deniable stuff.”
Molly shot me a look. “So whoever made the decision, and gave the Regent his orders, might still be a person of importance in your family? And not necessarily one of the obvious ones?”
“Could be,” I said.
“I will have my revenge on someone,” said Molly.
“It could be any number of people!” I said. “That’s the point! That’s why we need to talk to the Regent, to get the full story. He was just the weapon; someone else pointed him at your parents.”
“They’re just as guilty,” said Molly.
“I know,” I said. “I’m just trying to say . . . it’s complicated.”
“You want it to be complicated, so I won’t kill your grandfather,” said Molly. “I’ll listen, if he’s ready to talk. I want to know everything. But what if he doesn’t want to talk?”
“I won’t let you kill him,” I said carefully. “I can’t let you do that. But I think we are quite definitely entitled to intimidate the hell out of him, should it prove necessary.”
“You think it won’t?” said Molly.
“He sent us to Trammell Island, expecting the truth to come out,” I said. “He wanted us to know. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell us in person. Now we know . . . I think he’ll tell us the rest. I think he wants to.”
“But if he doesn’t?” insisted Molly.
“Look, we can’t hurt him anyway!” I said. “He’s got Kayleigh’s Eye, remember? As long as he’s wearing that amulet he’s invulnerable to all forms of attack. And that very definitely includes your magic, and my armour.”
Molly started to say something, and then stopped, and looked at me. “What, or who, is Kayleigh? Do you know?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “I’ve heard of it, because . . . well, I’ve at least heard of most things. Comes with the job, and the territory. But I haven’t a clue where the Eye comes from.”
“God, demon, alien?” said Molly.
“Almost certainly in there somewhere,” I said.
“I can always threaten to blow up the whole building,” said Molly.
I looked at her. “For you, restraint is just something other people do, isn’t it?”
She smiled at me dazzlingly. “I have always believed in extremes and excesses. Why settle for less?”
I took the Merlin Glass out again, and muttered the proper activating words to establish communication with the Department of Uncanny. Molly clapped a hand on my arm.
“Hold it! Are you really going to tell them we’re coming? And throw away the whole element-of-surprise bit?”
“We need to be sure he’s at home,” I said. “I don’t want to turn up there and find him gone. I don’t think he’d make us chase him, but . . . I think his first reactions will tell us a lot about how this is going to go.”
“Good point,” said Molly. “Go on, then. Get on with it.”
But when I looked into the hand mirror, no one was there. No reflection, no contact; the Glass was just full of an endless, buzzing static. Which was . . . unusual. I lowered the Glass, and looked at Molly.
“That’s never happened before.”
“Could they be blocking us?” said Molly. “If the Regent has decided he’s not going to talk to us, and that as far as he’s concerned we’re now both persona non grata . . . the whole Department could be hiding behind heavy-duty security shields.”
“The Regent wouldn’t hide behind his own people,” I said. “At the very least, he’d have left us a message. Some kind of explanation. No . . . Something’s wrong at Uncanny. Get ready. We’re going through.”
I had the Merlin Glass lock onto the Department’s coordinates, and it jumped out of my hand, growing rapidly in size to make a door big enough to walk through. I led the way, with Molly treading close on my heels, leaving Drood Hall and its grounds behind.
• • •
I expected to arrive in London, in the shadow of Big Ben, overlooking the Department of Uncanny’s hidden entrance. Instead, Molly and I arrived inside the Department itself, in the waiting room, which shouldn’t have been possible. Normally you have to pass through all kinds of shields and protections.
The smell hit me first. The unpleasant coppery smell of freshly spilled blood. The Merlin Glass shrank back down without having to be told, diving back into my pocket. I barely noticed. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The last time Molly and I had been here, the waiting room had been a cheerful, cosy place. Flowers in vases, pleasant paintings on brightly painted walls, even a deep shag pile carpet. But now, the whole place had been trashed. The flower vases had been smashed, the paintings ripped from the walls and reduced to shreds and tatters, and all the furniture torn to pieces. And there was blood everywhere, splashed across the walls and soaked into the carpet. No bodies, just blood. It looked like a bomb had gone off in an abattoir.
I armoured up, the golden strange matter flowing over me in a moment, encasing me from head to toe. Molly gestured sharply, and scintillating magics swirled around her, protecting her from all the dangers in the world. I studied the waiting room through my golden mask, using the expanded senses it provided, everything from infrared to ultraviolet. But whoever was responsible for all this madness didn’t leave a single clue behind. Everything was still, and quiet. I looked at Molly, and she shook her head quickly.
“I’m not picking up a damned thing,” she said. “No magical workings, no sorcerous radiations . . . Could it have been a bomb?”
“No chemical traces on the air,” I said. “This looks more like . . . brute force. So much blood, but no bodies . . .”
“Someone got here before us,” said Molly. “And it looks like they were even angrier than me. What do you think, Eddie?”
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