by Emma Newman
The engine he’d heard was getting louder, so he decided to stay near the gate as the helicopter crested the hill. It circled a couple of times, shining a large light on the ramshackle building, before heading off. It was too steep for it to land; Max decided to carry on and let Lord Iron catch up.
Lord Iron had been true to his word; he’d looked into the land and the building on it, confirming that it was an old forge owned by his predecessors and passed on to him. Max had taken the opportunity to ask about the foundry on Walcot Street where his father used to work. Lord Iron had come across it in the search for information on the old forge and when Max explained that it was all connected to innocents disappearing from Mundanus, Lord Iron had offered to come down to Bath to pass the information on. Max suspected he also wanted to see the old forge.
Robert Amesbury was opening the door as he arrived, looking up at the sky nervously. “Oh, you again,” he said to Max. “Was that a helicopter?”
Max nodded. “Can I come in?”
There was only a brief pause before Robert nodded. “It’s too cold to talk on the doorstep.”
Max went straight to the hearth when he entered, warming his hands as Robert dropped the beam to hold the door shut.
“Didn’t expect to see you so soon,” he said. “Got the answers faster than you thought?”
Max nodded. “I’m here to offer you a job,” he said. “One that I think you’ll find very rewarding.”
Robert shook his head. “I can’t leave this place for too long. I wouldn’t be any use.”
“Someone is on the way who can help you with that.”
Robert frowned. “I think you might be overstepping the mark.”
Max glanced at the blanket, still draped on the back wall. “I can understand why it would appear that way,” he said. “But you’re an excellent investigator, and you’re already involved.”
“Involved in what, exactly?”
Max paused, distracted briefly by an image of a door in the Chapter building being opened by the gargoyle, revealing rows and rows of file storage boxes.
“In uncovering the kidnapping of people from the city of Bath. As I said before, I’ve been conducting my own investigation, and we cover a lot of common ground. I think you would be a very valuable member of the team, but first there’s someone you need to meet. Someone who will be able to help you.”
Robert had folded his arms, scowling. “Not some bloody psychiatrist? They were useless.”
“That’s because they didn’t know what had been done to you.”
“Who, then?”
“Mr Ferran.”
Robert paled. “The man who owns this land? He’ll evict me! Why did you—”
There was a loud knock on the door, and Robert jolted away from it. “You bloody idiot!” he hissed at Max.
Max went to the door. “There’s nothing to worry about, Mr Amesbury.” He lifted the beam and opened it, finding a huge man in a suit there, instead of Sam. “Are you Max?” he said in an incredibly deep voice. He looked past him, into the room, taking in Robert and the fire and the general state of the place.
When Max nodded, he pressed his ear, whispered something, and in moments stood aside as Sam came into view.
“Hello, Max,” Sam said.
“Mr Ferran,” Max said, and tilted his head respectfully. “Thank you for coming.”
Max made room for him to come in, leaving the guard to stand outside. Robert’s eyes were wide with fear and he shuffled from foot to foot, uncertain of whether to bolt or to brazen it out. With the huge man blocking the doorway, there was nowhere to go. Max closed the door and dropped the beam back into place.
“I’ll move out,” Amesbury said to Sam. “I just had nowhere else to go. If you could just give me a couple of—”
Sam held up his hand. “I’m not here to throw you out.” He looked around the room, taking in the fire and the bellows. He pointed at the crate coffee table. “Is there an anvil under there?”
Robert nodded. “Too heavy to move. I think it’s been there since the place was built.”
“It’s a very old forge,” Sam said, brushing the wall with his fingertips. “I had a conversation with Max about this place. And about you. He said you weren’t well until you came here. Has he explained why?”
Robert’s eyes darted to Max. “Hadn’t quite got that far.”
“We haven’t discussed anything other than the mundane,” Max added. “I wasn’t sure where to start.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. Understandable. Okay.” He looked at Robert. “My name’s Sam. And we have something in common.”
Robert’s eyes tracked up and down Sam’s cashmere coat, the smart shoes covered in filth. “That so?”
“We both stumbled across something we shouldn’t have. Saw something or heard something that certain people work very hard to keep hidden. It made you into a problem, and they solved it in the only way they can, short of killing you. For me, they took my memory and every time I tried to talk about what happened that night, I started spouting bits of nursery rhymes. Like I was insane or something.”
Robert’s shoulders dropped and his mouth fell open.
“Sound familiar?” Sam asked, and the older man nodded.
“Since then, life has changed a lot and I know things now that back then, I would never have believed. It was all just this month-long head-fuck, mostly.” He took a step closer to Robert. “There are things in this world that we’re told aren’t real. But they are. And you won’t believe us when we start to tell you about it. But it’s all true. I know this man”—Sam jerked a thumb at Max. “He’s not the easiest bloke to get along with, and his old boss was a total douchebag, but he works hard to keep people safe and that’s why I’m here. He wants to help you. I do too.”
Robert stared at the floor, unable to sustain the eye contact. “I lost everything.”
“That’s what they do,” Sam said softly. “They destroy lives and they don’t give a shit about anyone. Max told me you feel safe here, but that when you go out for anything longer than a short period of time, you don’t. That right?”
Robert nodded. “It feels like that fog comes back when I go too far. I get the local shop to deliver food, and I try not to go out unless I really have to.”
“You feel safe here because…” Sam paused, looked at Max. “You gonna tell him or should I?”
“It’s aliens, isn’t it?” Robert said.
Sam laughed. “It’s not aliens.”
“You were put under a curse,” Max said.
“A curse? What, like a witch?”
“Sort of,” Sam said. “Look, there’s no way to make this sound anything but stupid. Since I was one of their victims, my circumstances have changed. I break that magic now. This place was built by…one of my predecessors, and I think it’s strong enough to keep the curse at bay. But when you leave it, it comes back. I reckon you still don’t feel all that great, even when you’re here.”
Robert was frowning at the crate. “I had every bloody diagnosis under the sun. None of them were right, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Better than that,” Sam said, taking another step forwards. “I can break their curse on you.” He held out his hand. “Just shake my hand.”
Robert snorted. “This is…”
“Stupid? Crazy?” Sam asked. “Yeah. I didn’t believe any of it either. Till it fucked my life up. Just shake my hand. If you don’t feel any different, you can call me the crazy one and I’ll leave.”
Robert looked at Sam’s hand, up at his face, then back at his hand. Then he shook it, vigorously, as if once he’d made the decision, he was going to put everything into it.
He gasped like he’d just been underwater and was overdue coming up for air. Shocked, he grasped Sam’s hand with his other one, pumping it up and down before lurching forwards and wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug. “It’s gone!” he said before his voice gave way to a shuddering sob.
Sam clapped him on the back, practically holding him up, and grinned at Max over the man’s shoulder. Max looked away, focusing instead on an image of a file that had been plucked out by the gargoyle. “Maximilian—né Matthew Shaw” was written at the top.
Max had forgotten his first name, the one given to him by his parents. Maximilian was the name given to him by the Chapter Master when he passed the trials to qualify as Arbiter, the same day the chain was put around his neck. He wanted the gargoyle to flip through the pages to the witness report and case summary, but for some reason it wanted to read every sentence. Max looked back at Amesbury and Sam.
Amesbury was sitting on the crate, looking shocked as Sam crouched in front of him, hand on his shoulder, talking to him softly. Eventually Amesbury blinked a few times and twisted round to look at Max. “Tell me about this job.”
“I think the person who did this to you is involved in the disappearances, and it’s my job to find out who that is so they can be prosecuted.”
“No judge is going to believe any of this. Where’s the evidence, the—”
“It won’t be tried in a mundane court,” Max said. “The people I police aren’t bound by mundane laws. You need to be fully debriefed, and there’s a lot to explain, but it boils down to this: My job is making sure that what happened to you never happens to anyone else. We failed you, and the people taken, but the one responsible can still be stopped. Do you want to help me find him?”
“Yes.”
“And when it’s done, do you want to help me to stop anything like it happening to other innocents?”
“Christ, yes!”
Max nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Do you have anywhere to go?” Sam asked, and when Amesbury shook his head, he said, “I’ll sort that out. Max, I have a file for you on the foundry you asked me about.”
“The one in Walcot Street?” Amesbury asked, assuming correctly that the photo and information he’d supplied for the newspaper article had something to do with it. Max nodded.
“It used to belong to my predecessor,” Sam said. “There’s some notes inside it about trouble they had with people going missing after they declared their intention to join a union. Amir got involved when people started accusing the foreman of bumping off troublemakers. He worked out it wasn’t that at all. It all came to a head one night and he intervened personally. Very personally.”
Max had a flash of the witness statement through the gargoyle’s eyes. “He injured a man who was leading more men away from the foundry.”
Sam nodded. “Amir slashed his right arm with a sword. I reckon it was one of…” He glanced at Amesbury. “One of the people like Cathy’s family. He seemed powerful but he was definitely a man.”
Max stayed silent. The haziest of memories was returning, of a cold night hunkered down in an alleyway, hoping to see his father, who hadn’t come home the previous night. He could remember a finely dressed gentleman drawing a sword and another man in the shadows. Shouting. Nothing more. But he couldn’t be certain if it was a memory or a construct formed by the gargoyle reading his statement, given when he was ten years old.
“After that night,” Sam said, “Amir put up some pure iron gates around the foundry and spent a few nights in a place nearby. The dodgy bloke never came back, and it all settled down again. They never did find the missing staff but I reckon they weren’t killed. I reckon they were taken to…” Another glance at Amesbury. “You know.”
Max nodded, briefly distracted by a note in the case summary. Iris activity detected outside of foundry. Then another toward the end. No blood present. No evidence that Iron injured a third party. Unreliable witness. Request from Lord Iron to leave foundry alone. Insufficient evidence to pursue further.
Max saw the file being swiped off the table by a stone paw. The gargoyle was angry. And rightly so. It was poor work. Probably one of the old Arbiters reaching the end of their usefulness. When would that happen to him?
“Max?”
Sam was looking at him expectantly.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“I suggested we get Mr Amesbury cleaned up, and I can get that file for you, okay?”
Max nodded. “Yes. Thank you for your assistance, Mr Ferran.”
• • •
The worst thing about Catherine being Duchess was that Elizabeth knew she would do a much better job and she’d never get the chance. Her elder sister was literally the worst person in the world for the role and yet it had just fallen into her lap, with no effort at all. Typical. It was so unfair.
What really galled Elizabeth was that Catherine never had to try for anything. All those stupid French verbs just seemed to stick in her head, like the Latin and all the silly history dates. No matter how hard Elizabeth had tried (and she liked to think she worked very hard in the schoolroom), that sort of thing just befuddled her. Catherine would always look at her like she was some sort of donkey as she struggled through the lessons.
Then when it came to things Elizabeth found easy, like singing and dancing and making the grownups smile, Catherine didn’t care at all. More than that—Catherine ridiculed her for enjoying them. It made Elizabeth want to scream, then and now!
Being Duchess didn’t suit Catherine at all. She always looked worried and distracted and if it weren’t for the staff shooing her through the day, she’d be late for everything. Elizabeth knew that if she were Duchess, Londinium would be a much more exciting place. She’d have parties at least five nights a week and a lawn tennis tournament and a minimum of three balls a month, each with its own theme. Londinium had such grand buildings, and she could fill them with sprites and beautiful things and people and her stinky aunt would simply die of jealousy. She could just imagine the Censor in a swoon, bemoaning the fact that Londinium was the most fashionable place to be since Elizabeth became Duchess and if only she hadn’t been so cruel to her. Yes, the Censor would have to say that—with an audience around her—before dying. Hopefully with horrible blotches all over her face so that everyone remembered her like that.
Of course, in her fantasy, Elizabeth the Duchess was married to Nathaniel, as she should have been. He was so tall and dashing. They would have been a perfect match. She would have settled for William—she’d been forced to admit to herself that he was far more handsome than she remembered, especially since becoming Duke of Londinium—but no. Catherine had ruined all of that too.
Thanks to her sister, Elizabeth was left adrift, waiting and waiting and waiting when suitors should have been beating down the door to take her to tea. She should have amassed a collection of at least a dozen full dance cards since she’d arrived, and there hadn’t been one ball. Not one! What was her sister doing? What could be more important than making sure her darling baby sister was married to the best eligible bachelor in the city?
What made everything harder was the fact that she had no insider knowledge. In Aquae Sulis she knew exactly whom to pursue—without looking like she cared about them at all, of course—and whom to avoid. In Londinium she had only her general knowledge of the Great Families to guide her. She knew to avoid the Buttercups and Wisterias without exception and that the Violas were the wealthiest. But whether there were any eligible Violas was a mystery to her. Catherine should have told her all of this the day she arrived! But no, she was always busy, either locked up in her boring library or her boring study, writing boring letters. She’d just watched her bring home the most boring-looking woman ever and they’d gone to the guest wing and had all sorts of private conversations and Catherine hadn’t thought of her once. Not once. No introduction, no swift briefing on whether that boring woman happened to have a dashing son or handsome brother. She could scream.
Elizabeth finished her latest letter of complaint to her mother—not that it seemed to do anything—and sent it off with a Letterboxer Charm, rather than handing it to one of the staff to send. They all seemed to like her sister far too much to be reliable. It was utterly baffling
why they looked at her with such fondness. Perhaps it was Lord Poppy’s doing.
She called the lady’s maid and told her to arrange her hair in a different style because she was so bored of the current one she could cry. The maid did a passable job with a few touches that impressed Elizabeth. Not that she gave any of that away; it was best to keep the staff on their toes by expressing mild dissatisfaction so they tried harder the next time.
Another half an hour was idled away by penning a letter to Cecilia Peonia, whom she missed dreadfully, ending with a promise to ask the Duke of Londinium if Cecilia could come to stay with her. Elizabeth beamed at herself in the dressing table mirror. A stroke of genius. If no one else was willing to spend time with her, they couldn’t refuse her a visit from her best friend.
Elizabeth practised her smiles in the mirror and her coquettish glances over her fan. She couldn’t let her skills diminish during this social famine. Satisfied that she could easily out-charm practically every single woman in Albion, she decided to hunt her sister down. Perhaps if she tormented her enough, Catherine would relent and hold a ball, just for some peace and quiet. It always worked with Daddy.
When Elizabeth emerged from her bedroom, she could hear the clomping of her sister’s feet coming up the stairs. She sounded like an elephant. How William could bear her, Elizabeth had no idea. No wonder he was never at home.
Planning to pounce on her as she headed down the hallway, Elizabeth waited tucked around the corner. Surprise was always preferable. Catherine couldn’t think very quickly when she was caught off guard and might agree to something if she was flustered.
But then the footsteps went the other way. Elizabeth peered round the corner to see Catherine heading towards the other wing, the one containing her bedroom. Perhaps she had a headache and was going to lie down. Elizabeth grinned. Even better.
