He opened his eyes.
"Help me…"
And that thought made Ephram remember his own gift. Through Marissa's eyes he looked down, seeing a shadow move.
There was someone else in here.
Someone who didn't want to be seen.
But before she could investigate further the door opened and Redhart Jax entered the room. He had come to cure the king, though how his mirrors were meant to help Ephram didn't know.
Ephram knew this day, too, this memory. He hadn't noticed the shadow at the time. He wanted to kiss Marissa; a big wet sloppy thank you kiss.
That shadow had something to do with the king's miraculous recovery. Somehow it was all linked.
He didn't believe in miracles.
And then the memories yanked him out of the Moonlands, into Heron House. He found what he was looking for, because just for a moment he had stopped looking for it.
The wind howled around the building… no, that wasn't right, it howled around the door, nowhere else. There, frozen in place by the glyphs he had set into the frame were the unmistakable features of the Wolfen King's Alpha, Blackwater Blaze.
The Wolfen was trapped on his hind legs, claws out, straining to slash at nothing, because nothing was what had trapped him. Ephram stared down from above and realised that Marissa had been watching Blackwater Blaze from one of the upper windows in Heron House. She had known he was coming for her. He shivered at the shared memory. She had trusted his wardings to protect her. He followed the memory back to her in the study above as she made preparations for his arrival. She wrote something on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, sealed it and hid it in one of the huge drawers of her pedestal desk. He saw his name written in her very precise scrawl. Had she known he would enter her memories? She looked up at him and nodded. She smiled weakly, looking straight at him. She knew what was coming.
He wished he could talk to her, offer some words of comfort, something. But this had already happened and no amount of wishing could allow him to interfere with the past. What was done was done. He could read her lips: Goodbye.
And then he was pushed out of the study, out through the window, his perspective shifting to reveal the Wolfen at the door. His fur bristled, standing on end. But not a single hair moved, not so much as a whisker, Ephram realised. He was frozen completely and utterly in place, battling desperately to break free of the wardings. His jowls peeled back in a snarl to reveal razor-sharp incisors. Flecks of saliva hung suspended in the air. The blood rage was on the Alpha. It was there in his eyes. His body might have been locked in place, but Blackwater Blaze's hungers surged irresistibly through his body like the blood in his veins. The sheer power of the Alpha was incredible. Ephram could see the war going on there between magic and Wolfen, and it was one the magic could never win because it was just was what it was while the Wolfen was so much more than that. He was every need and hunger spiralling out of control. He was rage and anger and so much trapped violence just waiting to explode…
A single whisker twitched.
That was all it took.
One whisker.
And then Blackwater Blaze's jowls peeled further back, exposing saliva-slick canines and a string of spittle dropped to the floor.
Ephram wanted desperately to look away, but it was as though he were the one trapped by the glyphs now, not the Wolf King's assassin. As the saliva hit the floor, the Alpha's head snapped back, breaking the enchantment, and he tore forward, claws gouging into the floors of Heron House as he rushed through the corridors.
Ephram didn't need to see anymore.
But he had to watch it all the way through to the end.
Ephram Wanderer broke the contact.
Tears ran down his cheeks.
What has been seen can never be unseen. That is the only rule.
He knew the truth now.
The Wardens were being hunted. Elspeth Grimm's death was no accident. The deception wasn't going to hold all the way to the child's sixteenth birthday. Someone on the other side knew they were alive and had sent Blackwater Blaze through to hunt them down. All it took was one person. The spell was unravelling. It was a miracle they'd remained hidden this long.
They had taken precautions, of course, but the first of them had already failed. He needed to meet with the others. Together they were strong. Alone they were weak. They'd lost two of their number. Two of the strongest. Both of them taken out when they were alone.
Ephram Wanderer was frightened.
He tried to think. His mind was his most potent weapon in this fight.
Why those memories? Were they related? Was this Marissa's final attempt to tell him something? She had known she was going to die, she'd written his name on that envelope and looked straight at him and say goodbye. She'd expected him to sift through her final thoughts. So it wasn't unreasonable to assume she'd deliberately managed to bring these memories to the surface for him even as Blackwater Blaze killed her, was it? That meant there was something significant in there he'd not seen before.
The shadow?
It was the only thing that made any sense.
He tried to think; to remember everything he had seen inside her memories. What else was there? What else was out of place? What did she want him to see?
He looked up.
The coroner seemed to be looking straight at him.
In his grief Ephram had allowed the illusion to slip.
"I have come to take my wife," he said, laying a hand on Marissa du Lac's body and concentrating on the light around him, bending it and shaping it so that he disappeared from sight.
The coroner stared at him still, or rather straight through him. Every ounce of colour drained from his face as he wrestled with the fact that after a lifetime working with the dead he'd just seen his first ghost.
TWELVE
Little Girl Lost
Ashley ran.
And ran.
And didn't stop running. She charged blindly through the park, the branches slapping and clawing at her, and out through the iron gates without looking back once. If she had, Ashley would have seen the peculiar sight of a rose bush in full bloom, out of season. It had thirteen red flowers, though two of them were already wilting. There was a single white rose in the middle of the bush, though weeds threatened to choke it before it could flower. There was a reason the bush was dying. It was inextricably linked with the defence of Heron House. With the protection down the bush could not possibly survive.
Ashley ran straight into the road.
She froze as a car slammed on the brakes and hit the horn, then seemed to realise what she'd done and started to run even faster. People cursed as she barged past them. She didn't care. She kept on running, arms and legs pumping furiously. Had she looked up she would have seen the Coribrae watching curiously from the rooftops of the abandoned building to her left. But Ashley focussed on the road in front of her. The rest of the world didn't exist. She ran because her life depended upon it. Her gym teacher would have been proud. She'd never run like this in games, ever, but all of those shuttle runs around the side of Regent's Park lake saved her life.
Ashley could see the creature's face: the teeth, Miss Lake's blood and her glasses breaking on the floor as the fell. It was the little details that made it so much more horrific and real, whereas everything else around her became so much less real.
She was so sure she could hear the wolf panting and slobbering as it chased her. Ashley didn't think. She just ran. But part of her recognised that there were no wolves in London, and that Miss Lake's attacker had been on two legs, not four. Was it a costume? A wolf suit? Killers dressed up didn't they? They wore masks? No. It was too real. It couldn't have been a costume. The teeth were too real, the hunger in its eyes…
And suddenly Ashley was on Curzon Street, surrounded by the familiar sights of the little bookshop and the café on the corner and the archway into Shepherd's Market, but it was still too early for people to be clustering around the bars and re
staurants. In other words there was no safety to be had in numbers.
The sounds of the city were all around her: cars, people, conversations, engines, doors slamming, laughing, shouting, cash registers being rung up, pedestrian crossings beeping, the shuffle of feet and the ever-present rumble—whether it was a train deep down under the ground or the weight of traffic, it was impossible to say—that made up the music of London.
Ashley reached the front door of her house and hammered on it and didn't stop until the door opened. The steps made it so that the cook, Paget, looked down disapprovingly at her. "What's with all the banging?" She shook her head. "You trying to raise the dead, girl? Come on then, in with you."
Ashley tried to tell her, but all she couldn't get her mouth around any actual words. All that came, between gulps of air, was something that sounded suspiciously like, "Wuh-wuh-wuh."
She was hyperventilating. She could feel herself getting light-headed as the onset of the panic-attack gripped her.
Paget carried on talking to herself. She'd turned her back on Ashley and bustled back inside.
Ashley slumped against the door.
And then the enormity of what had happened—what she'd seen—came crashing down on her and she forced out a single word.
"Wolf."
That was all she said.
That one word stopped the old cook dead in her tracks.
She stopped, and turned.
"What did you say, girl?"
But Ashley couldn't tell her. She couldn't get another word out, Every time she tried she felt herself choking on the air.
"What is it, dear? What ever is the matter?" The old woman bustled back towards her. "What did you say?" The cook knelt beside Ashley, stroking her hair back away from her forehead.
Ashley looked up at her.
"Wolf," she said, and this time there was no mistaking the word.
She didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't for the cook to back off, almost at a run, and hurry into the kitchen. She heard cupboards being thrown open and drawers slammed, and Paget curse before emerging with a spring of something that looked like a cooking herb in her hands. It stank. Actually, Ashley thought, it smelled like garlic, but it obviously wasn't. Paget ground the herb's flowers up in her fingers and then smeared the nectar on Ashley's neck like perfume, a dab on either side.
"Wolfsbane," she said, as though that explained everything, and then looked over Ashley's shoulder at the door. "Come on, let's get you upstairs."
Ashley rose unsteadily to her feet and followed the old woman up the stairs. Paget led Ashley to her bedroom, and then closed the door behind them. She sat down on the edge of the bed. "What happened, child? Tell me everything. Every detail. Don't leave anything out."
And Ashley did. She told her about finding Aunt Elspeth's letter, about how it told her to talk to Miss Lake, and how she'd arranged to meet her in Heron House after school, promising to explain everything.
"But when I got to her office…" she didn't want to think about it; didn't want to remember. But she knew she'd never forget. "There was a wolf… she couldn't fight it off."
"A wolf? Describe it to me. This is important. Tell me everything you remember. Did it move on four legs or two?"
"Two," Ashley said.
"Not a wolf… a Wolfen."
"It had something on its forearm… a leather bracelet or something… it was huge… blue. Its fur was dark… black… but there was a slash of white across its left eye… and its eyes were yellow and they burned…"
"This is bad," the old woman said, more to herself than to Ashley. She was nothing like the well-meaning, slightly bossy cook Ashley felt like she'd known forever. She was different. She seemed… stronger. It was as though a mask had been peeled off and Ashley was actually talking to the real Paget for the first time in her life. "Marissa?" She asked. "Is she dead?"
Ashley nodded. "I think so. I didn't stay. I ran. But there's no way she could have survived."
"That's two… this is bad. And you definitely saw the leather bracer on the Wolfen's forearm?" When she saw that Ashley didn't know what a bracer was, the old woman explained, "It's a wrist guard; a piece of armour. Is that what you saw?" Ashley nodded. "Did you see anything on it? Any markings?"
Ashley shook her head.
"It doesn't matter. I know who it was. There's only one creature that wears a bracer and has the white slash across his face, Blackwater Blaze. The sun protect us, they've sent the Alpha after you." Ashley had no idea what the woman was talking about. Alphas? Wolfen? They were just words. They didn't mean anything. "It's long past the time you should know the truth, but it's not my place to tell you, princess." Paget looked at the wall where Ashley had painted the mural of her imaginary world. "You need to talk to your mother. You should be told. You're old enough to know the truth. I know she wanted to wait for your coming of age, but there's no time."
"What's going on, Paget?"
She didn't answer, not directly. Instead the old woman said, "I can't do this alone." it was a curious thing to say. She cast a frightened glance towards the window, and even though the sun was still high in the sky, shivered.
Night was coming.
It always did.
"Stay here. Don't open the door for anyone. Don't stand in the window. Don't do anything." The woman was clearly worried. It did nothing to calm Ashley's shattered nerves. She kept hearing Miss Lake cry run! "There's silver in the paint on the window, and around the doorframe. He can't enter this room. You are safe as long as you stay here. Do you understand?"
"No," Ashley said, honestly. She didn't. None of it made sense to her.
"I need to call the others. I need my sisters. I can't do this alone," and again she looked towards the window. "Don't leave this room. Promise me."
"I promise."
It wasn't quite true. Blackwater Blaze could enter her room, but it would hurt him to do so.
Alone, Ashley stood beside the bedroom window—not in it, she was careful to stay out of sight—and looked out at the world. The glass fogged as she breathed on it. It was strange out there. Peculiar clouds gathered behind the rooftops of Curzon Street. They were bruise-purple and so thick they looked too heavy to stay in the sky. There was a storm brewing. The wind made the cracks in the old sash windows whistle and rattle in the frame. For the first time since they'd moved here it sounded creepy instead of reassuring.
Ashley wiped away the condensation.
Three huge blackbirds—or maybe ravens, or rooks, she could never tell the difference—perched on the rooftop across the street. They peered intently at her window with their beady little eyes.
She'd seen these birds before, she was sure.
It took her a moment to remember.
It had been when Mel was clowning about on the bed with the umbrella pretending to be a drunken pirate, swaggering around the room slashing z's in the air. Mel had gone to the window to try and perv on the hunky neighbour down the street with the goggles, and then gone all strange on her, flumping down on the bed and shutting up.
Mel never shut up.
Ashley remembered now: there had been a line of birds, big fat black crows, along the gutter of her neighbour's house, their beady little yellow eyes staring at her window.
They'd given her the creeps.
She'd only forgotten about them because she'd found Aunt Elspeth's letter in the journal, and then, when she'd tried to write her name it kept erasing it and repeating over and over: That's not who you are.
Ashley lifted the goggles to her eyes and peered out, not sure what she expected to see, or why she should see anything different through the lenses. The houses looked the same, but magnified slightly, bringing all the details of the lead work around the black slate tiles into vivid focus. She could see the individual drops of rain break and run down the tiles. Everything seemed hyper-real. So close. So incredibly detailed. But it wasn't until she turned her head slightly, and her field of vision swung to take in the three blackbi
rds on the gutter that she saw what was really out there, watching her.
They weren't birds.
There were no feathers.
Their skin was a weird ethereal blue that seemed almost electric in the brooding sky of the oncoming storm. One had markings on it, like tribal tattoos across its chest and down its arms; swirls that looked like black cracks in its flesh through the goggles. Another had a single black swirl in the centre of its forehead, above a sharp beaklike nose. It was more elaborate than all of the other swirls combined. The third had no markings at all, and, Ashley realised, no pupils in its bright yellow irises.
The middle creature had wings. The others didn't. At least not that she could see. Its wings sprouted from the top and back of its head. As the wind swarmed and surged around him they looked more like a shock of unruly hair than anything else.
Ashley couldn't look away.
They were terribly frail creatures, their musculature so thin she thought the wind might break them, like deadfall from a tree, but their yellow eyes blazed with feral intelligence.
And she was in absolutely no doubt that they were watching her window.
Ashley lowered the goggles, and instead of three eerily still things perched on the guttering she saw three blackbirds watching her from across the street.
She raised the goggles to her eyes again, and saw the air around the birds shimmer, like a mirage failing, and in their place she saw again the three strange creatures clinging on to the gutter with bloody claws.
She lowered them, and the birds were back.
Ashley shivered and stepped away from the window.
She could hear every sound in the old house now. Every creak. Every groan. And her imagination ran wild thinking what might be causing them. As the rain started she thought, horribly, that the first fat drops on the roof were claws skittering across the slates.
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