‘And Hero’s mother, Ramona, will be bringing a picnic lunch.’
The furrows on Joss’s brow grew deeper. He turned to Hero.
She shrugged. ‘He seems to think it’s worth a try. Even talked me into making the call to the High Chamber this afternoon …’
‘Your uncle won’t be with her?’ asked Joss.
‘There’s only so much trauma I can let myself in for,’ Hero replied, trying again to bury herself in her book.
‘We were hoping Edgar would come along, too. It feels like he’s been getting left out a lot lately,’ said Drake. Already his focus was slipping back to the mess of parts spread out before him.
‘True. And ordinarily I’d wait for him to return before I told you all this, but I think we’ll just have to catch him up when he gets back from wherever he’s hiding himself …’ Joss said, his tone enough to get his brethren’s attention.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hero, setting her book aside.
‘I mean this,’ Joss said, and removed the Scryer from his pocket. Firing it up, he projected the illumigram of the dead pterosaur into the centre of the room, and explained how he’d come to discover it. Both Drake and Hero listened with grave concern, which gave Joss heart that his fears were justified.
‘These symbols … we’ve all seen these symbols before,’ he said, zooming in on the bloody runes that tattooed the animal’s carcass. ‘But it’s this one that scares me the most.’
He spun the image around to show them the inverted crown.
‘And what is that?’ Hero asked.
‘It has a few different names, including the Crest of the Unhallowed. And it’s used in black magic ceremonies as an invocation of the Shadow God.’
Hero grimaced. ‘The same Shadow God that Thrall and Ichor and all those crazed cultists were bleating about?’
‘Exactly,’ Joss replied.
‘So you think this has something to do with Thrall?’ Drake asked, a trace of scepticism in his question. It earned him a sideways glance from Hero, who was leaning forward in her chair with intensified interest.
‘Possibly. I don’t know.’
‘Well … let’s think this through,’ Drake said, stroking his chin. ‘Now; knowing that I’ve had an issue with tone when it comes to posing questions about a given situation …’ He inclined his head in Hero’s direction. She nodded, and Drake continued, ‘May I – with the greatest respect – posit some theories?’
Joss shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘OK,’ Drake replied. ‘Firstly … how sure are we that this isn’t a prank?’
Joss raised an eyebrow. ‘A prank?’
‘You said you’d been researching black magic. Could someone be using that to their advantage to try pulling one over on you? Someone like Lynch, perhaps?’
‘By needlessly butchering a pterosaur on a mountaintop?’
‘It would take a sick sense of humour, I agree. But Lynch is pretty sick.’
‘And then leaving it out on a remote ridge on the extremely remote chance that I stumbled across it?’
‘You’re right,’ Drake said with a nod. ‘It’s too farfetched.’
‘Not to mention the other bodies Rowan mentioned finding,’ Hero pointed out. ‘If this is someone pulling a prank on Joss, they’d have to have started before he’d even arrived.’
‘Which would mean that it was a genuine attempt at black magic,’ Drake’s head practically ticked as he contemplated the situation. ‘Do you know who borrowed the book before you? The book that included the information about the crest?’
‘Well – about that …’ Joss said, finding himself strangely reluctant to reveal this detail. ‘As it turns out, Zeke was the last one to have borrowed it. In fact, I got it from him in the first place.’
‘What?’ Hero said, shooting up from her seat. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes. But I don’t think that means he did this.’
‘Who else do we know who’s allied himself with witches and masked sorcerers? Don’t tell me you believe him when he says he’s trying to make amends!’
‘Honestly? I don’t know what to believe at this stage,’ Joss sighed with frustration.
‘Well, trust me when I tell you that he’s the last person to be putting any faith in, lest you want to find yourself betrayed all over again.’
‘I know, I know,’ Joss said, tensing up at finding himself suddenly under siege. ‘But I saw those markings with my own eyes. There was no hesitation behind those cuts, no mistakes made. Everything was absolutely precise. This person knew exactly what they were doing. Does Zeke strike you as a master of the dark arts?’
Hero’s scowl shifted slightly. She looked vexed by the problem before her, wanting to lay blame on the closest and easiest target but knowing that such a simple answer didn’t add up.
Drake cleared his throat. ‘We may not be able to say who was responsible for this, or for what reason,’ he said. ‘They could be ambitious amateurs or something more sinister. The one thing we can say for certain is that there’s more going on here than it would seem, and we all need to work together to find an answer.’
‘And we need to be very, very careful going about it,’ Joss added. ‘There’s no way of knowing for sure who our friends are and who our enemies may be.’
With a shriek the door behind Joss flew open, making each of the prentices jump. They spun around to see who it was, on guard for conspirators and dark sorcerers.
‘Hi all,’ Edgar said, blinking. ‘What did I miss?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A FOREBODING SHADOW
TRUE to his word, Sur Blaek allowed the prentices to finish their training early after a morning spent on song sword lessons. Movements that had begun stiff and self-conscious were now as fluid as a dance, drawing harmonic tones from the practice blades that soothed the pterosaurs in the yard; even Tempest, whose eyes had been revealed as a pale shade of blue now that the poultice had healed them.
‘You look to have had a breakthrough there,’ Sur Blaek said to Joss, and Joss smiled.
‘I think so,’ he replied, rubbing Tempest’s beak while the pterosaur chittered heartily.
‘Anything?’ Hero asked Sur Blaek, referring to his efforts to investigate Lord Rayner. She had asked him so often that she had developed a shorthand with him on the subject.
Ordinarily he would answer without answering, telling her to be patient, to leave it with him, that the truth would come out. Today, however, he whispered to her, ‘The threads are coming together.’
A look of surprised relief fluttered across Hero’s face. ‘Really?’
‘Why do you think I’ve had to call today’s training session short?’ he replied, sending a shockwave of intrigue through the prentices. But any hope Hero had of interrogating him further was dashed as someone called out from across the yard, ‘Hello there!’
It was Hero’s mother, still dressed in the tunic and sandals of a High Chamber novice, though she’d added a fur-lined cloak for the extra warmth. She was carrying a basket laden with bread, cheese and fresh berries. Her grey eyes were darting around with every step, her face exhibiting the most fragile of smiles.
Whatever spark of joy Hero had shown at the prospect of finding justice for Lord Haven was quelled at this arrival. Joss could practically see the walls rising up around her, brick by invisible brick. She may have relented to having her mother back in her life, but she was clearly a long way from being comfortable with it.
‘I see you have a visitor,’ Sur Blaek noted. ‘In which case, that will be all for today.’
Clockwise skidded past to collect their equipment, and Drake squeezed Hero’s hand. ‘Remember; you said you wanted to make a proper attempt of this,’ he said.
‘I must have been dehydrated. Or concussed. Likely both.’
‘She’s trying.’
‘Yes. She is.’
‘Henrietta! Ganymede! Josiah! How lovely to see you all again,’ Hero’s mother said, smoothing her hai
r away from her face as she approached the group. Joss tried to remember when he’d introduced himself to her and realised that he hadn’t.
‘And you must be Edgar,’ Hero’s mother added, turning to the young steward. He was already flushed red from the day’s efforts, first in fetching all the equipment from the shed and now in helping Clockwise return it. The attention made him blush all the more. ‘I’m Ramona.’
‘Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,’ Edgar replied with a minor bow, platinum-white hair stuck to his sweaty brow. ‘I wish I could stay and chat, but this mek doesn’t manage alone.’
Behind him, Clockwise bleeped as if with indignity.
‘Then please don’t desist on my account,’ Hero’s mother said with a laugh. Edgar gave an appreciative nod while Joss watched with growing confusion.
‘You’re not joining us?’ he took Edgar aside to quietly ask him.
‘Sorry, Joss,’ Edgar replied with genuine regret. ‘Duty calls.’ Joss was as confused by Edgar’s departure as he was envious of his escape. Despite wanting to be there for Hero, having lunch with her mother wasn’t the most appealing prospect.
‘It’s good to see you, Henrietta,’ Ramona said. ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to this.’
Hero mustered a grunt, while Drake beamed between them like a ray of light. ‘So – where should we go? It might be nice to sit out in the lavender fields,’ he suggested.
‘Actually, I was hoping to go see Rowan,’ Joss said, searching for a way to politely excuse himself from what was quickly becoming an excruciating ordeal. ‘I have to thank him for the poultice he made for Tempest.’
‘Oh, that’s a fantastic idea!’ Drake replied, not allowing him to escape that easily. ‘We could have lunch in the gardens.’
‘Wonderful,’ Joss said with as much enthusiasm as Hero had marshalled, their training done for the day but with a whole new trial ahead of them.
Rowan wasn’t in the gardens. And there was no sign of movement in the Death House.
‘Maybe he’s away on an errand, like Sur Blaek,’ Drake said.
‘Maybe,’ Joss replied. ‘Though we should check his cottage, just in case.’
‘How are you finding life at the High Chamber, Mrs Ravenhelm?’ Drake asked during the stroll to Rowan’s cottage, steadfastly determined to get everyone talking.
‘Not so bad,’ Hero’s mother shrugged. ‘Better than life in Longrock, I suppose.’
‘You still use that name, then?’ Hero asked. ‘Ravenhelm?’
‘I do. Though your uncle has mentioned that you’re less fond of it these days.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Hero sneered, drawing a firm line under the conversation and forcing them back into silence. The gravel trail crunched beneath their feet. The wind whistled and the long grass rustled.
‘You never told me …’ Hero said, the words pushing free of her lips almost against her will. ‘How you two met.’
‘You mean your father and me?’ her mother asked. Joss snapped to attention. He never would have guessed that Hero would have raised this subject. Expecting her to change the topic, he was surprised again as she bit her lower lip and nodded, then snatched a twig from a tree as she passed by.
‘I –’ her mother cleared her throat. ‘I was little more than a child. My friend Prudence and I had gone to visit the boardwalk in Black Harbour. I’d like to say we were there simply to enjoy the sideshow attractions but the truth is that we’d taken up a lucrative hobby of pickpocketing and we were trying our luck with all the tourists. So I wasn’t exactly a wide-eyed innocent when I ran into the young man who’d swiped the night’s takings from the fun parlour and was being chased by the local wardens. I helped him to evade them by pulling him into the Love Labyrinth, where we spent the next hour or so going around in the dark on one of the little boats.
‘We spent the rest of that night living like a lord and lady, eating the most expensive dishes and drinking the rarest vintages at all the finest restaurants. He told me he was going to be the most famous and successful son that Covora ever produced. And he was right. For a time. Within a year, when I was just about your age, we were married and he was running his own gang. Five years after that, he was a crime boss in charge of an empire that spanned the kingdom. Not to mention being the father of a little girl …’
Hero snapped the twig in two. ‘And becoming parents – that wasn’t enough to convince either of you to try settling down? Living a normal life?’
‘We toyed with the notion, off and on. But never very seriously. We liked the lifestyle too much. Anything less felt like …’
‘What?’ Hero asked.
‘A compromise.’
There was something in her mother’s voice that made Hero tighten. Joss could see it as she snapped the twig into quarters, then fragments, then threw them away and dusted off her palms.
The chimes were ringing idly outside Rowan’s cottage as the group arrived to find the front door partially open. There was no light coming from within. No friendly chatter. No noise at all.
‘Hello? Rowan?’ Hero called out. ‘Are you home?’
The hinges squeaked as Joss pushed the door open, revealing the silhouette of a figure hunched inside. ‘Rowan?’ Joss asked, and led the way into the cottage.
He was sitting in an old armchair in the corner of the room with his head lolled to one side, as if he’d simply fallen asleep. An empty teacup was hooked between his limp fingers, his hands an ominous shade of black with veins as dark as deep fissures. A note had been left on the side table next to the armchair, scrawled out in a shaky script, with his hearing device set beside it.
Joss couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. The scene before him couldn’t be real. Could it? It felt as if they’d mistakenly stumbled into some other world, so much stranger and crueller than their own. The rules of what was right and fair didn’t apply in this place. Not when good men like Rowan Cloudshadow could be found dead in his home on such a sunny day without a hint of warning.
Joss was still wrestling with what to do, what to say, what to even think or feel when Hero stepped forward. Her expression was one of stern resolve, as if she’d settled an invisible suit of armour over herself to guard against the overwhelming hurt. Taking one step forward, then another, maintaining as much distance from the body as she could, she retrieved the note beside the armchair and started to read.
Her face darkened.
‘What does it say?’ Joss asked.
‘See for yourself,’ Hero replied, and threw the note at him as if it were the most offensive thing she’d ever read.
Following her lead, Joss braced himself against the pain of the moment as he straightened the paper, then drew a shallow breath to read aloud. ‘To all those I’ve betrayed. The guilt …’ he began, then stopped to glance at the others. Clearing his throat, he continued: ‘The guilt proved too damn much in the end. Lord Haven, for what I did to you, I’m eternally sorry. May His Majesty the Sleeping King have mercy on my soul.’
Joss lowered the note. ‘Is that supposed to mean what I think it does?’
‘Rowan killed Lord Haven?’ said Drake, incredulous.
The wind rattled the chimes in the room like they were manacles on a prisoner’s wrists.
‘That’s impossible!’ Hero erupted. ‘He would never do that!’
‘You may be right,’ Joss said, studying the note. ‘Look at this. Such poor handwriting scratched out on such nice paper.’
He passed the letter to Drake, who examined it. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t know if we’ll be able to convince anyone of Rowan’s innocence based on the quality of the paper. Even if there’s no other sheet like it in the whole house.’
‘And not one whisper of his voice to any of the words,’ Joss pointed out. ‘Unless his writing was a thousand-fold more formal than the way he talked.’
‘Again – not the easiest thing to prove,’ Drake replied.
‘So what do you suggest we do?’ Hero asked.
She had removed her goggles to wipe her eyes, her back turned to both her brethren and the armchair in the corner.
‘We should tell the guards,’ said Drake, gravitating towards her.
‘Why?’ Hero snapped. ‘Kardos and his men were probably the ones who did this, under orders from his “lordship”.’
Drake placed a hand on the small of her back. ‘Because if nothing else, they’ll have to collect the body.’
Quiet filled the room. Deathly quiet.
‘I’ll go,’ said Hero’s mother, still standing by the door. ‘You should stay here with your friend.’ She left without waiting for response, blind to the stunned expressions she left in her wake.
Her departure was enough to get Hero to face the room again, her eyes zeroing in on the mottled flesh of Rowan’s hands. ‘Blackglove,’ she noted. ‘Same as what happened to Lord Haven.’
Drake and Joss exchanged a wary glance. When Drake said nothing, Joss knew it was up to him to give voice to the doubt. ‘Same as what we think happened to Lord Haven.’
Hero grabbed the note from Drake’s hands and shook it in Joss’s face. ‘Tell me honestly, Joss, do you think Rowan killed Lord Haven and then did this to himself? Do you think he sat alone, hearing device set aside leaving him deaf to the world, to write out a confession to a murder that everyone else had dismissed as disease? A murder that he alone suspected?
‘Think about all we’ve seen lately,’ she went on, her voice growing louder and more impassioned. ‘Rayner’s grab for power, the hexlocks he’s added to the Lord’s Keep, his hiring of the Red Grin Gang, the missing livestock, the ritual sacrifices, the back magic, the Shadow God. And now this? It all points to one thing. Surely you see it too? Surely I’m not so mad. It’s all one connected web, with a single spider pulling all the strings!’
Joss cast his mind back to the mountain ridge and the suspicions he’d confronted there. It had been easier to believe Zeke was responsible for the dead pterosaur’s mutilation. If that were the case, it would have been the act of a delusional novice copying what he’d learned from a library book. But, standing in Rowan’s parlour with the groundskeeper’s body laid out before him, he was forced to confront the prospect that had loomed in the back of his mind like a foreboding shadow, now given form and face.
The Edge of the World Page 19
