Rise of the Darklings

by Paul Crilley

  He opened the door wider, and dim light spilled out into the corridor.

  “I think you three had better come with me,” he said. “It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  In which Emily is finally told the true history of the Invisible Order.

  SEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  ON THE SECOND DAY OF EMILY’S ADVENTURES.

  The young man ushered them quickly through the library and into his office. It looked no different than when Emily had come in searching for a lantern, more like a cozy sitting room than an office. The fire still crackled away in the hearth, its warmth emanating through the room. Emily longed to stand before the flames and let the heat seep into her freezing limbs.

  She heard a click and turned to see Sebastian locking the door.

  “Don’t worry,” he said when he saw Emily and Jack exchange looks of alarm. “Just making sure no one interrupts us.”

  Interrupts what? thought Emily nervously. She looked around, marking the room for any escape routes. There was the window, of course, and another door nestled between the ceiling-high bookcases, but that was it. She glanced surreptitiously at the door. At least he had left the key in the lock.

  The young man gestured toward the chairs that formed a circle around the fire. “Please. Sit. You all look freezing.”

  Emily, William, and Jack sat in the chairs closest to the fire. There was a small table in front of them, and on it was a silver plate loaded with cakes and biscuits. Emily’s stomach grumbled. It had been a whole day since she had eaten.

  “Help yourself,” the young man said, nodding at the cakes. “It’s a vice of mine, I’m afraid. But I suppose it is better than tobacco or gin. My name’s Sebastian, by the way.”

  William and Jack both reached out eagerly to snatch up a cake.

  “William!” snapped Emily.

  William stopped, his face radiating disappointment. Jack froze as well, looking like a chastised schoolboy. Sebastian smiled thinly and took one for himself.

  “I assure you, they’re not poisoned, if that is what you are worried about.” He took a huge bite, swallowed, then sighed with pleasure. “Delightful.”

  That was good enough for Jack. He grabbed a cake and popped the whole thing into his mouth. William watched him, impressed.

  “Please, Em?” he begged.

  Emily hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. William grinned and took two off the plate, stuffing them in his mouth at the same time, grinning at Jack around a mouthful of cake.

  “Now,” said Sebastian, “I suppose it is too much to hope that you have the stone with you?”

  “What stone?” asked Emily, rearranging her features into a mask of innocence.

  Sebastian chuckled. “Come now, child. Let us not insult each other’s intelligence. Your little performance was quite convincing, you know. You should join the theater.” He glanced at Jack. “And you have quite a burst of speed about you.”

  Jack nodded, accepting the praise. Emily said nothing. She leaned forward and took one of the cakes, nibbling at the edges.

  “So, do you have the stone?”

  Emily shook her head, and Sebastian sighed. “Ravenhill is not going to be happy.” A quick smile appeared on his face. “So I suppose that’s one good thing to come of all this.”

  Emily’s surprise must have shown on her face.

  “What? Have you met Ravenhill? A more unpleasant individual I don’t think I have ever encountered. I’ve tried to get him thrown out of the Order—” Sebastian stopped, a guilty look on his face. “Sorry. I’m not very good with secrets. Tend to spill the beans at the slightest provocation. That’s why I’m here all the time. They don’t like me mixing with the public.” He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Why don’t we make a deal? You tell me what has happened. Everything, mind. And I will answer any questions you have.”

  Emily swallowed her cake. “Any questions at all?”

  Sebastian nodded. “On my honor.”

  “How do I know you won’t lie?”

  “How do I know you won’t lie? We’ll just have to trust each other.”

  Emily thought about it. On the one hand, Corrigan had told her how evil the Order was, and she had believed him. With someone like Ravenhill chasing you around, it was hard not to believe. But on the other hand, Corrigan had lied nonstop since she had found him in the alley. How much of what he told her about the Order was actually true?

  Sebastian seemed able to read her thoughts. “I could have turned you in already,” he said. “Please,” he said earnestly. “You can trust me. I’m a good person.”

  His plea brought unexpected tears to Emily’s eyes. She didn’t know why, but his solemn words seemed to touch her somewhere deep inside. To trust someone with the power to help, to believe they had your best wishes at heart and no ulterior motives—it would be wonderful to feel that again. She hadn’t experienced such a thing since before her parents disappeared. Oh, there was Jack and Will, but it was different with people her own age.

  Emily searched Sebastian’s eyes. She saw no malice there, only concern and sympathy.

  “I want to help,” he said quietly.

  Emily glanced at Jack. “We could do with a hand,” he said.

  “I trust him,” said William.

  Emily smiled. “You’d trust anyone who gave you cake.” Still, Jack was right. They could certainly do with some help.

  So Emily told him everything that had happened since she had first walked through the alley. How Ravenhill had been there, how she had helped Corrigan, the story of her brother supposedly being taken by the Unseelie, and her breaking into the Order’s offices to get the stone back. She moved on to the Queen’s betrayal, and how she had said the parchment would reveal the location of the key, and how angry the Queen was when it instead had turned out to be a riddle. Sebastian jotted down the words of the riddle in a notebook, then leaned back in the chair, a troubled look on his face. Emily ended with her escape and appearance at the library door.

  The only thing she left out was how the Queen had acted as if she knew Emily, and all that talk about having waited for her for years. She hadn’t even told Jack about that. She didn’t understand it herself, and instinct told her to keep it quiet.

  At last, she finished talking. “I don’t like this,” said Sebastian. “Not one bit.” He straightened up. “Perhaps it is fortunate that you became embroiled in all this. At least now we know the Queen plans to make her move soon.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Emily.

  “The Order and the fey have been at—well, not peace, that’s too strong a word—but we’ve tolerated one another’s presence for a good two hundred years now. Ever since the war. We thought things were getting better.”

  “But they’re not?”

  “It doesn’t appear so. It looks as if the fey were simply biding their time, searching for this clue.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “What do you know of us? The Invisible Order, I mean?”

  Emily shrugged. “The Queen said you’ve been around for centuries. That you want to destroy the fey. She said a man called Christopher Wren locked the door to Faerie, trapping them all here.”

  Sebastian stood up and went over to the bookcases. He pulled out a huge book that was about half the size of William and brought it back over to the fire.

  “Could you move the cakes, please?”

  Emily moved the tray to the floor. Sebastian placed the huge book on the table, where it dropped with a heavy thud. The leather cover had a strange emblem on it. Emily studied it curiously. It was a circle, but the circle was formed by two thin dragons, each of them curving around one half of the circumference. At the top, their jaws were locked together in battle, and at the bottom, their tails were twined around each other.

  Inside this circle was an eye with an almond-shaped pupil.

  “It’s a dragon’s eye,” said Sebastian, seeing the direction of her gaze. “This book is the Histor
ia Occultus—the Hidden Histories. It contains all the known history of the Invisible Order. Diaries of our leaders, details of the fey, historical accounts—everything.” He opened it up carefully and leafed through the brittle yellow paper. There was a lot of neat cursive writing on the pages, interspersed with different types of illustrations. Emily saw a painting that looked like a stained-glass window, armored men fighting an army of the fey.

  “The Society has existed in one form or another throughout all of recorded human history,” said Sebastian. “No one is sure how it began. Some say it was started by one man. One simple, uneducated farmer whose unbaptized child was stolen by the fey. So he formed a small group of likeminded individuals—probably those who had had their own babies stolen—and they vowed to destroy those responsible.

  “Other legends say the Order was started by Merlin the Magician, although back then he was called Myrddin. The story goes that the fey took his only daughter, Inogen, and from that moment on, he vowed to save others the heartache he had endured.

  “Yet other legends say Merlin was trained by the Order to be their ultimate weapon. The legend went that he was half-fey himself, so he had the power of magic and a loyalty to humans.

  “Whatever the truth, with the formation of the Order, so started the first war between the humans and the fey.” Sebastian looked sad. “A tragic story. The legends do not do it justice.”

  He absently turned another page. This one was filled with writing, lists of names in columns.

  “But why are the fey here?” asked Emily. “The Queen says they have their own world to live in.”

  “Ah, yes, but that world is … ethereal. It is not the same as our world. There, ideas take shape in reality, but it is an insubstantial place, like a dream. No, the fey much prefer our world, with blood and mud and humans whom they can rule. Their goal is total subjugation of our species. It always has been. That’s why they stole babies, you see. They were trying to raise humans who would be sympathetic to their cause. They were actually quite successful.

  “Anyway, the Order made it its duty to stop the fey. We were always there, passing the knowledge down through the centuries. And waiting, always waiting for the war we knew would come.”

  “And did it?”

  “Oh, yes. In sixteen sixty-six. We don’t know the details—a lot of our records were destroyed in the Great Fire—but we do know that when the Order locked the gateway to Faerie, the fey went to ground. We thought—we hoped—that they had given up. But it seems they were simply waiting, licking their wounds.”

  “How did Wren lock the gate?”

  Sebastian shrugged. “That information has disappeared, I’m afraid. All we know is that he somehow locked it and hid the key.” He sighed wearily. “And now if what you say is true, the fey have found a clue to that hiding place. They won’t give up, Emily. If there is the slightest possibility that the Queen can open the door to Faerie and bring her armies through, she will pursue that chance.”

  “Can you do anything?”

  Sebastian sighed. “We must find the key before they do. It is as simple as that. We will have to call all our operatives in to discuss this clue of yours.”

  Emily straightened in her chair. “Does that mean Ravenhill will come here?”

  “I’m afraid so. Most of us see him as something of a fanatic, but he has his supporters. You see, when Ravenhill joined, the Order was not much more than a gentleman’s club. We all thought the worst was over, that things has quieted down. But Ravenhill didn’t believe it. He started the patrols again, insisted on keeping the Order staffed. A very unpleasant man, devoted to science. But it seems that he was right.”

  Emily sat back, lost in her own thoughts. Before she had entered Somerset House, Emily had wondered what to do. She’d thought about running, taking William away from the city. But after hearing Sebastian, she knew the Queen would never let her go. If she thought Emily held knowledge about the key, she would send the Dark Man after her. Emily knew there would be no escape.

  Which only left her with two options: She could find the key and force the Queen to go back to Faerie. The trouble was, she had no idea how to accomplish that. Or secondly, she could find the key and destroy it. With the key gone, there would be no reason for the Queen to chase Emily. Oh, there was always the possibility she would want revenge, but that was something Emily would deal with later on.

  Either way, she had to make sure she found the key first.

  Sebastian was staring into the fire, lost in thought. Emily cleared her throat.

  “Is it really safe here?” she asked. “The Queen said it was the one place in London where the fey couldn’t come.”

  Sebastian blinked. “Hmm? Oh. Yes, it’s safe. After the fire, Christopher Wren rebuilt the Society to be a haven for those in the fight against the fey. He rebuilt much of London, actually. St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of his. The man was a genius. He held the Order together, you know. After he died was when everything sort of … fell apart.”

  Sebastian stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I must get word to the others. I have a feeling the fey will be abroad tonight, and we need to figure out this clue of yours before they do.”

  He hurried out through the door. Emily waited a moment to make sure he wasn’t coming back, then turned to Jack and William. William was drowsing in a chair by the fire, crumbs all over his clothes. She gestured for Jack to move out of earshot.

  “You’ve got that look about you,” said Jack. “You’re planning something.”

  “I don’t think the Queen is going to leave us alone,” said Emily.

  “No. Not if everything Sebastian said is true.”

  “That means I need to find the key before she does. I need to destroy it, or use it to force her back to Faerie.”

  “We. We need to find this key. You’re not alone here, Snow.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous.”

  Jack shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me, I’m—”

  “Spring-Heeled Jack, I know, I know.”

  “What about Will?”

  Emily shook her head. “I can’t take him with us. It’s too risky.”

  “He’s not going to like that.”

  “I’ll deal with him. Wait outside for me. And don’t steal anything!”

  Jack grinned and slipped through the door. Emily crossed the room, pausing by Sebastian’s desk and picking up a small letter opener. She could use it as a weapon if she needed to. She tucked it away in her coat pocket, then knelt down before her brother. “William?”

  William reluctantly opened his eyes. “Mmm …?”

  “William, I have to go—”

  William’s eyes snapped open in alarm.

  “Don’t panic. I’ll be back. I’m just going to get our stuff from our rooms,” she lied. “You’ll be safe here. The fey can’t enter the building. Too much iron.”

  William struggled to sit upright. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No. You stay here. I’ll be fine.”

  Emily saw the look of doubt on her brother’s face. She knew what he was thinking. He wanted to make sure she was safe. It almost made her smile, but she knew that would only annoy him. “Jack’s with me, remember? He’ll make sure nothing happens.”

  William stifled a yawn. “I should help.”

  Emily firmly shook her head. “You can barely keep your eyes open. I need you alert if you want to help. Have a nap. I’ll wake you when we get back. Please,” she said when she saw he was about to argue. “We won’t be long. Do this for me, William.”

  William stared at her, then sighed. “Promise you’ll come back?”

  “Of course I’ll come back. I rescued you from the Faerie Queen, didn’t I? How many little brothers can say that?”

  William smiled. Emily leaned forward and ruffled his hair. “See you soon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In which danger lurks in the fog and help arrives from an unexpected source.

  EIGHT T
HIRTY IN THE EVENING

  ON THE SECOND DAY OF EMILY’S ADVENTURES.

  Emily and Jack left Somerset House by the front door this time. Emily did take one detour, however. Just before they stepped outside, she slipped into one of the rooms that opened off from the large entrance hall. The room was stuffy, filled with chairs and small tables covered in newspapers. Probably some kind of smoking room, thought Emily.

  She undid the latch on one of the windows and pushed it up so that it was slightly ajar. Now when she came back to fetch William, she wouldn’t have to mess about around the back of the building. She could simply slip in through the front window.

  Proud of this show of foresight, Emily rejoined Jack in the entrance hall, and they stepped out into the cold night.

  The fog was even thicker now. It enfolded Emily in a claustrophobic embrace, tendrils of dampness brushing against her face like the chill fingers of the dead. Her world was reduced to an eerie, muffled circle of pale yellow-gray. Her brief, tiny burst of confidence slipped away, leeched out of her by the horrid weather.

  She turned to look for Jack, but there was no sign of him. “Jack?” she whispered.

  “I’m here.” His muffled voice came from a step or so behind her. She waited until she could see his shadowy form, then reached out and grabbed hold of his sleeve.

  They crossed the large square in front of Somerset House. The fog was so thick Emily was unable to see the gas lamps until she was right on top of them, and even then they were just hazy, yellow shapes materializing out of the air, like floating balls of dim light.

  It had been strange listening to Sebastian tell the true history of the Invisible Order. Ever since meeting Corrigan, Emily had thought of the Order as some evil, ghastly group of men trying to hunt down and kill the poor, innocent fey. Now she found out that it was actually the fey who were bad, and the Order was actually trying to save people.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She was sure there were some fey who were perfectly nice, just as there were some members of the Order who were perfectly horrible. If she’d learned one thing from all of this, it was to make up her own mind when judging people and not simply listen to what others had to say.