“All I have to be certain of,” whispered Catling in the desolation of the dark heart, “is that the hex can’t be broken. That it is so powerful that nothing can thwart it.”
She glanced upwards, looking through all the layers of earth and rock and masonry to the sky above.
She had time. Neither Jack nor Noah would move against her just yet—not while Grace was in such a pitiful condition. She had some weeks, perhaps even months, in which to wind down the bleakness and horror of the Blitz and use it to bolster the hex that bound Grace.
Bolster it so that no matter what happened, what Jack and Noah tried to do, nothing could possibly break it.
THIRTEEN
Copt Hall
Tuesday, 31st December, 1940
Jack sat on the side of the bed, watching Grace sleep. She looked terrible: dark shadows ringed her eyes, her flesh had shrunk and her skin tone was ashen and faintly yellowish where it stretched over bone. On the other hand her breathing was deep and slow and comfortable, and her face relaxed.
He still couldn’t quite believe she was alive. He kept thinking of the moment he had walked into the bathroom, and saw her sitting in the bath, enclosed in steam and serenity. He remembered the gut-wrenching sense of relief and joy, combined with a terror that somehow the vision wasn’t real and that any moment she would evaporate before his eyes.
Now, watching her sleep, Jack found it difficult to believe she would survive, or that she would not be snatched from him again.
There was a noise behind him, and Jack turned his head slightly.
It was Malcolm carrying a tray with two bowls of hot soup.
“Did you do this for Boudicca?” said Jack quietly as Malcolm set the tray down.
“Of course,” said Malcolm, “I adored her.” He looked at Grace. “She will need to wake soon.”
“She will wake when she is ready,” said Jack, but then he saw Malcolm’s smile, and looked back to Grace.
Her eyes had opened, and she was smiling at Malcolm and then at Jack as his eyes turned to her.
“Chicken soup,” she said, “with which to set the world to rights?”
“Chicken soup,” said Malcolm, “with which to set you on the road to rights. The world can look after itself.”
Jack helped Grace sit up, Malcolm plumping the pillows behind her, and Grace laughed and commented on what fine nurses they both had become.
Then Malcolm handed Grace and Jack their bowls of soup, told them he expected them to eat before they talked, and then departed.
“I wonder where he got these chickens,” said Grace. “Have the gardeners of Copt Hall missed one or two of their flock?”
Jack smiled, but did not answer, and, as instructed, they ate in silence.
Once they’d done, Jack took the bowls, set them aside, and sat once more on the side of the bed, taking Grace’s hand.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him.
“I’m so sorry about Matilda,” she said.
Jack’s eyes filled with sudden tears, not merely at the loss of Matilda which still ate at the edges of his composure every moment he was awake, but at Grace’s care for his feelings. She was the one who had suffered alongside Matilda, she the one who had watched Matilda’s terrible dying, and yet she only thought of him.
He nodded, unable to speak.
“Have they recovered her body, or Erith’s and Ecub’s?” Grace asked.
Jack closed his eyes momentarily, forcing tears to slide down his cheeks. “No. The rescue teams got you out, but by the time they’d managed to clear out the entire basement almost three weeks had gone past. The basement had flooded—”
“I know,” Grace whispered.
“—and together with the weight of the rubble and debris, bodies were unrecognisable. They had…”
Decayed, he wanted to say, but didn’t know how to say it without speaking in cold, bald words.
“It was impossible to determine who was who,” he finished. “Most were buried in a mass grave, including whatever was left of Matilda, Ecub and Erith.”
“Oh, Jack…”
He took a deep breath. “Matilda and I…she…”
“She loved you, and you her.”
“Oh, gods…” Jack wiped away his tears. “I wish she’d never been caught up in this damned…damned…”
“Ah, no you don’t,” Grace said. “Where would you have been all these years without Matilda?”
Jack laughed. “You’re right. Thank you for making me smile.” He wanted to ask Grace how Matilda had died, but he realised he didn’t want to know, and he knew also that Matilda wouldn’t have wanted him to know. “I’m glad you were there with her,” he said.
“Well, she’s probably chatting up Aeneas as we speak.”
Jack blinked away the last of his tears. “Aye, she probably is. Grace, please talk to me of what has happened.”
She sighed, and for a moment her eyes wandered away from his. Then, hesitantly, she told Jack of how Catling had tormented her in the rubble, and then sent her into the hell of memory.
“I saw too much, Jack. Experienced too much. Far too much. Catling hoped it would send me mad.”
Jack felt cold. He could imagine what Catling had showed Grace. Oh, gods, the terrible things he had done as Brutus…and yet still Grace could smile at him. “But she didn’t drive you mad.” Nor did she drive you to hate me, and I have no idea what I have done to deserve such a gift.
“No. Almost, but before I succumbed someone came to me. Someone who called herself the White Queen. She tormented me with possibilities until I finally figured out how to save myself.” Grace looked carefully at Jack’s face. “You remember, don’t you? The White Queen Cafe where we met, and where the woman’s voice spoke to us?”
“Oh, aye. I remember that. But I, via Noah, have also heard the name elsewhere. The night you and Eaving’s Sisters were trapped in Coronation Avenue, the Sidlesaghes told your mother the shadow belonged to a woman called the White Queen. Later that night, not knowing what to do, only desperately seeking some means by which to save you, I went around to the cafe. It was boarded up, had been for a year or so. This White Queen has been playing with us, Grace.”
“That she has. She has been the one to come sit by my side at night, all these years. Not Catling. They just look so much alike.”
“The White Queen has been sitting with you?”
“Yes. Oh, and she called herself something else. The druid’s sword. This is something about which I think we need to talk to Malcolm.”
Jack grunted. “That doesn’t guarantee any answers from him.” He thought Grace was holding something back from him about the White Queen, but before he could ask her about it, she hurried on.
“I also discovered the true nature of the labyrinthine shadow.”
Jack held his breath, waiting.
Grace sat up a little straighter, the effort bringing a flush to her cheeks. “The shadow is a new Game. Rather, it is the potential for a new Game. It has been laid down by the White Queen for you and me to use, as Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth. That is why it only appeared when you and I were in London together, why it vanished when I ‘died’, and why no one else, save my mother who can glimpse it, could sense it.”
Jack was aware his mouth had slowly dropped open, but he didn’t care. A new Game? Should he be terrified or intrigued? And how? Who was this White Queen that she had the potential to build a new Game? A new Game?
“Why?” he whispered, barely able to speak. “How?”
“To use against the Troy Game,” Grace said.
“But how hasn’t Catling sensed it? Surely…”
“She hasn’t sensed it for the same reason no one else has. This Game—or its potential, rather—was built exclusively for you and me. We are the only ones it cares about. We are the only ones it reveals itself to. I’m not even sure that Catling will know once the Game is opened…it shadows her so perfectly, is so close to a mirror image of the Troy Game, that Catling may simply not see it. Ah, at the moment the only thing I know for sure is that the shadow is a new Game waiting for us to open it, and to use it, somehow, against the Troy Game.”
Jack gave his head a little shake. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. The imps could sense this Shadow Game. They were feeding it through their murders.”
“I don’t know why the imps are involved, Jack.” Grace paused. “Have there been any more murders since I was injured?”
Jack shook his head. “They stopped completely after early September. Perhaps the Blitz…ah, I don’t know. Grace, what do we make of a Game that requires murder to feed?”