“We saw it! We saw it! It’s alive!”
“You shouldn’t be here!”
“You’re our friend,” one of the imps said, “and hers. We thought you’d like to hear the news.”
“Then I am excited for you. Now go.”
“It was hungry, Malcolm.”
Malcolm froze in horror.
“We fed it, Malcolm.”
“Then that’s between you and your dark mistress,” Malcolm said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “I want no part of it. Don’t come back.”
As one the imps shook their heads slowly. “It is too late, Malcolm. You have been a part of this a long, long time now. Would you like to hear how we—”
But Malcolm had stepped back inside, and the kitchen door shut firmly in their faces.
“—prepared the meal?” whispered the imps.
At Faerie Hill Manor Silvius sat by the dying fire in the drawing room, sipping a last glass of whisky, staring unseeing at the coals.
Jack. It was so good to have him home.
Silvius’ mouth gave a quirk of amusement. And so unsettling. He wondered, idly, how long it would take for the oh-so-carefully-constructed veneer of harmony which existed between all the players of the Troy Game to crack apart under the strain of Jack’s presence.
Almost in answer to his thought Silvius heard the door open. He tipped his head slightly, to see who it was.
Weyland, in dressing gown and slippers, and looking as if he’d discovered Catling in his bed by the glower on his face.
He poured himself a whisky then sat in the chair opposite Silvius. “She’s gone to him,” he said, then swallowed the whisky down.
“You couldn’t have expected anything less,” Silvius said, earning himself a further glower from Weyland.
Silvius got up and refilled both their glasses, making a note to himself to bring a couple of good bottles of whisky next time he came to Faerie Hill Manor to replace what he and Weyland were undoubtedly going to get through tonight.
“But surely you trust her,” Silvius said, handing Weyland his whisky and sitting back down. “Weyland…she loves you.”
Weyland gave a shrug.
Silvius didn’t respond for a while, spending the time studying Weyland. Over the past several decades they’d gradually become good friends—apart from Noah, Silvius was Weyland’s only real friend.
“Weyland, she does love you.”
Weyland sighed. “Once I would not have worried. She turned her back on Jack three hundred years ago. But now…”
Now Weyland and Noah had drifted apart. Not much, just a little, but Silvius knew that that “little” ate at Weyland’s confidence.
“What will you do?” Silvius said.
“I don’t know,” Weyland said, but there was something in his face, something in the edge to his voice, that made Silvius wonder if Weyland knew very well what he was going to do.
Upstairs, Grace lay in her bed. She was not asleep, nor had she slept all night.
She could not sleep.
This was not merely due to the shock of what she’d seen earlier, hovering over London, but because of the young woman—Catling—who sat in a chair in the shadows of the room, staring unblinkingly at Grace in her bed, her hands clasped softly in her lap.
Catling had come to sit by Grace’s bed at night a long time ago, ever since Grace was a toddler.
And, as Grace had grown, so also had Catling grown, so that now Catling resembled a young, beautiful woman with long black hair framing her porcelain skin and dark blue eyes.
Beautiful as it might have been, that face radiated nothing but coldness.
“Leave me be,” Grace whispered as, somewhere deep within the Faerie, the Caroller sang in the dawn. “Have you not made me suffer enough this past night? Why sit here now, and torment me?”
Catling stared at her, her eyes wide, as if she thought to affect innocence.
Grace began to cry, silently. Go away, she mouthed and, eventually, as the inhabitants of Faerie Hill Manor started to rise for the day, Catling rose then vanished.
SEVEN
Faerie Hill Manor
Sunday, 3rd September 1939
“Look,” said Jack as he spooned some scrambled egg onto his plate, then moved along the buffet to the toast and slid four slices next to the egg, “I can’t say or do anything until I’ve looked about London. I need to know for myself what is happening with the Troy Game.”
He hesitated over the bacon, then forked several slices of that onto the plate as well. Then he looked back to the table. Everyone he’d met the previous night, except George VI, was already seated and pretending some interest in their breakfast. Jack left the buffet and took the spare seat between Walter Herne and his father, Silvius.
Of them all, only Silvius looked as though he was actually enjoying the food.
Jack took a forkful of egg and chewed on it, studying his companions. Noah was dressed very smartly in a tailored suit with a soft blouse beneath, and Jack managed, only barely, to repress a wince when he saw the diamond band on the ring finger of her left hand.
Weyland, next to her, was studiously ignoring Jack.
Harry and Stella, at the head of the table, were trying their best to look relaxed. Stella had managed it reasonably effortlessly, although she barely picked at her food, but Harry looked almost as tense as Weyland.
Walter simply looked out of place, and as if he could barely wait until he thought it was time enough to ask permission to leave the table.
Grace sat at the far end of the table. She didn’t even pretend to be interested in food, but sat staring at her wrists in her lap. Jack noticed she had on a very long-sleeved blouse.
“I need someone to drive me down to London,” he said, “so I can wander about. And, if it is possible, can I ask for someone to arrange a car for me?” That shouldn’t be too difficult, he thought, given the talent sitting about this table.
“Weyland?” Harry said.
“I’ll be driving Noah and Grace back home this afternoon,” Weyland said, not looking up from the tablecloth. “You can come with us, if you like.”
“You don’t live here?” Jack said.
“No,” Noah answered, probably feeling that Weyland may have exhausted his store of politeness for the day. “We visit often, but we live in a private suite at the Savoy. I didn’t want to move too far from central London.”
Jack pursed his lips in a silent whistle. The Savoy? It was one of London’s grandest and most expensive hotels, built on the Strand on the site of a medieval palace, from which it had taken its name. His lips twitched. “Only the best for Eaving?”
Weyland looked up. “It was my choice, not Noah’s. I had grown sick of living in squalor.”
“But which is more fitting for you, eh?” Jack said, holding Weyland’s gaze.
“Jack,” Harry said, “we can’t afford to—”
Jack’s head whipped about to Harry. “I can afford a little bitterness now and again, surely.”
“You have just used up your allowance, Jack,” Harry said. The tone of his voice was deceptively mild, and no one in the breakfast room missed the reprimand. As Lord of the Faerie, Harry commanded everyone in the room.
Jack’s jaw tightened, but he dropped his eyes, and began to fork his eggs about his plate.
“I also have a car I can give you,” Weyland said, sounding as if he had to force out each word. “I have three garaged at the Savoy. Can’t use them all now. You can take one.”
Jack looked back at Weyland. “Thank you,” he said. He hesitated, and then realised horribly that the pause was growing too long. “It was a bitter pill for me to lose Noah,” he said, “and my tongue has become too used to that bitterness. My remark was uncalled for, Weyland. I apologise.”
Weyland nodded, accepting the apology, but his face didn’t lose any of its hostility.
Stella blinked, then looked at Noah, raising her eyebrows.
Noah caught the look, smiled, and then gave a short laugh of genuine amusement. “I find it amazing that we can all sit here at breakfast, and that the worst thing we can do to each other is exchange a few snide comments. Once, we would have hurled assorted knives, daggers, arrows and murderous promises.” She looked at Jack. “Jack, thank you for coming back. We have been longing for you for so many years…yes, even Weyland—”
“Absolutely desperately, old chap,” Weyland said, and the mood about the table lightened even further as everyone managed varying levels of grins.
Noah shot him a grateful look, then returned her gaze to Jack: “—that to have you here now…well…it is relief beyond measure.”
“Don’t expect too much of me, Noah,” Jack said.
There was a small silence, broken by Harry. “The PM is to make a radio broadcast this morning at eleven-fifteen,” he said. “I’m sure we all know what he has to say.”