“It will be all right,” she said.
“It has never been ‘all right’,” Jack replied, looking past her into the cold grey waters of the river. “I can’t see why it should start now.”
The river was hardly deserted—barges and boats plied up and down—but no one took any notice of the man in American military uniform and the girl in her dress and coat in the rowboat. Jack and Grace used no power to cloak their movements. All of London was in shock, and the sight of the two people in the tiny rowboat was not enough to make anyone wonder.
When they arrived at the spot over St Thomas’ crypt, Jack stowed the oars. The river breeze ruffled his short hair as he sat, looking at Grace.
“Let’s do this,” he said, and she nodded, then smiled.
“Jack, it will soon be over.”
He took a moment to respond. “Do you know,” he said, “after all this time, I find that so hard to believe.” Jack’s sense of impending disaster grew stronger by the moment.
She sat forward in the boat, making it rock, and kissed him gently. “It will soon be over,” she said again.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I have such a bad feeling, Grace…”
“That’s because we are sitting in the middle of a river, in a tiny rocking boat, in a cold wind heavy with ash and the stink from the burning wharves, and neither of us have had any breakfast. You’re feeling seasick, Jack.”
I’m feeling heartsick, he thought, and wished that he could recapture, if only for a moment, the contentment of last night. But he would need to wait for that. Wait until they came out of the dark heart of the White Queen’s Game. Perhaps wait until it was all ended, and they were free of the Troy Game.
“Let’s go down,” Grace said.
They used the power of the labyrinth, and twisted out of the air the residual power of the air raid. Within moments the frozen whirlpool and steps had reappeared, and this time with a convenient waisthigh twisted column of water to which Jack tied the rowboat.
“What do you think passing boatmen shall see?” said Grace as she stepped over the side of the boat and onto the first water step. Surprisingly, it felt firm and dry beneath her foot.
“I suspect they will see nothing but an abandoned rowboat bobbing about in the river,” said Jack. “After last night’s raid, the odd boat floating free will surprise no one.”
He stepped out of the boat himself, putting his hand on Grace’s shoulder for balance and inching past her down the water staircase. “Let me go first.”
They walked down the stairs that twisted round the circular water-well. When Jack got to the stone floor, he held out his hand for Grace, and helped her down the final step.
Still holding hands, they turned to the left where stood a stone-arched doorway…and looked through into the long-forgotten crypt of St Thomas’ Chapel.
Although Jack and Grace had read that the crypt had run the entire length of the chapel, they were still surprised at its sense of space. They walked slowly through the doorway, still hand in hand, stopping a few paces inside, craning their heads to look at every aspect of the crypt.
The ceiling was fan vaulted in stone, and very high, perhaps fifteen feet at its lowest, the peaks of the fans almost twenty feet high. There were two rows of columns running along the length of the crypt, supporting the fan vaulting.
At the far end of the crypt, the east end, was a semicircular wall into which had been fitted the altar. There were tall, fat candles burning to either side of several objects lined up on the linen-draped altar, although neither Jack nor Grace could make them out from this distance.
Standing to one side of the altar, hands folded before her, was the White Queen.
The instant that Jack and Grace saw her, neither could move their eyes away.
Her long black hair hung down her back, drifting over one shoulder, framing her cold white face, but instead of the black dress she now wore a white one: sleeveless and loose-fitting, it draped softly to her feet.
In her face, her eyes burned black, their intensity extraordinarily discomfiting.
Neither Jack nor Grace knew what to say.
The White Queen inclined her head towards the altar, inviting them to walk closer to see what lay there.
Jack drew in a deep breath and led Grace forward.
They stopped a yard away from the altar, keenly aware of the White Queen standing only a few feet to their right.
“Oh,” said Grace as she saw what the White Queen had laid out on the white linen.
A plate with four slices of marzipan pear on it.
A tray with a decanter of brandy and two glasses.
The receipt for the room Jack and Grace had shared the previous night.
“Do you remember these articles?” said the White Queen.
Grace nodded. “The marzipan fruit…it was Christmas night and Catling had attacked me. Harry and Jack sat with me outside on the terrace of Faerie Hill Manor. The brandy and glasses are from the day I came out of my coma, and went to Copt Hall, and Jack washed me in the bath. The receipt from last night.”
“Very good,” said the White Queen. “What does this collection mean, do you think? Grouped like this?”
Jack turned a little towards her, at the same time raising one hand to Grace’s shoulder. “It represents Grace’s and my growing together. Our developing ‘togetherness’.”
The White Queen laughed, although it sounded particularly humourless, and clapped her hands, three times, slowly. “Indeed! Did I not tell you that the best marriage you could ever make would be in my dark heart?”
“Our marriage we made last night,” Jack said.
“Ah,” said the White Queen, “but you made it using the power I spun for you out of this dark, forgotten crypt.”
The power of the air raid. Jack wanted to address that, but Grace spoke before he could open his mouth.
“Why group these items?” said Grace. “Why collect them? Why place them here?”
“To give them power, of course,” said the White Queen. “To cement your union, the strongest way possible. Ah,” she looked at Jack, “my father is uncomfortable. What makes you worry, father?”
“This,” Jack said, waving his hand first at the altar and then around the entire crypt. “You. I don’t know what you want. I don’t like the power you want us to use. The war. Did you have to—”
“Jack.” Grace put a hand on his arm.
“Do you want the Troy Game contained or not?” said the White Queen.
“Yes,” Grace said, her hand tightening about Jack’s arm to silence him.
“Then use what I have given you,” the White Queen said.
“Why are you doing this?” said Jack. “Why help us? The gods know you have no reason to love—”
“I do not love you, nor care for you in even the least possible way,” the White Queen said. “Please do not think I do this out of any familial sentiment.”
“Then why?” Jack said.
“Because I loathe the Troy Game,” the White Queen said. “Because I wanted to live and couldn’t, and it was the Troy Game’s fault.”
“You don’t blame me?” said Jack. “After all, I was the one who started the Troy—”
The White Queen stepped closer, and Jack had to restrain himself from taking a step backwards. She placed a long, pale finger on his chest, and if Jack managed to restrain taking a step back, he could not stop his flinch.
“Oh, I blame you, father-Jack,” the White Queen said, “and I loathe you for what happened to me. If only you had cared. Even a little. Just a tad. But now it is too late to think of what might have been. I need you to spring the trap for me. You’re the only Kingman who can do it. I’m stuck with you. Please don’t think that I built this Game out of love for you.”
“Jack and I have studied this Game of yours,” Grace said after an awkward moment’s silence. “You have built it exceedingly well, if nightmarishly.”
“Why build a Game on murder and the horrors of war?” said Jack.
The White Queen regarded him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Isn’t that what you built the Troy Game on?” she eventually said. “Whatever have I done that you haven’t, Jack?”
Jack blanched.
“Well,” the White Queen continued, “at least you’ve discovered how to use it.”
“The Game is designed to destroy the Troy Game?” Grace said.
“No,” the White Queen said, “my Game is designed to trap her. Contain her.” One of her feet tapped at the floor of the crypt. “In here.”
“Why not unwind her completely?” said Jack. “Why not destroy her?”