“Catling has created the weapon of her own destruction?” Silvius said, incredulous.
Ariadne sighed. “I don’t know, Silvius. I was just theorising.”
Jack laid a hand on her shoulder in support. “I need some sleep. This is too confusing for my addled mind. As I understand it, all that has been suggested is that some ‘being’, perhaps a member of the Faerie, is trying to show Grace and me something. This something may be a weakness in the Troy Game…or perhaps it is a weapon to be used against the Troy Game. But if it is a weapon, then it must firstly have been constructed of the Troy Game itself…ah! I can’t figure it.”
“I hope Long Tom has some answers,” Noah said quietly.
“Me too,” said Grace after a moment.
Catling could hardly believe Jack and Grace had dropped a bomb on her. She couldn’t decide whether to succumb to incandescent rage or icy dread.
Why was Jack so confident he thought he could attack her so blatantly?
And from where had Grace got such nerve? What was she thinking?
In the end Catling decided on, not rage or dread, but action. Jack had ignored all her warnings. Very well. Perhaps now it was time to demonstrate to both him and Noah just how vulnerable they were.
And it wouldn’t hurt to destroy Grace’s irritating new-found confidence, either.
Catling retreated into the dark heart of the labyrinth and began to marshal her powers. For two days she sat, motionless save for the winding of red wool between her fingers.
On the third day she moved, as deadly as a viper.
ELEVEN
The Faerie, and Stoke Newington, London
Sunday, 13th October 1940
Long Tom, like most of the Sidlesaghes, had buried himself so deep within the Faerie to escape the war that it took Noah three days before the Sidlesaghe answered her call. They met in the Faerie, on a hill five removed from The Naked, under a great stand of trees where the Sidlesaghe felt safe.
Noah almost wept when she saw Long Tom. He looked totally despondent, far different from his usual forlorn demeanour, and she hugged him tightly in greeting.
“Has the war stopped yet?” Long Tom said.
“No, my friend. I wish I had better news for you.”
Long Tom sighed. “The land suffers.”
Now the tears did come to Noah’s eyes. “I know, Long Tom.”
“What do you here, Noah?”
“Tom…there is something strange happening in London.”
Long Tom looked nervous, and Noah laid a hand on his arm. “We need your help. Please.”
Long Tom sighed again. “In what manner ‘strange’?”
Noah told him as best she could about the shadow, its labyrinthine quality, and the voice, the being, which had communicated with Jack and Grace.
“Long Tom,” she concluded, “we have no idea what this shadow is, or what is its purpose. Moreover, we do not know who this voice belongs to. Is it a creature of the Faerie, perhaps? Do you know, Tom?”
The Sidlesaghe hung his head and took a long time over his answer.
“I have heard whispers,” he said eventually.
Noah almost ground her teeth at the obtuseness of his answer, but instead managed to infuse her voice with nothing but light query. “You have actually heard these whispers? Or you have heard whispers of this creature’s identity?”
“I have heard whispers of the woman who calls to Grace and Jack.”
Noah waited for as long as she could bear it. “Yes?”
“Some say it is the White Queen.”
Noah frowned. The White Queen? She searched the ancient memory bequeathed to her by Mag, and found only elusiveness.
“Who is the White Queen, Long Tom?”
“She who has not lived.”
“Tom, what do you mean?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I do not know what I mean, Noah. All I know is that some Sidlesaghes, and some others among the Faerie, have for many years been aware of a woman who is so unknowable that no one has managed to understand her. She is fleeting. She is a shadow. She has become known as the White Queen because her cold, white face reminds all who see it of the winter landscape. Black eyes like the night. She’s cold, cold, cold. Never lived. We don’t know who she is, but some among us think she may be the one who has raised the shadow over London and who whispers to Grace and Jack.”
Noah stared at Long Tom, unable to make any sense out of what he was saying. “Why haven’t I seen her? Why don’t I know her?”
“She is lost to you, Noah.”
“What do you mean, Tom?”
“I don’t know what I mean, Noah.”
“Damn it, Tom—”
“I have to go, Noah. I don’t like it here. There’s trouble afoot. Magic and murder. I don’t like it at all.”
Suddenly he was gone.
Noah walked along the road leading from Epping Forest towards London. Soon she would use her power to transport herself to the mobile canteen, which was working the northern suburbs, but for the moment Noah just wanted to rub her head and walk and think.
Long Tom had a history of being obtuse, but this time Noah didn’t think he was deliberately trying to be vague. He simply did not know any more than he’d told her.
He was also scared, although Noah had no idea whether of this White Queen or of the general situation.
“Gods alone know our general situation is pitiful enough,” Noah mumbled as she wrapped herself in her coat and strode along the verge of the road. It was cold, just gone night, and even from this distance Noah could hear the drone of bombers over London.
It was going to be another bad night.
Even worse than it currently was? She and Jack and Grace, as everyone else, had wrestled with the problem of what the shadow was, and no one (save Grace) had considered the possibility it might be something of which to be afraid.
Noah did not like the sound of this White Queen very much at all. She was too secretive—and why be secretive if you had nothing to hide?
A cold, cold, fleeting shadow.
Noah shivered.
There’s trouble afoot. Magic and murder. I don’t like it at all.
Noah’s head sprang up and her eyes blazed.
The next instant she was gone.
Grace had come out to help Matilda, Ecub and Erith with the mobile canteen. She didn’t want to have to think any more, didn’t want to have to speculate about what the shadow might be and what the bomb may have meant. She just wanted to do something, and Noah’s Ark seemed like just the thing. Mindless work, offering pleasant companionship, and it took her out of Ariadne’s apartment, which Grace was beginning to find a trifle claustrophobic.
She didn’t know where Jack was tonight. They’d spent yesterday together, wandering aimlessly, talking of little, and they’d parted without making arrangements to meet again. He’d seemed preoccupied, and Grace thought he may have gone back to stand outside St Paul’s (temporarily closed to the public for repairs) and stare up at the sky, and wonder.
“Grace?”
She jumped a little, then laughed guiltily. Matilda had come upon her, standing at the back of the open van, staring up at the night sky.
“Do you think you should go look for him?” Matilda said.
“No,” Grace said. “I’d waste my time if he doesn’t want to be found. Now…sandwiches or the coffee?”
“Bring the sandwiches,” Matilda said. “Half of the people in the shelter are children, and most are starving.”
Grace looked up at the block of flats. They were a dreary lot: blank walls, featureless windows and architraves. Clean and comfortable no doubt, but such a heaviness of spirit lay over the building that Grace wondered how any soul could thrive while living here. The block’s shelter was in the basement, and Grace thought it must be gloomy indeed, if above-ground was so dreary.
“Sandwiches it is, then,” she said, and hefted a large tray in her arms.
“This way,” said Matilda, and Grace followed.
She glanced up at the street plate on the building.
Coronation Avenue.
For no reason—it was such an innocuous name—Grace shuddered.
Then, tray in hand, she walked towards the entrance, trailing Matilda by a few steps.
They were halfway down the stairs to the basement when the bomb hit.
It came straight in the roof, piercing through five floors with a terrifying noise before it detonated just inside Public Shelter No. 5 of Coronation Avenue.
Following immediately on the blast, the full weight of five floors of concrete, mortar, furniture, bricks and other debris plummeted downwards and, along the way, broke every water and sewer pipe that serviced the building.
Half the people inside the shelter were killed instantly. The rest were left trapped under tons of rubble that had sealed every exit.
Water and sewage started to trickle down into the basement.