“He’s only just arrived back,” said Silvius. He was now leaning on the mantelpiece over the hearth. “What did you expect? That he’d walk in here, grin easily, and say, ‘All is forgiven and I’m your man’?”
“I think,” said Harry, “that we should be damned glad he’s back at all. Noah, with all respect for your reasons, you tore his world apart in 1666. Frankly, for decades I was worried that he’d abandoned us so completely we’d never see him again.”
There was strain in his voice, and for a long moment no one else spoke. For a very long while, no one had expected him back.
“If he can’t help Grace,” Weyland said very quietly, “then I for one shall wish he had never returned.”
Jack Skelton walked slowly towards the front door. Rather, he walked towards the gaping hole that had once held the door. He had known about this hall from when he’d been Louis de Silva, transforming into Ringwalker and running the forest paths. Epping Forest was the remnant—the heart—of the great forests that had once covered this land, and Copt Hall itself had been built on a patch of ground where the barriers between the world of the mortal and the world of the Faerie were so thin as to be almost nonexistent.
Like as not, it was the reason a hall had existed on this site for eight hundred years. It served as a gatehouse between worlds, although the majority of the mortal inhabitants of the hall had probably never had any idea of what came and went through door and window, and what wafted through its spaces.
Jack’s pace slowed even further as he came closer to the hall. He had no idea why it had burned: what had caused the fire, or what purpose the destruction had served.
The owners had retired to London and had never rebuilt, although they had talked about it off and on for years. There was a small staff still living in the undamaged wing of the hall who managed the vegetable gardens, sending the food down to the owners’ London townhouse. Jack doubted he would ever come across them. He had the Faerie lease, not the mortal lease, and would be using this home within its Faerie aspect, not its mortal.
A step away from the front door the barren stone arch shimmered, and Jack’s feet scrunched in the gravel as he halted. The stonework shimmered again, and now Jack found himself before a whole and complete entrance, the massive wooden barred door in place, a soft light glowing from a lamp to one side of the entry overhang.
The door opened—something Jack had definitely not been expecting—to reveal a man standing inside.
He was tall and well built, with greying brown hair slicked back from his brow. His face was peculiarly mild, as if he practised exhibiting no emotion save blandness. Although he was dressed in a smart jacket and trousers, and with a beautifully knotted tie over his shirt, the man nonetheless projected an aura of servility.
Dear gods, thought Jack, don’t tell me the lease comes with a butler.
“Good evening, sir,” said the man. “I presume you are Major Skelton?”
Jack gave a nod.
“And you have the lease with you?”
Jack drew forth the lease from the pocket of his greatcoat. He made to hand it to the man, but as soon as he sighted the rolled indenture tied with the pink light the man waved his hand in satisfaction, and Jack pocketed the lease again.
The man now drew the door wide open and stepped back in a gesture of invitation. “My name’s Malcolm, sir. I watch over Copt Hall and welcome friends as they visit.” There was a flicker of amusement in his eyes. “And I do indeed come with the lease.” He paused. “You might say that I come with the land.”
At that he smiled, and Jack saw that his teeth were stained very slightly with blue.
Jack relaxed. Malcolm was a Sidlesaghe, one of the most ancient creatures of the land. Normally they existed as the standing stones of the various circles, or Dances, scattered about Britain, but over the past thousand years the Sidlesaghes had increasingly taken living form as they aided efforts to repel the Troy Game.
“I also valet, sir. Whatever you desire in this house, then ask.”
“Thank you, Malcolm. I appreciate the welcome and the offer.” Jack stepped through the entrance, and Malcolm both closed the door and took Jack’s holdall in one smooth move.
“It is late, sir. Perhaps if I took you direct to your bedchamber?”
“Thank you, Malcolm.”
They stepped through into what had once been the main part of the house. There was little left but stark, soot-stained walls open to the night air.
Then Malcolm moved a hand and the empty space shimmered. Jack found himself looking at a comfortable drawing room, a fire crackling cheerily in the hearth, with sofas and wing-backed chairs drawn close in.
A decanter and glasses were set out on a lamp table close to the fire.
Malcolm saw Jack looking at the chair and fire. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a nightcap before retiring, sir?”
Jack shook his head. “Another night, Malcolm. Bed for now, I think.”
Malcolm led him on towards the ruins of a oncefine staircase that, again at a movement from Malcolm’s hand, shimmered back into their original glory.
At the top of the stairs he guided Jack to an elegant bedroom. A full tester bed, curtained with thick red drapes (now drawn back and tied against the bedposts), stood to one side of a blazing fire, while a fat armchair sat on the other side of the hearth.
A dressing table, replete with silver-backed brushes and combs and a jug and basin, rested against another wall with a doorway leading into a dressing room and bathroom.
Malcolm set the holdall down by the bed, and folded back the bed covers. “May I fetch you some cocoa?” he said as he pulled the sheets tight.
“If you will, Malcolm.”
Malcolm dipped his head, and left.
Jack wandered over to the bed and sat down, overcome with weariness. It wasn’t the journey at fault, but the strain of the meeting in the drawing room of Faerie Hill Manor. All that tenseness, all that expectation, their damned history of conflict and love and disappointment swirling all about them.
And Grace.
Jack thought she epitomised all of that conflict and love and disappointment and all of the mistakes they had made throughout so many lives. She was a lovely young girl, and should have been carefree and happy. But what was she instead? A shell of a girl, racked with agony, because of the blunders and screw-ups of others.
Or was she their fate made flesh? Was she everything that had ever gone wrong turned into breath and blood?
Jack rubbed his eyes. Grace. Our doom.
He didn’t know what to do. Why had he come back? What did they want of him?
What did he want?
It was such a mess. A morass of stupidity. What the hell was he doing here? What could he do? What could he do?
“Sir?”
Jack jumped, and looked to where Malcolm stood in the doorway, a cup of steaming cocoa in his hands.
“Sir, I am sorry, but there is a visitor at the front door. I—”
Jack felt his stomach drop away with dread. He knew who it was.
“Set out a chair for her by the fire below,” he said. “I will be with her shortly.”
Malcolm set the cocoa down on the table by the chair, and left.
Jack sat a moment, then stood, wandering over to look down at the cocoa.
“Fuck it,” he whispered, and walked towards the stairs.
She was standing before the fire, her hands held out as if for warmth. She’d heard him approach, he knew it, and she must have sensed the moment he started down the stairs, he knew that as well, but now she turned as if caught unawares, an expression of pleasant surprise on her face as though his step had startled her.
The expression faltered and died within the moment at the sight of his face.
Jack felt a little sick. She was so lovely, and he hated it that he yearned for her now as strongly as he had three hundred years ago.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Noah said. “What happened at Faerie Hill Manor wasn’t particularly pleasant. We were all too tense.”
“What have you told Weyland? That you were stepping out to admire the stars?”
“I told him I wanted to talk with you alone,” she said quietly.
“Ah. Then I suppose Weyland is lurking about the windows to make sure I don’t throw myself at you.”
“Jack,” she said. “Don’t.”
He walked past her to pour himself a glass of whatever the decanter held. He didn’t want anything to drink, but he desperately needed to do something with his hands. He held the decanter over another glass, raising his eyebrows to Noah.