But Cornelia—Noah—had stepped in and plunged Asterion’s horn dagger into Genvissa’s neck. Genvissa, dying, had cursed everyone to continual rebirth until she had her revenge.
But it hadn’t been Genvissa who had passed the real curse, had it? That had been the manipulative Troy Game itself, manoeuvring everyone it needed to do just what it willed.
Now, more than three thousand years later, Jack and Noah were about to do what the Troy Game wanted. They were sick at heart, and close to physical nausea because of what they were about to do, but they had no choice. It was not merely Grace’s life which rode on the night, but the life of the entire land and Faerie besides.
This was no glorious spectacle as the original Dance of the Flowers had been. No one attended save Jack and Noah. There were no dancers, no witnesses, no crowds.
Shortly after dusk Noah and Jack entered St Paul’s. They were clothed in magic and mystery, and as on those occasions Jack had come to the cathedral to talk with Catling, none among the cathedral staff saw them.
They walked very slowly up the nave towards the space under the great dome. Both had dressed in the simple white linen of Kingman and Mistress: a hipwrap for Jack and a long skirt for Noah. Neither wore any shoes, and they were bare of adornment save for Jack’s four golden kingship bands on his arms.
The markings about his shoulders writhed desperately, as if they wanted to escape.
Noah carried in one hand a small posy of flowers, sad insipid things, which had been the best she could find at this time of year.
Halfway up the nave she reached out her free hand and took one of Jack’s.
“I can’t believe it has come to this,” she whispered.
“Noah, we have to do it.”
“Jack…” Her voice choked with emotion, and Jack stopped and faced her, taking both Noah’s shoulders in his hands. “Noah, we have no choice.” He paused, taking a deep breath to steady his own nerves. “We have never had a choice.”
“I—”
“It should have been me you plunged that knife into so long ago, Cornelia,” Jack said, his mouth quirking a little as he called her by her original name. “Without me, we would have had none of this mess.”
She tried to smile at him, but it trembled and vanished before it had any chance at life. “This is so stupid. Here we are about to condemn the world to a nightmare, and there is no one here to watch.”
“Ah,” said Catling, stepping out of the shadows, “but there is me. Glad you could come. Happy you’re here.” Her voice hardened. “Now get on with it.”
Then she took another step closer. “Jack? No leg bands? What is this?”
“If I could find them I’d wear them,” said Jack. “But I can’t find them—and if you don’t know where they are, Catling, with your power, then don’t blame me for not being able to locate them.”
“Ah, don’t give me that! I know you have them! You just want me to believe you’re weak. I’m sorry, Jack, but I am not letting down my guard. Just get on with it, but know I’ll be watching for the first sign of treachery.”
Catling looked at Jack very carefully. “If I sense any duplicity in you, Jack, then what I have done thus far will be but a foretaste of what I can do. Try to trick me if you will, but you—and everyone else—shall live to regret it.”
“The land already regrets you,” Noah said.
“Don’t interrupt,” Catling snapped, her eyes not leaving Jack’s face. “Well?”
“No trickery,” Jack said. “I just want to get this over and done with.”
Catling stared a moment longer, then gave a small nod. “Good, then get on with it. I’ve waited way too long for this moment.”
The White Queen had gone, and Grace wandered alone in her hell.
Except it was not quite a hell any more, for Grace knew she had the means to not only control it, but use the power behind it.
“Jack is about to do something very stupid,” she whispered to herself, “and I have to stop him.”
And to do that she must manage two tasks: escape this hell, and escape it whole.
Grace sighed, and let her Darkcraft flow forth. Catling had used the power of the dark heart of the labyrinth to create this nightmare, and so Grace used the same power to manipulate it.
Show me, she commanded, and she saw before her a terrible sight.
Herself, fractured and wasted, lying still on a hospital bed. To one side sat Jack, in a chair, his head in his hands. The vision shifted, and Grace saw her parents on the other side of the bed, her father’s arm about Noah, their faces flat with misery.
“Oh,” Grace murmured.
The vision shifted a little more. Now Jack was back, and Grace saw several nurses, peering out from the nurses’ station, their eyes on Jack, their faces hopeless with love.
Grace smiled.
The vision shifted a final time, and Grace saw Jack and her mother in St Paul’s Cathedral.
“Oh,” she said again, her smile now gone.
“Don’t interrupt,” Catling snapped, her eyes not leaving Jack’s face. “Well?”
Noah and Jack stood under the dome of St Paul’s. Evensong service was in progress about them, the cathedral almost full with worshippers, and yet it was as if two cathedrals existed: the cathedral of the mortal world, where people sang and prayed and clerics preached; and the shadow cathedral, where ancient beings bowed their heads, and began a dance of such antiquity that it both physically and metaphorically undermined everything the mortal worshippers believed.
Jack and Noah were aware of the worshippers, but paid them no regard save for a mild ironic thought that they were to have an audience, however unknowing, after all.
They stood at opposite aspects of the dome: Noah in its eastern sector, Jack in its western.
For the moment Noah stood still, watching Jack. Before they could begin the Dance of the Flowers, creating the Flower Gate which would trap evil within the dark heart of the labyrinth and complete the Troy Game, Jack had to raise the labyrinth.
As Brutus, so many thousands of years ago, Jack had buried the labyrinth deep within Og’s Hill, where St Paul’s now stood. He’d done it to preserve the labyrinth, to save it until he and a reborn Genvissa could raise it again and finish what they had started.
It was difficult work, not merely because Jack had only four of the bands, but because it had been so long since he’d created the enchantment which had hidden the labyrinth. As Brutus he’d been racked with grief for Genvissa and consumed with anger at Cornelia, and it was now difficult for Jack to remember precisely what he’d done through the mists of both time and overwhelming emotion.
Noah, watching, found it almost unbearable. She could see the difficulty Jack was having, but she was almost overpowered by a sense of loss. This man, who she had hated and loved in equal measure, and who had been so much to her for so very long, was calling into daylight the means of his death.
Tears slid silently from her eyes. Noah was devastated, her heart ached with loss, but she was far more affected by the realisation that at some point in the last hours she had come to accept it.
Better Jack’s death than that of the land.
“Cornelia must indeed be dead,” she murmured, “and Eaving rampant, if I can think thus.”
Across the dome, Jack suddenly stepped back, raising his face to Noah.
She gasped. The black and white marble flooring under the dome had become translucent, and she could see, from far, far below, a huge labyrinth rising towards the surface.
Grace sighed and, remembering how she had used the power of the pain of her wrists, directed the power that had created the nightmarish world of fractured images and memories to release her.
Back to my body, she commanded, and a body that works, if you please.
As she left the hell that Catling had built for her, Grace saw Catling herself, deep in the dark heart of the Troy Game.
For a moment Grace stilled, not frightened, but curious, wondering if Catling saw her.
But Catling was oblivious. Grace was the last thing on her mind. Catling only had eyes for what her Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth were doing.
The marble floor under the dome of St Paul’s vanished, replaced now by the ancient unicursal seven-circuit labyrinth of Crete, laid out in cream and brown stones as it had been when first built by Brutus.
The dancing floor.
Noah took a deep, shaky breath, and raised her head to look at Jack.
He was staring at her. Very slowly, he raised his hand towards her.