The Iron Wyrm Affair

“You have my attention.” For now.

“It’s one of your best features, my dear, that quality of wide-eyed listening you sometimes employ.” His tongue stole out, wetted his fleshy lips. “A tide is rising.” An eyebrow raise robbed the sentence of portentousness, but he was still, Emma thought, serious.

Deadly serious.

He continued, each word careful and soft. “How long will you spend chasing your hobbyhorse of duty, my dear? You are so talented, and lovely besides. I did not like our parting.”

You dropped me like a hot stone the instant you thought that French tart would give you an advantage, and I was unwilling to share your bed with another woman. Then there was Crawford, and you did not bother to show your face afterwards. No doubt you were busy with high treason and murder. Emma merely tilted her head slightly. The stone at her throat was still ice cold, quiescent.

“You are here. But you haven’t yet attacked me. Which means you need information you think you can force me to provide, or you’re intrigued. Most probably the former. But just in case you are intrigued, my dear, how do you like the idea of immortality?”

Oh, Llewellyn. A silly lure, even for you. “Overrated. Primes have such long lives anyway, and any immortality has conditions. Try again, Gwynnfud.”

“There is an immortality without conditions.”

Ah. “A Philosopher’s Stone.” That’s what you were offered? Or you have been granted. If it’s the latter … “Am I meant to infer that you’ve been granted a Stone, in reward for services rendered, and that, instead of a simulacrum, is to blame for your wonderfully revived state? Oh, Llewellyn. Really. I abhor insults to my intellect.”

“As soon as Britannia’s vessel is breached and our great friend awakened, darling. The wyrms do not throw away a useful advantage.”

You would do well to remember that. The heat was mounting, uncomfortably. “A Stone can only be made from a wyrm’s heart. Slaying a wyrm brings a curse. Have you forgotten that?”

“Vortis has many children.”

Under the close stifling heat, she was cold all through. “And he will slaughter a wyrmchild for you. Llewellyn, for God’s sake, don’t be an idiot.”

“Two, actually. Two Stones. One was to be Grayson’s. But since he’s met with an accident, one will be in my power to give.” Another quick wetting of his lips, and Emma’s heart gave a shattering leap. “You are the only companion to hold my interest long enough to make such a gift worthwhile. Think of it, Emma. You, and me. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

And you have convinced the Duchess of Kent that you will help her coerce her daughter. A pair fit for each other, indeed. “You are,” she informed him, “completely mad. I am Britannia’s servant. Or have you forgotten?”

“You bow and scrape to that magical whore because you see no advantage elsewhere. Come now, do not play the high-and-mighty with me. I know you, Emma. Inside and out.”

He was not precisely wrong. In fact, he was more correct than she cared to acknowledge, and the realisation was a slap of cold water.

“Apparently not.” The water became ice, sheathing her. “You think I would betray Britannia for this pack of idiotic promises? I left you, Llewellyn, because you had grown boring.” She took a deep breath, and uttered the unforgivable. “A Shield is far less trouble, and far more … athletic, besides.”

The colour drained from Lord Sellwyth’s cheeks. His eyes flamed, pale blue, and the cordial glass sang a thin note as his fingers tightened.

Almost too easy. Every man has the same sticking point, and it nestles in their breeches.

He gained his feet in a rush, flinging the glass aside. It hit the grate and shattered, the liquid inside blossoming into blue-white flame. Sorcery uncoiled, streaking for her, and Emma batted it aside with contemptuous ease. Part of the ceiling shattered, a flare of sorcerous flame breaking through four storeys and lifting into the fogbound Londinium night. Llewellyn’s mouth shaped a Word, torn air suddenly full of choking dust. She was quicker, a half-measure of chant spat between her lips, warm and salt-sweet; it sliced the springing spell in half and knocked the other Prime back into the chair he had just leapt from. The chair skidded back, its legs tearing the hideous carpet, and smashed into the heavy oak wainscoting.

There were clashes of steel and sudden cries, but she ignored them. Llewellyn’s Shields, bursting from their cocoons of invisibility, were not her worry. In a Prime’s duel, her only concern was the other sorcerer. The Shields were left to make shift for themselves.

And, she thought, as the gauntlets warmed against her hands and Llewellyn rose out of the chair with a sound like a thunderstorm breaking, it was just as well.

For no Prime had ever duelled Lord Sellwyth and won.

Chapter Twenty-Nine I Find Myself Reluctant to Disappoint

It was just as well he had taken the coja. If he had not, the ride would have been even more a nightmare. The knocking of the clocktrain’s pistons, steam and charm working together to an infernal rhythm, was enough to drive a mentath’s sensitive brain, recently bruised, into a state very near absolute madness. Still, the compartment was adequate, cushioned seats and a window he ensured was firmly shut – for he found he did not wish to see any of the flying cinders trains were famous for.

The difficulty of finding lodgings when they arrived in cold, fogbound Dover was most provoking. Valentinelli was little help, presumably because he cared not a whit where he laid his intriguing head, but Clare required a measure of comfort. There was the question of anonymity, too, but in the end, a respectable hotel was found, a room secured, and Clare gazed out of the window at the pinpricks of yellow gaslight receding down the slope of the town before the Neapolitan, making a spitting noise, shoved him aside and yanked the pineapple-figured curtains closed. Sig, who had napped on the train, took one of the beds, stretched out atop the covers without removing his boots, and was snoring within moments.

“Porco,” Valentinelli sneered, and took himself to a chair by the coal fire. Clare settled himself in the other chair, propping his feet on an uncomfortably hard hassock covered in the same pineapple fabric as the curtains. The coja still sparked, his faculties honed and extraneous clutter cleared away, every inch of his capability aching to be used.

He tented his fingers below his nose, and shut out the sound of Sig’s noisy sleep. Valentinelli watched him, dark eyes half lidded and thoughtful. The lamp on a small table at Clare’s elbow gave a warm glow, and the fire was delightful.

The entire jolting, unhappy experience of travel had almost managed to unseat the excellent dinner he’d finished. Miss Bannon’s pendant was cold against his chest, and he wondered how the sorceress fared.

Clare closed his eyes.

“Eh, mentale.” Valentinelli shifted in his chair. “Use the bed, no? I wake you, at time.”

“I am quite comfortable, thank you. I wish to think.”

“She got you too.” The Neapolitan’s chuckle was not cheery at all. “La strega, she get every one of us.”

Clare’s irritation mounted. “Unless you have something truly useful to say, signor, could you please leave me in peace?”

“Oh, useful.” Valentinelli’s tone turned dark. “We are very useful, mentale. She send us off to find a shipment of something. Bait again. Dangle mentale and Ludo, see what happens.”

“We are not bait,” Clare immediately disagreed.