“Might have been,” said the Armourer. “He’s dead, all right. I got a letter.”
“What happened to him?” I said.
“Someone killed him. An old enemy, or an old friend. Possibly both. It’s like that in the Nightside. So I’m told.”
“He still shouldn’t have been there with you, Eddie,” said Molly. “Not if you were in a semblance of Drood Hall. He’s never been here.”
Roger Morningstar sniffed loudly. “You don’t understand Limbo any more than I do, Molly. It’s neither Heaven nor Hell, not a place for the living or the dead: more of a spiritual waiting room . . . a place between places. Who knows who has access to it? If the living can enter, why not the dead? It could be that everyone you saw there, Eddie, was exactly who they seemed to be.”
“You do so love to stir it, don’t you?” said Molly. “Trust you to play Devil’s advocate.”
“And trust you, Eddie, to have a near-death experience that’s completely unlike everyone else’s,” said Harry.
“Back to life for only a few minutes, and already you’re annoying the crap out of me, Harry,” I said. “Now button your lip while the grown-ups talk, or I’ll supply you with a near-death experience of your own. Ethel? Are you there?”
“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!” said the disembodied voice of our very own other-dimensional entity. “Where did you go? I couldn’t see you anywhere, and I can see into dimensions you people don’t even know exist!”
“The Hall was very different without you,” I said. “So cold . . . I called, but you couldn’t hear me.”
“How terrible for you,” said Ethel, completely sincerely.
“Yes,” I said. “It was.”
I started to shake again. Molly quickly slipped an arm through mine and squeezed it against her. The Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped forward and glared at both of us.
“I demand an explanation as to what exactly happened! Why aren’t you dead, Eddie?”
“Try not to sound so disappointed, Cedric,” I murmured. “Though I think I could use an explanation myself. Molly?”
“You were stabbed through the heart,” said Molly. “But you were never completely dead. Try not to be too mad at me, Eddie. I did it for your own good.”
“Did what?” I said. “Tell me.”
“Like every other witch,” Molly said carefully, “at the start of my career I worked a very special magic to store my heart somewhere else, technically separate from my body, but still connected. And then I hid my heart somewhere very safe and secure and secret, so my enemies could never find it. And as long as my heart remains separate, I am very hard to kill. I can recover from every wound, every attack, no matter how apparently deadly. That’s how I survived that assault by the Drood mob stirred up by the Immortals.” She glared at the Sarjeant there, and he had the grace to look a little guilty. He’s supposed to prevent things like that from happening. Molly took a deep breath. “I performed the same magic on you, Eddie, some time ago.”
“What? Without even telling me?” I said, rather loudly.
“Yes!” said Molly, meeting my fierce gaze with her own. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this! I knew you wouldn’t agree if I suggested the idea to you, even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do . . . and I wasn’t prepared to risk losing you. So I did it while you were asleep. Because I needed you to be safe.”
“When, exactly, did you do this?” I said. “How long ago?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” said Molly, folding her arms firmly below her breasts. “Not until you’ve calmed down a little. Or perhaps even a lot.”
“I can’t approve of this,” the Sarjeant said flatly. “A Drood’s heart in the hands of an outsider? Completely unacceptable! As long as the witch knows where your heart is hidden and you don’t, she’ll always have power over you.”
“He does have a point,” said the Armourer. “What if the two of you had a big row? Or even split up?”
I looked at Molly. “The things we do for love . . . My heart belongs to the family. That’s the way it has to be. You have to put it back.”
“Oh, all right,” said Molly, pouting. “Men. Never appreciate anything you do for them. There. It’s back.”
I looked down at my chest. “Just like that?”
“Of course! It’s no big deal. One of the first magics I learned. Your heart was never actually missing, after all. It was . . . separate. And safe.”
“Did you check it for cholesterol?” said the Armourer.
Molly glared at him. “I’m a witch, not a cardiologist!”
“All right, all right! Only asking! We do have a problem with cholesterol levels in the family, and I was just wondering if . . . Shutting up right now. Sorry.”
I didn’t feel any different. A thought occurred to me, and I looked consideringly at Molly. “Where exactly did you put my heart? Tell me you didn’t hide it in that private forest of yours, with all those overintelligent and highly curious animals. What if one of the squirrels had dug it up while looking for nuts? You know the squirrels have never approved of me!”
Molly gave me her best haughty glare. “We are definitely not discussing this until you are in a much calmer state. And don’t even think of raising your voice to me like that if you ever expect to see me naked again.”
Women never fight fair.
“I will agree to change the subject,” I said. “But only because I’m still waiting to hear what happened to me after I was stabbed!”
“Your spirit went to Limbo,” said Molly. “You weren’t, properly speaking, alive, but I’d seen to it that death couldn’t claim you. So Limbo took you until my magics could supercharge the healing process and repair your body enough for your spirit to return. You were in . . . spiritual shock. Neither in one condition nor the other. Limbo isn’t a place, as such. When you go there, your mind creates its own setting. It’s perfectly possible”—and here she broke off to scowl at Roger for a moment—“that all the people you saw there were really only parts of your own mind, talking to one another. Working out old issues and unresolved conflicts. Psychotherapy for the soul.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Some of them, maybe. But there was definitely another presence there. Walker . . . was very much Walker. He wanted to know things. Secrets . . . mine, and those of the family. He said he represented someone else. That he had new lords and masters now, and they were determined to rip every secret I had out of me. Whatever it took.”
“Walker is quite definitely dead,” said the Armourer. “I’ll show you the letter, if you like.”
“I want to see that letter,” the Sarjeant-at-Arms said immediately. “I never knew you had such close contacts with the Nightside.”
“Later, Cedric,” said the Armourer. “And don’t pout like that. It’s unbecoming in a man of your age.” He nodded to Molly. “Carry on, my dear. We’re all listening.”
“While you were in Limbo, Eddie,” said Molly, “and spiritually vulnerable, it is possible that some enemy of yours could have launched an attack on your spirit, trying to overpower your defences.”
“Did you tell them anything?” said the Sarjeant.
“No,” I said steadily. “I know my duty to the family.”
“Of course you do, Eddie,” said the Sarjeant. “My apologies. But we have to know; we need to find out: Who were these enemies? And how did they know you were in Limbo, and therefore vulnerable to this kind of attack?”
He turned his stern gaze on Molly, who actually stirred uncomfortably.
“Look,” she said, “I’m no expert on Limbo, all right? Don’t know anyone who is. But to reach Eddie, and enter the construct his mind had made there, and push him around . . . they’d have to be really powerful.”
“As powerful as the Droods?” I said.
“I thought we’d killed off everyone as powerful as us,” said Roger.
“There’s always someone,” said the Sarjeant darkly.
“Anyway,” said Molly, “as soon as I’d repaired your heart, Eddie, and got your body back in good working order, I was a bit surprised your spirit didn’t return immediately. That’s what’s supposed to happen. So I went after you. I’ve been to Heaven and to Hell; Limbo doesn’t scare me. I spent some time there myself, recovering from what the Drood mob did to me. I don’t remember what it was like, though. You won’t either, after a while. It’s not something the living are supposed to know about.”
