There, in one stark image, was the entire reason for his life's work, and why Walsingham and Dee, for all their flaws, were right. Damping down his anger, he moved swiftly back into the corridor and continued to search the house floor by floor.
More doors were locked, more rooms empty, although many held a tantalising sensation that they had only just been vacated, a wisp of scent in the air or a fading echo.
Finally, in a room at the end of the corridor, he found lion Alanzo, asleep, his sword by his side, on a four- poster bed with the curtains partly drawn. In a chair next to the bed, head on his chest in slumber, was the Silver Skull. The two of them together in the same room, in that position, was an odd sight, and Will couldn't tell if they were under the spell of the Enemy. But he knew that an arm around the throat of the Silver Skull for just a few moments with the pressure at the right point, and he would be able to transport him out of the room unconscious without waking his guard. The question then would be how to escape the house with both the Skull and Kintour.
The room was furnished with more warmth than the other chambers in the Fairy House, but there was an underlying stench of decomposition that drew Will's attention to one single rotting head on the mantelpiece.
Even here, Will thought. A reminder to the occupants of their mortality.
Searching for any creaking board, he edged across the room to within a foot of the Skull without any change in their breathing. But as he reached out a crooked arm to slide it around the Skull's neck, the head on the mantelpiece tore open its mouth and began to shriek.
The bloodcurdling alarm rang through the still house.
Shocked awake, the Silver Skull leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair. Grabbing his sword, lion Alanzo rolled off the bed and thrust himself between Will and the Skull.
'Intruder!' he yelled, unnecessarily, almost drowned out by the head's deafening shriek.
Deep in the house, doors slammed.
Will saw it was futile to attempt to escape with the Skull. 'I will return to finish this at a later date,' he said, backing towards the door. 'Until then, enjoy your stay in Edinburgh.'
Activity rumbled throughout the house, punctuated by the loud barks of the sentry dog. The sensible option would have been to enter one of the empty rooms and clamber back into the chimney, but Will couldn't bring himself to leave Kintour. The archivist had already suffered greatly at the hands of the Enemy, and Will felt instinctively that he would become superfluous to their needs very soon.
Racing for the stairs, he drew his knife. He took the steps three at a time, crashing onto the landing below where a shadow on the wall had already warned him of an impending assailant. Dropping and rolling, he brought the knife up sharply vertical into the groin of the waiting figure. The inhuman cry of pain made Will's head ring.
Without looking back, he ran for the next flight of stairs. Four more of the Enemy pounded up the steps to meet him.
On the top step, he threw himself forwards, crashing hard into the first attacker, who was propelled into the ones behind. They careered down the stairs with Will rolling across the top of them to land on his feet on the next landing. As he fought his way through to the corridor where Kintour's room lay, he found the Hunter waiting just before the door. Eyeing Will contemptuously, he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. From below, his dog answered with a hunting howl.
Everything Will saw in the Hunter's face-arrogance, a dismissive regard for a lesser species, cruelty-made him desire revenge for Miller's death with a fierce determination, but he knew it would mean his own death; behind him, the other combatants had picked themselves up from the tangle at the foot of the stairs and were already advancing.
Will ran. The Hunter's eyes narrowed as he casually prepared to repel the attack. Instead of meeting him head-on, at the last Will leapt to the left-hand wall, propelled himself off it to the right-hand wall, and launched himself past the wrong-footed Hunter. In passing, Will's knife tore open the Hunter's cheek. The cry of anger-tinged agony brought a surge of black pleasure in Will.
'Something to remember me by,' Will said.
He kicked out at the Hunter as he moved by him, knocking him off balance, and then he was in the room and sliding the bolt across the door.
'Come, we must leave this place,' Will said, shaking Kintour from his stupor. Bodies were briefly thrown at the door before the bolt began to slide back of its own accord.
Staggering, Kintour allowed himself to be moved towards the fireplace. He was like a puppet, with no will of his own.
'We climb,' Will urged. 'You first. I will follow to hold off any pursuit.'
Kintour was leaden, his fingers feebly feeling for handholds. Will put his shoulder to the man's behind and launched him up the chimney, climbing quickly behind him while bracing himself against the sooty stones with his legs. Black showers rained down all around.
In the room, the door crashed open and the heavy beat of boots crossed the boards. A wild barking followed in the wake.
'Where are we?' Kintour's dazed voice floated down to Will.
'On the road to freedom. Now: climb faster!' He gave Kintour a rough shove as the sound of canine scrabbling echoed from the fireplace below.
In the dark, Kintour began to panic. Will patiently explained what was occurring as they inched along the flue.
'What if we become trapped here?' The edge of fear in Kintour's dreamy voice was eerie.
'I came down. Ergo we can climb out,' Will shouted up.
The snuffling and snarling began to rise up the chimney. Somehow the dog was climbing after them.
'No dog at all, then,' Will muttered to himself before calling, 'Climb faster, now.'
As they drove up through the flue system, Will looked down between his boots and glimpsed the glint of the dog's teeth as it snapped only a few feet below him. Finding near-invisible footholds, it climbed with relatively little purchase on the blackened stone, so that it almost appeared to be gliding upwards.
'What is happening?' Kintour cried. The edge in his voice grew more intense as he surfaced from the spell.
Finally, they broke out into the chill night. Disoriented, Kintour almost pitched off the roof until Will burst from the chimney and caught hold of his shirt. The dog wriggled up the final few feet, snapping its jaws like a gamekeeper's trap.
'Along the roofs,' Will urged. 'We can be away from here before-'
'No!' Kintour clutched his head as though in pain, his legs buckling. Will held on to him tightly as his feet slipped on the tiles. 'I ... I remember now,' Kintour stuttered.
Clambering fully from the chimney, Will attempted to guide Kintour along the roof's pitch. 'Do not look down,' Will said. 'Keep your eyes on my face.' The fingers of the gusting wind tugged at them. At their backs, the dog's snarling echoed from the chimney.
Kintour looked up at Will with an expression of devastation. 'They told me ... I could never ...'
There was a faint poof and Kintour burst into silvery-grey dust. In shock, Will grasped for the glittering power, but it drained through his fingers, was caught on the night wind, and blew out across the city. Within a second, where a man had stood, there was nothing.
For a second, Will was rooted, aghast. His incomprehension at Kintour's sudden fate was eventually supplanted by the certain knowledge that the Enemy-the unholy, Unseelie Court-were capable of any atrocity. He was shocked back into the moment by the dog thrusting its head out of the chimney. Eyes glaring, it thrashed savagely as it attempted to extricate itself.
Will threw himself rapidly along the pitch of the roof as he heard the dog crash onto the tiles, slipping and scrabbling until it found purchase and balance. Caution was no longer an option-the dog's speed and strength would punish even the slightest hesitation-but at the speed he was travelling, one misstep meant certain death.
At a wynd, Will threw himself across the gap without slowing his pace. Tiles flew out into the void under his heels. He half slipped, caught himself on the brink of careering down the roof and over the edge to the cobbles far below, and almost fell the other way as his weight shifted. The dog thundered along the roof behind him.
When he landed on the roof of the haphazard construction he had passed through earlier that night, it swayed beneath his feet. A notion struck him. Casting an eye towards the dog bounding along the roofs and the
