“You both are, you blithering idiot. And I can no more turn him away than I could abandon you.”
“Bibbie’s right,” said Melissande, temper under control now, brisk and royal as only she could be. “We’ve got no choice. We have to help.”
“But we don’t even know what he’s doing here!”
And we don’t want to know, Mel. We really, really don’t. Trust me.
“Then why don’t we ask?” she said. “Nicely. Without shouting.”
The Monk from next door let the portable portal drop to his side, coughing weakly, then shook his head. “You can ask, Mel, but I can’t answer. Not with this bloody shadbolt in place. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but only after Monk gets the wretched thing off me.”
Furious, resentful, he took a step closer to the sofa. “And how the hell am I supposed to remove an invisible shadbolt, genius?”
“Trust me,” said the Monk from next door. The misery in his eyes was awful. “It won’t be invisible to you.”
In other words he was going to have to go looking for it. He was going to have to paddle around in this man’s etheretic aura-in his own etheretic aura, as good as-searching for a shadbolt not even Bibbie could find.
Bloody hell, Gerald. Where are you when I need you?
“Monk,” said Melissande. “Do we really have a choice?”
For the first time since meeting her, he wished she’d shut up. “No.”
“Is there anything we can do to-”
“You can back off,” he said curtly. “Stand well away. And don’t any of you breathe so much as one word.”
“Right,” said Bibbie. “The floor is yours, Professor Markham.”
As she joined Melissande and Reg in moving to the furthest corner of the parlor, he dropped cross-legged to the carpet beside the sofa. Took a deep, deep breath and made himself look into the face of the Monk from next door.
What else was different, apart from the scar? They had the same lanky dark hair, in need of a cut. The same thinly-bridged nose that his mother liked to call aristocratic. The same quizzically-arched eyebrows. The same lopsided mouth. Their prominent cheekbones were identical. They shared a pointed chin. They had the same crooked eye-tooth, thanks to Aylesbury’s bad temper.
But our eyes… good God, our eyes…
The eyes he was looking into had looked into hell.
“I knew you’d help me,” his unwanted twin whispered. “Knew it was worth it. You’re the only one I can trust.”
He knew the answer but he asked the question anyway. “Is this going to hurt?”
His other self smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Monk. You have to.”
For one bad moment he thought his courage was going to fail, that he was going to let himself down, let the girls down. Let down this man who looked-almost-like him.
One last glance behind him, at Bibbie. At Melissande. At Reg. All three girls were gravely silent, urging him on. He loved them so much. How could he not do this?
Hesitant, feeling far shakier than he’d ever admit, he took the Monk from next door’s hand in his own. Waited to feel some strong shock of recognition. Waited to see if this would make him wake up. No such luck. The fingers in his- my fingers- were long and thin and cool. Strong fingers. Clever fingers. Fingers used to playing with thaumaturgical fire.
He closed his eyes and stared into the ether, into the aura he’d never once seen from the outside. Searched for the shadbolt hiding within it like a lethally-honed knife sleeping silent in its sheath.
Oh, he thought, wondering. Oh. Is that what I look like?
Monk Markham’s aura was royal blue shot through with gold. At least, the parts of it that weren’t distorted and twisted were royal blue and threads of gold. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the ruined bits, not yet, so instead he concentrated on the remnants of beauty still untouched.
Unlike Gerald, he’d known from childhood he was special. Born with metaphysical talents few others would ever know. But even though he’d been tested so many times and in so many different ways that he’d long since lost count, had stopped keeping track even, not once had he ever been shown himself like this.
Because they didn’t think it mattered? Or because they were afraid it might matter too much?
Growing up with Aylesbury, he’d promised himself he would never let magic go to his head. Thaumaturgical power was not the measure of a man. No matter what he invented, it could never be more important than being a decent human being. But since he’d never actually come right out and said that, perhaps it wasn’t surprising his family-and the Department of Thaumaturgy-would err on the side of caution.
And I do have a habit of ignoring the rules.
But that was different. That wasn’t about being better. It was only ever about the work.
The man on the sofa, the Monk from next door, stirred a little-and he remembered what it was he was meant to be doing.
An invisible shadbolt? Bloody hell. Who has the power to make a shadbolt invisible? It’s a major feat of thaumaturgics to put a normal one together.
To find the answer he had to look deeper into this Monk’s damaged aura. He had to forget about the beauty and confront the pain instead.
Do I really want to do this? No, I bloody well don’t.
Steeling himself, he inched his potentia deeper and closer to the dark, distorted patterns in the aura that suggested, like shadows on water, the presence of something dangerous beneath. He could see the patterns quite clearly. Thought it was odd that Bibbie couldn’t. She was one of the best witches of her generation.
He felt the other Monk flinch. Felt himself flinch with him. And then felt a teasing, taunting hint of something familiar. Or almost familiar. Something that should be familiar-and yet was somehow not right.
Gathering his potentia, he plunged his awareness into the heart of his unlikely twin’s aura, tearing it wider, baring it to his eyes. He saw the shadbolt in all its vicious, strangling glory, felt its thaumic signature… and heard himself cry out. Felt himself spiraling downwards, falling backwards, falling apart.
Because this was impossible. This had to be a mistake. He knew who’d made that shadbolt… and he knew he had to be wrong.
Gerald.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
S eated at his dusted and neatly ordered desk, Sir Alec stared at the open folder in front of him. Rereading it was pointless. He knew that. He’d read the report four times and none of the words had changed. The truth hadn’t changed. His agent was dead. One moment’s inattention. One heartbeat of distraction. That was all it ever took. Just one. Not that the eyewitnesses put it that way, of course. The eyewitnesses, being ignorant, had seen what they were meant to see: a horrible shooting accident. One of those things that regrettably happened, sometimes, when a bunch of jolly chaps got together and went after grouse.
But he knew different. Saltman had gotten too close, too fast. He’d spooked his quarry and his quarry, instead of bolting, had turned to fight.
Damn you, Felix. What were you thinking? You should’ve known better. I thought you did.
Not an inexperienced janitor, Saltman. This had been his ninth assignment. Sloppiness like this was simply unacceptable. And now months of painstaking work had all been for nothing. Their quarry was on his guard now. Who knew how long it would take for him to relax his stirred defenses? This had been their chance, perhaps their only chance, of nipping Grantham Farnsworth’s activities in, as they said, the bud.
Beneath the anger he did feel grief. As hard as he tried he could never quite keep himself from forming a sympathetic attachment to the men he moved about the international stage like breathing chess pieces. Perhaps if he’d never been a janitor himself. Perhaps if he had no idea what it was like to risk life and sanity to keep the
