The Devil's Looking-Glass

began to haul their vessel up the sand. Amongst a group of onlookers, Will saw Carpenter, Launceston and Strangewayes, and Meg and Grace.

‘Here is my question, doctor,’ he added. ‘When we fight monsters, must we become monsters?’

Dee shook his head, his face preternaturally sad. ‘Set me free from this damnable island,’ he muttered. Without answering the spy’s question, he strode across the beach towards those gathered on the shore. After a moment, Will followed.

Picking up her skirts, Grace hurried to meet him. ‘It is true, then?’ she enquired, her eyes gleaming with hope. ‘You travel to the home of the Unseelie Court to rescue Jenny?’

‘Do not think for a moment that you are accompanying me, Grace.’

‘I am coming,’ she snapped, her cheeks flushing. ‘Do not try to abandon me here on the brink of discovering my sister’s . . . my sister’s fate, Will Swyfte.’ She was close to tears.

‘When I return—’

‘And if you do not return? How can I live my life knowing I came so close to the answers I have prayed for and then walked away? No, I am coming too. And if you try to put me back on the Tempest, I will leap into the waves and drown myself.’

‘Grace—’

‘You have no power over me. I make my own decisions.’ She glared at him.

After a moment, he nodded. Grace was no different from him; she deserved a resolution too, for good or ill. Over her shoulder, he saw Strangewayes look at him, his eyes daggers. Will knew he had made a bitter enemy in the younger spy, and he wondered if there was any way he could change that. Tobias was misguided, nothing more. He only wished to protect the woman he loved, but he could never understand the deep currents in Grace and Will, and the ties that bound them. ‘And you?’ he called over to the little group.

‘Why, my sweet, I could not leave you to look after the children.’ Meg blew him a kiss. Grace scowled at the other woman. Will recognized the truth, and the tragedy the Irish spy tried to hide. She had failed in her purpose and now was a woman without a country. An enemy in England, with Dee returned to London she had betrayed her chieftain and risked pain or death if she returned to her own home. And yet, knowing what was at stake, she had aided Will every step of the way. He walked towards them, relishing the sound of his feet scrunching on the sand.

‘I wish you well,’ Carpenter said, an unfamiliar smile of relief upon his lips, ‘but I have no desire to die young. I will ensure the doctor reaches London safely, and then I will leave this mad world behind and find a new life, though Cecil and his dogs pursue me to the ends of the earth.’

‘And good luck to you,’ Will said. ‘You have earned it.’ He turned to Launceston, who was cleaning his nails with a knifepoint. In the sun, his skin seemed paler than ever.

‘John is incapable of looking after himself, and so it is my burden to watch over him,’ the Earl said, his face expressionless, though Will thought he saw a surprising hint of humour in his eyes.

When the two men had walked back to the longboat, Strangewayes muttered to Will, ‘I will accompany you.’

‘Very well.’ Will nodded. ‘We are going to take the Corneille Noire and I have asked Captain Courtenay to supply a handful of men to crew her. Once we reach our destination I will send them home. I would not have their deaths on my conscience.’

‘And how exactly do you intend to return?’ Dee asked. He eyed Will from under his overhanging brows.

In reply, Will smiled tightly.

A cry from the longboat interrupted their debate. Carpenter was bent double, clutching his stomach. After a moment he appeared to recover. He exchanged a few words with Launceston and then the two spies trudged back along the sand to the others. Will frowned at the sight of Carpenter’s ashen face and sweat-lined brow. ‘What ails you?’ he asked.

‘My conscience,’ Carpenter croaked. ‘I cannot allow you to sail to your doom alone. Another sword . . . or two . . . might mean you return with your life. We will join you.’

Will grinned, shaking the other man’s hand firmly. ‘Brothers in adventure, then,’ he said cheerily, adding in a more serious tone, ‘I would thank you, John. With a man like you at my side, who knows what we will achieve.’ Yet the compliment seemed to fall on deaf ears. Carpenter’s expression darkened and his eyes skittered. Will thought he saw a hint of despair there, although he could not guess what it meant. He banished it from his mind.

‘Then it is agreed,’ he continued, looking around the assembled group. ‘Put steel in your hearts, for this day we take the fight to the Enemy.’

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

SUNLIGHT GLINTED OFF the waves in the bay. Out on the rising swell, the Corneille Noire strained at anchor. The full-throated shanties of the seamen preparing for sail drifted over the water. Carpenter squatted in the thin shade of a barrel among the last few provisions on the beach, watching Strangewayes glowering at the galleon where his woman waited with that guile-filled Irish spy.

He shook his head, struggling to dampen his rising despair. A puppet, that’s all he was, with strings tugged by the Enemy so that he danced when they played their tunes. Deep inside him, the Caraprix squirmed, flooding his head with its whispers. Why had he been so foolish? A new life free of worry had seemed close enough to grasp when Lansing had woven his deceitful promises, but in his weakness he had set in motion the events that would deny him his heart’s desire. He’d been so close, too. One foot placed upon the longboat that would take him to the Tempest and the first leg of his journey back home, and then the hated thing inside him had snatched him back and propelled him in the opposite direction; away from freedom, away from hope, towards only doom.

He jerked his head up at the crunch of sand and saw Will and Dee deep in conversation, their heads nodding seemingly in time as they walked towards the cove where the Tempest lay at anchor. Carpenter noticed what seemed to be an unfamiliar bond between them, a new understanding, perhaps.

He overheard Dee saying, ‘When you leave this island, you must pass through the Pillars of Medea.’ Carpenter watched as the old man pointed out to sea, past the galleon to where two columns of black rock protruded from the waves in the hazy distance.

‘Why there?’ Will asked. ‘Surely it is safer to sail around them.’

‘They are a gateway. Once you have passed the pillars, you are in the territory of the Unseelie Court, may the gods have mercy upon your soul.’

As the two men made their way along the sand, Carpenter hauled himself to his feet and trudged towards the treeline where he had seen Launceston prowling earlier. He had begged the Earl not to accompany him on Swyfte’s mad voyage of the damned, but the aristocrat would have none of it. Carpenter felt only more guilt at that loyalty. Not only was he dooming himself, he was dragging Launceston down with him.

When he stepped into the shade of the trees, he breathed deeply, tasting the sweet scent of the pink blooms. Unfamiliar birdsong rang out through the gnarled branches, whoops and cries that reminded him of the chatter of the women who hung the dyed cloth out to dry on the tenter grounds beside Moor Fields. A red butterfly as big as his hand fluttered by, the green eyes upon its wings mocking him.

Through the fronds, he glimpsed a grey shape: Launceston wandering among the flora, he guessed. But then a low whine rolled through the undergrowth and Carpenter stiffened. Fearing the worst, he dashed across the twisted roots and burst into a small clearing lit by a shaft of brilliant sunshine. Blinking, he discerned Launceston on the far side, hunched over something. He felt his heart sink.

As he edged round the clearing, the object of the Earl’s attention fell into view: a wild pig, not yet fully grown. It appeared to be half stunned; a bloodied stick lay nearby. The Earl hovered over it, knife at the ready. Carpenter watched a look of disgust cross his colleague’s face. When Launceston saw his friend, he murmured dismally, ‘I thought I could still the urges within me with the life of a beast, but, God help me, it is not the same. I hunger still for a human life—’

His anger searing through him, Carpenter felt all control drain away. In a blaze of white heat, he flung himself at the Earl, knocking him to the tangle of half-buried tree roots. His blows rained down as he took out all his self- loathing and hopelessness upon the other man. Finally, he realized Launceston was not defending himself. Rolling off, he sat with his head in his hands, fighting to contain the rush of emotion and the sobs that threatened to