remembered so well and then whispered, ‘Take care, my love.’
Will felt his heart swell. So close now, so close. He darted ahead, looking up the towering walls every time he reached a courtyard. At the centre of the fortress, the highest hall was indeed silvery with moonlight, the shadow of every grotesque carving stark on the upper reaches. With each step, it loomed ever closer.
His heart pounded fit to burst. If the Fay discovered him when he was so near to the prize he had desired for so long, he thought his spirit would be broken for ever. Silently, he prayed that his enemies would continue to search beyond the fortress walls, but he knew the time must surely be near when they would turn their cruel eyes towards the dark streets of their home. When he reached an arched doorway at the base of the highest hall, he finally sucked in a deep draught of hot, fragrant air. His head was spinning with the rush of conflicting emotions. All he wanted now was to feel Jenny in his embrace. Steeling himself, he eased open the heavy gold and jet door and stepped into searing heat. The deep rumble of hammers rang through the walls louder still, reverberating in the pit of his stomach.
His pulse racing, the hand that held his sword now clammy with sweat, England’s greatest spy took the steps two at a time. Fiddle and pipe music swirled dimly from the chambers below, but above him all seemed still.
At the top of the steps on the third floor, he leaned against the throbbing wall and drew in a deep breath to steady himself. Ahead lay a corridor lit by a single torch with doors along the right wall. Will noticed his sword hand trembling as all the years of yearning for this moment rushed out of him, and he knew he had to steady himself.
Calm descended on him. He was ready. He crept along the corridor, his senses alert to the slightest sign of danger. At the third door, he raised the latch and pushed gently with his shoulder. It didn’t move. It was locked.
His heart beat faster. He pressed his ear against the rough wood, listening for any sound from within. All was quiet. Visions of what horrors might lie on the other side of that door flashed through his mind. He hesitated for a long moment, his chest tightening. Dare he call out?
When he had weighed his choices, he leaned closer until his lips were almost brushing the timber and whispered, ‘Jenny. It’s me.’
Silence followed, and his heart grew heavy. But then he heard movement on the other side of the door, drawing closer. He held his breath. After a moment a woman’s voice hissed, ‘At last.’ It was Jenny.
The hairs on the nape of his neck tingled with anticipation. How much richer her voice sounded in life than coming through the glass of the obsidian mirror.
A bolt was drawn. The door swung open.
The only light came from the ruddy glow of a hissing brazier in one corner of the chamber. Will’s eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom. A figure loomed in the half-light: tall . . . much taller than he remembered. He saw the silhouette of a staff, pale fingers wrapped around it. They looked unnaturally long, the curved nails sharp, like talons. Other details emerged as if a curtain were being drawn back. Robes, seemingly too thick for the unbearable heat, a faint gold filigree glinting in the brazier’s light. Yellowing skulls of birds and mice, and trinkets, all braided into gold and silver hair. And finally the face appeared from the shadows, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked.
Deortha, sorcerer to the Fay High Family, reached out his right hand, palm up. With a sly smile, he murmured, ‘The looking glass, if you will.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE BRAZIER’S ACRID smoke drifted across deortha’s cold features. Will’s mind reeled as he watched the shadows play on the Fay’s face in the incarnadine glow of the chamber. ‘You made a play of being Jenny all along?’ he croaked. Despair flooded him.
He remembered the first time he had ever cast eyes upon the Unseelie Court’s sorcerer, on that awful moonlit night on Dartmoor six years gone. It was after Deortha had departed that he had found Jenny’s locket upon the grass, his first real evidence that she was still alive and a prisoner of the Unseelie Court, or so he’d thought. At the time he should have questioned the coincidence, but he had wanted to believe it so much it had clouded his wits.
There had been so much more: the whispered words of Christopher Marlowe’s devil telling him Jenny still lived in a hot land across the sea; his love’s face in that devil’s looking glass, insisting he ignore her while encouraging him to do the opposite, all of it luring him to this place, this moment. And all of it a play, an illusion. He was a fool to have believed so easily, because he wanted to, because he loved, and the Unseelie Court were nothing if not expert in finding the flaws in every man. Time meant nothing to them. They wove their schemes across the years, not caring how long it took to achieve their aims. And in his weakness he had delivered into their hands the one thing they wanted: that terrible mirror.
Deortha smiled as if he could read all his thoughts.
‘Where is Jenny?’ Will asked in a low voice. Yet he was afraid to hear the answer. He raised his rapier until the point quivered over the sorcerer’s heart. ‘Where is she?’ he asked again, this time raw anger flaring from the embers of his dismay.
‘You wish to know if she is alive or dead.’ Will sensed mockery in Deortha’s calm tone and felt his anger grow hotter still, but the sorcerer only gave a low laugh.
Will snatched the devil’s looking glass out of the leather pouch and held it high, ready to dash it on the flags. ‘I will destroy this before I would ever let you use its power.’
‘And you think that here, in our home, at the very heart of our authority, you have any control over your own actions? Here you are a puppet, no more than that, and I hold your strings.’
Will’s sword arm felt as heavy as stone. He thrust his blade at the sorcerer’s chest, but something unbidden stayed his hand. However much he tried, he was powerless to drive the point home.
He felt the chilly touch of despair caress his spine. ‘Tell me now,’ he said, his voice low and hard, ‘what befell her?’ And as the words left his lips he realized how afraid he was of the answer.
Deortha eased the obsidian mirror from his fingers. Peering into the glass, the sorcerer nodded and caressed the black rim. ‘She lives,’ he said, distracted. ‘She is here.’
All thought of the mirror vanished. Will’s breath left him in a rush, but he hardly dared believe the sorcerer. ‘And you have not harmed her?’ he demanded.
Deortha raised his head and gave a strange smile. ‘She is safe. She is an honoured guest of the Unseelie Court.’
‘Take me to her. Please.’
‘That was always my intention.’ The pale eyes glinted. ‘It was my intention from the moment we met upon the moor.’
‘What trick are you playing, devil?’ Will’s voice was hoarse with grief, anger and hope.
‘All life is illusion,’ the sorcerer replied, echoing the words Dee had spoken shortly before the
Will’s eyes narrowed. There was no gain in showing the pain he felt, he knew – he might as well bare his throat to the cruel Fay – and so he forced himself to put on a grin, and with a swagger that he didn’t feel he sheathed his rapier. ‘Then I can take from your words that it is not your intention to kill me yet,’ he said. ‘I would see Jenny, now.’
‘All in good time.’
Will nodded, trying to seem unruffled. ‘What plans do you have for the mirror you have fought for for so long?’
Deortha turned over the mirror as if it were unimportant. ‘For those who know how to use it, this mirror reveals all places, all times. No secret can ever be hidden. Whoever wields this mirror controls everything.’ Waving his right hand as if wafting away a foul smell, he added, ‘But for now that is of no interest.’
The spy frowned. ‘Of no interest? A weapon that can uncover the flaws in any enemy’s defence, and divine future plans? The world is now yours.’
‘The world always was ours.’ Deortha stepped towards the door and beckoned for him to follow. ‘Will Swyfte, I have work for you.’
