‘Do you mean,’ began Tiffany, and lowered her voice, ‘the beasty with the squirmers?’
‘The cuero?’ said Mr Santiago. No, he wasn’t Mr Santiago any more, and he never had been. He was a duke. He was The Duke.
The illusion of gentility. How he must have laughed at her! She should have simply put a glamour on him to change the appearance of his clothes, and let it wear off so that people could laugh at him in his terrible shabby coat and appalling neck cloth.
Only they wouldn’t dare laugh at him, because he was the Duke of … of bloody St James! He was higher in precedence than everyone else in the room! He could wear sackcloth and ashes and it would probably become the newest style.
Tiffany was working up a decent righteous anger when another sort of shock ran through the three of them. It was some kind of magic, and it felt all wrong.
‘The creature, whatever we call it,’ said Aunt Esme. ‘Yes. Come along.’
She began moving away through the press of people. ‘Where?’ said Tiffany, because they seemed to be heading towards the French windows and she had no idea how a giant tentacled beast was meant to be inhabiting Lady Selby’s garden with no one noticing. ‘To the river?’
‘Well, it’s not going to be in Hyde Park, is it?’ Aunt Esme, uncharacteristically rattled. She opened her mouth to say something else, then uttered something under her breath that looked very much like a word ladies weren’t supposed to know.
Behind her, Tiffany could see Elinor approaching. She considered muttering the same word.
Esme turned to face Tiffany and spoke in a low, fierce undertone.
‘Tiffany, listen to me. I need your help right now but I will not force you into it. You can stay here, and dance and talk, and find a husband like your sister-in-law wants you to. Get married. Have babies.’
Something low thrummed in the air, and it wasn’t the magical creature. It was Tiffany’s own future.
‘Or?’ said Tiffany.
Esme glanced sideways hurriedly. ‘Or you can come with me, save the city, and be whoever you want to be.’
Tiffany was terribly conscious of Sant— of the Duke standing right beside her. She recalled the still, clammy paleness of him when they’d found him on the shore. The livid red and purple marks the creature had left on his skin. The wide-eyed terror of the boy Billy as he’d begged for their help.
The sea boiled and came to life…
Some parts of him might be a huge lie, but that had been real.
The Thames was constantly choked with boats both large and small, and on both sides buildings came right onto the shore. If the water of the river boiled and came to life—
‘Tiffany?’ said Aunt Esme, her dark eyes intent on Tiffany’s face.
‘Theophania?’ said Elinor.
And Tiffany grimaced and said, ‘Oh dear, I have such a headache. Aunt Esme has agreed to take me home. I am most terribly sorry.’
‘But—’ Elinor said, looking from her to Esme to the Duke and back.
‘I will escort the ladies to their carriage,’ said the Duke, bowing. ‘It will be my honour.’
‘I— But— I thank you, Your Grace,’ stammered Elinor, as they swept past her, Tiffany trying to do her best to look terribly ill.
‘Is it just us?’ she whispered.
‘Gwen had a bit of a funny turn about this beasty. Madhu is staying with her. No one makes a soothing tea like Madhu. And Nora is … ah. Here.’
To Tiffany’s astonishment, Nora stood in the curve of the main stairs, wearing a maid’s cap and carrying several cloaks. To her even greater astonishment, she curtsied. ‘This way, ma’am,’ she muttered, and led them to an unobtrusive servants’ door hidden by the stairs. They went through it into a drab and ill-lit corridor and Esme said, ‘Cloaks, now. It is best we are not recognised.’
‘And then?’ Tiffany tried to unfold the bundle of cloth. Nora had hers on and was helping Esme; the Duke seemed to have no trouble swirling his about his shoulders like some sort of swashbuckler.
Esme indicated the door. ‘The same way we arrived.’
‘Marvellous. The magic door again,’ he said sourly.
‘You don’t have to come,’ said Tiffany.
He snorted. ‘My lady, I have faced this beast once and it has left its mark on me. I will not let it wreak havoc in this city.’
That was annoyingly attractive. Tiffany tried to ignore that and shook out her cloak as she said, ‘And what will you do when we get there?’
He shrugged. ‘I know water. Rivers, oceans. I know tides and depths. What can you do?’
Draw a picture. That was all she could do. Draw things that came to life. What good was that? What would subdue this creature?
‘I said we didn’t need her,’ Nora said, standing patiently without offering Tiffany any help.
‘I can be useful,’ Tiffany said firmly, fumbling with the fabric. ‘Er … what is the plan?’ she asked hopefully.
Esme shrugged with unconvincing nonchalance. ‘Oh, we find out the nature of the beast and work out how to subdue it as we go.’
‘But it is not a beast; it is water,’ said the Duke.
‘You said it had tentacles. You have the marks of tentacles on your … er, on you,’ said Tiffany, her face going hot. She tried to find the top of her cloak. It seemed to be all hem.
‘Mr Noakes also said it was made of water,’ said the Duke. ‘You must subdue the … er, angry water,’ he added, running out of steam.
‘And how do we do that? Pour a large amount of oil on it?’
‘And where is your expertise in sailing?’ the Duke said, throwing up his hands.
‘Would you two stop it?’ hissed Aunt Esme.
The Duke gave a peaceable nod, and took Tiffany’s cloak from her. He shook it out, swirled it around her shoulders and efficiently fastened it.
His fingers were directly under her chin. His bare fingers. Only maidservants had ever touched her like this. The heat in her cheeks spread rapidly all over her body, and she stepped back against the wall to finish fastening it herself.
His dark, dark eyes were amused.
‘Perhaps we can appeal to the genius loci,’ Aunt Esme was saying.
‘The…?’
‘The spirit of the river,’ Nora explained. ‘You may have heard of Father Thames?’
‘Nobody learns Latin these days,’ lamented Esme.
‘Father Thames is the spirit of the river?’ Tiffany’s mind raced. ‘If he was real, which I’m not sure he is, but if he was, and if we could talk to him, and I’ve no idea if…’ She trailed off, trying to think.
The others exchanged glances. ‘Try that again?’
Tiffany tried to organise her thoughts. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed in the spirit of the Thames, but then she also didn’t really believe the sea could boil and come to life, and yet. ‘If you could talk to Father Thames, would it help? I mean … to a representation of him?’
‘It would help enormously,’ said Esme, leaning in.
‘You can do that?’ said Nora, with something like a grudging respect.
‘She can make chalk drawings come to life,’ said the Duke.
And she could make paintings move. But she’d never tried it with statues, had never dared. Would it move? Speak? ‘If I could bring the statue to life—I mean, the one at Somerset House—’ she said, ‘do you think it would help?’
Esme nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘And it’s by the river anyway so if this all cocks up we can try plan B,’ said Nora.
‘What’s plan B?’ said the Duke.
Nora shrugged.
‘Excellent.’
Esme put her hand on the door, closed her eyes and murmured a few words. And when it clicked open, a cool breeze wafted in at them, bringing with it the stink of the river and another tremor.
‘Quickly, before anyone comes,’ Esme said, and the four of them hurried through the door into the courtyard of Somerset House.
Tiffany had been dragged here for exhibitions, of course, but mostly she’d been concentrating far too hard on not allowing the paintings to come to life to actually take much in. Now, at night, the courtyard seemed vast, the pillared wings of the building rearing huge and dark around them. None of the windows were lit, but it was past midnight and Tiffany supposed even the Admiralty Board had to sleep at some point.
Aunt Esme shaped her hand around the air, and a light appeared in her cupped hand. It spread gently until it was as if someone had placed several candelabra around them. Tiffany had been learning how to do this, but the lights she could conjure were nowhere near as impressive as this.
‘Madre de dios,’ whispered the Duke, crossing himself in a way Tiffany would think more about later.
‘It’s just a witch light,’ said Esme. ‘A bit of the moon, aimed where we want it. If you find that impressive, wait and see what happens next.’
He smiled faintly.
‘This statue?’ said Nora, striding out into the courtyard.
The statue of George III and Father Thames was huge, and set facing the entrance from the Strand so that everyone could see and admire it. Tiffany hadn’t really looked closely at it before, but now, in the magical light Esme had conjured, she saw it was in the classical style, with the king draped in robes and standing above the river god—of course, because the king commanded even nature—who reclined on what might have been a cornucopia and who wore—
Well, it was more about what he didn’t wear.
‘Oh my goodness.’
The Duke chuckled softly in the darkness. ‘Perhaps the Thames is not so mighty after all.’
Tiffany’s face got even hotter.
‘We’ll have none of that, thank you, Your Grace,’ said Esme briskly. ‘These spirits can be enormously difficult, so we must tread with care and quite some good amount of flattery. I shall do most of the talking. Tiffany, if you wouldn’t mind?’
The four of them stood facing the enormous statue. It was on a plinth in a sort of sunken stairwell, surrounded by a stone balustrade. She couldn’t reach it, which was probably just as well. But did that mean it couldn’t reach her?
She shook that thought and stepped forward. Never having actually made a painting come to life on purpose, or a statue at all, she wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed. But she was being watched by two proper witches and a duke, so she supposed she ought to do something.
She tried to picture the enormous statue simply moving and getting up off his plinth.
Esme usually said things in rhyme when she was using the door, but Tiffany had never actually had to use words before. Should she try to think of a rhyme?
‘Just Father Thames, dear, not the king,’ Esme called. ‘I don’t think we need to deal with His Majesty right now.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Tiffany said, and tried once more to concentrate. But now all she could think of was the statue of King George coming to life, and if the reports in the papers had any truth in them, the poor man was out of his wits. That would be a disaster.
Behind her, someone cleared their throat.
Fine. ‘Oh, statue of Thames before me, come to life, I implore thee,’ she said, and made a gesture to sort of throw her will at it.
The statue moved.
Tiffany startled, and behind her someone swore. She thought it was Nora.
The statue rolled its shoulders as if it had been asleep in an uncomfortable position. The ground trembled again. No, it wasn’t the ground. It was a sort of shudder that ran through Tiffany.
‘Good Father Thames,’ began Esme, in a clear, loud voice. ‘We do most humbly—’
Father Thames glared at them and grumbled something in a language the like of which Tiffany had never heard before. His voice was uncomfortably metallic, like the grinding of gears, but then she supposed he was made of bronze.
She couldn’t understand a word he said. His tone of voice was, however, very clearly, ‘Ugh, what do you want?’
She glanced at the others, who all looked mystified—even the Duke, with his extensive travelling experience.
Esme’s face froze. ‘Any ideas?’ she murmured.
‘Well, he’s pre-Roman, innee?’ said Nora. ‘But maybe…’ She stepped forward. ‘Salve, Pater Tamesis,’ she said. ‘Supplices te rogamus tuum auxilium.’
‘Ach,’ grumbled the statue. ‘Rómánach.’
‘Non sumus Romani! Britannia sumus.’
‘Britannia?’ said the statue doubtfully.
‘Romanos odimus. Nos eos conspuimus,’ said Nora, and spat on the ground.
‘What is she doing?’ murmured Tiffany, edging closer to the others.
‘It is Latin,’ said Esme. ‘I read it well enough but I don’t speak it much. I think she’s telling him we’re not Romans, we’re British.’
‘But—’
At that point the magic made them all shudder again. Tiffany was somewhat curious as to why it was affecting the Duke, but mostly she was interested in the way the statue’s head turned towards the river.
He spoke again, and so did Nora, and Tiffany frowned. She could make drawings and statues come to life, and she could draw things and make them real, and she could alter her own appearance, and make other people believe she wasn’t there. Would it be possible to alter what she heard in the same way?
She tried to draw on the same feeling she had when she made herself invisible, or when she had fixed the door on Billy’s cowshed. As if all of her body, her breath, her muscles and bones, and most of all her will, were concentrated together.
Power rose within her.
And with a sort of pop in her ears, she heard Nora and the statue speaking English.
‘—tribe are you from? That terrible Iceni woman burned the city to the ground. I was choked with ash and timbers and bodies for days.’
‘We are not Iceni,’ said Nora firmly.
‘We need your help,’ said Tiffany, and the statue of Father Thames turned its metallic head and regarded her.
He had been made with a beard and long hair, on top of which sat a wreath of leaves and flowers. He wore nothing else, and as he swung himself to sit upon the plinth with his legs dangling down, Tiffany found herself eye to eye with a metal appendage that, no matter the Duke’s sniggering, very much drew the attention.
She forced her gaze up.
‘There is something in the river,’ she said. ‘Some kind of creature.’
‘There are many creatures in me,’ said Father Thames good-naturedly. He plucked a piece of fruit from the metal cornucopia behind him, and crunched on it. The sound sent Tiffany’s teeth on edge.
‘This one isn’t natural. It’s made of—’
Father Thames abruptly sat up, as the shudder ran through Tiffany again.
‘Magic,’ he said. His great head turned to look over his shoulder, but the plinth supporting the statue of the king was in his way.
‘It is made of magic?’ she said, turning to the others when the statue didn’t respond.
‘Is that what he said?’ said Aunt Esme, as Nora nodded. ‘I didn’t know you could understand Latin, Tiffany.’ She looked impressed. So did the Duke.
‘I—’ For a moment Tiffany thought about saying yes. But she had been raised in the belief that telling lies was wrong, and anyway, she was sure to get caught out in it. ‘Not exactly. I did a … a spell?’
Now Esme looked even more impressed, but before she could speak, Father Thames did.
‘A spell?’ He rounded on her suddenly, and the gap between the balustrade and the plinth inside it didn’t seem like very much at all. ‘You put this … thing in me?’
‘No! No. I am trying to stop it,’ she said.
His metal eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘If it is powerful enough to throw a man from the water, think of the damage it could do to small crafts and bridges,’ said Tiffany.
‘It is more powerful than that,’ said the Duke, stepping forward. ‘It has swallowed ships whole. It grows tentacles made of water and drags the ship down.’
The river god glowered at him. ‘I do not understand his heathen tongue. Is he Roman?’
‘No, he’s from Chile. The point is, sir, that this thing in the water has enormous destructive power. You said you didn’t like what the Iceni woman did to your city? This creature would be ten times worse.’
She didn’t know if that was actually true, but if it got him on their side then she was fine with exaggerating.
Father Thames simply slipped off his pedestal to the ground a whole storey below. The ground shuddered beneath his feet, and Tiffany stumbled.
Hands grasped her shoulders. ‘Are you all right?’ murmured the Duke.
‘Perfectly fine,’ Tiffany stammered, although she couldn’t help shrinking back against him as the ground shook further. Tiffany knew there were water gates from the river that allowed one to access Somerset House at basement level, but she had never been down there. What was he doing? Smashing through doorways? Though walls?
Lights were beginning to illuminate the upper windows, and a few shouts rang out.
‘Not being funny or anything, but somebody’s gonna come after us,’ said Nora. She was already moving towards the south wing.
‘Should we follow?’ said the Duke, his body still pressed against Tiffany’s. Don't let go of me, she wanted to say, but she quite sensibly straightened away from him instead. But then his hand slipped down her arm to her hand, and she didn’t move from that.
‘Yes, good plan,’ said Esme, and then all four of them were running, and Tiffany was still holding the Duke’s hand.
By unspoken agreement they did not try to follow the statue down to the basement level, but ran to the south wing entrance. It was of course locked, but that didn’t seem to be much of a problem for Esme, who simply whispered to the door and it opened. Tiffany had no time to wonder at this before they were running through the gallery, the floor shaking beneath them.
‘Whose idea was it to bring the statue to life?’ Tiffany joked lamely as Esme opened the door to the terrace. She was shaking.
Santiago squeezed her hand and smiled, and then they were running again.
The terrace of Somerset House was lapped by the river, with water gates beneath it. From one of these strode the bronze statue of Father Thames, the dark water of the river rippling around him at waist height.
But that wasn’t even the thing that drew her attention. The water was … boiling. There were small craft on it even at this time of night, being rowed at high speed away from the statue. The water fizzed and flailed as if it had arms.
Beside her, Santiago muttered in Spanish and crossed himself again. Nora swore. Esme’s hands gripped the terrace balustrade until her knuckles were white.
‘Still think water can’t come to life?’ said Santiago.
‘No. Still think I did it?’ said Tiffany, staring at the river as it came to life.
‘No.’
He was still holding her hand.
Behind them, people had begun moving around in Somerset House. Esme muttered a few words and the terrace door slammed shut, locks clicking.
Father Thames raised his arms and shouted at the water in a sonorous, deafening voice. It was somewhere between thunder and the ringing of a bell, if one happened to be right in the middle of the thunderstorm and right next to the bell.
‘What’s he saying?’ said Esme.
‘It’s not Latin anymore,’ said Nora.
Tiffany cleared her throat. ‘He’s commanding the water to obey him. He says… He says it is water of his water. That they are the same … body? He commands the invader to leave. No, not invader…’
The language he was using was so ancient Tiffany didn’t expect anyone could understand it. The words were arriving in her head in English, but some of them were muffled, as if they didn’t have an exact translation.
‘Infection!’ she said. ‘That’s what he sees it as. Whatever is in the water is infecting his river. He is commanding it to leave.’
‘Water’s infected enough as it is,’ Nora said. ‘Half the sewers in London empty into it.’
‘Only half?’ murmured Santiago.
‘If it is an infection, perhaps we need Madhu to brew a cure,’ mused Esme.
‘For the whole River Thames?’ said Tiffany. ‘It flows for miles. All the way from—’ She broke off suddenly as her gaze followed the direction of her own thoughts.
‘What is it?’ said Santiago.
‘It flows past the Houses of Parliament,’ Tiffany said.
‘Yes?’
‘I mean, right past it. Up to the walls. And the Tower.’
‘And all the tributaries,’ said Santiago in dawning horror. ‘Every river has tributaries.’
‘Dear God,’ breathed Esme. ‘The Tyburn. It runs beneath Buckingham Palace.’
‘Beneath it?’
She nodded, face pale. ‘Covered over and forgotten years ago, but it’s there. And it still reaches the Thames. Via Westminster.’
‘But no one will be sitting in Parliament this late,’ Tiffany said, trying not to think that Cornforth often worked very late nights at the Home Office and the Commons was probably no different.
‘Do we really wish it to be destroyed anyway? And as for the Queen’s house at Buckingham—’
They watched the river writhing around the statue as he fought and bellowed.
‘What do we do?’ asked Tiffany.
Esme straightened her spine. ‘We drive away the infection and ward the river. Can you draw without a canvas?”
‘I—I don’t know.’
‘Use the floor?’ suggested Santiago, and Tiffany was about to say she didn’t have a pencil when she realised she did, because her dance card was still hanging from her wrist.
She nodded, and went to kneel on the ground, which necessitated letting go of his hand. She felt a little bereft without it, but the river was boiling so she should probably focus on that.
Don’t think about what you can’t do. Think about what you could do.
‘What am I to draw?’
‘A cauldron. As large as you like, then some ingredients. Draw it full of water.’
Tiffany knew what a cauldron looked like. There were several in the kitchen at Dyrehaven, where she had spent much of her childhood trying to get out of people’s way.
She began to draw. ‘Larger,’ said Esme. ‘The size of a carriage.’
Tiffany didn’t know what they were going to do if anyone saw them. Then she realised they didn’t have to worry about that, either.
‘Everyone give me your hands,’ she said, and they all did, without question. ‘Now, think invisible thoughts.’
‘You what?’ said Nora, but Esme shushed her, and Tiffany concentrated hard on making them unnoticeable.
‘Did it work?’ she said a moment later.
‘I can still see you,’ Santiago said.
‘Nobody is shouting at us, that’ll do,’ said Esme. ‘Now, the cauldron? And make the water hot, if you can.’
Tiffany began drawing a large pot, and since it was a terribly crude sketch she added a little perspective and some lapping water, with steam rising gently from it. Then, not quite knowing how to proceed, she reached down to the ground and tried to will it to come to life.
Her hand touched wetness.
‘Capital!’ exclaimed Esme.
She was speaking as if all this was perfectly normal. Tiffany had just drawn a cauldron the size of a carriage, and now it was standing in front of them, tall enough so she could barely see over it. One moment it had been flat, and now, as if she had simply moved and seen it from a different perspective, it was upright, three-dimensional, and warm to the touch.
‘Impossible,’ breathed Santiago.
‘No, just improbable. Now, draw these for me, please. Nora, Your Grace, please throw them in. We shall start with lavender.’
Tiffany drew everything she was asked to, her hand cramping, her gloves filthy from the ground, the cold evening air creeping into her bones. She didn’t realise a headache was creeping up on her until a hand touched her shoulder and a voice murmured, ‘Are you all right?’
Tiffany shrugged off Santiago’s hand. She needed to concentrate. ‘Yes, of course, thank you. A honeycomb, Aunt? Yes.’
‘You are … grimacing.’
‘I am concentrating.’
He got the hint, and took the honeycomb when she handed it to him.
‘There, that should do it. Nora, if you would?’
Nora sized up the cauldron, and said, ‘You could’ve given it handles.’
Tiffany stood up and drew a handle. She lifted it, and it held.
She raised an eyebrow at Nora.
‘All right,’ Nora laughed. ‘Another one … here?’
Then she put her back to the cauldron and her hands through the handles, and took a deep breath.
‘What are you doing?’ said Santiago, alarmed. ‘It will crush you—’
‘No, it won’t,’ said Nora, and lifted the cauldron as if it was a bundle she was taking to market.
Astonished, Tiffany watched Nora carry the cauldron to the balustrade, brace herself, and then somehow hurl the whole thing over her head. It flew several yards into the dark, swirling water, and began to sink.
‘Sisters,’ said Esme, and took Tiffany’s and Nora’s hands. ‘Let infection from this river be cleansed, and our protection settle on the great Father Thames. Let our will add strength to his mettle; and when this is done, return him to metal. Repeat it with me.’
Was this a spell? It certainly felt like one. Tiffany repeated the words, and as she did she felt the power grow between them. And after the third repetition, Esme and Nora shouted, ‘As I will this, so will it be!’ and Tiffany added her voice a second later.
The power seemed to release from her, and she could almost feel it bursting out across the river, pouring into the flailing, shouting statue, and filling him with light.
I am a witch.
The river god roared, the sound making the buildings quake.
‘Be gone!’ he bellowed, and the water gave one last, desperate flail before it subsided almost immediately. Something within it seemed to flow against the tide, out towards the sea, swelling the river as it went and then passing out of sight beneath Blackfriars Bridge.
Calm descended over the Thames, the only ripples emanating from Father Thames as he waded back out of the water. Tiffany saw that much before she crumpled.