20

And sometimes, sewing in the heat by the open windows, I smell the gorse on the moor, and the far-off salt of the tide. And I think what a house of mystery it is, and how in distant rooms there are small footsteps, and comings and goings, and doors left open when no one is there.

Tonight, as every night, I will be sure my bedroom door is locked.

Letter of Lady Mary Venn to her sister

BY THE TIME Jake was marched into the Place de la Révolution between two armed and eager citizens, his coat was torn and he was hot and hungry, and bitterly angry. But all that vanished from his mind as soon as he saw the crowd.

Heat and fury rose from it; a terrible stench of sweat and ordure. The noise it made was totally unlike the voices of people. It was a howling, pounding, raw blood-lust that was more ferocious than anything he had been steeling himself to expect.

It cowed him.

Petrified him.

The men shoved their way through and pushed him into a small wooden shack, heavily guarded, that had been built up against the walls of a nearby building.

He ducked under the doorway and it was slammed behind him. He stared around.

One flickering lamp guttered in a corner. About twenty prisoners, men, women, and even some children, huddled in misery on rickety benches. Their faces turned to him as one, but their eyes were blank, as if they didn’t see him, as if seeing him would be too much of a concession to hope.

Outside, the cries and shouts erupted again, shaking the frail timbers.

“Dad?” Jake whispered.

He moved forward.

The prisoners edged away from him, withdrawing their bedraggled skirts and shoes. He took another step, saw the darkest corner, those that lay there, weeping, sobbing, too terrified even to raise their heads.

And he saw a man, bending over them, talking softly, holding a girl’s hand. A man who had somehow gotten water from somewhere, and a clean handkerchief, and was trying to make some hopeless, stupid bandage.

A thin man whose wig was lost and whose hair was dark and whose face was the face Jake dreamed of.

His father.

Jake walked over and crouched in the mud and took the bandage and held it steady.

David looked up.

It wasn’t like the other time, in Florence. They didn’t hug or cry; his father wasn’t half crazy with heat and fever. Instead David grinned with pure relief, and nodded, and slid one arm around Jake’s shoulders and squeezed really hard. “You know, I’ve been hoping you’d drop in, Jake.”

Jake’s eyes were bright. He said, “This time we’re all here. It’s okay now.”

“Good. Because I have to say I was getting just a touch panicky. Venn always cuts things fine. But before we go, you could just hold her wrist for me.”

With a choked laugh Jake held the girl’s hand while his father bound the handkerchief around a deep cut. He adjusted the knot delicately and bowed. “Merci,” she whispered. And then, “Your son?”

David nodded. “My son.”

“I am so sorry, Doctor. So very sorry.”

Her distress pierced their aura of safety. Jake scrambled up. “Where’s the bracelet?”

“Safe.” David drew him discreetly to the corner. “On a chain round my neck.”

“Why didn’t you use it, before?”

“Too scared. Too worried about going back, and back. And I’ve never been able to find the mirror. It must be close. But last time I saw you . . . when that man with the scar . . .”

“Maskelyne.”

“After he told me about the amber stone, I opened it and found a small coiled fossil . . .”

Jake nodded.

“But I had no mirror. I’ve searched Paris for it. My guess is it’s at Versailles. Louis XVI loved mirrors.”

Jake looked around. “And where’s Alicia? What happened to her?”

In the darkness a smile of purest delight crossed his father’s worn face. “Oh Jake, that old lady! What a character! When we journeyed out of the rubble of her house we ended up here, together, about a year ago in this time. She adored it. She set up a salon and had all the noblemen of the city at her séances. Next thing, I heard she’d persuaded one of them—some elderly suitor dripping with money—to marry her and whisk her off to Venice.”

“Venice!” Jake loved the thought. Alicia in a lace gown in a gondola on the Grand Canal! He felt again her frail hand among the rubble of a blitzed house. “That’s fantastic.”

“I’ve had a letter—she’s very happy. Of course she knew what would happen here—we both did. We discussed it—she wanted me to go with them. But I said no. Said I’d wait for you.”

He put his arms around Jake. “Because I knew you’d come.”

Behind Jake, the door opened. Daylight slanted in. “One more head to roll,” a voice snapped.

Another prisoner, tall against the dawn, was shoved inside.

Over Jake’s shoulder, David saw Venn.

Sarah said, “Be very careful with it.”

They unloaded the automaton next to a stall selling pies. The stench of grease and meat turned her stomach.

The crowd was wild. Gideon slid down beside her, and they gazed in horror at the bedlam.

A mass of people, eating, drinking, laughing, gambling; a celebration of death, and in the center of it all, dark against the red slash of dawn, the guillotine.

“They think they’ve won,” she whispered.

Gideon’s sharp green eyes flicked across the faces in fascination. “And have they?”

Her knowledge was poor. She shrugged. “You’d need to ask Rebecca. But every revolution ends badly, doesn’t it? Freedom doesn’t last. Freedom is too dangerous. There are always more tyrants. Napoleon. Janus.”

A small girl in a ragged dress came and sat cross-legged on the floor at her feet and nodded sagely. “Too bloody right.” She glanced up. “Time to strike a blow for common sense, then. You got here fast, Sarah.”

Sarah stared. The gloriously dressed creature from the ball was gone—this was an urchin, thin, her face sharp and clever, her eyes lit with a wild enjoyment.

“So did you, Moll,” she said quietly. “Where’s Jake?”

“Gone to find David.” Moll stood. On her wrist was a silver bracelet; they watched as she made the slightest adjustment. “Going to find him now. I’ll need him to make a very small journey back with me,” she said. “Just half an hour. To make a few adjustments. To give Venn a hand.”

The scramble through the entangled house was a nightmare.

Maskelyne led the way, the half coin clutched deep in his pocket. Rebecca followed, the tiny bird’s talons digging anxiously in her shoulder. They hurried along the attic corridor and forced their way down the twisting servants’ stair, but now all the rails were wreathed in honeysuckle and the floorboards had sprouted with flaring red poppies, as if the seed-fall Maskelyne had conjured had infiltrated every cranny and magically grown.

Below them, the house was haunted. The very walls and floors of it seemed to be warping out of alignment, the ceilings sloping, the windows choked up with greenery, slashed with shafts of moonlight. The Long Gallery was a warm green gloom; roots sprawled across the floorboards.

All around, soft laughter, shifts of movement, the creak of a shutter, the flutter of a butterfly in the corner of her eye, told Rebecca that Wintercombe was part of the Wood now, that already Summer inhabited it completely. Despite the heat, she shivered. Seeds hung in the air; spores were breathed in. Soft rustles drifted through the sprouting leaves. She felt eyes watching her, then heard, closer, the mysterious, enchanting snatch of music she feared, so breathtakingly sweet all she wanted to do was stop and listen to it.

When Maskelyne touched her arm, she had to refocus to see him.

Had she been standing still?

He tugged her on, faster. “Concentrate hard, Becky. Think of the mirror, and the baby. We have to get to them before the Shee do!”

He pulled her down onto hands and knees. “Down there.”

The wide room had become a hollow way, a tunnel of brambles. She crawled into it, felt it tug at her hair, snag on her T-shirt. Behind her, Maskelyne breathed harshly. Deep below the floorboards the fairy music mocked.

Soon her palms were sore; splinters cut her. She was sweating, strangely breathless, as if the very air was changing to some primeval, unbreathable steam, and she was scared to breathe it, because the spores would sprout inside her, she would become a woman of flowers.

The boards had softened. She could feel with every touch of her hand that they were bending, rotting, that white threads of tiny mildew threaded them. Fungus clustered in the cracks.

She was terrified to put her weight down.

Maskelyne breathed, “Becky . . .”

“They’ll give way.”

“No. That’s what they want you to think. Get on, Becky, quickly.”

“I can’t.”

He said, his voice husky and dry, “Trust me. We’re nearly at the door.”

She couldn’t see it. She didn’t believe in the house anymore. She was an animal in some green tunnel in the Wood and it led nowhere, and she would be crawling through it forever.

Then a thorn stabbed her. She gasped with the pain and saw, just on her left, a crack of darkness.

A cool, misty draft gusted from it.

A cat meowed urgently behind it.

She struggled a hand up toward the lock. As if in retaliation, greenery wreathed her, entwined around her, squeezed the breath from her. It had tendrils tight as hands, pale as lightless fungus. It broke up into bees and wasps. It whipped around her wrists and ankles.

She screamed.

“Hurry, Becky!”

The key was in; she ground it around.

Then she threw her whole weight against the warped wood. It groaned.

And crashed open.

Jake turned his head.

David stood silent.

It was Venn who spoke. His voice was cool with his usual careless, icy composure; his eyes blue in the gloom. He said, “I’m sorry I’ve been so long, David. We’ve had a few problems. Summer tried to stop me. She very nearly succeeded.”

David raised his eyebrows, then said, “You look different, O. Thinner. Paler. But I’m very glad you’re here.”

Behind him, the guards lined up. “Time to go, milords and ladies,” one mocked. “Time to bow your heads to Madame Guillotine.”

David said, “Time. We have all there is and yet it never seems to be enough.” He walked up to Venn. They clasped hands, a brief, warm grip, and Jake saw his father’s eyes were damp. Then David stepped back and cleared his throat, and said with elaborate unconcern, “Well, what’s the plan? I suppose the mirror is near?”

Jake and Venn shared a glance.

“I mean, there is a plan. Right?”

“That depends,” Venn said.

“On?”

“A girl,” Jake muttered. “Aged fifteen, going on fifty.”

“Great! I don’t suppose you checked if our names are on some roll of the dead here?”

Venn snorted. “Not if I can help it, they’re not.” He looked at Jake. “Where is Moll?”

“Looking for you. Or so I thought.”

Venn breathed out in frustration. But there was no more time to talk. The guards grabbed them and hauled them out; the roar and fury of the crowd exploded around them.

Jake was jostled and shoved. Ragged men and angry women jeered and spat and raged at him; it was a maelstrom of foreign words and raw hatred. He grabbed his father’s arm and clung on tight because whatever happened, they wouldn’t be separated now. Venn, already ahead, drew much of the crowd’s fury because of his height and bearing and because he walked alert, oblivious of their noise, his keen eyes raking the ranks of faces.

Jake searched too. Where was Moll? Sarah? Surely they must be—

Then from up ahead came the sound that had haunted him since he first heard it. The sudden, terrifying slice of the descending blade.

He gripped David tight.

His father stumbled.

And as Jake turned to help him, he saw it.

Bizarrely, astonishingly familiar. A stillness in the frenzied crowd. A calm-faced man in Oriental costume, turbaned, sitting in a multicolored booth, a white-plumed pen in its hand.

The Scribe automaton.

He stared around, instantly, for Moll.

Instead he saw Gideon.

The changeling’s silvery coat was ragged; he wore a tricolor sash draped over it at a rakish angle and was calling out. “Fortunes! Your fortunes told here! Find what your future holds!”

It wasn’t French, but people seemed to understand; a small section of the crowd had gathered there, as if bored with the executions. The stall stood among others, a huddle of pie-sellers, women selling wine, sweetmeats, sausages, chairs, parasols.

Jake glanced around. He couldn’t see Sarah. But at least he knew they were not alone.

The group halted. At that moment Gideon saw him, and yelled, “You! Young monsieur! A last request? Let my masterpiece tell us all your crimes!”

Jake managed one step toward him. The guard’s pike flashed sideways.

The Scribe’s face was calm, its eyes blue and sharp, fixed on him.

He looked down.

The Scribe’s hand moved. It was white and delicate and he knew it was Sarah’s. It wrote five careful words on the blank paper.

WHEN THE BELL RINGS BE READY.

Men were already dragging him away, but he had seen. He looked around. Venn had reached the foot of the scaffold. The terrible slice of the blade rang out again. He struggled close to his father.

“It’s okay. Something’s going to happen.”

“Then it had better be quick.” David was white with worry.

Even as he spoke, a sonorous clang rang out, urgent even over the tumult of the crowd. It rang again, and Jake knew it was a great bell and behind it was a smell of acrid scorching, a screech of alarm.

Thick and gray, from somewhere unseen, smoke was billowing.

He moved. He shoved the guard aside, punched him hard in the stomach. The man doubled with a gasp, his pike clattering to the floor. Jake dived for it, but a sword was shoved in his hand; Gideon was beside him with a pistol. “Let’s go! Hurry!”

“Dad.” He wasn’t leaving without him. But Moll was tugging his other arm; she had come from nowhere.

“I’ll get him, Jake. No worries.”

Before he could answer, she had darted into the panicking crowd. Gideon slashed the sword; the crowd scattered and he dragged Jake through, but Jake dug his heels in and turned.

“No!”

“She’s got him! Look.”

It was true. Suddenly his father was there, breathless, Moll pointing a pistol in the face of anyone who even looked at her.

“What about Venn?” Sarah had squirmed out. Now she stared around. “Where is he?”

“We need to sort that,” Moll said. Venn was already at the scaffold.

“No!” Sarah shoved past Jake, into the crowd.

“Sarah!”

“Get to safety! Get to the mirror!”

He wanted to grab her. But in seconds, she was lost to sight.

Moll adjusted the bracelet and grabbed his hand. “No time now, Jake. We need to go and find some time. Come on.”

Venn sensed the commotion, heard the clang of the bell. He turned at once with lithe speed, but two guards already had him; they hauled him up the steps and threw him onto his knees. The wooden platform was a bloody mess in front of him, red with the stench of horror.

He wanted to twist around and look up, but they held him down and he knew that only seconds of time were left to him.

He wanted to smile, but his mouth could only twist in bitter anger.

He wanted to say something memorable, but “Leah” was all he could whisper.

Moll and Jake materialized in a dark space still loud with the muffled yell of the crowd, as if they hadn’t journeyed at all, and he gasped, “Moll!”

“Only ten minutes back, Jake. That’s all. We’re under the guillotine. Look there.”

He glanced up. Over his head was a bolted trapdoor.

“Give us a bunk,” she hissed. Before he could move she was on his back, reaching up, working the rusted bolt with vigor, trying to force it back.

“Hurry!”

“I am! But it’s stiff.”

Suddenly a man ducked under the timbers and saw them. He opened his mouth to yell but Jake moved first. Dropping Moll, he had his sword out with one swift slash. The guard raised his own weapon. The steel met.

Dimly aware of Moll climbing hurriedly back up, Jake circled with the wary instinct of a fencer. But when the attack came it was ferocious and fierce; he fought calmly, coldly, every nerve tense, but this was a real fight, not some practice in the gym, and a stray whip of his opponent’s blade stroked blood from his wrist with terrifying speed.

Sweat stung his eyes. He thrust, parried quarte, thrust again, ducked. The man crashed against him, grabbed at the hilt; Jake shoved him away, and they both toppled, awkward and locked together, back against the wooden frame, hitting it with a thud so hard that the whole structure shuddered.

Jake felt pain shoot down his back; then he was on his feet, looking down at the man’s body.

The guard didn’t move.

Moll leaped down. “Killed him, Jake?” She bent quickly. “Nope. He’s just a bit stunned.” She grinned up at him. “Nice one, cully. And the bolt’s loose. Let’s go.”

She caught his arm and touched the bracelet in that odd way and they were back in the shouting crowd and his father’s arm was on his as if that sudden and bewildering interlude of fear had never happened.

But there was a stinging cut on his wrist. And a puzzling, odd question ringing in his mind, that he couldn’t quite grasp. He looked up.

No time to think about that now.

Venn was under the guillotine.

Trapped by the press of bodies, Sarah yelled, fought, kicked her way to the foot of the scaffold.

“Venn!” she screamed. Behind her Jake’s voice rang somewhere in the din. The dripping blade was hauled up.

She stood still. The crowd went quiet.

She forgot to breathe, forgot to pray as the blade jerked, rattled.

And dropped.