Rosie was barely aware of returning to Oakholme. Sam had to help her down the path. There was an iron shaft through her heart and it was all she could do to walk.
The kitchen door was unlocked, as they had left it. She looked blankly around at the Aga cooker, plates on the draining board, the sturdy farm house table. It looked as if nothing had been touched, except for Sam’s note, which had disappeared.
“How long have we been away?” Her voice was a dry leaf. “What day is it?”
“I don’t know, but look, everything’s the same. Hang on...” Sam went into the hall, came back with a newspaper in his hand. “Apparently it’s Tuesday. We were gone two days. It’s okay. Time ran the same here.”
Rosie nodded. One less thing to worry about, but she was too numb to feel actual relief. She sat down at the kitchen table. Sam, grey-faced and silent, occupied himself making tea, but she couldn’t drink it. He sat quietly beside her, watching her. It was plain in his face that he felt completely helpless. There was nothing to be said. Her hands were pushed into the chaos of her hair and the mug of tea sat congealing in front of her.
Eventually she spoke. “Where did I go wrong? I did what they told us. I didn’t speak, didn’t look round. He was right behind me inside the Gate. What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” said Sam. “You did everything possible.”
“And it still wasn’t enough.” Her breath shuddered out of her. “Of all precious things in this world, the one person I would have wanted to save was Luc. I put nothing above him, nothing.”
“I know, pet.”
“I wonder where Matthew is?” The memory of his feral state was a vague anxiety behind veils of fog. It was difficult to feel anything beyond the leaden weight of grief on her shoulders.
“He’ll turn up. Don’t worry about him.”
“That’s one more thing for my parents to deal with. How can I tell them? I can’t face any more.”
“I’ll speak to them,” Sam said gently. “Love, we’re both exhausted. Why don’t you have a sleep? I’ll stay down here in case Matthew—”
The phone rang, making them jump. Sam rose to answer it, spoke softly for a few seconds, hung up. The weight on Rosie’s heart grew suddenly heavier, crushing her to nothing.
“That was your father,” he said. “They need us at the hospital.”
* * *
Rosie and Sam walked the long corridors of the infirmary like a pair of air-raid survivors. Everything looked bleached and dreamlike. People turned to stare as they passed along the ward. Through glass doors they saw Jessica, Auberon and Phyllida grouped in a corner, anxiously watching the doctors and nurses gathered around Lucas’s bed.
The ward sister, Kate, stepped into their path and stopped them, her face full of grave compassion. “I don’t know if Mr. Fox explained,” she said.
Sam shook his head. “He just said, get here now.”
“It’s the last test we do for brain-stem function,” Kate said gently. “We lift sedation and take him off the ventilator to see if he can breathe for himself.”
“The last test?” said Sam. “He failed the others?”
“The neurosurgeons are with him. They test for various reflexes, but I’m afraid he’s shown no response so far. The apnea test can take at least fifteen minutes… I’m sorry, I know this is hard for you.”
Rosie felt herself sliding into darkness. The world disintegrated; her head whirled with murmuring voices. She came round sitting on a plastic chair with Sam’s arm around her, Kate offering a glass of water. Pushing free of them like a swimmer escaping a dark flood, she rose to her feet, forced herself to go on walking unsteadily towards the room. The glass doors hissed open. The scene was crystal-clear; surreal. Chrome and plastic, monitors winking. Her mother and father turned to acknowledge her and she saw Lucas lying pale on the bed beside them…
Looking at her.
She hardly registered the medical staff around him. The sight of him cut between everyone like a beam of white light. He was propped up on pillows and the breathing tube was gone. He blinked and tried to smile. In a hoarse whisper he said, “There you are, Ro.”
Her parents were holding on to each other, the desolate exhaustion of their faces sheened with amazement. Their eyes were red. Auberon held out a hand to usher Rosie forward and Sam came after her with a chair. She felt her father’s hands on her shoulders as she sat down. The doctors were examining Lucas, asking questions that he answered slowly but lucidly.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“When they switched off the ventilator, he kept breathing,” said Jessica. “Then he opened his eyes, started coughing on the tube…”
The doctor smiled at her. “It is rare to see a spontaneous recovery in this situation, but the brain can be incredibly resilient. A law unto itself, at times.”
“And this means—he will recover, won’t he?” Jess’s voice was rough. “We’ll need to keep him for a few weeks, but yes, it looks good. He’ll need plenty of rest, but you can sit with him for a few minutes.”
It was as if the entire world woke up and basked in sunlight. The doctors and nurses were grinning as they went out, tangibly elated. Phyllida went with them, smiling as she whispered, “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Weeks?” Lucas croaked. “No way.”
“Hello, you,” said Rosie. She held Lucas’s hand, never taking her eyes off his face. He was pallid and bruised, but the light had returned to his eyes. The strength of his grip surprised her.
“Why’s everyone staring at me? How long have I been here?”
“A few days,” she choked. “We thought…” Tears began to flow out of her. She couldn’t hold them back.
Lucas looked alarmed. “Stop it, Ro. What’s the matter with you all?”
“You nearly died, idiot.” She wiped her eyes. “They thought you were brain-dead. An easy mistake to make.”
“Rosie!” said her mother.
Lucas pulled a face at her, clearly in possession of his wits. Then he paused, frowning. “I was at the Abyss… but you and Sam brought me back.”
His gaze met Rosie’s again, and locked. Her breath caught. “Do you remember?”
“Sort of… I was in the tree… then you came for me.” His eyes widened. “Oh my god, the ice giant…”
“It’s all right. Estel said it was just a statue.”
Worry flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t argue. “That was a hell of a walk, Ro. I thought it was a dream, but—you’re still wearing the same clothes.”
She glanced down at herself. She’d forgotten what a shocking state she and Sam were in; cut, bruised and grimy, jeans ripped. All they’d done before coming out was rinse blood and dirt from their faces. No wonder people were staring. “It wasn’t a dream,” she said, squeezing his hand. “When we got to the Lychgate, you vanished. I thought it was over.”
“I was trying to follow, but it went dark. I was scared that I was still in the car. The next thing I knew, I was here, having a tube yanked out of my throat and everyone staring at me as if I’d dropped out of a flying saucer.”
“Of course, your essence came straight to your body,” Rosie breathed. “I’m such an idiot! I should have realized.”
“What’s this about?” Jessica asked, not taking her eyes from Luc, “Rosie, where have you been? We’ve been frantic, trying to get hold of you and Matt. Bron slipped home to look for you and found this…” She produced the note, crumpled. “Something about ‘an unexpected trip, not sure how long, don’t worry?’ What were we supposed to make of it?”
“Mum, I’m sorry.” Rosie couldn’t say any more. She didn’t expect to be believed, and she wanted no credit. The nightmare was over. All she wanted to do was sleep.
Lucas cleared his throat and said simply, “She and Sam came after me into the Spiral to bring me back.”
The sheer astonishment on her parents’ faces, added to their exhaustion, made them seem childlike. Rosie’s eyes stung again. She’d never been in this position before; of knowing something they didn’t, or of experiencing an Aetheric adventure not sanctioned or even imagined by them. “They did what?” said Auberon. “Explanation, please.”
Sam told most of it, as succinctly as he could, with occasional interjections from Lucas and Rosie. Jessica sat with tears streaming down her face. In the end, she came to Rosie and wrapped her arms around her. Rosie felt awkward, not wanting an embrace of gratitude that she didn’t deserve. “Don’t, Mum. If not for me, Luc wouldn’t have been here in the first place. Anyway, it was your songs that gave me a hint; the ones about returning to the Source?”
“I haven’t sung those songs for years,” Jess murmured.
“All the same, I keep hearing them. Dad, we think it’s best Lawrence doesn’t hear any of this. Not yet, anyway.”
Her father sat with his chin on his hand, the fingers occasionally moving to smooth his beard, his eyes introspective. He said, “I know that Lawrence has lost the power; he told me so himself. But to believe it’s leapt to you, Luc—that’s a very hasty assumption to take at face value. Let’s keep it strictly to ourselves, shall we? We can discuss it when you’re fit again.”
Rosie looked up and saw Lawrence hovering outside, a long dark shadow. Lucas stiffened, all the light draining from his face. “I don’t want to see him. Don’t let him in. And please don’t mention the Gates.”
“It’s okay. We won’t,” Rosie said quickly. Sam was already on his way to intercept his father.
“I’ll speak to him,” said Auberon, rising. “We should let you sleep now, in any case. Here comes Kate to throw us out.”
They parted from Luc with kisses, Rosie last. As she leaned over him, he whispered, “That’s why I nearly didn’t come back. Becoming Gatekeeper—I can’t do it. Brawth saw me. If it wakes, I won’t be able to control it.”
“Shh.” The fear in his eyes disturbed her. She stroked his cheek. “Like Dad said, don’t worry about it yet. Rest, honey. We’ll see you later.”
In his long black overcoat, Lawrence resembled an undertaker, motionless and watchful. Auberon fixed him with a hard gaze. “He needs to sleep.”
“I won’t disturb him. I only wanted to see for myself.”
“Well, you can see from here. He’s conscious, and recovering.” Lawrence was looking through a glass panel, so Rosie couldn’t see his expression. His voice sounded as hollow with relief as her father’s. “Thank the gods for Aetheric powers of recovery.”
“So your services will not, after all, be required,” Auberon added. The two men exchanged a long, enigmatic look.
Lawrence, always pale, turned ashen. His voice shook. “I only meant that if it had to be done, I would.”
“Of course. However, you might ask yourself how much Lucas could hear while in his coma, since he now refuses to see you.” Auberon’s face was grim; the others stared. Lawrence took a step backwards, turned, and began to walk away, his coat flaring behind him and his footsteps echoing faster and faster along the length of the ward as he went.
* * *
“Got some brilliant news, mate,” said Sam, sitting down at Jon’s bedside. “We made it.”
Jon stared, eyes huge within their dark circles. “Christ, you look like you’ve fallen off a battlefield.”
“Lucas regained consciousness. We found him.”
Jon’s head fell back, the long-lashed eyelids sweeping closed in relief. “Oh my god. I knew he’d come back. I have to see him.”
“Later.” He gripped Jon’s uninjured wrist to hold his attention. “And I’ll tell you all about it, but there’s something else that you must swear on your life you won’t tell Lawrence or Sapphire.”
“I wouldn’t tell them their shoelaces were undone,” Jon retorted. His vehemence took Sam aback.
“Okay, well, I also found our mother.”
Jon went white. His eyes turned liquid. “No. You can’t have. How?”
He wasn’t someone who had ever cried easily, if at all, but now, as Sam explained, he lay with tears flooding freely down his face. After a while, when the story was told, Jon spoke. “Virginia Wilder. She was like a film star, wasn’t she? Joan Crawford or Vivien Leigh, poised but a bit crazy. She always had ropes of amber or turquoise around her neck and wrists. She used to love singing old jazz songs and you’d join in and I always felt left out, but I miss it. It was the only time she looked really happy. And one day she was just—gone.”
“Yes.” Sam struggled, at a loss. “But it wasn’t her fault. She was trapped there, and the Otherworld does strange things, distorts time. She didn’t mean to abandon us.”
“And for all my efforts, you’re the one who found her, not me… because even when the Gates were open, I wasn’t brave enough to grab a pair of crutches and say sod it, I’m coming with you.”
“Believe me, we had enough trouble without you, Long Jon Silver. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” Jon grabbed his arm, distraught. “How can I face her? You don’t know the half of it. Sam, swear on your life you won’t repeat this, but I’ve got to tell you about Sapphire…”
* * *
Later, back at Oakholme, Jessica, Rosie and Auberon finally caught up with desperately needed sleep. Unearthly stamina had kept them going, but even Aetherials had their limit. Sam had come with them, helping Rosie to break the news about Matthew. Her parents took it with grim stoicism; it all seemed part of the same chaos pattern now. Luc’s recovery at least made it bearable.
Rosie vanished into her old bedroom—a room Sam had speculated about, but never yet seen. He lay down on the huge squashy sofa in their front room, convinced he was fully alert to deal with anything, should a hostile Matthew return.
The next he knew, he woke suddenly in darkness. The curtains were open, the windows glimmering indigo against black. It felt strange and wrong to be here. Auberon and Jessica had been civilized towards him—they were always gracious—but he sensed their coolness and suspicion. Helping to save Lucas—had that redeemed him in their eyes? Could anything? Yeah, great, he thought, resting the back of one hand on his forehead. I shamelessly wreck Rosie’s marriage then try to creep into their good grace. That’s got to impress them. Meanwhile, if my brother isn’t filling Lucas with drugs, my father’s causing havoc over him—no wonder we’re so fucking popular in this house.
And then, Jon’s confession earlier. He bit the tip of his thumb, his mood blackening. He still couldn’t take it in. Sapphire was going to be sorry. If he found out she’d laid a finger on Lucas as well, there wouldn’t be a grave deep enough to bury her.
A shadow took flesh and moved. Sam was on his feet in a second, heart pounding. A lamp flicked on and Auberon stood there, facing him across the hearthrug. “You and I should have a talk,” he said.
“Yes, er—Mr. Fox, you scared the sh—the life out of me. I thought you were… Matthew.”
Auberon shook his head. “I’ve been out looking for him. Been all over Cloudcroft with a torch. Hopeless. It’s turned bitterly cold, as well.”
“I’m sorry. You should have woken me. I’d have helped.”
Auberon exhaled, sat on the arm of a chair. Usually gentle, in near-darkness he looked every bit as threatening as Lawrence. “I think you’ve done enough.”
Sam opened his hands. “Look—sir—I know what you must think of me. I’ve ruined Rosie’s life.”
Auberon’s face darkened. He trembled slightly. “She was a married woman. Could you not keep away from her? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I know, but I was desperate—I love her more than my life, I’ve loved her for years. And she wasn’t happy. Do you think she would have looked at me twice if she’d been blissful with Alastair?” He lowered his voice. “She came to me because she was unhappy. She was going to leave him. That’s why he did what he did—not because she slept with me—sorry—but because she wouldn’t go back to him.”
Sam half-expected a bayonet or some other ancient weapon to be seized; Auberon’s face became thunderous. He said bitterly, “Alastair may have acted in grief or anger, but that doesn’t excuse what he did. It was monstrous. I’m guessing he was the sort of man who, if they’d had children in a custody dispute, might have driven the children to a remote spot and gassed both them and himself in the car.”
Sam was shocked into silence.
“I know she wasn’t happy,” Auberon went on. “She told me. Even before the wedding I half-suspected she was going along with it to please everyone around her and not herself, but I was too craven to say anything. What I wish to the very gods I had known was what sort of unbalanced individual Alastair proved to be. I don’t blame Rosie for what happened, of course I don’t. I don’t even blame you. Only one person was responsible for the reckless act that nearly destroyed my family, and that was Alastair himself. You, however…”
“I’ve never blamed anyone but myself,” Sam said hurriedly, “but, whatever else I’ve done, I did not drive that car into that tree. Knowing it was her special tree, as well.”
“I was going to say that you’re not such a bad person, Sam. You proved that by going over the Causeway. Even I have never been to the Frost Bridge. What you both did was incredibly brave.”
“It was for Rosie. I’d walk to the ends of the Earth and throw myself into the Abyss for her.”
“Yes, I get the picture.” Auberon became stern. “People think I’m a soft touch, but I’m not. As I say, you’re not a bad man and may even be a decent one in time. However, that doesn’t alter the fact that you behaved irresponsibly, or that my son-in-law is dead. I think a period of reflection is in order, don’t you? Matthew is still absent. We each need to attend to our own families. Rosie needs to rest.”
“You want me to make myself scarce?”
“I want you to do what you know to be right,” Auberon said pointedly. “You must see that it would hardly be appropriate for you suddenly to be here in Alastair’s place, after all that’s happened. Rosie herself wouldn’t want that.”
“No, no,” said Sam. A chill went through him. “Of course she wouldn’t.”
“Also, we would like some time with our daughter—in a peaceful atmosphere with no further emotional disruption.”
“Message understood,” Sam answered. Arguing would only be pointless and undignified. “I’ll get out of your hair. There’s stuff I need to sort out, anyway.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I ask about Matthew? Did you know about him… changing shape?”
“No, I didn’t.” Auberon shook his head. “I’ve tried to live a peaceful life, Sam, in harmony with everyone. However, now I find that I’ve been not so much living on the Earth as with my head stuck in it. I didn’t see, no, any more than I saw the depth of Rosie’s unhappiness or the fact that Lucas appears to have inherited the lych-light of the Gatekeeper from Lawrence.”
“You really think he has?” said Sam.
“I fear so. Fools like Lawrence and I try to hold the world still, only to find it’s moved on without us.”
* * *
After Auberon’s visit, Sam couldn’t sleep. He left early and returned to Stonegate before Rosie awoke, taking time to shower, put on clean clothes and order his thoughts. He guessed they’d be visiting Lucas in the morning. Mid-afternoon, he gathered his courage and walked downhill again to the friendly, beamed solidity of Oakholme. There was a distinct chill in the air, a heavy promise in the clouds.
Rosie was in the front room, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, wearing jeans and a cranberry-red sweater. Her freshly washed hair fell beautifully about her shoulders, with rose and gold lights in the burgundy. When she looked up at him, she gave only the faintest tired smile. Her eyes were empty, as if she were miles away.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said. She half-smiled but her eyes stayed ghost grey; he realized that she was in delayed shock. So was he. He sat down at the far end of the sofa, feeling unable to touch her. “How are you feeling?”
She groaned. “Like I’ve been flattened under a steam roller. Everything hurts. Covered in cuts and scrapes.”
“Lucky we heal fast. How’s the brand?”
Briefly she lifted the edge of her sweater to show the red spiral on her creamy flesh. “We went to see Luc,” she said. “He’s doing really well. Uncle Comyn was there too.” She paused. “It’s so hard to look at Luc without thinking what nearly happened… The whole thing was only a cat’s whisker from complete tragedy. Alastair is still dead.”
“Yes. I know.”
“I should go to the funeral. But how do I face his family, the Scottish uncles and cousins?”
“Don’t go,” Sam said firmly. “Let them take his body home and deal with it themselves. You never have to see them again.”
“It’s such a mess. I feel I’ve let everyone down.”
“No, it’s my fault,” Sam said quietly. “It was a game but when games go wrong, it’s no fun anymore. Wish I could take it all back.”
“No, you don’t.” A dry smile lifted one side of his mouth. “It was incredible, but it wasn’t worth seeing you like this.”
“Now we have to live with what we did.” She tilted her head. Her hair hung down, so beautiful he longed to stroke it. He thought of what Auberon had said to him, and felt cold. There was always going to be this imbalance between them; that Rosie felt too much shame, and Sam felt too little. “The Otherworld changes you. I realize that now. There’s a saying that if you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks back into you. I understood Luc’s fascination with the void. It’s the last thing to fear, isn’t it? If you could let go of that fear and jump, you’d never fear anything again.”
“No, plus you’d be dead,” said Sam. “I don’t think about stuff like that. It can drive you crazy.”
“Can’t deny I’m a little crazy today,” she smiled. “You’re the sensible one.”
“Didn’t mean…” He sighed. “Hey, what happened to your crystal heart? You were wearing it when we set out.”
“Oh, I gave it to Estel, the doe girl. Seemed a tiny price to pay in exchange for Lucas. And she was so sweet and childlike—not to mention incredibly scary.”
“I’ll get you another one.”
“No albinite,” she said quickly. “If sparkly glass is good enough for the Lady of Stars, it’s good enough for me.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Rosie’s state of shock, and his guilt in the face of her pain, thickened between them like an ice wall. He longed to put his arms around her, but couldn’t; she was closed off and spiky, plainly in no frame of mind to be comforted.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m going to make myself scarce for a while. Your father doesn’t want me around and I don’t blame him. You need your family around you, and I need to sort a few things out.”
She stared at him, her expression tearing his heart out; stunned and serious and resigned all at once. “What things?”
“When I was in prison I met this amazing man.”
“Wow, I didn’t see that one coming.” He grinned. “Yeah, six foot five with a big ginger beard, just my type. He works for a crime-prevention charity; helping ex-cons find work, keeping young offenders out of trouble and so on. I started helping him, counseling the younger prisoners and that. Well, he’s offered me work. I haven’t been unemployed, Rosie, I’ve been taking college courses. Once I pass, I can go and work with him. Teaching skills to problem kids so they don’t turn to crime, that sort of thing.”
Rosie looked thrown. “I didn’t know you were so soft-hearted.”
“I’m not, but I am very effective. The little bastards won’t get anything past me.”
“You’ve known about this for ages, haven’t you?” she said, eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, being seen to do something worthwhile isn’t good for my image, is it?”
“Far from it. I’m sure you’ll be their worst nightmare.” She smiled, looking genuinely pleased for him. “Sam, that’s wonderful.”
“Yes. Only I could be sent to another part of the country.” He paused to gauge her reaction; her smile vanished, her lips parted in a silent Oh. At that point, the conversation stalled on an unspoken tangle of uncertainty. Did she think he meant he was leaving her? Did her silence mean she accepted him going? Or did it mean that she wanted him to stay but wouldn’t admit it, because she assumed he was letting her down gently? Or… Sam sighed, wishing he hadn’t said it.
“I hope you’re not doing this to be noble,” Rosie said quietly. “I’d hate Sapphire to think she was right when she told me you wouldn’t stick around.”
“Oh, she said that, did she?” He caught his breath, ran his hands over his hair. “She’s poison. She’s the other thing I need to deal with, before anything else. Jon told me something about her yesterday so vile I can’t repeat it.”
At that, she raised smoky eyes to his. “Oh my god, you know about them?”
“You know?” he exclaimed. Rage clouded his vision with black and white stars as Rosie haltingly explained that she’d seen them kissing, that Luc had told her the full story. “You knew about her, and didn’t tell me?”
“You were planning to go away, and didn’t tell me?” she retorted.
“Not quite the same, is it?” he said. This was going horribly wrong. It should have been a time to console each other. Instead, fraught with exhaustion, they were veering into an argument.
“Sam, I’ve been in agonies about telling you. I tried to blank it out. I wish Luc hadn’t said anything, but it’s like Pandora’s box—once the lid’s open, the horrors fly out.”
“Until they reach every corner of our little world.”
“I can’t believe you never suspected.”
“Never noticed a thing,” he said sourly. “Wasn’t there half the time. I should’ve paid more attention, but it’s the last thing I expected.” Pictures fell into place with new, sinister meaning. Sapphire pushing Jon’s wheelchair, hovering by his hospital bed. Farther back: fussing over him, helping with homework, wanting to teach him yoga, the perfect substitute mother, and Jon going along with her like a lamb… He felt sick. “How could she do that to my father? I can’t let her get away with it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out who the hell she really is, for a start.”
“I told you everything she told me, in my secret agent mode.” Rosie sat up, suddenly businesslike. “Wait there.” She left the room and ran upstairs, reappearing a minute later with a small framed photograph in her hand.
It was a wedding photo of Lawrence and Sapphire. Sam looked at it in distaste. “What’s this?”
“I found it when you sent me for the photo of Virginia. It was an accident; I grabbed it first and looked at it afterwards. Also I took the back off to see if there were any more pictures inside.”
Puzzled, Sam bent back the metal tabs and removed the backing of the frame. Inside was a small passport-sized photo of a young Sapphire with a man he couldn’t place but was certain he’d seen before. “Is it any help?” Rosie asked.
“I don’t know.” He slipped the tiny photo into his wallet. “Maybe the best thing to do is confront Sapphire and see what shade of white she turns.”
“Sam, be careful,” she said, perching on the edge of the sofa as he took his jacket. “And I’m sorry… about everything.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, and gently kissed her hair as he left.
* * *
After he’d gone, Rosie sat stunned, as if she’d been slapped awake from a dream. What happened? she thought. Did Sam just tell me he’s leaving—permanently?
The whole scene had washed over her like a tide. She’d let it happen because she was too numb from the aftermath of disaster to behave in a normal manner. She felt too horribly overwhelmed to let anyone near her, and far beyond being comforted. The numbness wouldn’t last forever, she knew, but at the moment she couldn’t see a way through it. Of course, it had been a mistake not to reveal her suspicions about Jon and Sapphire—but such a huge risk to have told him. Either way, she couldn’t win. So he was mad at her, and she was mad at him for not telling her his plans—but why should he have done so? They’d been too busy playing sexual cat-and-mouse. They’d barely reached the talking stage before Alastair interrupted.
Dull pain settled over her, stinging her eyes and throat. Yet she couldn’t cry. There was no point in crying until you understood what had happened, and she didn’t understand yet.
She went up to her old bedroom and examined the torn clothes in which she’d entered the Otherworld. Were they worth saving? No, best bundled up for rag recycling. She went through the pockets, excavating tissues and sweet wrappers. Pushing her hand into the jeans pocket, she found something hard and rounded. She drew it out and found it was a rose quartz egg the size of a hen’s egg, a delicate translucent pink and beautifully polished. It was full of iridescent planes, with a cloudy whitish center.
Rosie looked at the object, bemused. She remembered a vague dream about finding it. Most likely Ginny, or even Estel, had slipped it in there—but why, or how they’d done so without her noticing, she had no idea. Then she remembered how Estel in owl form had flown at her, confounding her senses for a few moments… was it she who’d placed the egg in her pocket, as deftly as a magician?
Eventually she sat looking out of her old bedroom window, absently cupping the egg between her palms. It felt soothing. Twilight came blue and luminous and with it came snow. Big light feathers danced past her window, beginning to clot in the corners and pile up on the sill. All evening the snow fell and fell, turning the air grey and her windowpanes icy. So cold was the glass that when she touched it, a chilly draft poured over her fingers.
She thought about Sam, Lucas, Faith, Matthew, everyone, while outside the garden and the hill beyond turned ghostly, glowing white.
* * *
At Stonegate, Sam stood in the rooftop conservatory and watched the estate softly vanishing under snow. The translucent roof above him was covered, turning the room dim and eerily luminescent. Condensation fogged the edges of the windows. His only companions were the shadowy dysir and the background echo of Dumannios pressing on air-thin boundaries.
Sapphire and Lawrence had checked into a hotel in Leicester, since it would be foolish to start home in this weather. So, with no trace of conscience, he’d done something he’d never dreamed of before; sneaked up into her apartments, rooted through cupboards until he’d found a metal cash box. It was locked, but he hadn’t spent three years behind bars for nothing.
Inside were papers. A sheaf of letters, two passports, one American and one Brazilian, a birth certificate in the name of Maria Clara Ramos. The Brazilian passport, too, was in that name but the American belonged to a Marie Clare da Silva. Each bore a photo of Sapphire. There were other documents, too, in the name of Marie Clare or Sapphire da Silva.
He compared the names. Rosie had told him Sapphire’s story of Brazilian poverty and rescue by a rich father, so a name change was feasible. When he began to read the letters, though, he grew confused. This couldn’t be right. He looked again at the small photograph Rosie had found. This was impossible.
“Fucking hellfire,” Sam said to himself.
Then he put all her papers back as he’d found them, slipped the photo into his pocket, and made his way to the conservatory to watch the snow and think. A glass of his father’s whiskey helped to keep out the cold.
He knew he couldn’t tell his father about Sapphire; the confession must come from her. That was, the confession of her true identity. Better Lawrence never, ever found out about her abuse of Jon. He couldn’t tell him about Ginny, either, since she didn’t want to be found.
Sam hadn’t been truly angry with Rosie. All he’d really wanted was to put his arms around her and hold her. Perhaps he should have ignored his instincts and done just that.
No. He grimaced and took another swig of whiskey. Grabbing Rosie with protestations of love—while she was sitting there crushed, Luc barely out of critical care and Alastair’s swollen body vivid in her mind—no, it was the last thing she’d needed. Doing the right thing, however, even though it was killing you—perhaps that was about growing up. He feared that her guilt would never let her love him, and the more he persuaded, the more she’d push him away. Wisdom was having the sense to make a graceful exit for once.
The pain lay across his shoulders, like torn muscles. It was also like a broken knife stuck through his chest, with a couple of metal spikes through the eyes for good measure. You could learn to live with it, he supposed. Eventually.
Snow piled and drifted on the parapet outside. Clouds and hills were all the same grey-white whirling mass. Far below, on the white lawn, he saw something move. He went to a window, rubbed the condensation away. No good, he couldn’t make it out. There was definitely someone out there, a smear of shadow struggling towards the house.
Sam put down the whiskey glass. He made his swift, light-footed way through the inner rooms, along the gallery and downstairs. All the lights were off and the great hall was full of cold grey light.
Something was out there. He saw the pale shadow turn darker and more solid as it came to one of the tall leaded windows near the center of the wall. He heard it scratching at the pane. Sam went closer. The lead and glass were shiny-new, a restoration. It was the window through which the burglar had thrown himself, trying to escape Sam’s wrath.
He went softly to the casement, so close he could see the fog of the creature’s breath. There was snow clotted thickly on its shoulders. Its features were indistinct, but he recognized the shape of it.
Sam listened to its guttural breathing, the horrible scratching of its nails. Finally its harsh voice came, muffled by the glass. “I know you are in there, Samuel. Come out into the cold and face me. Come out. Let us end it.”
Calmly he answered, “I’m coming, Matthew.”