ALL THESE GLASS TOWN INTRIGUES. No matter how long you’d been absent, how far you’d travelled, once you were back, it was as though you had never been away…
It might have been hot in Glass Town but here it was raining; a heavy, penetrating rain. Not that a bit of weather would keep Emily inside, but there was a mountain of work to do. Keeper was stretched out in front of the fire, his paws twitching as if he, too, dreamt of running free across the moors. There was a good blaze in the grate; they might have lacked for funds but they seldom lacked for peat. She was supposed to be sewing a shirt, the seams long, the stitches small and all of a size. She turned one selvedged seam and started up the other way. She didn’t mind sewing so much, although she was often scolded for slapdash work and carelessness. She could think while she sewed—think and reflect. Thought runs faster than quicksilver, so she pinned, tacked, stitched it down as she worked.
She began on the other sleeve, brooding about Glass Town. They had buried their differences, which were trivial anyway, and had joined forces. They were playing with her, trapping her between them like the cats, Tiger and little black Tom, might play with a mouse. They had evoked the Jinn, the Genii, the terrifying physical manifestation of powers created in childhood, used now to herd and harry, to force her back to Glass Town where they were all powerful, where they dictated everything. Glass Town was their world. Going back was a trap, she could see now. They allowed her to escape, of course they did. They were there waiting for her. Rogue and Lord Charles Wellesley. A deadly combination. Rogue’s brute force and Wellesley’s subtlety. Separately, she could take them; outwit one, overpower the other. But together? She could feel cold doubt seeping into her, behind it the icy swell of fear. The Jinn were not just columns of fire and smoke; they could take other forms, manifesting in the mind…
A miss stitch drew blood. She watched it beading then sucked her thumb. She mustn’t think like that.
What did she have in answer? She matched the sleeve to the cuff. The boy, Tom. Brave, strong—and different. Neither theirs, nor hers. The unknown piece on the board. Like the Fool, Matto, in the Tarocchini, a card with no value, no number, but which could beat any other. He could make a difference but how? She didn’t know yet.
Meanwhile, she must do the unexpected. Yes. That was the key to this.
She worked on, quickly, methodically: each stitch a thought, each thought a stitch. When she finished one seam, she started on the next. At length, she ended with a double stitch and a French knot, biting off the cotton; someone had taken the scissors from her workbox. She put the needle safe in her needle booklet, her silver thimble into its holder. Then she shook out the shirt, examining her work for that day. A tiny spot of blood, already darkening to rust, on the inside of the sleeve, where no one would notice, but she knew it was there. She knew every inch. She smiled to herself, imagining him wearing it, her words running up and over, round and about him, encasing him like an invisible spell.
She put the work aside for the day and removed the tray from her workbox, moving the silks and swatches, ribbons and snippets, and took out a small sheaf of paper. She went to the parlour. It was colder in here, but she was in need of pen and ink. She intended to write.