‘LIFT ON THREE!’ Violet heard. ‘One, two—’ Blindfolded and held frozen in place by Mrs Duval’s power, she felt the whole cage heave upward, then tilt as if it was being carried up stairs. She slid, and hit the rear bars. Fresh air, and the cries of a major port, all in French.
Where was she? Calais? It was the only French port she knew, a place where Sinclair’s ships travelled often, a first stop for his dealings in the rest of Europe. The view of Calais was famous. She couldn’t see it through the blindfold. What was she doing here?
The cage was tilting again suddenly, this time in the opposite direction – a ramp – until finally it was placed on what she realised was a wagon only when it jerked and began to roll.
She stayed alert, ready to rip off her blindfold the instant she could move. But there was no break in Mrs Duval’s power. Violet imagined Mrs Duval sitting behind her like a squat toad, never taking her eyes off her for the entirety of the ride.
A jolt – the wagon stopped. From the swaying, the cage was being carried. Then it hit the ground.
Violet felt a hand in her hair. Then, like a magician revealing a stage trick, her blindfold was pulled away. She expected to see her father and brother waiting for her, whatever Mrs Duval had said.
Instead she was in the decaying ballroom of an old French chateau. It was dilapidated, with rotting floorboards and mould patches on the ceiling, a vine creeping in through one of the dirty French windows. Empty and huge, with its dancers and socialites long absent, it reminded her a little of the training arena in the Hall of the Stewards.
Mrs Duval and her brother Leclerc were standing at the far end of the ballroom. The cage door was open and she was no longer under compulsion. Violet came out slowly, cautiously, into the centre of the space.
The first thing she saw was the animals. There were mounted taxidermies, animals in strange poses. Heads of deer on the walls, big cats stuffed to look like they were pouncing. Staring at one of the frozen ibex, she saw it blink, and realised with a shudder that many of the animals were alive: a cardinal parrot beside a black cat, a rabbit beside a python, the breeds disturbingly alongside each other when they shouldn’t be. It was an upset of the natural order, a kind of chaos that unnerved her. What would happen if Mrs Duval wasn’t there? Would the predators strike? Would the prey be eaten?
Leclerc standing among the animals was part of the uneasy picture, the claw scars distinctly scouring his face. She half imagined a larger predator padding into the ballroom, and then she thought – that’s me. She fixed her eyes on Duval.
‘Why am I here?’ said Violet.
Between her and Mrs Duval, a sword lay on the rotting floorboards, with a knife next to it. Weapons laid out, which didn’t make sense.
‘I’m going to teach you how to kill a Lion,’ said Mrs Duval.
Violet looked down at the sword and the knife, then back up at Mrs Duval.
‘I know how to kill,’ said Violet.
‘You know how to fight. But you have never faced your own kind.’ Mrs Duval noticed the direction of her gaze. ‘Go ahead. Pick up the sword.’
Violet did so, gingerly, surprised that she was able to move forward without any repercussions. Her fingers closed on the sword hilt and the knife handle, one in each hand. Before she could think or second-guess herself, she leaped the two steps towards Mrs Duval, swinging the sword hard at her body.
‘Stop,’ said Mrs Duval calmly.
Violet found herself frozen in midair, her body hitting the ground shoulder first with a shock of pain that jammed into her teeth and turned her vision black. She lay where she’d fallen with her body unnaturally paralysed, and saw Mrs Duval’s shoes stroll into view.
‘I want it to be clear that I will not let you harm me.’ Black button-hook tall boots with small heels.
‘Don’t blink,’ said Violet, the words an empty threat. She knew already that Mrs Duval’s power wasn’t stopped by a blink. But what would happen if Mrs Duval closed her eyelids for more than a fleeting second?
There was nothing on these ancient floorboards to throw. Maybe she could throw her sword, make Mrs Duval turn her head just long enough—
‘Now,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘Let us see what you can do.’
The compulsion was lifted again. Sensing that things would not be straightforward, Violet bit down on her desire to fling herself or her sword at Duval.
‘Well? Attack,’ said Mrs Duval.
A sequence that Justice had taught her – Violet was shocked to find it countered. ‘You’ve learned the techniques of the Stewards, I see,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘That will not be enough to kill a Lion.’
‘The Stewards are the greatest warriors alive,’ Violet flung back at her.
‘Is that what they taught you? Lions are stronger than Stewards, and faster. More resilient. They can take a hit and keep going.’
A teeth-rattling blow to the side of her head accompanied the word hit. Violet shook it off, blinking. As if the hit had dislodged the memory, she recalled that she had seen Tom take a battering from Justice and survive. Then she remembered how many Stewards Tom had killed.
‘Why do you stop? You react like a Steward, injured and knocked about. You are a Lion. A hit like that shouldn’t even make you flinch.’
That made Violet blink again, for a different reason. Was Mrs Duval saying her Lion blood gave her resistance to attacks? It was true that she didn’t bruise easily. She knew she could jump from an unusual height and land safely. Picking up heavy objects did not pulverise her.
‘You know almost nothing about yourself,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘The Stewards have not taught you to take advantage of what you are.’
‘They taught me how to fight.’
‘They didn’t teach you the Lion way; they taught you their way.’
Mrs Duval hit her again, and Violet found herself staggering forward from a blow that had seemed to come out of nowhere. Then she wondered if she had really needed to stagger. What would have happened if she had just stood her ground?
‘You don’t know your strength,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘The best Steward facing the best Lion would die. Every time. Even with all their potions, all their deals with the Dark. You have learned from those inferior to yourself.’
‘The Stewards are not inferior,’ said Violet. But Tom had cut down Justice on the Sealgair. She could see Justice lying facedown in the cold water, his black hair spread out around him.
‘What do you think a Lion is? Or didn’t they tell you that either?’
Violet stared back at her furiously. She hated that she didn’t know. It sparked the same feeling of muteness that she felt when Tom told stories of Calcutta. She shoved those feelings down as she always did, and focused her hate on Mrs Duval.
‘There were many with powers in the old world. The Blood of the Phoenix, the Blood of the Manticore. Unlike the Blood of Lions, they have gone extinct. But the Lions endured. You have your part to play … The day will come when a Lion will take up the Shield of Rassalon.’
‘I thought my fate was to be eaten,’ Violet shot back, but she was unnerved. It sounded too much like the words said to her by the Elder Steward.
‘To eat or to be eaten,’ said Mrs Duval, instead of answering. ‘Lions are strong, but they can be killed. You will need more than strength to kill your own kind. You have been taught how to win, but not how to kill. I will teach you. You will learn how to strike fast, without mercy, where your opponent is most vulnerable. I will teach you the body’s weaknesses. The eyes, the throat, the liver.’
‘Why would I ever want to kill a Lion?’
‘Because your fight with your brother will be to the death,’ said Mrs Duval, and Violet’s mouth went dry.
She lowered her sword, and was almost surprised when Mrs Duval didn’t immediately take advantage. A moment later Violet dropped her sword to the floorboards.
‘I’m not going to kill Tom,’ said Violet.
‘And when he tries to kill you?’ said Mrs Duval.
‘He’d never do that.’
‘Didn’t your family tell you anything? Tom Ballard will come to kill you eventually. Either you’re trained to fight him or you’re not.’
Violet didn’t pick up her sword. ‘Why would I believe you?’
Mrs Duval said, ‘I knew your mother.’ Violet stared at her. ‘I knew what she knew. The laws that govern all of your kind. The death of a Lion bestows the powers of a Lion.’
It was like she was hearing the words from far away. They sounded in her like a bell, calling to something deep inside her. The death of a Lion …
A memory; hands in her hair and a woman’s voice singing. A skirt that was not the structured crinoline of English skirts but made of a different fabric. Green and yellow and loose in its folds. She didn’t remember the words of the song. Or the pattern at the hem of the skirt. Or—
‘You said her name.’ Her own words were far away. She had to push them out, and even then they didn’t seem like part of her. It felt almost frightening to talk about. Gauhar. Her mother’s name. The forbidden topic. How could you bring that woman’s child into my house! ‘Before. You said her name. You said—’
Mrs Duval didn’t answer. ‘The pretender Azar killed Rassalon to take his power. But something went wrong. Azar took the shield, but the powers were not transferred. Rassalon was the last true Lion.’
‘The last true Lion.’ The words lit a spark, a connection to something beyond herself. To the warmth of those hands, an encircling memory of warmth.
‘That was your mother’s hope for you,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘To take up the mantle of Rassalon. To return your family to their rightful glory. To be a true Lion. But John Ballard had other plans.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Violet. But it was this feeling she didn’t understand, this ghostly connection to something long forgotten.
‘Your father made you.’ Violet’s stomach twisted at the word made. ‘And then he killed your mother.’ She stared at Mrs Duval in horror. ‘He wanted her power for himself, and for his son. But as with Azar, something went wrong. He did not become a true Lion. So he brought you with him back to England. He seeks to learn what went wrong, and when he has the answer, he will serve you up to his son.’
Violet felt sick. ‘Why would you tell me any of this? Who are you?’
‘I am the last of the Basilisks,’ said Mrs Duval. ‘And I know only a true Lion can stand against what lies beneath Undahar.’
They threw her into a cellar.
Back in her cage – there was enough give on the chain to let her move a few feet in either direction, but she couldn’t reach beyond the cage bars, let alone the stairs to the cellar door, or any of the disused wine barrels that scattered the underground room. The Steward manacles on her wrists sapped the strength she might have used to break the chains or pull them out of the wall.
En route, she saw glimpses of the decaying chateau, windows boarded up, white sheets over furniture, rooms with plaster crumbling behind peeling wallpaper to reveal ancient planking. Above one huge stone mantel she saw the carved words La fin de la misère. She didn’t understand the meaning, but the words made her shiver.
At the same time, she felt raw with feelings awakened by Mrs Duval. Her life in India was a handful of hazy memories, blocked to her by her own mind’s swerving away. Most of them featured the Ballards, as though she had been born the moment she had been plucked by her father like a souvenir to bring back with him. She didn’t remember her mother. She didn’t remember feeling any grief at departure. Too young to understand – that was what her father had always said.
She remembered the ship, where she had run happily wild. She remembered arriving in London. She remembered the face of her father’s wife Louisa, like the impersonal stone facade of the London town house. She remembered her first understanding that she was not to be one of them: the argument over where she should sit at dinner.
But before that, she had had a mother who had wanted her, who had made plans for her, who had had hopes and dreams for her. A mother who had come from a place that she knew nothing about, because she had avoided even mentions of India, frowning when Tom or her father talked about it, as though it made her angry, when maybe the feeling hadn’t been anger after all.
Leclerc watched her from the stairs.
She waited for Leclerc to get too close, but he was meticulously careful, as though he was used to dealing with creatures in large cages. She looked at the scars across his face: maybe the source of his care now was his carelessness in the past.
She ought to play along, get Leclerc on side. That’s what Will would do, she thought. She’d come upon Will captured and chained exactly like this, and the first thing he’d done was try to talk her into unchaining him.
He had talked her into unchaining him, if she thought about it.
How had he done it? Dark eyes that looked all the way into you, and a feeling that he’d give his life while expecting no one to come to his aid.
She watched Leclerc call up the stairs, and then take a tray from the kitchen hand who appeared. Instead of coming in range of her chains, Leclerc placed the tray on the ground, then pushed it towards her with his cane.
‘You see? We are not your enemies.’
The wooden tray itself might be a weapon, she thought, as she pulled it towards herself. She tore off a chunk of the stale bread and ate it hungrily, and then thought Will probably wouldn’t have eaten it, suspecting it was poisoned or something.
Well, hopefully it wasn’t. She took another bite. It didn’t taste of poison, it tasted of stale bread, which truthfully wasn’t that much better.
‘If your sister can control animals,’ said Violet, chewing, ‘why didn’t she help you with your face?’
Leclerc flushed. ‘The power runs in our family. When we are children, we test who has it, and who does not.’
She stopped chewing. ‘What, they just throw you in with a wild animal?’
‘As you see,’ said Leclerc.
The scars ran across his face like crisscrossing, meandering paths gouged deep into a landscape, white and raised, with pink puckering around the edges. His left eye was gone. His lean on the cane had been pronounced even before Elizabeth had stabbed him.
Violet said, ‘What kind of animal?’
‘A lion,’ he said, and she felt her skin prickle.
‘You mean like me?’
‘I mean a real lion. Have you ever seen one? They are more imposing than you can imagine. Golden as the grasses in which they lie, heavy limbed, as though they have little concern in the world. But when they stand they command all. You can see how large their paws are from the span between my scars. Of course, I was just a boy then.’ Leclerc gave a thin smile. ‘It was my father’s test. To see if I had his power to control animals. I didn’t.’
‘So you’re the runt,’ she said.
Leclerc just gazed back at her from out of his ruined face. ‘I don’t have Father’s powers.’
‘But your sister does. Are you jealous?’
She could not disturb his calm. ‘You’re wrong to mistrust my sister. She is the one who stopped the beast, when my family would have let it tear me apart. She got me out. She broke my father’s hold over us both. So don’t think that you can drive a wedge between us. My sister helps the weak. If you let her, she’ll help you get free of your father as well.’
She flushed in the dark. His story was unnervingly similar to her own: the father serving his child up on the altar of power. She didn’t want to have anything in common with Leclerc. In her deepest fantasies, Tom learned the truth about their father and helped her the way Mrs Duval had helped Leclerc. But Tom hadn’t ever done that.
‘I thought your sister worked for Sinclair.’
‘She does … when she wants to,’ said Leclerc. ‘Rest assured, she and your father are not friends.’
‘So she’s training me in secret? Sinclair doesn’t know?’
Leclerc regarded her with an impersonal, assessing look. ‘What is a shadow?’ he said. ‘Did you ever wonder that? What exactly was the deal the Stewards made with the Dark?’
‘I know I killed one,’ said Violet. ‘That’s all that matters.’
‘Not alone,’ said Leclerc. ‘Only with the power of Rassalon.’
It brought her up short. The only person she’d told about the Shield of Rassalon’s power against shadows was Will. And she hadn’t even told Will all that had happened in that dark, lonely fight. She stared at Leclerc, to find him watching her in turn.
‘How do you know that?’
‘‘Only a true Lion can stand against what lies beneath Undahar.’’
Those were his sister’s words. Coolly, he lifted his cane and pointed at her tray with it.
‘So eat up,’ said Leclerc. ‘You’ll need your strength to complete my sister’s training.’