At the telltale click of metal, the two men ceased their struggles and looked up at her. The rifle wavered in her hand, but it did not matter. At such close range, her aim hardly needed to be precise. She rested her finger on the trigger.
On the floor, Preswyn’s eyes went wide, then turned to slits. “By God, you’re a witch,” he snarled. “You’re a filthy witch.”
Ivy directed the barrel of the rifle at his chest. “Don’t move.”
Not that they could have. The twigs that had previously made up the Wyrdwood box now bound their wrists and ankles like thin but strong cords. Some of the tendrils began to writhe and probe upward, reaching toward their necks. Preswyn was sobbing now, and the corporal’s face was a grimace of pain. Then, all at once, his grimace became a smile.
“Ivy!” Rose cried out.
Ivy turned around, still gripping the rifle, and her heart ceased to beat. Durbent no longer stood by the window. Instead, he was striding rapidly across the front hall, coming directly toward her. In the brilliant firelight, she could finally see beneath the brim of his hat. His face was gray and strangely slack; his eyes were as flat and dead as stones.
“Witch,” he hissed in that strange, slurring voice. He reached his hands out before him as he closed the last distance.
There was a flash of light and a loud noise like a clap of thunder. Ivy let out a gasp and staggered backward as the butt of the rifle struck her shoulder. The rifle fell from her numb fingers and clattered to the floor. For a moment she could see nothing for the haze of smoke; then enough of it was drawn up the chimney that she could see again.
Durbent lay sprawled on his back before the fireplace, staring upward with unblinking eyes. In the center of his chest was a wet, gaping hole. Ivy let out a moan, staggering back—
—and strong hands clamped around her.
“It was papers, not jewels,” the corporal’s voice sneered into her ear, and his sour breath washed over. “You lied to us, witch.”
His wiry arms tightened around her, just as the Wyrdwood had previously coiled around him. In her terror at the sight of Durbent, Ivy had ceased calling out to the Wyrdwood, directing it. The bonds must have weakened enough for the corporal and Preswyn to break free.
Now Preswyn lumbered forward to where Durbent lay motionless. “Oh God, she shot him,” Preswyn moaned. “She shot him dead.” He went down on one knee beside Durbent’s body, then reached out to touch the wound in his chest.
Preswyn snatched his hand back. “This isn’t … what is this?” He stared at his hand; it was covered with a grayish ichor.
Before anyone could answer him, Durbent sat up. Then, moving swiftly, almost mechanically, he stood.
“Durbent, you’re all right!” Preswyn cried out, lurching to his own feet.
Durbent did not look at him. Instead, almost casually, as if to simply push him aside for being in the way, he reached out and struck Preswyn in the center of the chest.
There was an awful crunching noise, like a porcelain cup being ground beneath a boot heel. Preswyn made a gurgling sound, and a flood of red gushed out of his mouth. He crumpled to the floor and did not move.
Durbent stepped over the corpse.
“Bloody Abyss,” the corporal shouted and flung Ivy away from him. He drew his pistol. “Have you gone mad, Durbent? Preswyn was an idiot, but you had no reason to murder him! Or do you want her for yourself, then?”
Durbent said nothing. He kept walking toward them, his face without expression.
“Stop there!” the corporal yelled. “That’s an order!”
Durbent took another step. The corporal fired the pistol, and again. Two more holes opened in Durbent’s chest, but he did not stop. Before the corporal could get off a third shot, Durbent clamped his hands upon either side of the corporal’s skull.
The struggle was violent but brief. The corporal writhed and twitched for only a few moments. Then Durbent’s thumbs drove deep into the sockets of his eyes, and beyond. The corporal went limp, and Durbent let his lifeless remains drop to the floor.
Ivy stumbled back, then fell onto the sofa beside Rose. They held on to each other, beyond any capacity for speech or action. Durbent left the body of the corporal and approached the sofa. Amid the various altercations, some of the dirt had been wiped from his hands, and Ivy could just make out the black, angular symbol drawn upon the left. In that moment, while he continued to move, Ivy knew that Durbent was as dead as Preswyn and the corporal—that he had been ever since he had gotten lost in the night, and had been captured by magicians who served the Ashen. They had formed him into a weapon to serve the cause of their masters.
And now he was going to do just that.
“Witch,” he said again, and reached out bloodstained hands.
Ivy held Rose tightly. She shut her eyes and thought, Let it be swift!
Only the blow she expected did not come. Instead, there was a hissing and popping sound, like that which the ham had made in the frying pan. Ivy opened her eyes and tried to comprehend what she saw. The glowing red tip of the poker that had been lying on the hearth now protruded from Durbent’s throat, smoking as it did.
Abruptly the poker was withdrawn, and Durbent fell to his knees. A pair of hands manifested from the shadows. They wrapped around Durbent’s head, then twisted it around on his shoulders. Farther his head turned, and farther still, until all at once it came free of his shoulders with a wet noise. Then both head and body fell to the floor, more of the gray fluid seeping from each, while the two sisters looked on in mute horror.
The shadows behind the body undulated, then approached. Only they weren’t shadows at all, but rather folds of stiff black silk. Nor were the two pale hands disembodied entities; instead, they protruded from the sleeves of a black gown. The hands rose up and pushed back a veil, revealing the hard, white oval of a woman’s face.
And Lady Shayde said, “Was either of you harmed?”
A HALF HOUR LATER found Ivy and Rose in the little parlor.
Ivy lit a candle, even though several already burned around the room. The storm had not relented, and it had grown so dark outside the windows that she wondered if an umbral was falling. The thought of it made her shudder. All her life, Ivy had ever loathed that moment when night fell and light succumbed to dark. Yet it was even more awful now that she knew what it was that dwelled in the empty spaces between the planets.
And knowing that, once night fell, day might never come again.
The flame flared atop the candle, and the gloom reluctantly retreated a fraction. In the corner of the parlor, Rose sat in a chair, cradling the porcelain doll tightly with both arms. She was rocking softly, and her lips moved as if she was singing a lullaby. Only she made no sound.
“Are you warm, dearest?” Ivy said, adjusting the blanket she had thrown over her sister’s shoulders.
Rose hunched over the doll and continued to rock in the chair. She had not uttered a word since they had departed the front hall. Her brown eyes were open wide, though they seemed to gaze at nothing.
Ivy tried to think of what she might say to encourage a response from her sister, but before she could there came a noise from behind her: a crinkling of stiff fabric. Quickly, she turned around.
“It is done,” Lady Shayde said, standing in the door of the parlor. “The remains have been removed from the house.”
Ivy struggled to swallow. “All … all three of them?”
“Yes.”
Ivy could scarcely comprehend this. Lady Shayde was tall for a woman, but her figure was slender within her gown: a thing of lines and angles rather than full curves. By what unnatural strength had she been able to remove the bodies of three grown men from the house?
It did not matter; Ivy did not want to know. There were already mysteries enough for her to consider—not the least of which was why this pale being had done what she had, or why she should even be here.
Lady Shayde entered the parlor. Her dress was perfectly creased, as if she had no
t just been hauling corpses about.
“Is your sister well?” she said, her words just as crisp.
“Is she well?” Ivy might have laughed at the absurdity of this statement, were she not so gripped by horror. She crossed the parlor and lowered her voice. “How can Rose possibly be well? What she has witnessed can only have inflicted a profound shock upon her.”
That white face, those black eyes and blue-black lips, were without expression. “And what of you, Lady Quent? Did you not witness the same scene yourself?”
Ivy shook her head. “My sister has lived a quiet and protected life. She has never seen things such as this before. She has never seen … a death.”
“But you have,” Shayde replied, and in her black eyes was what seemed a knowing look.
A pain pierced Ivy’s heart. Was the other inflicting a deliberate cruelty? Did she know about the magickal gem, and what scene its facets had revealed? She tried to draw a breath, but it was difficult to breathe.
“I must go into … into the hall. There is something I …”
But she could manage no more. She edged past the other woman, then hurried to the front hall. The bodies of the men were indeed gone, as Lady Shayde had said, though several wet stains still marred the floor. Ivy did her best to ignore these, and instead knelt to gather up the papers that had been scattered when the Wyrdwood box came apart.
As important as these objects were, there had been something of greater value in the box. Then she pushed aside a heap of broken sticks, and there it was: her father’s journal, bound in black leather. She picked it up, clasping it to her breast as she stood.
“It was something precious, then,” Lady Shayde said. She stood at the end of the long room, half-revealed in the dying light of the fire.
“Yes,” Ivy said before she even thought to, then winced. Stories told of the White Lady’s fabled power to compel others to speak, and Ivy had suffered it herself when Shayde came to interview her. She had to be careful what she said.
Only why? What use was there resisting anymore? They were under Shayde’s power now; Ivy could not win a struggle against her—at least not unless they were within a grove of Wyrdwood.
“It’s my father’s journal,” she said, still clutching the book. “It was in the box he gave me.”
Shayde’s dark lips moved a fraction, forming what almost seemed the shadow of a smile—if she was really capable of such an expression. “Ah, the Wyrdwood box. That was clever of you, to identify the base desires of your attackers and play upon them. I was impressed by that, Lady Quent. You would have made a fine agent of the Gray Conclave.”
Ivy stared in astonishment—not from this last statement, as shocking as it was, but from the ones preceding it. “It was you!” she gasped. “You were the shadow I saw from the attic. But you weren’t just outside, were you? You were here in the manor.” Ivy staggered, holding a hand to her brow. “How long were you in this room, watching?”
Shayde stepped into the firelight. “Do not fear. I would not have allowed those men to harm you or your sister. Yet you hardly needed my assistance. I can see why Sir Quent admired you so deeply as he did. You are a very capable woman, Lady Quent. You would have been able to dispatch all of the soldiers on your own, had not one of them been a … well, I still do not know what such things are called. But you saw what he was. Even then, you would have been successful had you but aimed for his head. It is the only way to dispatch their kind, to remove their heads from their bodies. But you could not possibly have known this.”
Couldn’t she have? Ivy thought of her dream, of the men struggling on the beach. But none of that mattered; she faced a different peril now.
“How did you know to find me here?” she said carefully.
“I was there at your house on Durrow Street,” Lady Shayde said. “The day the soldiers came for you. I heard you say to Lord Rafferdy and his friend, the illusionist, that you would go to Heathcrest Hall.”
Some of Ivy’s horror was replaced by wonder. “So you were there as well. It was you the soldiers glimpsed out the window, in the garden. You lured them from the house so that Rose and I were able to escape.”
“Yes, I did. Once the soldiers left the house, I told them you had fled in a carriage and ordered them to pursue you. Then I entered the house again, and I saw you step through the door, the one carved with leaves. That it was magickal in nature was apparent.”
She took another step deeper into the pool of firelight. “I thought to follow you at that moment, but Lord Rafferdy had locked the door with some manner of key and gave it to the illusionist.” She made a little shrug. “I could easily have taken it from him, of course, but I would not have known how to pursue you in the place where you had gone, and I might easily have become lost in the world beyond the door. So I decided I should travel overland instead. This was somewhat difficult, given the state of affairs in the country, but there was nothing that could prevent my passage. I arrived here over a half month ago, and have been watching the manor ever since.”
Amid all the feelings that twisted and tangled in Ivy’s breast, fascination rose up among them. “But why? Why have you followed me here?”
“I wanted to help you,” Lady Shayde said.
Ivy sprang back a step; it felt as if sparks had leaped out of the fireplace and had alighted all over her. “To help me!” she cried. “How can you possibly claim to want such a thing after what you have done to me—after what you did to my husband with your own hands?”
For a moment, a discernible change altered the white mask of Lady Shayde’s face. It was a tightening of flesh, a sharpening of lines, and a deepening of hollows. Ivy might almost have thought it an expression of pain. Except that was not possible, for surely she could not feel.
Then the moment passed, and Lady Shayde’s face became utterly smooth once more. “I did what I was required to do.”
“That is a lie,” Ivy said, clenching her hands at her sides. “You wanted to destroy the Inquiry, to stop them from doing their work of safeguarding the Wyrdwood and the women who were drawn to it. And with my husband imprisoned, you had done so. There was no further gain to be achieved with his death. You did not have to murder him. But you did anyway—you did it because you hated him.”
“Hated him?” The other woman shook her head. “No, I did not hate Sir Quent. As I have told you, hate is not a thing which I can suffer.”
“Nor compassion!” Ivy exclaimed, her throat aching.
“That is true. I cannot feel compassion. Or happiness, desire, sorrow, or love—not any of these. I remember that I did feel such things once, but I cannot recall the feelings themselves. Such things were taken from me when I was made into … this.” She lifted a white hand.
This answer in no way satisfied Ivy. “Then it was your master who ordered you to do it.”
“I was indeed ordered to take Sir Quent’s life. But it was not Lord Valhaine who gave me the command that I was bound to obey.”
“Then who was it?” Ivy cried, the words hoarse and ragged from rage, from grief. “Who commanded you to do murder upon my husband?”
Lady Shayde lowered her hand. “It was Sir Quent himself who did.”
How it was that Ivy did not collapse to the floor was a thing she did not understand. One moment Lady Shayde seemed to vanish from the far side of the hall. Then, in the space between two heartbeats, she was there beside Ivy, supporting her with cold, hard hands, and helping her into a chair.
For a dreadful span of seconds, she feared she could no longer breathe, that she had forgotten how to accomplish such a basic act. She wanted to cry out, to accuse Lady Shayde of lying. But it wasn’t a lie, was it? She had seen it herself within the gem: how some exchange had passed between them, some agreement, and how he had knelt before her willingly.
At last a breath shuddered into her, burning her lungs as if she had taken in fire not air. More breaths passed in and out of her in jolting spasms; a flood of hot tears ran down her cheeks. She w
as weeping.
“Why?” she managed to say at last. There was so much more she wanted to ask, but all she could do was utter the word again. “Why?”
Lady Shayde was a black silhouette, standing before the fireplace. “Why did he ask me to end his life—is that what you mean? But you must know the reason for that, Lady Quent. There was never any hope that he would live. From the moment he chose to make a treaty with the witch in Torland, his doom was sealed, and he knew it.
“When I came to him in his cell, it was to tell him that he was to be tried, convicted, and hung that very day. With the grave defeat in the West Country, Lord Valhaine felt a great need to make some public demonstration of his strength and authority. But by asking me to end him, Sir Quent stole that victory from Lord Valhaine. What was more, he was assured that you, Lady Quent, would never be branded as the wife of a convicted traitor, and so deprived of all of his wealth and property, which should naturally have passed to you upon his death, having no other heir.”
Ivy could only shake her head, unable to speak. It was too horrible to bear, the knowledge that he had done it for her sake.
“Is that what you meant, Lady Quent?” The other woman gave a shrug. “Or perhaps you meant, why did I do as Sir Quent asked of me there in his cell beneath Barrowgate? The reason is simple enough—it is because I made a promise to him long ago. In fact, it was here in this very room that the oath was made, more than twenty years ago. It was the very last day that I ever looked so.”
She gestured to the staircase in the center of the hall, and to the portrait that hung above the landing. Earl Rylend, his wife, and their son, Lord Wilden, dominated the middle of the painting, while off to the side, nearly merging with the shadows, was a girl with dark hair and almond skin.
“Sir Quent was waiting for me that day when I came down the stairs. Of course, he was only Alasdare to me then. Or Dare, as I called him. He tried to stop me from going to the elf circle, where Mr. Bennick was waiting for me. I told Dare that if he would let me go, then one day he could ask anything of me, and I would do it without hesitation. I swore this to him, and he knew me well enough to know that I meant it. And so he let me go.
The Master of Heathcrest Hall Page 62