“No.” The pain of Simon’s wounds flared again. He started to limp toward the door.
“Would you like me to tell you?” Ash asked with a pleasant lilt. “You can have your revenge. That will make everything right, won’t it?”
Kate whispered into Simon’s ear, “Don’t listen to her. Walk away now.”
Simon ushered everyone out into the corridor and started to push the heavy door closed. “You’ll never get out, Ash. You’ll grow old and eventually you will die. As you should.”
“Nick Barker,” came the voice of the necromancer.
A jolt surged through Simon and he felt dizzy for a second. He peered through the narrow space and met Ash’s eyes to find she was staring intently at him. He took a breath and went to shove the door shut.
“Nick Barker murdered your father.”
Simon stopped, leaving a few inches of open space into the cells.
Ash called out, “I know Barker is with your little group. I know you saved him that night at St. Giles. He was King William today, wasn’t he? He used that damned glamour spell of his.”
That was true. Nick had pretended to be the king to lure Ash to the prison, and he had slipped out, they hoped, before she could see through the disguise.
“I don’t believe you,” Simon said, but the claim wasn’t convincing.
“Ask him.” Ash stared into the narrow gap between the door and the jamb. “I ordered another man to do the job, but he failed. A miserable drunk.”
Malcolm turned away. He leaned on the wall with his head bowed.
“When I told Barker to kill Cavendish, he didn’t ask why. He didn’t care. He just did it. Barker smiled in his face and murdered your father.”
Kate tried to pull Simon away from the door and shut it, but he kept it open against her.
“It’s true,” Ash said. “Ask Barker. If you can find him. He knows now that you have me, that I might find out who your father is, and that I might tell you the name of the killer to bargain my way out of prison. Or just because I know.”
Simon stood silently, shaking his head.
Ash attempted to catch Simon’s gaze again. “Archer? Where’s that miraculous key you carry?”
Simon’s hand went to his waistcoat pocket in reflex. He felt the gold chain and ran his fingers down to the end to find it empty. He pulled the chain out and the fob hung alone. Simon knew he’d had it earlier. He knew it. He spun to Kate on the desperate chance that she had the key, as it sometimes changed hands. She shook her head.
Ash’s laughter was melodious. “I don’t know how your key works exactly, but if Barker does, you’ll never see him again.”
Simon closed the door. He felt numb. “I have to go to Gaunt Lane, Kate. That’s the closest portal.”
Kate touched his arm. “Nick is your friend. If he…why would he come back? Why would he stay with you all these years?”
Simon turned to find Malcolm standing in front of him. “You can’t believe Ash, Simon. She’s trying to have her revenge. Don’t go down a path from which you can never return.”
“I must go to Gaunt Lane.” He stepped past them, increasing his stride down the corridor, whispering a rune to life. He vaulted up the steps, ignoring the searing pain in his chest, and sprinted across the crowded courtyard toward their waiting carriage. He didn’t see the bloodstain that was spreading across his white shirt. His pounding steps couldn’t outpace the beating of his heart or drown the sounds of Ash’s laughter.
—
The house at Gaunt Lane was silent. Simon quietly closed the front door behind him. Nick had never been an unobtrusive man, and in their years together, he could always be heard bustling about. There was nothing.
He stepped past the sitting room on the right and something caught his attention. In the center of the room was a swirling portal. Simon had established a new link here a week ago and now it had been activated. In the quivering oval, he saw the shuttered window in the room in the Palais-Royal.
Simon walked into the sitting room, looking into the rippling view of distant Paris. If Nick had stolen the key, as Ash said, and used it to open the portal, he was gone now. Simon could follow, but the odds of finding one man in that teeming city were very thin. And, if Nick was trying to lose himself, he would likely open a second portal from Paris and vanish into that.
Perhaps there was another reason that Simon wasn’t seeing. Just because Nick had worked for Ash, just because he had secretly watched Simon for her, just because Nick lied about it all, didn’t mean Ash was telling the truth now. Malcolm warned him, wisely, not to trust her. Ash lied out of habit and with a long-game agenda that few could penetrate. Perhaps Simon just couldn’t fathom the perverse leverage Ash was trying to exert on him and his team.
Simon lifted a hand to the portal and brushed the softness of the otherworldly surface. The evidence that shimmered in front of him was inconclusive. He muttered, “Nick. Did you want me to follow? Why didn’t you close the portal behind you?”
“Because,” came a voice from the corner, “I didn’t leave.”
Simon spun to see Nick lounging in his usual spot on the tattered sofa. The older magician looked exhausted. His eyes were ringed with dark circles. There was a whiskey bottle and empty glass on the table next to him. Nick lifted one hand off his chest and tossed an object across the room.
Simon caught the gold key out of the air. He slowly looked up from the glittering device in the palm of his hand to his friend. Nick couldn’t meet his gaze and threw his forearm over his eyes. Simon waited for the explanation, however twisted, however disappointing, that would strike Ash’s lie into the dust.
“Why did you take it?” Simon asked.
Nick glanced from under his arm with a look of curious annoyance. His confusion dissipated when he realized Simon was still searching for excuses. He took a deep breath. “Ash told you, didn’t she? You wouldn’t be here looking like that, asking me stupid questions otherwise.”
Simon stared at Nick but saw someone different. Not the man who helped him, who advised him, who toasted innumerable drinks with him and carried him home after nights that went on a bit too long.
“Tell me, Nick.” Simon could barely make himself heard.
Nick sat up. He let his hand rest on the neck of the bottle but then released it. “You already know. Why drag it out?”
Simon took a step toward him. He couldn’t feel the floor under his feet. He seemed to be floating in another world. “You tell me.”
“Simon, I’m not going to fight you. I’m tired. Do what you want to me. I don’t care.”
“Tell me, Nick.” Simon lost all sense of place in a haze of confused rage. “You tell me!”
Nick looked up. “I did it.”
“Did what?”
“For God’s sake, Simon.” He glanced away. “I killed your father.”
“Why?” A coldness slipped through Simon’s body. What little vigor his spell had given faded. He was losing touch with the room, with his thoughts.
Nick laughed and shook his head. “Ash told me to do it.”
“That’s all? You didn’t hate him? Some past wrong he did you? Some old grudge to settle?”
“I’d never seen him until that night.” Nick started to shift, but Simon leaned forward slightly as a warning so he settled back. “There was a war in the Order of the Oak. I was on Ash’s side then.”
“Why did you come to me when you knew I was his son?”
“I had no idea at first,” Nick retorted angrily. “I didn’t know you were Edward Cavendish’s son until last year. You told me when you were drunk.”
“And you didn’t tell Ash?”
“No, of course not. By then, I knew I wasn’t going to let her have you.”
“Even though she would kill you for failing?”
“I didn’t want you to be like me.” Nick rolled glistening eyes at the memory. “Just kill me and be done with it.”
Simon stared at his old friend for a long tim
e in motionless silence.
Finally, Nick rubbed a hand over his face and looked up, almost in anger. “Don’t play your games with me. Either kill me or stand there while I walk through that portal.” He struggled to his feet and faced Simon.
“No, you’re not running away this time.”
“I’m not going to rot in that new Bastille of yours.” Nick jabbed a finger at him. “I swear to you, I’m not.”
“Don’t you dare fight me.”
Nick sneered and started toward the portal when an arm rose in front of his chest like an iron bar. The two men stood nearly nose to nose. Simon stared, dark emotions locked under the surface. Nick sighed and quickly raised his hand, trailing flame. Simon ducked as the fire surged past him.
A powerful fist drove into Nick’s jaw and sent the man sailing across the room. He crashed into a desk, overturning it in a noisy pile. Nick surged quickly to his feet with fire flying from his waving hands.
Simon was struck by a bolt of flame. He didn’t cry out but spun around, his coat afire. Ignoring it, he clapped his hands together in front of him and sent out a powerful concussion. The force blasted Nick off his feet. The room shook and books flew from the shelves.
Simon didn’t move closer. He stood in the middle of the room and slammed his hands together again. The windows blew out. The flames were snuffed. The floor started to buckle. The walls cracked. Another wave rolled out and shoved Nick back as if an elephant had kicked him.
Simon slammed his hands once more. Nick was crushed into a large mahogany bookcase, cracking the sturdy shelves. Another blast buried Nick into the plaster.
And again Simon struck. The ceiling showered down across the smashed floor. Nick was crushed deep through the wall like an insect pressed under a pane of glass.
Then again.
And again.
In the swirling clouds of dust, the sitting room was gone. The wooden framing was visible under the shattered walls, much of it cracked and splintered, along with the bricks of the outer wall. Simon shoved a heavy beam aside and pushed through the jagged hole in the wall into the disheveled pantry. With both hands, he tossed wreckage until he found what he sought.
Nick was limp. His face was bloody. His clothes were torn and the flesh underneath was blue and swollen as if he had been crushed for hours in the unforgiving gears of a heavy machine. Red liquid bubbled from his lips.
“Is this what you wanted, old man?” Simon pulled him up. Nick’s limbs dangled like deadweight. Simon turned and dragged his friend over the wreckage back into the ruins of the sitting room. The portal stood shimmering in the dust. He shook his old friend. Nick’s bruised eyelids slowly slit open. His mouth gaped, confused and disoriented.
Simon felt blood dripping warm across his belly. Wariness gripped him. All the seething rage he had held for so long turned to regret. “My father helped make this key. He was a man who could have done things no one could’ve imagined. But he’s not here.”
Nick was speaking, or trying to. He struggled to keep his head up. With a hard shove, Simon propelled Nick into the portal. The surface puckered and drew him in, then Nick appeared sprawling in the Parisian chamber. He blinked in shock and stared back at Simon. He shook his head as if wishing, even begging, that this would go a different way.
Simon heard a sound, and turned away to see Kate and Malcolm in the tumbled doorway of the sitting room. Charlotte and Penny stood behind them. They all had faces as if they had been watching a dangerous acrobatic act, and only now realized someone wasn’t going to step off the high wire and plunge to his death in front of their eyes.
Simon knelt because of a stab in his chest. He met Kate’s gaze, trying not to show pain. He couldn’t think of anything proper to say. She dropped in front of him, checking him, then glancing over at the portal and Nick.
“The bastard really did kill your father?” Malcolm reached for his pistol. “I can take him if you wish.”
“No. Leave him.” Simon shook his head. The Scotsman withdrew his hand from his holster with a confused look. Simon held up the key without turning back to the portal. “Marthsyl.”
Nick Barker vanished.
Simon dropped the key to the floor. He leaned the top of his head against Kate’s forehead.
Kate took his drained face in one of her hands; the other tentatively touched the bloodstain on his chest.
“I couldn’t kill him.”
Kate’s cool fingers slipped over the back of his neck. “Of course not.”
“Was it wise to let him go?” Malcolm asked, hovering over the pair. “One day you’ll want to go after him.”
“Nick once told me to stay on the path I’m on. If I wander off, I’ll never find my way back.” That memory hurt, and he wondered if those words of guidance had been nothing more than a cruel diversion to hide a monstrous act. Still, Simon clung to them as if they were truth.
Autumn sunlight streamed into every corner of Hartley Hall. There was little to block the rays with the gaps in the walls and roof. Repairs were under way most everywhere in the house. But the Blue Parlor was left alone for now to provide a refuge. Kate looked out over the open terrace that had been repaired. It now stretched fifty yards from the house to a wide timber bridge built to span the canyon surrounding the house.
Kate turned from the altered southern grounds. Everyone stood somber and alone, hardly speaking. The house had become much quieter over the last few weeks. Charlotte lay on the floor with Aethelred, her arm draped over his form, his large head pressed against her cheek, his thick fur soaking up the remainder of her tears. Simon sat on the sofa, staring into a past that threatened to consume him. Malcolm stood like a dark wraith with Penny silently nearby.
The room felt cold and empty. Kate couldn’t control the terrifying premonition that everyone was drifting away. The moorings to one another were fraying. Lives had been irrevocably changed. Everything felt different.
That dreadful sense was much stronger now. They had all just returned from the cemetery where Imogen was buried in a family plot alongside their mother and the servants who had given their lives in defense of the estate. This had been the first visit to the grave since the burial service, and it was so much worse for everyone. The reality that poor Imogen was gone and lying under the earth was undeniable now, and no longer obscured by the hectic events of a funeral. They knew now there was no magic that would bring her back to them. There were no miracles to be had. Kate’s heart felt like it had stopped beating even though it rhythmically thudded beneath her breast. She was numb and disconnected. She hadn’t been able to conjure any interest in working in her laboratory, which always brought her peace during troubled times. The reminders of her failure were thick there.
Imogen had gone through so much. She had transformed from a rebellious younger sister to a frightening monster to a stalwart protector. Despite the darkness that had enveloped her, she had bravely stepped out into the light. Imogen had embraced a new life no matter what trauma it threw at her.
Tears of pride welled in Kate’s eyes. By her actions Imogen had changed all of them, from the cheerfully lonely Simon, to the wild Charlotte, to the brooding Malcolm, and even to Kate herself. Sometimes it was the journey that made the impact rather than the end. Her sister had shown them the way, and, by God, Kate would follow in her example.
She brushed her eyes with her sleeve and strode inside. She went over to Simon and curled up next to him. His arm did not instinctively curve around her shoulders. Charlotte looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes and Kate extended her arm toward the child, inviting her onto her lap. Charlotte immediately came over, laying her head against Kate’s chest.
“I miss her,” was her sob.
“Of course you do. We all do. We always will. Family must never be forgotten.”
“Family?” Charlotte’s haunted gaze darted fearfully to Malcolm, as if expecting him at any second to pick up a bag and walk into the fog.
Kate held the child close. “Yes. You are a
s much a sister to her as I am. As you are to me. And for that reason, she would want you to have this.” From her sweater pocket, Kate produced the little hedgehog. Charlotte’s tears fell harder, but she snatched up the little creature and placed her cheek against its prickly quills. Kate kissed the top of Charlotte’s head.
Simon’s arm now slipped around Kate and his hand gave her a gentle squeeze. It kindled her hope that he was listening. Taking a deep breath, she regarded those in the room. “I am adding a new wing to Hartley Hall. Everyone has a home here. A place to call his or her own.”
Malcolm began, “I don’t think that’s—”
Kate cut him off. “Don’t you dare. We haven’t gone through all of this to scatter now. The original Order shattered because they were petty and self-absorbed, more consumed with abusing the power given to them. Even Pendragon.”
When Simon raised a cynical brow, Kate scowled at him. “Pendragon was perhaps the worst. He doubted the people he had once loved, people he should have considered family. Instead he chose to believe those who were callous and manipulative. That was his downfall. Order reigns when it is built on trust and love, not the lust for power and glory.”
Simon shook his head and glanced away. “I loved Nick and look what that wrought.”
Charlotte looked up from Kate’s lap. “I don’t understand what happened to him. Was Mr. Nick a bad man? He was grouchy, but he seemed to like us. Most of us. Wasn’t he your friend, Mr. Simon? Why did he go away?”
“He was my friend, Charlotte.” Simon took the girl’s hand. He ran his thumb over her soft palm as if marveling that her hands were still so clean. “He wasn’t bad. He just couldn’t stay.”
“Oh.” The girl sighed. “He was teaching me to play cards.”
“Cards?” Kate asked with bemused annoyance.
Charlotte looked worried. “He told me not to tell. That I shouldn’t be gambling at my age.”
The Conquering Dark Page 29