There. Surely that was what I came here to find, wasn’t it? I wanted to get out of this room, but as I made to leave, something wedged in beside the cage caught my eye.
It was a book. Ordinary as anything, yes, but still a book. Unable to resist, I yanked it out and I hurried from the room, throwing the door shut behind me. The pounding in my head eased the minute I left that cursed place and handed Magnus his candle. Blackwood had helped Maria to her feet, though she still had her hands over her ears.
“What is this place?” he said.
“Strangewayes had something captive in there, and it took its revenge,” I said, handing Blackwood the book. As one, we all hurried back the way we’d come, following the impossible turns of the hall. What if we became lost in here? What if we wandered forever, until we became of the dark, and the dark became us?
Where had that thought come from? We ran until light pierced the darkness ahead and we reemerged into the Ancients’ showroom. Magnus kicked the door shut. Panting, I swore to myself never to go down there again. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead, and my hands were clammy. I had felt like a small child again, clutching the blankets and waiting for storied monsters to come for me out of the dark corners of the room.
Blackwood stepped away from us and turned the book’s pages, his expression blank. Putting an arm through Maria’s, I walked her about the room. Color began to return to her cheeks.
This horrible place was a monument to Strangewayes’s perversions, nothing more. What had we gained by coming here?
“My God,” Blackwood murmured. He turned the book toward me. “Look.”
Sketches of the monstrosities Strangewayes had left hanging in his display room graced the pages. But I saw what had caught Blackwood’s eye: a bloblike form, bristling all over with dark hairs. It looked—no, it was exactly like Molochoron, the great jellylike Pale Destroyer. I snatched the book from his hand and read, my mouth falling open.
To drive away, employ cariz, the book said, the script somewhat legible. What “cariz” was, I’d no idea. There were arrows showing points of attack onto Molochoron’s body, porous areas I had never noticed before.
Drive away. Flipping another page, I found an illustration of a chain, one that fitted itself rather nicely around the leg of some lizard-like creature.
Ralph Strangewayes had not only written a book about the Ancients; he had shown us how to defeat them.
“What the devil does he mean by a car-whatsit?” Magnus looked over my shoulder and pointed at the page. My hands trembled as I leafed through the book. I had to be delicate; the paper felt fragile beneath my fingers.
“This, I believe.” I showed Magnus and Blackwood, now standing about me. There was a sketch of a flutelike instrument with an oddly formed mouthpiece.
Blackwood took the book from me and flipped through it. “Does it say anything about R’hlem?” He searched the pages, but no. For some reason, the Skinless Man was the only one of our Seven Ancients who did not appear in Strangewayes’s book. What did that mean?
“Look back at the weapons,” I said, pointing to more sketches. One weapon resembled a wicked sort of scythe, with multiple metal teeth on the edge of the blade. It looked oddly familiar. “Wait a moment.” I turned back to the walls.
Yes. When we’d first entered, I’d been too stunned to notice. But hanging all around us were the cruelest-looking weapons imaginable.
There was the scythe, hooked beside a glass case that contained a horned skull. Curved swords, their blades fashioned like corkscrews, were also displayed on the walls. Daggers with three prongs sat upon a table. We discovered three of those “flutes,” a hand-sized lantern that gave off a soft, eerily persistent glow, and a whistle carved from some kind of twisted bone on a velvet cushion under a glass case.
Magnus took one of the warped-looking swords off the wall. He tried swinging it, but the twisting shape of the blade, plus his injury, hampered his movement.
The blades were all formed from that same dusky orange-gold material, exactly like Strangewayes’s dagger.
Blackwood had started collecting all the weapons he could lay his hands on, the scythe, the spears, the daggers. Maria picked up the lantern, though she didn’t try opening it. I used Porridge to break the glass case and snatched up the whistle.
“We ought to leave.” Maria frowned. “There’s something alive about this house.” She looked back at the door with the carved devils.
I walked back to the front door to peer out at the garden. The sunshine was still bright here, and the breeze crisp with salt from the ocean. Despite the wonders of this house, already I was desperate to leave. Maria was right. Something was off about this place.
“Henrietta,” Maria called. “Come and look at this.”
I joined her by an expanse of wall.
“What do you think these are?” She pointed.
Hundreds of names had been carved into the wall. Some were etched in large, looping letters, some crammed close together. A familiar name caught my eye: Darius LaGrande. He’d been an eighteenth-century magician, a Frenchman who’d escaped the Revolution and come to England to research alchemy.
“These are all magicians,” I said. Gingerly, I traced my fingertips along LaGrande’s name.
“This house is a place of pilgrimage, then?” Maria asked.
“It looks like it. Perhaps this was a way of paying honor to the father of their craft.” I looked over the names until another one caught my eye. Sparks shot off my hand involuntarily.
“Careful now!” Maria brushed at her trousers.
“Sorry,” I murmured, knitting my fingers together. I drew closer to make absolutely certain I was right.
William Howel. The handwriting was even and neat, and carved for all the world to see. A flush of goose bumps spread over my body. My father had been here. Touching the letters, I imagined him standing in this very spot. I pictured him taking a knife and cutting his name into this wall. When had he come here?
“Howel? Turn around,” Blackwood said. He sounded calm, but the stiffness of his voice couldn’t be denied.
A shadowy figure waited in the open doorway. For one heart-stopping moment I was afraid it was a Familiar or, God forbid, R’hlem himself.
Then I noticed the leafy branches protruding from the thing’s head. It was not terribly tall—only coming up to Blackwood’s chest—but the fierce, glistening black eyes made me decide not to misjudge its strength. Its skin had a greenish tint, the same color as bog water. Tree bark was strapped in plates over its chest and legs like armor. The smell of damp earth and peat moss permeated the air, strong enough to make me gag. The creature raised its weapon, a sharpened stick, over its head.
Not any creature—a faerie. Clearly, this was from one of the lower orders of the dark court. The lowlier a faerie’s blood, the less human it appeared.
“Cain’s subjects. You trespass,” it declared in a gurgling voice. Cain? Of course: the biblical figure who killed his brother, Abel. Faeries did not have a high opinion of man.
“Hail, fellow. Well met.” Blackwood sketched a low bow, his body graceful as a dancer’s. “Goodfellow, does your fair queen sit under the hill?”
“Hail, fellow. Well met.” The faerie returned the bow, though its movements were stiff. Its joints creaked, like wood swollen with water. “My queen abides. You are trespassing on her land.”
“Trespassing?” I couldn’t stop myself. “This isn’t Faerie.”
“Howel.” Blackwood’s voice tightened with warning. The faerie grumbled. Brackish water dripped from it to pool on the floor.
“My queen takes lands given over to the forest. Lands given over to the rot,” it said, its gurgling voice growing sharper. “Did you not notice the glamour upon the place? You must pay the penalty, Cain’s subjects.” The beetle-colored eyes glimmered. “Death.”
Oh, damn everything.