The door of the great house swung open; the girl disappeared inside. The coach rattled off around the side of the manor to the coach house as Wil staggered to his feet. He had gone a sickly gray color, like the ashes of a dead fire.
“Cecily,” he said again. His voice held wonderment, and horror.
“Who on earth is Cecily?” Tessa scrambled into a standing position, brushing grass and thistles from her dress. “Wil —”
Jem was already beside Wil , his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Wil , you must speak to us. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Wil dragged in a long breath. “Cecily—”
“Yes, you’ve said that already,” said Tessa. She heard the sharpness in her own voice, and softened it with an effort. It was unkind to speak so to someone so obviously distraught, even if he did insist on staring into space and muttering “Cecily” at intervals.
It hardly mattered; Wil seemed not to have heard her. “My sister,” he said. “Cecily. She was—Christ, she was nine years old when I left.”
“Your sister,” said Jem, and Tessa felt a loosening of something tight around her heart, and cursed herself inwardly for it. What did it matter whether Cecily was Wil ’s sister or someone he was in love with? It had nothing to do with her.
Wil started down the hil , not looking for a path, just tramping blindly among the heather and furze. After a moment Jem went after him, catching at his sleeve. “Wil , don’t—”
Wil tried to pul his arm away. “If Cecily’s there, then the rest of them—my family—they must be there as wel .”
Tessa hurried to catch up with them, wincing as she nearly turned an ankle on a loose rock. “But it doesn’t make any sense that your family would be here, Wil . This was Mortmain’s house. Starkweather said so. It was in the papers—”
“I know that,” Wil half-shouted.
“Cecily could be visiting someone here—”
Wil gave her an incredulous look. “In the middle of Yorkshire, by herself? And that was our carriage. I recognized it. There’s no other carriage in the carriage house. No, my family’s in this somehow. They’ve been dragged into this bloody business and I—I have to warn them.” He started down the hil again.
“Wil !” Jem shouted, and went after him, catching at the back of his coat; Wil swung around and shoved Jem, not very hard; Tessa heard Jem say something about Wil having held back al these years and not wasting it now, and then it al blurred together—Wil swearing, and Jem yanking him backward, and Wil slipping on the wet ground, and the both of them going over together, a rol ing tangle of arms and legs, until they fetched up against a large rock, Jem pinning Wil to the ground, his elbow against the other boy’s throat.
“Get off me.” Wil shoved at him. “You don’t understand. Your family’s dead—”
“Will.” Jem took his friend by the shirtfront and shook him. “I do understand. And unless you want your family dead too, you’l listen to me.”
Wil went very stil . In a choked voice he said, “James, you can’t possibly—I’ve never—”
“Look.” Jem raised the hand that wasn’t gripping Wil ’s shirt, and pointed. “There. Look.”
Tessa looked where he was pointing—and felt her insides freeze. They were nearly halfway down the hil above the manor house, and there, above them, standing like a sort of sentry on the ridge at the hil ’s top, was an automaton. She knew immediately what it was, though it did not look like the automatons that Mortmain had sent against them before. Those had made some surface pretense of being human. This was a tal , spindly metal creature, with long hinged legs, a twisted metal ic torso, and sawlike arms.
It was utterly stil , not moving, somehow more frightening for its stil ness and silence. Tessa could not even tel if it was watching them. It seemed to be turned toward them, but though it had a head, that head was featureless but for the slash of a mouth; metal teeth gleamed within. It seemed to have no eyes.
Tessa quel ed the scream rising in her throat. It was an automaton. She had faced them before. She would not scream. Wil , propped on his elbow, was staring. “By the Angel—”
“That thing’s been fol owing us; I’m sure of it,” said Jem in a low, urgent voice. “I saw a flash of metal earlier, from the carriage, but I wasn’t sure.
Now I am. If you go tearing off down the hil , you risk leading that thing right to your family’s door.”
“I see,” Wil said. The half-hysterical tone had gone from his voice. “I won’t go near the house. Let me up.”
Jem hesitated.
“I swear on Raziel’s name,” Wil ground out, between his teeth. “Now let me up.”