The Devil's Looking-Glass

Chapter FIFTY-EIGHT





‘STAY YOUR GROUND. I am your queen.’ Jenny’s voice rang out across the still clearing, suddenly imperious, commanding. Holding her head high, she broke away from the others and strode out from the shadows to face the line of waiting Hunters. Will’s chest tightened. He watched the Fay, wondering if they would heed her words or fall upon her first. In their cruel white faces, their eyes looked like chunks of coal.

After a moment, he realized they were not going to attack, but nor were they retreating. ‘Jenny,’ he whispered, his voice hoarse, ‘take no risks, I beg you.’

When she turned her face towards him, he almost cried out at the sadness he saw there. She forced a smile. ‘There is no risk here, my love. They will not harm their Queen. As long as I remain their Queen, upon the soil they call their own.’

Will felt a chill run through him as the meaning of her words slowly settled on him. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘You cannot . . . I will not allow it.’

‘We were lost the moment your fellow slew Mandraxas,’ she said in a soft, desolate voice, still smiling in an attempt to soften his pain.

‘There is another way,’ he protested. ‘There must be.’

Jenny – his Jenny – shook her head, glancing back at the cold ranks of the Fay. ‘If I walk with you into the human world, I abdicate the throne and they will destroy us in an instant. All of us, doomed. If I return, at least I can ensure you leave with your life. All of you.’ Her voice rose and she looked at Grace. ‘Including my sister, whom I treasure more than life itself,’ adding so quietly he could barely hear it, ‘as I treasure you.’

‘I will not allow this sacrifice,’ Will protested, clenching a fist impotently.

‘Ah, but it is not for you to say.’ She swallowed. ‘There is more at stake here than you and I. We are as nothing compared to the devastation that would be wrought on all men by an Unseelie Court bent on avenging that which you – we – have meted out to their true Queen, and now their King.’

‘Then let all the world be damned,’ he uttered, his voice breaking. ‘If I could walk away with you, I could live with the world burning around us.’

‘No,’ she interjected quietly, ‘you could not.’

‘I would sacrifice anything for one more day with you.’

‘No,’ Jenny repeated, ‘you would not, though your heart were shattered into a thousand pieces. I saw inside you on that very first day we walked together, Will Swyfte. I know your true worth, perhaps more than any other person you call friend or lover. I see how the suffering of your last few years has formed a callus around you, but the good man within remains unchanged.’

‘You cannot return,’ Will whispered, his despair growing, ‘not now that I have found you again.’

Jenny took his blood-encrusted hand in her cool fingers. ‘And I have found you again,’ she murmured. ‘I remember everything. I feel all that I felt on that day I was stolen from you. If there was some way we could be together I would seize it with both hands. But Mandraxas’s death could unleash a hell upon earth. If I can prevent that, I will.’

‘You truly think the Fay will obey a mortal?’

‘They must. I am their Queen.’

‘And how long before you meet the same fate as Mandraxas? A dagger in the night? Poison?’ Will felt his eyes sting with tears.

‘I am no weak child. I will keep my wits about me at all times, and watch the shadows, and find allies, and plot and scheme as befits a true monarch,’ his lost love said, narrowing her eyes. When he saw the defiance in her face, Will recognized a steel he had not encountered before. ‘And I will keep heads spinning, and encourage factions and machinations and ruses so that the Unseelie Court will have no time to look out into the world of men, for they will be consumed by themselves.’

‘How long, Jenny?’ He felt hollow, numb.

She blanched, but kept a brave face. ‘As long as I can.’

‘I will not allow this,’ he cried, snatching up his rapier from where it had fallen. Anger and despair roared through him. He only had eyes for the cursed Fay, who still had their talons embedded in the one thing he valued. As he lunged towards them, Launceston and Carpenter grabbed his arms and struggled to hold him back.

‘Would you rather we all died here and now?’ the Earl whispered. ‘What good would that do?’

‘Listen to her, Will,’ Carpenter added with surprising tenderness. ‘Her heart is breaking, but she does this for a greater good. She shames us all with her strength.’

Still struggling, Will blinked away hot tears of anguish until Grace stepped in front of him and held his face in her hands. She leaned in, filling his vision and holding his attention. Tears streamed down her cheeks too. ‘No one wants Jenny home more than I,’ she whispered, ‘not even you. And it will destroy me by degrees to know she is a prisoner in this land of horrors. Though it is terrible to us both, you know in your heart that what my sister suggests is the right course. Think of the lives that will be saved, Will. Jenny is right – all of us mean nothing compared to that.’

‘And you can live with that?’ he snapped.

‘As I have for these last fifteen years. But now I know that she still lives, though we are separated by oceans, by worlds, by time itself. I know! And I will carry her in my heart for as long as I live, and never lose hope that one day we will brave the terrors of this place once more and bring her back to where she is loved and cherished. We will bring her home, I promise.’ She sucked in a deep breath to stifle a sob. ‘You must let her go, Will.’

He steadied himself, wondering how it could be that these two women were stronger than all of them. Running a hand through his hair, he nodded and moved to stand in front of Jenny. It felt as if sadness must fill every part of her, but still she smiled, for his sake, and that broke his heart. ‘It seems you have won this battle of wits,’ he said, grinning, for her sake.

Her eyes sparkled as she held his gaze for a long moment. No words were necessary. Then slowly her face hardened with the weight of her responsibility. She glanced up to the heavens. ‘You know what you must do.’

His chest tightened. He understood; it was what he had long planned. But with all of them free and sailing home to England; never like this. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I cannot. Leaving you behind is torment enough.’

‘If we are meant to be together, Will Swyfte, we will find a way.’

It felt too final, as if he were consigning her to the cold earth, but he knew she would never change her mind. ‘No ocean is too wide, no walls too strong, no danger too great. I will be back for you, Jenny.’ With trembling fingers, he felt under his shirt for the locket he had worn against his skin since Deortha had first dropped it in order to lure him here. Removing it, he gently fastened it round her slim neck, as he had done that day when they had sealed their love so long ago. ‘Wear this as I wore it: to remind you never to lose hope. Cradle it in your hands every night and know that I will be searching for a way back to you. Know that one day we will be together again.’

Her eyes glistened. Bowing, he took her hand and kissed the back of it. When he raised his head, they held each other’s gaze as they struggled to suppress all the hurt and the yearning, and then he took a step back and nodded. ‘Soon,’ he said.

‘Soon,’ she replied. She closed her eyes for a moment, and slowly her face transformed into that of a ruler, a Queen. Then she turned away from Will, from her sister, from Meg, Carpenter and Launceston, and walked back towards the labyrinth. Heads bowed in deference, the Hunters parted to let her through, and then turned to follow her. Will watched until he could see her no more.

When Grace reached out a hand to comfort him, he shook his head. ‘We are done here,’ he said, each word rolling out like a pebble falling upon wood. ‘But this is not yet over.’ Taking his bearings, he ignored the questioning gazes and moved to the trees. Looking up, he caught a glimpse of their destination through a gap in the canopy, and broke into a run. By force of will, he drove all his churning emotions deep inside him. Completing the task he’d set himself was now his sole aim. A memorial to Jenny.

The Tower of the Moon soared up through the trees, a cold sliver of grey stone with a bright white light burning at the summit. At its base, he halted to catch his breath and waited for the others. Meg was the first to arrive. ‘Whatever plan has gripped you, take care. I fear for you.’ Her voice was warm with concern.

‘You worry needlessly,’ he replied, his face betraying no emotion. ‘Stay here and ensure our Enemy does not have a change of heart.’

‘Where do you go?’

In reply, he simply raised his hand and pointed to the top of the tower high overhead.

Before the others had caught up and could question him further, he began to circle the base of the structure. As far as he could tell, there was no entrance. Only a series of stone footholds barely a finger’s length wide protruded from the walls, spiralling up towards the top. Setting down his rapier, he took off his boots to get a better grip and hauled himself on to the lowest step. Pressing himself tight against the wall, he felt for small clefts that seemed to have been made as fingerholds. The others called out, urging him not to risk such a precarious climb, but his head felt numb and their words faded away. Gingerly, he shifted his weight from one step to the next, and then the next.

As he clawed his way around the tower, his nose wrinkled at the smell of the warm stone against his cheek, and the wet-wood aromas of the forest, and the hint of brine on the breeze blowing in from the coast. Sweat slicked his body in the day’s heat. He balanced on the precarious footholds, clutching on to the wall until his finger joints screamed with pain. When he sensed the quality of light change as he rose above the treetops, the bird-cries rang in his ears as the shadows swooped across him.

And higher still he climbed, into a world of grey stone, blue sky and golden sunlight. He felt the suck of the dizzying drop as the wind tugged at his limbs, and the queasy twist in the pit of his stomach, but not for a moment did he look down. His legs and arms shook. The slightest misstep would send him plunging to his death. But then a soft white glow enveloped him and he realized he was nearing the summit.

A moment later he hauled himself over the edge, and rolled on to his back, filling his tight chest with clear, sweet and untainted air. He blinked, unable to see the sky any more for the moonlike luminescence. Yet it was not a harsh light; he felt as though he was swathed in down. Something about this strange light reached inside him and plucked at his grief, and for a moment he felt overwhelmed by the sense of loss and despair. He shook himself, gritted his teeth and clambered to his feet. He would not give in.

The top of the tower was flat and fixed upon it was an iron plinth topped by a blue-green copper bowl. In it, what seemed like a glass sphere the distance of fingertip to elbow in diameter floated an inch above the surface, turning slowly. It was from this that the white light washed out.

Will leaned over it, studying the gently pulsing light, but as he reached a hand across the bowl the light wavered, then dimmed. Now was the moment. Steeling himself, he gripped the glass globe between his hands. His skin tingled at its strange, almost living flesh-like warmth. One act to change the world, he thought. One act to save England. One act to break his heart.

And he wrenched the sphere away from the bowl in a fizz of golden sparks and in a single movement hurled it over the edge of the tower. The soothing, pale light swept down in the globe’s wake and he was left with a view across that verdant corner of the New World and the shadowy world beyond. A veil appeared to be hanging above the labyrinth from horizon to horizon. Through the shimmering haze, he could just discern the black bulk of Manoa, still turning against a fiery sky, but as he watched the mist slipped away, and with it all sight of the Unseelie Court’s strange, twisted world.

The door upon the Fay had been slammed shut. In their crepuscular land, cut off from the realm of man, the Unseelie Court could scheme and fight among themselves until the stars fell from the heavens. And what few of the damnable Fey still moved among mortals would be lost here.

Will heaved in a deep breath, still peering towards the blue horizon as though he could pierce that veil by will alone. And he blinked away the tears.

And somewhere the loneliest woman in all Christendom sat upon a golden throne, trapped in a world not her own and without end.

Jenny had given up everything to save this world, and beyond the few of them there, no one would ever know of her courage. Her sacrifice shamed them all. Will shielded his eyes. This would not be an end, he vowed silently. ‘I am coming back to get you, Jenny,’ he whispered. ‘Though all the hordes of Hell stand in my way, though oceans swell and conflagrations rage, I will find a way to reach you. And I will finally bring you home.’

For another moment he waited, caught in the mournful cry of the gulls, and then he began to make his way down to earth.