We go into the tunnel entrance. The air is still and even colder than outside. I switch on my torch as we walk slowly and cautiously forward. The walls are uneven, solid rock, as is the floor, and it feels like we’re being hemmed in: the walls narrow until we can no longer walk comfortably side by side.
Ahead there is a door, or rather two doors. There’s a gate of metal bars and directly behind that a solid-looking wooden door with black metal studs embedded in it.
I pull on the gate but it’s padlocked. The torchlight seems to have dimmed and the silence has deepened around us.
I reach through the bars of the gate and knock hard on the wooden door with the flat of my hand, and then my fist, but it doesn’t make much noise. I bang again, harder, using the base of my torch. Even that sound seems to get swallowed up by the tunnel and I’m not sure if Mercury will be able to hear us. But maybe she can sense we’re here. Who knows what magic she will have protecting her home?
I bang again and shout, “Mercury! You’ve got visitors.”
We wait.
I’m about to bang again when I think I hear something and Gabriel leans forward as if he’s heard it too. It’s the sound of a bolt being pulled across rusty metal. It screeches and complains and then goes quiet. Another bolt and more scraping of metal and then . . . silence. The wooden door swings open slowly and, as it does, I smell something unusual, something spicy. I glance at Gabriel and he nods quickly to confirm that he’s smelled it too and that it’s something to do with how the door opens. It doesn’t require a key or a password but something that smells spicy!
The door opens onto blackness. But I know Mercury is there because the temperature drops dramatically.
I raise my torch and there she stands. The same horrendous figure I remember: tall and gray, like a warped and rusted iron stake, her hair a bundle of wire wool piled on her head, her black eyes flashing with sheet lightning.
She sends a blast of freezing air in my direction. I get icicles in my hair and nostrils. I have to close my eyes and turn away from her. My back goes numb with cold, the wind so strong that I’m bent over and holding onto the tunnel walls for support, trying to protect Gabriel with my body.
Then, as quickly as it began, the wind stops. I straighten up and turn to face her.
“Mercury!” I say by way of hello and now regret that I haven’t planned what else I need to say.
“Nathan. This is a surprise. And I see you have a new friend.”
“She’s not a friend. This is Pers. Pilot was going to bring her to you to be your apprentice, I believe, but . . . Pilot’s dead.”
Mercury says nothing but her eyes flash brilliantly.
“Hunters killed her. I was there. I escaped with Pers.”
“And why have you come here? You wanted to drag Hunters after you to my home—again?”
“No. They’ve not followed me. That was a week ago.”
“A week. A year. They’ll be following you all the same.”
“I’ve lost them.”
Mercury curls her lip. “And how did you find me?”
“That doesn’t matter.” I know if I tell her Pilot told me she won’t believe it. “The point is I’m here.”
“And why are you here? I said to kill Marcus and bring me his heart. I don’t see that anywhere.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that. We didn’t have much time to discuss your offer, what with the Hunters shooting at us.”
“It’s non-negotiable.”
“You’re a businesswoman, Mercury. Everything is negotiable.”
“That is not.”
“You originally wanted me to kill Marcus in return for giving me three gifts, but before I set off to steal the Fairborn we agreed I would work for you for a year instead.”
Mercury sneers at me. “And is that what you’re offering me now?”
“No. In return for Annalise, I’m offering you Pers.”
Mercury studies Gabriel and eventually says, “She was due to come to me anyway. I’ll take her.” Mercury opens the padlock with one of her hairpins, grabs Gabriel by the shoulder, drags him through the doorway, and pulls the gate shut. “But you and your father are different matters.”
“But—” I grab hold of the gate.
“No negotiations. Come back when you have Marcus’s head or heart.”
This is just about the worst possible—and yet totally anticipated—reply.
“I need to see Annalise,” I say, clinging on to the gate.
“No, you don’t,” Mercury replies.
“I do. How do I know she’s alive? I don’t even know where she is. For all I know, you left her to the Hunters. I’ll do what you ask, Mercury. If I can, I’ll do it. But I have to know that Annalise is alive. I have to see her first.”
Mercury hesitates. She hasn’t closed the padlock yet. She’s thinking about it. That’s something.
“I’m risking my life to come here, Mercury. You can kill me easily. All I ask is that you let me see Annalise.”