I wish that were true, but I know it’s not. I’ve seen my future. I’ve spoken with him, helped him in his schemes. Daniel is making the same mistakes I made in my last loop. Desperation has made him ruthless and unless I stop him, he’s going to sacrifice Anna again.
‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth when we first met?’ I say, still ashamed.
‘Because you already knew,’ she says, wrinkling her forehead. ‘From my perspective, we met two hours ago, and you knew everything about me.’
‘The first time I met you, I was Cecil Ravencourt,’ I respond.
‘Then we’re meeting in the middle, because I don’t know who that is yet,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t matter though. I won’t tell him, or any of the others, because it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t us in those loops. Whoever they were, they made different choices, different mistakes. I’m choosing to trust you, Aiden, and I need you to trust me, because this place is... you know how it works. Whatever you think I was doing when the footman killed you, it wasn’t everything. It wasn’t the truth.’
She’d seem confident if it weren’t for the nervous throb in her throat, the way her foot worries at the floor. I can feel her hand trembling against my cheek, the strain in her voice. Beneath all the bravado, she’s still afraid of me, of the man I was, of the man who may still be lurking within.
I can’t imagine the courage it took to bring her here.
‘I don’t know how to get us both out of here, Anna.’
‘I know.’
‘But I will, I won’t leave without you, I promise.’
‘I know that too.’
And that’s when she slaps me.
‘That’s for murdering me,’ she says, standing on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on the sting. ‘Now, let’s go and make sure the footman doesn’t murder any more of you.’
44
Wood creaks, the narrow, twisting staircase darkening the further down we get, until finally we sink beneath the gloom.
‘Do you know why I was in that cupboard?’ I ask Anna, who’s ahead of me and moving fast enough to outrun a falling sky.
‘No idea, but it saved your life,’ she says, glancing back at me over her shoulder. ‘The book said the footman would be coming for Rashton around this time. If he’d slept in his bedroom last night, the footman would have found him.’
‘Maybe we should let him find me,’ I say, feeling a rush of excitement. ‘Come on, I’ve got an idea.’
I push past Anna, and begin leaping down the steps two at a time.
If the footman’s coming for Rashton this morning, there’s every chance he’ll still be lurking around the corridors. He’ll be expecting a man asleep in his bed, which means I’ve got the upper hand for once. With a little luck, I can put an end to this here and now.
The steps end abruptly at a whitewashed wall, Anna still halfway up and calling for me to slow down. A police officer of considerable skill – as he’d freely admit himself – Rashton’s no stranger to hidden things. My fingers expertly locate a disguised catch allowing me to tumble into the dark hallway outside. Candles flicker behind sconces, the Sun Room standing empty on my left. I’ve emerged on the ground floor, the door I came through already blending into the wall.
The footman is less than twenty yards away. He’s on his knees, jimmying the lock to what I instinctively know is my bedroom.
‘Looking for me, you bastard,’ I spit, hurling myself at him before he has a chance to grab his knife.
He’s on his feet quicker than I could have imagined, leaping backwards and kicking out to catch me in the chest, knocking the wind from me. I land awkwardly, clutching my ribs, but he doesn’t move. He’s standing there waiting, wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Brave rabbit,’ he says, grinning. ‘I’m going to gut you slow.’
Rising and dusting myself off, I raise my fists in a boxer’s stance, suddenly aware of how heavy my arms feel. That night in the cupboard’s done me no favours, and my confidence is ebbing away by the second. This time I approach him slowly, feinting left and right, working an opening that never comes. A jab catches my chin, rocking my head back. I don’t even see the second punch that smashes into my stomach, or the third that puts me on the floor.
I’m disorientated, dizzy, struggling for breath as the footman looms over me, dragging me up by my hair and stretching for his knife.
‘Hey!’ shouts Anna.
It’s the slightest of distractions, but it’s enough. Slipping free of the footman’s hold, I kick his knee, then launch my shoulder up into his face, breaking his nose, blood splattering my shirt. Reeling backwards down the corridor, he grabs hold of a bust and hurls it at me one-handed, forcing me to leap aside as he flees around the corner.
I want to go after him, but I don’t have the strength. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, clutching my aching ribs. I’m shaken and unnerved. He was too fast, too strong. If that fight had gone on any longer, I’d be dead, I’m certain of it.
‘You bloody idiot!’ yells Anna, glowering at me. ‘You almost got yourself killed.’
‘Did he catch sight of you?’ I say, spitting out the blood in my mouth.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says, reaching out a hand to help me up. ‘I kept to the shadows, and I doubt he was seeing much after you broke his nose.’
‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ I say. ‘I honestly thought we could catch hold of him.’
‘You damn well should be,’ she says, surprising me with a fierce hug, her body trembling. ‘You have to be careful, Aiden. Thanks to that bastard, you’ve only got a few hosts left. If you make a mistake, we’re going to be stuck here.’
Realisation hits me like a rock.
‘I only have three hosts left,’ I repeat, stunned.
Sebastian Bell fainted after seeing the dead rabbit in the box. The butler, Dance and Derby were slain, and Ravencourt fell asleep in the ballroom after watching Evelyn commit suicide. That leaves Rashton, Davies and Gregory Gold. Between the split days and leaping back and forth, I lost count.
I should have seen it immediately.
Daniel claimed he was the last of my hosts, but that can’t be true.
A warm blanket of shame pulls itself over my body. I can’t believe I was so easily deceived. So willingly deceived.