“They were on your tail.”
“Yes, they were,” Jonah said resentfully. “They caught up with me Wednesday afternoon. I got away, just, but I was running all night. I didn’t want to lead them to you. I shook them off eventually and lay low in the timber yard. By then I’d realised that the important thing was to get to Hemel Hempstead in time, even if I didn’t see you, so I was going to have a couple of hours’ rest and get over there. But the sods found me.” He shuddered. “I fought, Ben, really I did. It was Thursday morning. I knew what was going to happen at noon. I’ve never fought so hard in my life. But I lost, and they got me down, and then…”
“The carriage.”
“I told you,” Jonah whispered. “I said you had to let me go. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You could have told me something,” Ben said. “Surely. You could have trusted me—”
“But you didn’t trust me. I was a thief who’d lied to you for months. If I’d started babbling about you being in danger— And it was eleven o’clock, Ben, I heard the bells, I had to get miles over open ground… So I did it. You know what I did.”
“Did you use magic on me?” Ben’s voice was thick and gritty. “To make me kiss you?”
Jonah’s smile was painfully sad and twisted. “I tried, but I had iron on me, it stops the power. So I don’t think it worked. I think that was just us, Ben. Just you.”
Ben tried to speak. He couldn’t find words.
“But I tried to,” Jonah said. “And I left you there, on your own, and you went to prison for it, and I am sorry, Ben, so sorry, but… I got to Lady Bruton three minutes before noon, and you weren’t dead.”
There was a long silence. Jonah was breathing hard. Ben found it hard to breathe at all.
“Then?” he managed.
“Two months working for the Bruton bitch.” Jonah tipped his head back, contemplating the ceiling of the compartment as the train rattled along. “Newhouse tore your picture at the edges every so often, to keep my mind on the task in hand. So I stole and impersonated and carried messages, and helped them kill policemen and entrap justiciars. I did try to get out. I even talked to Day, but it didn’t go very well. I don’t like justiciars, and they don’t like me, and I was so angry all the time, it felt as though I was going mad. And mostly I couldn’t say anything. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about the painter, you see. Bruton would fluence me every now and then, and ask me questions, and if they found out I’d talked about him, they’d have killed you. Day was no help, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to turn, so I just kept doing what I was told, right up to the end.”
“How did it end?”
“Oh, God, it was horrible. Newhouse had done a sketch of Crane, and they used that threat to capture Day. Then I had to fetch Crane so Lady Bruton could use Day to threaten him. Turn and turn about. She had it all worked out but…” He shuddered. “That man, Crane, he frightens me. He seemed to plan everything in the time it takes me to decide what to have for luncheon. He brought down the whole gang of them, all practitioners. Decapitated one with his bare hands.”
“That isn’t possible,” Ben said, hoping he was right.
“Maybe not, but I saw him do it. I tell you what, there’s something really odd about him. Anyway, he took the man’s head off, and his henchman, who is the most appalling brute, cut the painter’s throat. So all I had to do was be sure your picture could no longer hurt you, and then I ran like the devil was at my heels, because he was.”
“Why didn’t you stay?” Ben demanded. “Explain yourself? You were acting under duress, Day must have seen that. Surely he’d have understood you were forced to it.”
“Maybe I should have.” Jonah looked rather awkward. “The problem was, I didn’t know if the power to hurt lay in the painter or the painting. Whether only Newhouse could rip the sketch and kill you, or if anyone could. So even when Newhouse was dead, I didn’t know if you were safe. And I didn’t know where your picture was, and Lady Bruton was still fighting, with Day in iron, and I had no reason to suppose Crane could beat her, and I wasn’t going to help him if that risked you. It was an impossible situation. I didn’t have any choice.”
Ben had a distinct sense of impending doom. “What did you do?”
“I tore up Crane’s picture.”
“Tore…”
“The painter had it in his hand,” Jonah explained. “And I thought, if I tore it and it didn’t kill him, that would prove you were safe. So I did.”