“I … don’t like the idea,” said Edwin. “It was worse for Prest than it was for Bastoke, and I don’t think it was because Bastoke’s the stronger magician. There’s more magic in it now. It’s still filling up. It would have begun with all the magicians here tonight, but there are so many more of them in Britain. And if the ley lines absorb it, who says we ever get it back?”
“I don’t think you do anyway,” said Jack. He didn’t bother to soften it. He forced himself not to look at where Alan lay. “Not without—what happened to Elsie. You said it yourself. It’s been made whole, and won’t be divided again.”
Edwin stared at him, eyes wide with dismay. Before he could reply, a startled yelp sounded—Maud—and turned to a sound of outright pain.
George was on his feet again. Bleeding and magicless, he had somehow managed to wrench Maud’s pearl-handled pistol away from her. At least that was all he’d done: she was clutching her wrist, wincing, but looked otherwise unhurt.
The small, pretty weapon looked absurd in George’s hand, though there was nothing laughable about the way he moved it back and forth between Robin and Jack as if unable to decide which of them he most wanted to destroy.
Jack felt—something. Not a change in the air, this time. Deeper and more internal, or perhaps more earth-bound, as if he stood with his back turned to a river and became aware of it flowing faster.
A delicate crack of light glowed on George’s forehead and was gone. The gun had come to a halt pointed at Jack, and George … did not move so much as his finger where it gripped the trigger.
His face was ravaged by exhaustion and anger, his gaze poured hate at Jack, but he did not move.
“This has gone far enough,” said the Countess of Cheetham.
Her voice had sea-cave echoes. Jack stared at her where she stood, still close to the stage but not on it. She really had been keeping it all under wraps: all the hurt, all the grief, all the violence. Jack had never in his life seen his mother look like this. Nor, by the way he was staring, had Lord Cheetham.
She took a deep breath and was Polly again, though icy as the lake beneath her feet.
“George Bastoke,” she said. “You will not lift another finger against me and mine. I revoke your guest-right. You are welcome no longer on the land of Cheetham Hall. You are decidedly unwelcome.”
Maud, always braver than anyone expected, came and took her gun back. George’s fingers did not resist her, though his eyes darted to her with hate and fear. Maud gave him a thin smile and pocketed the pistol.
“There. Whenever you’re ready, Lady Cheetham,” said Maud.
A chunk of ice exploded at George’s feet, and he was abruptly released. He swayed on his feet. And then he turned, awkward with pain, and ran. Jack could feel the land directing George as he fled, guiding his feet where it wanted him to go. Off the stage—the crowd drew back hurriedly to make room—and off the lake, not by the bridge but the closest bank where frosted reeds stood motionless. George stumbled across grass.
He’d moved out of the well-lit areas designated for the gala, so it was difficult for Jack to make out what happened next. Above the shadowy figure of George appeared a new shadow, like a small and shifting cloud. Swarming. It was drawing down, and closer.
There was a short, muffled cry as the shadows merged and became for a while a single, thrashing, collapsing shape.
And then silence.
Jack felt it as a knot of vindictive pain deep in the Hall’s land tightened for a moment and then released itself and was gone.
“All right, I officially don’t understand what’s happening,” said Robin. His voice cut loudly across the quiet. “Hawthorn—you froze the lake. Have you your magic back again? And Lady Cheetham still has hers?”
“Only them. Because of where we are,” said Edwin.
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” said Jack.
This was the shape he had been grasping at ever since his mother told him about repairing the Hall’s hurt. He looked down at his mother, who now had the faintly embarrassed air of any hostess who’d been forced to banish a guest for bad behaviour. And he looked at Dufay, who was looking back. “The gifts of the dawn and the wages of the dusk. The ley lines belong to every magician, you said? Their magic was ours before the fae ever arrived in this place. Wages, not gifts. Every spell an agreement between a magician and the land.”
He waited for Dufay to nod.
“Edwin. Do one of Flora Sutton’s spells.”
Edwin blinked at him.
“Think about drawing on Sutton, if that helps. At a distance. Just as you did in London.”
“We’re not even on the same ley line,” said Edwin.
“It won’t matter. Don’t think about cradles—you’ve broken a priez-vous without them, haven’t you? Think about that second language.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” Jack was far from as certain as his tone suggested. But it was the tone that was important when telling a soldier that he could strap on his helmet and go into a fight. Jack cut his eyes to the magicless, agitated crowd and added, quieter, “And if you can, then others might be able to learn.”
Edwin was silent a few heartbeats longer. Jack didn’t blame him. They were lucky Edwin had walked away from the Barrel at all, and Jack was telling him to replicate it.
Edwin closed his eyes. His grip on Jack’s arm loosened, and he lifted his other hand. Several long, long moments passed. Several more.
“I say—” said someone in the stair crowd, in tones of complaint, and Violet shushed them harshly.
A tiny crease appeared in Edwin’s brow. Lines beside his lips. He moved his fingers in a fluid motion like sleepy cradlespeech, set them to his bandaged wrist, and drew them along his arm.
Blue light followed in their wake.
When Edwin opened his eyes, more than the new furrow vanished from his expression, as if half of his pain had disappeared as well. Perhaps it had. That spell had the look of healing to it.
“Good, excellent, glad that worked, whatever it was,” said Robin in a rapid undertone. “Now. Would someone like to tell me what to do with this?”
This was the allstone. Jack had the desperate wish to be back on a ship and able to throw the damn thing into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. But who knew what effect that much magic would have on any place. Leaving a mark on ley lines wouldn’t be the half of it.
Jack looked at Edwin, and then at Violet—who was still seated next to Alan’s unconscious form, and who cradlespoke no change. No despair; no relief. Jack was a lighthouse himself, now, spinning and seeking in the dark. He turned back to his mother and Dufay.
“If we can’t reverse what was done to the Last Contract,” he said, “then we will break it.”
Dufay’s eyebrows rose. She didn’t bother with stairs, simply hauled herself up onto the stage by grabbing its edge like the pommel of a saddle. Her face was both more ancient and more girlish, and for once there was more curiosity in it than judgement.
She shook her sleeves into neat folds. Suddenly those robes did not look ridiculous at all, flowing white and green against the ice. Suddenly, despite the chaos and the blood and the rugby-match air, this was ceremony.
“And do you speak for all magicians, son of my line?”