“A note was delivered to me early this morning,” said Violet to Edwin. “A note from you. It said that you wanted the cup on hand, just in case—that you might need it for an affinity spell. A last step in finding the knife, if it had been split into pieces like the coin was. The note said to bring it along, and … not to tell anyone.”
“And you didn’t talk to me about it?” Edwin all but shouted.
“It was written in your hand,” she snarled. “Do you think I don’t know it by now?”
“It was me,” said Alan. Still with no expression in his voice at all. Alan, who forged references for his sisters, and who’d said of Jack’s letter to the Roman, I could reproduce the handwriting exactly. Who’d sat at Violet’s table as they planned all of this, writing with Edwin’s notebook open in front of him.
“Miss Debenham, I won’t ask again.”
Violet’s fists clenched and her gaze flicked to the door. She was more cautious than Robin, but her temper was worse when it was roused.
“Don’t lose your head, Violet,” said Jack sharply. “Hand it over.”
Her angry look transferred to Jack and altered. For all Jack knew, he was about to be accused of working with Alan and George, given what Violet suspected about his feelings— ex-feelings—oh, to hell with it.
Jack said, “Ross is a dirty rat working for bigger rats, and he’ll get what’s coming to him in the end. There’s no point fighting when the odds are so poor. We’re all still alive and unhurt. Be sensible.”
Violet swallowed hard.
“Fuck,” she said again, now thick with misery, and rummaged in a pocket of her skirt. She pulled out a velvet pouch and then, at George’s gesture, undid the drawstring to tip a small silver bowl onto his waiting hand.
The cup of the Last Contract had barely changed when Edwin cast rectification on it. The fern design had appeared, engraved on the inner surface, a circular pattern beneath the brim. Otherwise it was still a bowl, the size of one of Maud’s cupped hands, and had spent several years inside the cage of a parrot called Dorian.
A proper smile spread across George’s face as he turned it to and fro, then took the bag from Violet. Now he had all three: coin, cup, and knife.
They’d set out today to be ahead by two pieces and had instead lost all of them in a handful of minutes.
“Excellent work, Mr. Ross,” said George.
“We’re done?” Alan said shortly.
“Yes. You’ve fulfilled your end of the deal.”
Alan pushed off the wall and came to stand in front of George.
“Waiting to be paid?” Violet shot at him. “Go on. Let’s see you put your paws up and beg.”
Even more colour had left Alan’s face. Jack had seen this look on men approaching an unexploded grenade.
Alan said to George, with familiar defiance, “Do you need me to stick my tongue out, then?”
Jack found himself licking his lips. Alan had asked him—How much did it hurt?
Because George didn’t believe in carelessness or mercy. He’d not employ an unmagical man and then leave him able to talk about it afterwards. Alan would have known that all along.
“No.” George tucked the bowl in another pocket and began to cradle. The spell was a soft, sickly yellow in his hands. “I’ve had reason to find the loopholes in secret-binds recently. Myself, I prefer something a little more definite.”
“What the bloody hell do you mean, definite?”
“Language, Mr. Ross,” said George. “Don’t let Miss Debenham drag us all into vulgarity. When was that voyage of yours?” One finger moved, defining a clause. “Let’s have the last four months, to be safe.”
“The last four months of what?” Alan’s voice rose.
“Of your memory,” said Edwin. He didn’t even sound vindictive about it. He was eyeing the yellow spell with unease.
“What—no—” Alan tried to retreat. The oh-so-helpful Hartley got in his way. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“People lose their memory from knocks on the head every day.” George nodded at Hartley, who took Alan by both shoulders. “I’m sure your dear family will fill you in on anything important.”
Alan stopped struggling. Despite his exceedingly mixed feelings, most of Jack wanted to growl in dismay, watching the fight drain out of that fierce, flawless face. He was abruptly certain that Alan hadn’t been paid a penny. George wasn’t wasteful. He didn’t operate by quid pro quo when he could get the same results through other means.
“There,” said George. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
He raised his hands to either side of Alan’s head. Alan put up his own hands as if he could fight it off, and his eyes screwed shut. His lips pulled taut over his teeth. It didn’t look like pain so much as the effort it took to pick yourself up and keep fighting when you were bruised in every limb and tiredness was hibernating in your bones.
George frowned.
It occurred to Jack that if he were Alan Ross then he wouldn’t have told George Bastoke one single thing about the existence of perturbators.
“Sir?” said Hartley.
“Not to worry.” George drew himself upright. The yellow of the spell brightened and pulsed around Alan’s curling hair. Alan’s eyes flew open for a shocked moment. He gave a guttural cough, as if spitting out seawater, and then collapsed in a heap at George’s feet.
The image flashed before Jack of a secret-bind slipping between his sister’s unmoving lips. His body jerked as if struggling up from sleep.
George had Hartley drag the unconscious Alan to lie against the wall, out of the way—“Have him taken outside later. Leave him on a park bench, or in a gutter outside a pub.” George then cradled another spell that took the form of glowing white chalk, and sketched a series of runes onto the nearest piece of wall. They shone bright and then disappeared.
“What does that do?” asked Edwin, who was still Edwin even when arrested and in peril.
“A summons,” said George.
Jack caught Robin’s gaze. The question was whether they ought to try anyway—whether desperation and numbers might let them overcome the Coopers before reinforcements arrived. They could open the door, but with Edwin and Violet hand-tied and unable to sketch runes, they’d be stuck navigating the Barrel’s physical space.
“What do you plan to do with us now?” Jack asked his cousin.
“That depends on how cooperative you plan to be,” said George. “The simplest path forward would be for all of you to make a voluntary blood-oath that you will never try to put your hands on the Last Contract again, or to interfere in any way with its use.”
Violet, Adelaide, and Robin all spoke at once, variations on a theme of violent disagreement.
Jack didn’t say anything. Neither did Edwin; he was staring at his hands as if he would drag them apart through force of will, even if it tore the skin bloodily from his palms. As Jack watched he raised his gaze to the map on the wall. He almost seemed to be staring past it, as Robin did when having a vision.
“No, I didn’t expect you to like that,” said George, meanwhile. “But the Coopers are not an unreasonable institution. The offer will remain open.”
The door handle glowed and the door opened yet again. This time it admitted Walter Courcey and Richard Prest.