Lord Jardine turned to Crovan and beckoned him forward. Would the man be going back to Scotland with two prisoners, not one?
‘You can’t Condemn Equals,’ yelled the woman at the back, who began stumbling down the stairs towards the front of the chamber.
‘Lady Tresco.’ Lord Jardine purred the name, but it was a lion’s purr, full of teeth and blood. ‘How gratifying that you finally appreciate the principle of “one law for us, and one law for them”. But I have no intention of Condemning young Meilyr. Simply correcting him.
‘Arailt has been working on such an intervention for some time. Should it prove effective, your son will be able to return to Highwithel this evening having learned the error of his ways. Gavar, ensure Armeria does not interfere.’
Gavar moved to intercept the woman, barring her way before she reached the bottom of the stairs.
No one else moved. In the centre of the second row, the blonde leaned forward intently, her perfect face hard as marble.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Jackson, his voice calm.
‘Doing?’ Lord Jardine smiled. ‘Well, a dangerous beast has its claws pulled. So what to do with a dangerous Equal, hmm?’
He nodded at Crovan. The man turned to Jackson, his glasses flashing in the sunlight, and the Doc winced.
But though the Doc looked away, his grimace remained. Deepened. Twisted into a look of unmistakable pain.
‘What are you doing?’ he said again, in a voice clotted with horror. ‘No.’
He staggered and dropped to one knee. One hand clutched his head. The other clenched into a fist – and the tall, immaculate form of Lord Crovan went up in flames.
Crovan gasped and slammed a hand down through the air. Jackson sprawled to the floor, felled. Still Crovan burned. Luke could feel the heat from where he stood, though there was no singeing. No smell. The man beat at his arms and legs, and where he touched the flame died. He smoothed his fingers up his face and back through his hair, and the last of the fire was wrung out at the ends like water.
The Doc dragged himself onto all fours, the effort it cost him clear in his face. He looked up at his opponent and Luke saw tears leaking from the corner of each eye. Tears of pure gold.
The woman Gavar was restraining began to scream – harrowing, inhuman shrieks. An animal seeing its cub in a trap.
Jackson lifted one hand from the floor. The gold stuff was dripping from beneath his fingernails now. A thin line of it trickled from his eardrum to his throat. He chopped down. Everyone heard the crack as both of Crovan’s legs broke and the man fell to the floor. Jackson chopped again. Another crack. Crovan screamed and writhed, his arms falling unnaturally by his side.
Luke gasped, seeing the last of the Doc Jackson he knew disappear in this desperate, unimaginably powerful Heir Meilyr. Fighting for his life. Or something more.
The Doc crawled over to where Crovan lay and wrapped both hands around his neck. And squeezed.
An airless keening escaped Crovan’s lips, and for a moment, despite the horror of it all, Luke exulted. The man was getting what he deserved. Payback for Dog. Payback for whatever sick things he did behind the walls of his castle to men and women who’d defied this race of monsters that called themselves ‘Equals’.
Then he realized it was a hiss of triumph.
The air around Meilyr burst into a fine golden mist. It sprayed up from his body as if exploding from every pore. He was too dazzling to look at. Luke put a hand to his cheek to wipe it off, whatever it was. He remembered the woman in front of him in the MADhouse square, her skull blasted apart by Grierson’s rifle. The spatter and the gore.
But his fingers came away clean. The golden substance was light itself, Luke thought. Lighter than air. It rose upward, spreading, thinning. Finally gathering like a bright vapour beneath the gleaming glass of the East Wing’s roof. Then with a blinding flare, it was gone.
In front of Luke, Crovan was sitting up, flexing his arms, bending his now undamaged legs.
But Heir Meilyr – Doc Jackson – was huddled in a heap. He was sobbing like his heart had been broken in two. Like his soul itself had shattered.
Like his Skill had been ripped out and annihilated.
Epilogue
Abi
The car had taken Luke in the middle of the night.
Abi’s Condemned brother and his jailer, Lord Crovan, had been driven out of Kyneston’s gate straight to a helicopter. By the time his family learned he was gone, Luke was already halfway to Scotland and whatever fate awaited him at Eilean Dòchais.
Jenner had brought word at breakfast, by which point the Hadleys had been sleepless for nearly twenty-four hours. Dad had crumpled at the news, and Mum had simply laid her head against his shoulder and cried. It was such a perfect nightmare that Abi was almost – almost – grateful for the distraction of what Jenner said next.
‘Jackie, Steve, you and Abi will need to pack your bags quickly. You’re being sent to Millmoor this afternoon.’
‘Millmoor?’ Dad looked baffled.
But Mum had caught the word that Jenner hadn’t said.