It proved an unrewarding exercise. The wall continued, low and featureless, exactly like the section they’d driven along. When it was time to turn, she paused to inspect the brickwork and was startled to discover that it gave off a faint radiance. It was barely perceptible in sunlight, but at night the wall would glow.
Abi worked up the courage to touch it. Her hand recoiled of its own accord – she’d been expecting something like an electric shock, she realized, but nothing had happened. Bolder, she brushed her fingers against the old mottled brickwork. But the wall appeared to be perfectly normal, apart from the dim luminescence. Was that Skill? Abi wondered if she could climb over, but this probably wasn’t the best moment to attempt it.
She made it back to her family with time to spare, relieved to see that her parents were finally making some kind of small talk. The remaining minutes were spent helping Daisy with her flower chain. Abi looped it round her sister’s neck. Let their new masters see she was only a little kid and should be treated as such.
‘Horses!’ said Daisy, hearing the muffled clop of shod hooves and eagerly looking up and down the road.
‘Not here,’ said Abi. ‘They’re on grass, on the other side of the wall. It must be someone coming.’
Was it the Young Master, who went everywhere on horseback?
She climbed to her feet and the four of them stood together, facing the wall.
Which is stupid, thought Abi, because there’s nothing there apart from solid bricks. Unless they’re going to blast a hole in it – or fly over.
But she couldn’t make herself smile at the ludicrous image because the truth was she had no idea what the Equals could do. Nobody did. You just saw them on the TV or the internet, or in celebrity magazines. They looked like everyone else, to be honest. Groomed and gorgeous, of course, but all that took was money, not Skill.
Information on the Equals’ true abilities just didn’t exist. Apart from the famous stories of the Equal Revolution – Lycus the Regicide’s unnatural killing of King Charles, and Cadmus Parva-Jardine’s Great Demonstration when he built the House of Light – History textbooks banged on about affairs of state, not Skill. In her favourite novels, hot male Equals blew up Ferraris and mind-controlled bad guys, but Abi was hardly going to put much store by their accuracy.
The best clues were news reports from the handful of countries that, like Great Britain, were ruled by the Skilled. Such as Japan, where the entire country’s cherry trees burst into blossom in a single instant every spring, in a public display of the Imperial Family’s power. In the Philippines, Skilled priests regularly repelled dangerous weather systems that threatened their islands. What were Britain’s Equals capable of? Abi wasn’t sure.
But she was about to find out. A mixture of excitement and apprehension closed up her throat. This was what she’d postponed her future to discover. Could it possibly be worth it?
Then it happened almost too fast for astonishment. Daisy squealed.
Directly in front of the Hadleys a gate appeared. The ornamental ironwork was a gilded riot of cleverly wrought birds and flowers. It reared up to twice the height of the wall and gleamed with a strange, intense light. Through its elegant, open tracery, two male figures on horseback were now visible.
With a start, Abi realized that they were both close to her own age. One wore a navy-blue cable-knit jumper and sat upright on a beautiful chestnut horse. His hair was the same rich russet – the famous Jardine colouring – and his face was open and handsome. The other horse was an unremarkable, all-black animal. Its rider sported muddy black jeans and creased tan riding boots. His jacket lapel was ripped and flapped loose. Surely the redhead was the Young Master, and the other a favoured slave, perhaps a groom.
But the black horse’s rider was the first to urge his mount towards them. He flicked his fingers carelessly and the massive gates began to swing open. The two horsemen passed beneath the entwined initials that surmounted the arch: the Parva-Jardine family monogram. It seemed to Abi that the top of the P tenderly kissed the J, and the curve of the J embraced the P.
The scruffy young rider swung a leg over his saddle and dropped lightly to the ground. He handed up the reins to his companion and walked to where the Hadleys stood. Abi felt the power crackle off him like static, lifting the hairs along her arms and neck, and knew instantly that she’d got it all wrong.
This boy, not the other, was the Young Master.
He didn’t look much. Around the same age as Luke, he was taller than her brother, but skinnier. Badly in need of a haircut. But dread squeezed Abi’s insides as he approached.
He stopped in front of her father. Dad opened and closed his mouth in silence, clearly unnerved.