Gavar Jardine.
The Equal who’d blown up the prison after they’d freed Oz. Who had inflicted agony on hundreds of people like it was nothing at all. That same Gavar Jardine had spirited Luke out of Millmoor – because Daisy asked him to?
Luke shook his head, uncomprehending.
‘Looks like Gavar’s idea of a plan involved blunt force and a delivery van,’ the boy continued, smirking. ‘Seems about right. I’m sure Jenner will tell you all about it. I’m done here. For now.’
He walked off towards what Luke realized must be the estate gate. The light flared again and Luke heard the murmur of voices. Then one set of hooves faded away at a trot and the other came slowly towards him, accompanied by a beam of torchlight.
Normal torchlight, not freaky magical light.
‘You must be Luke Hadley,’ said another posh voice, which turned out to belong to a guy cursed with both red hair and superabundant freckles. He was leading a horse that snorted in the icy air. ‘I’m Jenner Jardine. I do apologize for all that. It’s not pleasant, but it is necessary. Welcome to Kyneston. I’ll take you to your family; they’re going to be so glad to see you.’
Jenner pulled out a penknife and sawed through Luke’s bonds, then passed him the blanket, which Luke wrapped round his shoulders like a poncho. The Equal led the way through a huge fancy gate, all twirls and swirls and lit up like a Christmas tree, which was set into a faintly glowing wall.
After that, they walked across what felt like mile after mile of countryside. A vast area of England hidden from the common people, who would never walk here or even see this place. It was theft, really, Luke thought. Theft of something that should belong to everyone, locked up for the enjoyment of a few.
They skirted the edge of a wood, and Luke ducked and swore as a bat flew straight at him. Jenner laughed, though not unkindly, and explained that the creatures used the treeline to navigate. From somewhere far off came a chilling shriek, which Jenner said was an owl. Things rustled among the trees. Foxes? Or maybe weasels? It seemed like everything here was busy hunting everything else: the animals with wings and claws going after the animals with neither.
How appropriate.
They eventually arrived at a row of small cottages, all built in stone and neatly whitewashed, bright in the moonlight. It was ridiculously twee. Mum must love it.
Jenner hammered on the door and after a few moments Dad opened it, a dressing gown hanging off his shoulders. Dad did a double-take and pulled Luke into his arms for a neck-cracking, back-thumping man-hug, then Mum and the girls crowded out the doorway. Briefly, brilliantly, Luke forgot that anything else existed apart from his family. They all seemed safe, well, and in bits to see him again.
The feeling was mutual.
The kitchen clock was showing nearly 1 a.m., but they talked for ages round the table. At some point a baby started crying and Daisy excused herself to soothe it. The child was Heir Gavar’s daughter, Dad said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to have the kid of a magical psychopath asleep in a cot upstairs.
Luke recalled his first sight of the heir, striding through the corridor of the detention centre while he and the Doc dragged Oz to freedom. He remembered hoping that his little sister’s path never crossed with Gavar’s, and almost laughed at the irony.
But once his thoughts had veered hundreds of miles north to Jackson and Millmoor, then to the club and the rioters, Luke couldn’t quite get back on track with the family reunion.
Mum noticed him zoning out and ordered everyone to bed, saying that he must be exhausted. He wasn’t, of course. The Equal at the gate – Silyen Jardine, Abi said – had seen to that. But Luke didn’t let on.
He lay awake in the darkness, trying and failing to duck the thoughts that flapped about his head. What had happened in front of the MADhouse after Kessler had coshed him? Where was the Doc? Were Renie, Asif and the others safe? Injured? Captured? What had Silyen Jardine done to him?
And the last thought before he drifted off: what would happen to him now?
Luke spent the weekend lying in, luxuriating in the soft bed and the privacy of a room all of his own, trying to adjust to his new circumstances. Mum clucked around, bringing up bowls of soup and sandwiches. Dad told him about Lord Jardine’s vintage car collection and a tricky carburettor problem he’d solved the previous week. Daisy carried in the baby to show him.
Luke wished she hadn’t. Sure, the little girl looked normal enough. Cute, even. But did she have Skill? That was a creepy thought. All that power inside something so small.
Except it seemed she didn’t, because the kid’s mother wasn’t an Equal, just a slavegirl. (And how had that happened, Luke thought darkly? Had Gavar Jardine seen something he liked and just taken it?)
‘So where is her mum?’ he asked, once the baby had been put back in its cot, out of earshot.