Felt her breath stop in her throat as she saw the last person she would have imagined.
Dog, silhouetted against the brightness, walked to and fro across the sheared-off side of the mansion. He wore filthy overalls and a small pack on his back, and was plainly searching for something.
He owed her a favour. And he had more reason than most to hate the Jardines. Perhaps he could help her find Luke. She started to pick her way towards him, lifting the hem of her dress over rubble and ruin.
The shattered house was a disturbing spectacle. With one wall gone, Kyneston’s interior was entirely exposed, like a doll’s house. Equals and slaves were visible, moving around within. If any hand was moving them, Abi didn’t like to think what sort of game it was playing.
‘I think I prefer it like this,’ said a voice right behind her. ‘It’s much easier to see what people are up to, wouldn’t you agree?’
Abi spun, knowing who it was by the shudder that ran through her, even before she saw him.
Silyen Jardine.
‘Dog needs a hand,’ he said, looking over to where Dog had stopped to remove the knapsack. ‘He’s about to run up against the same problem your brother did.’
‘What?’ Abi’s voice was sharp, but she didn’t care. What did Silyen Jardine know about what had happened to Luke?
But the boy was already off, his long legs striding easily over the debris beneath his feet. At one point he stepped right over a whimpering slave, bleeding into the dirt. Abi murmured an inaudible ‘sorry’ and did the same, trying to keep up.
Silyen and the hound were already speaking by the time she reached them.
‘You know the binding won’t let you,’ Silyen was saying.
Dog stared at him. The planes of his face were etched unnaturally sharp beneath the roughly scissored hair that furred his face. His eyes burned. His leash was wrapped tight around one hand, the length of it dangling loose.
Abi glanced past the pair of them and into the ripped-apart house. In the wall-less Great Solar in a high-backed armchair, her face streaked with soot and her eyes closed to the chaos outside, sat Lady Hypatia Vernay.
‘You laid it,’ growled Dog. ‘You can lift it.’
‘Of course I can.’ Silyen Jardine smiled. ‘But she is family. Why would I?’
Dog’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps he was remembering his canine self and considering sinking his teeth into the Young Master. But with visible effort, he controlled himself.
‘When you ask me for – a life in exchange. I’ll do it. I’ll owe you.’
Silyen paused, seeming to consider the offer. He could probably kill someone with Skill alone, Abi thought, remembering the dead deer and withered cherry tree in the autumn woods all those months ago. But then the boy nodded. In the same instant Dog winced. It was as if a bond tying his hands had been cut; a lock inside his brain picked.
Abi wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it looked a lot like permission given.
‘That’ll be three things you owe me,’ the Young Master told the man. ‘An escape, a life, and a name.’
‘A name?’
‘Don’t you want to know your name?’
‘Not mine.’ A terrible longing filled Dog’s eyes. ‘My wife’s.’
Silyen Jardine smiled. He leaned forward, placed his mouth close to Dog’s ear, and whispered. Then pulled back.
‘So I’ll see you later, as we arranged. I’ll be a bit busy until then.’
Dog stood staring intently at Silyen with something that wasn’t devotion, but wasn’t hatred either. It was gratitude, she decided – and this meant Silyen Jardine now had a larger claim on Dog’s assistance than she ever would. So much for that plan.
Dog wiped his nose and face on the arm of the overalls. He took the other end of the leash in his free hand, and wrapped it around his palm. Then he snapped both ends, testing his grip.
Without another word he turned his back on them and walked towards the house. Abi didn’t want to see what came next.
‘Busy night for all of us,’ said Silyen brightly. ‘I’ll get to your brother later. But I’ve something to do here first. I think you’ll enjoy it, Abigail.’
‘My brother?’
‘May be useful to me,’ Silyen said, waving a hand airily. ‘I sensed his potential that first night at the gate. But I’d better get going. I think my audience has recovered enough to pay attention.’
And the Equal was off again, walking easily through the chaos and confusion of the ballroom to its very centre – to where Abi had last seen her brother, blood-drenched and shaking.
Had Luke known what he was doing? Had he done it willingly?
She didn’t want to consider the idea, but if Abi was honest with herself, it was possible. Who knew what had happened to her little brother in Millmoor during the months they were all apart. The slavetown had been in a state of turmoil. She knew that much from Jenner’s cryptic comments, and from snatches of conversation between Lord Jardine and Heir Gavar that she’d heard as she passed unnoticed from room to room.
Had someone there preyed on Luke’s vulnerabilities? Twisted his mind and used him?
If that was how it had happened, Abi would find them out.