“How is this different?”
“Because this isn’t a dinosaur dig or a fancy conference you’re missing. We’re not searching for the bones of some long-dead monster—we’re walking into a nest full of live ones.”
“I don’t see you practicing your arpeggios.”
“What?”
“You’re not waiting at home right now. Did your parents tell you to run off and fight magical beasts? Or did you finally decide to just stop listening when people told you to sit and stay?”
I considered her words. “Fair enough,” I said. “I guess you’re coming with us, then?”
“She’s not coming,” said Jackaby, swinging around the corner.
“I am not going to wait here while Kazimir goes and—”
“Yes,” said Jackaby. “You are going to wait here. But so is he. Charlie will be staying.”
“What?” Alina and I said together.
“Sir,” I added, “we need Charlie.”
“We do. We need him here. I have given the matter some thought. We do not need numbers for the mission in which we are currently engaged. We need stealth and subterfuge. You and I can manage that on our own. Jenny will come as well. An agent who can become literally invisible and physically intangible is an asset, but the more bodies we bring behind enemy lines, the greater our risk of detection.”
“You can’t seriously expect the three of us to defeat the Dire King all by ourselves?”
“No,” he said. “Our role is not to defeat the Dire King, but to make defeating the Dire King possible. If we can undermine their defenses, we will leave the Dire King’s forces vulnerable. I need leadership here. Charlie is my strongest general. Chief Nudd and Mr. Hudson should be back by daybreak to assist him, and the rest of our allies will be arriving throughout the day.”
“And if we should fail?” I asked.
“Let’s not, shall we? Whatever comes, the rest falls to Charlie.”
There was silence for a beat, and then Jackaby clapped his hands together. “Right!” he said, and marched off down the hall again. “Let’s go collect our ghost and vampire and get moving while we still have a few good hours of darkest night left ahead of us.”
Charlie’s eyes were locked on mine. “Come back alive,” he whispered.
“That is the plan,” I said, as gamely as I could manage. “And if I do . . .” I put a hand on his chest and tried to ignore Alina, who was watching intently.
“Miss Rook!” Jackaby hollered from the head of the stairs. “While it’s still dark out!”
I caught up with Jackaby on the stairs.
“I think we kept that appropriately upbeat, don’t you?” Jackaby mused.
“Upbeat, sir?”
“I am loath to dishearten Mr. Barker with the full gravity of our situation when he needs to remain optimistic. Of course, the reality is that we may be murdered by Pavel immediately, attacked by some rogue monster on our way to the rend, or assassinated by the recently liberated Morwen once we get there. Even if none of those things happens, reaching our destination still puts us squarely in the company of the most unfathomably powerful mage in the Annwyn, along with an army of the least savory creatures ever spawned. And that is only if we are able to cross the rend. Stepping through an unstable rift in the fabric joining parallel dimensional planes is stretching the definition of foolish.”
“We’re going to die,” I said.
“Only probably.”
“And you didn’t want to dishearten Mr. Barker with that assessment?”
“Seemed cruel.”
“Quite.” I swallowed.
“Nobody needs that dread hanging over their head.”
“No, certainly not.”
“Ready?”
“My extremities might be numb. Is that normal?”
“I’m sure it is. Come along.”
“But what does the machine do, exactly?” Jenny asked for the third time since we had left the house. Over her translucent shoulder was slung Jackaby’s satchel. She had tucked within it the wooden stake and a handful of other protective implements and charms.
“I don’t know what it does,” Pavel replied. “It’s big.”
“How big?”
“I’ve never been good with all the technical nonsense—I just know that it is the crux of the Dire King’s strategy. You should have seen him when his first one was destroyed. There was a lot of blood that night. He had been preparing for his rise back then, but he had to delay another decade just to get it right. The machine is his obsession. Without it, the veil does not fall.”
“And you never bothered to ask how it works?”
“You don’t ask the Dire King questions.”
“It’s fine,” said Jackaby. “Based on our experience with Owen Finstern’s device, the full-scale machine will probably have something to do with energies or vital forces.” Owen Finstern was Morwen’s twin brother, the king’s bastard son. The king had been more concerned with stealing his son’s unique device than he had been with preserving his son’s life. “Whatever it is, we will just have to sort out what it is and how to sabotage it when we get there.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve got the eyes for it,” Pavel said. “The Dire King wants those eyes. He had very strict rules about killing you because of those eyes. He never could get inside that head of yours to use them, though. It tickles me that instead of using your eyes to fine-tune his device, you will be using them to tear it apart. It’s the little things, really.”
“If the Dire King wanted Jackaby’s sight to help him finish his machine,” I said, “then it can’t be operational, can it?”
“The Dire King always has alternative solutions.”
“What sort of alternative solutions?”
“Hatun,” Jackaby said flatly. “Hatun is the only other person I know of who occasionally sees things as I see them.”
“That means she’s more likely to be alive,” I reassured him.
“They’ll be amassing an army, too,” Pavel added. “So, expect that.”
“Of course they will,” I said.
“Not just any army,” Pavel continued. “The worst the Annwyn has to offer. They will be waiting to flood into the human world as soon as the veil begins to crumble. This front line of monsters is supposed to prime the pump, wreaking havoc and leaving fear and chaos in its wake. The Dire King speaks often about balance,” Pavel explained. “Order and chaos. He says creatures of chaos have too long been suppressed while their brethren are celebrated. The Unseelie fae eat it up whenever he talks like that. They get all frothy and wild-eyed.”
“And you swallowed that maniac’s nonsense?”
Pavel shrugged. “I swallowed fresh blood from fluted glasses. I have never hunted so often or lived in such luxury. Have you ever slept in a silk-lined coffin? Organized chaos is surprisingly lucrative.”
“So, we need to sneak past an entire army undetected, and then work out how to disable an exotic technology that nobody fully understands,” I said. “Anything else we should know?”
“That’s about it. Oh, and try not to die too close to each other.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.