Timothy ran hands over him and murmured softly, trying to calm him, but he spared a brusque nod to Emily. “That was good thinking, to run and get the sword stick.”
Emily looked down in alarm at the mahogany stick in her hand.
Sword stick
. It
had
seemed unnaturally heavy. Still, she lowered the tip carefully toward the floor and rested her hands on the knob.
She looked around the room at the ghosts, waiting for them to do something. But to her alarm, she saw they were beginning to fade.
“Timothy!” she cried, pointing.
Timothy lifted his head, looking first surprised, then angry.
“We cannot help him further,”
a tall one said sorrowfully.
Emily didn’t like that answer at all, but it made Timothy positively furious.
“You said he was your lord. You will not help your lord?”
“Lord of death, lord of destruction, lord of blood.” Charles cried out again and clapped his hands on the side of his head. Timothy swore and tried to calm him again.
“What is this?” Jonathan asked. He had propped himself against the wall and was cradling Madeline against him, but now he squinted at the ghosts with confusion. “What are you looking at? And why are you singing?”
“Cuckoo,” Charles whispered into Timothy’s chest. “Cuckoo in the nest. Monster waiting in the dark.”
“You’ve driven him mad!” Timothy shouted.
“We are sorry,”
the tall ghost said. And as one, they faded away.
“
What
are you shouting at?” Jonathan said again, more testily. “What is going on? How did we get here? What…?” He paused as if a memory had snagged him. “I remember water. Searching for Madeline in the water.”
“Charles said you were in the lake.” Emily’s hand tightened on the top of the sword stick. “That you and Madeline were with the beast in the lake.”
“It’s not a beast.” Madeline’s voice was quiet and weak and cold. “It is the Elliott daemon, and now it is a demon. It is not lost any longer. It is what the witches imprisoned in the lake, but they did not tell me. I do not think they knew. It lured me in as bait for Charles. Jonathan became trapped with me. He should have died, but somehow he didn’t. It was waiting for Charles—” She stopped, and a look of deep pain flashed across her face, and then she closed her eyes again.
Jonathan drew her closer, but Emily noticed she stiffened slightly in his arms. He looked at Charles, then at Timothy and Emily. “Explain.”
And so they told him—taking turns—about finding Madeline missing, about searching. About Whitby’s arrival with Alan. Emily held her breath at that part, but Timothy only said that he had “routed Whitby for the moment” and managed to find the cup and take it to safety.
Jonathan looked very relieved at that. “Where did you put it?”
“Somewhere safe,” Timothy said, carefully neutral.
Emily worried Jonathan would press further, but he seemed almost pleased that Timothy wouldn’t tell him and encouraged them to give him the rest of the story. They told him about arriving at the abbey, of finding Smith was here and searching. Emily started to tell about the secret rooms, but Timothy neatly cut her off and redirected the conversation.
“We have both had quite a bit of contact with the ghosts of the Old Ones,” he said. “They helped us sidestep Smith and led us to the tower just as Charles arrived with the pair of you, unconscious.”
“You both can see the ghosts?” Jonathan seemed impressed. “But wait—Charles
arrived
? With us? How? From where?”
And so they told him about what Charles had said about the Stone Circle and the Void. It sounded even more incoherent in their rehashing than when it had happened, but Jonathan only nodded through it, never once questioning their report.
“I went down to face Smith with him,” Timothy said, “but the alchemist was physically altered and clearly mad. He cast some enchantment on me before I could do a single thing, and so I did not see most of what happened. The next thing I knew Smith was a pile of ash and the ghosts were whipping around us, racing back up the stairs. Charles—”
Timothy exchanged a look with Emily. She knew what he was trying to explain, but she didn’t know how to describe what had happened, either. She didn’t know what Timothy had seen below, but when Charles came through the door, he had looked like a ball of living fire. He had looked wrong too, and so had the ghosts. They had looked too vacant, not the comforting shades she was accustomed to. In fact, they had looked almost
mean.
Timothy wiped his hand over his mouth, then shook his head. “He cast some sort of spell, but I think it got away from him toward the end. The ghosts have left, and they said they cannot help further.”
Emily leaned back against the wall, still clutching the sword stick handle. It was, the more she thought on it, oddly comforting to know there was a dangerous blade inside. “What do we do now?”
Jonathan looked down at Madeline, who had fallen asleep—or passed out, as might be more accurate. Emily saw that Charles had done the same.
“We let them rest, to start.” Jonathan looked around the tower room critically. “I think we should separate them, to be safe. I will take Madeline to the bedroom below. Charles can rest in the study. We will take shifts, sitting with them.”
The vision of Charles on fire flashed through Emily’s head. She did not want to be alone with him, even for a moment. But before she could find the way to say this, Timothy spoke. “No, I will stay with Charles myself, and we will keep him here. I’ll bring up the pallet I’ve been using for his bed. I don’t want to move him and risk waking him again.”
“I can make us a small supper,” Emily said.
“We have barely any food,” Jonathan said as if realizing a new problem. “And we don’t dare go into town, not a one of us.”
This time Emily looked straight at Timothy before she said anything at all, and he inclined his head in quiet approval. “That will not be a trouble,” she said. “We…brought some things with us.”
“Emily can’t wander about alone,” Jonathan insisted. “Smith may be gone, but Whitby isn’t. And I don’t think she—”
“Hush!” Timothy said sharply, holding up a hand. “Someone is on the stairs.”
Emily backed away from the door as Timothy and Jonathan struggled with how to carefully lower their charges, draw their weapons, and stand as quickly as possible. Jonathan started swearing when Charles stirred and began babbling again, softer this time, but it startled Madeline, and she began moving erratically in her sleep, her head threatening to bang on the stones as Jonathan struggled to get her safely down. When the footsteps sounded past the last landing, Emily found she was the only one standing and the only one armed.
“There’s a button on the side of the casing,” Jonathan whispered intensely at her. He nodded to the stick. “Push it to reveal the blade and pass it to me.”
Emily fumbled frantically with the sword stick, but she couldn’t find the button. Jonathan reached out, whispering again for her to hand it to him as it was, but when she tried to pass it over, Madeline shifted again, and he withdrew his hand.
The footsteps rounded the top of the landing, furious and intent with purpose, and the knob turned as the door began to open. Emily found the button and pressed it; the casing flew away, and she raised the shining blade over her head with a mighty shout as she placed herself between the intruder and the others.
The door swung open, and Stephen took an angry step inside. He saw Emily, paused, blanched, then stepped back, arms rising in quick surrender.
“I think Emily will be fine wandering around on her own,” Timothy said to Jonathan behind her.
Emily lowered the sword, but she kept it swinging at her side as she approached the door. “Stephen? What are you doing here?” Then she noticed his face and the bruises and swelling there, and she dropped the sword and ran to him. “What happened to you?”
The question seemed to give him his outrage back. He glared at her and raised a hand again, this time to hold her at bay. “What am I doing here? Playing the fool again, no doubt. I nearly went on to the inn without saying a word, but”—he nodded tersely at Jonathan—“I still owe you my honor, so I have come to warn you. Whitby is on the warpath. I don’t know if he’ll come tonight or in the morning, but expect him, and he’ll be coming for blood.”
Timothy swore, and Jonathan murmured something about the tower being as good as a fortress and talked about how to bar the door, but Emily could not stop looking at Stephen. His face was so battered, and now he was cut under his eye as well as down his cheek. Her careful stitches had been broken open too. “Stephen,” she said, reaching up to his face again. “Who did this to you?”
He touched his cheek self-consciously before hardening his expression once more. “Whitby’s cane has sharp corners.”
“But why? Do you mean he hit you with it?” She wished he would let her touch him. “
Why
?”
He smirked, then winced at that effort as well. “Because I was fool enough to defend you to him. Then he and that stupid Lennox whelp told me all about your
Catalian marriage
and how willing you were to reenact it in front of them!”
Emily turned eight shades of red and couldn’t speak. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jonathan’s eyebrows lift into his hair, but Timothy only glared at Stephen and spoke sharply. “You fool. Did it not occur to you that they lied or omitted pertinent details? That perhaps they were meant to be deceived?”
“Whitby was going to search the cottage for the cup, apparently,” Jonathan said to his brother. “He wanted the Perry daemon back. Be glad he did not find it, or he would have tried to put it into you.”
Stephen sobered a little at this but still bristled when he looked at Emily. “So he
didn’t
kiss you and make you swoon in his arms in front of Whitby and Lennox?”
Emily quickly lowered her eyes.
“Poor Stephen,” Timothy said acidly. “Afraid a foreign molly might have done a better job of wooing the lady than you?”
“Enough,” Jonathan said, but Emily thought he sounded amused, and she blushed harder. “This isn’t the army, nor is it a war.”
“I’m not quite certain,” Timothy said, not backing down. “Quite obviously there is nothing between Miss Emily and myself—though if there were, little boy, here’s a tip: pouting and tossing insults won’t win her back to your side. But even without this clumsiness, I have to wonder why you were let go so easily. The man I fenced with this morning at the cottage would never allow you to come and give this warning.”
Stephen looked confused and a little apprehensive. Emily frowned, privately agreeing with Timothy. Uneasiness spread inside her, darkening her thoughts. If Whitby had let Stephen go—
“Stephen is not a spy,” Jonathan said a little tightly. But when he said this, Emily saw Stephen blanch. It felt like a blow to her stomach.
Timothy saw it too. “You’ve come to visit quite often, Stephen. You came initially because you said you had something vital you must tell Jonathan, and yet I don’t recall this conversation ever happening. In fact, the other day I asked what had come of that, and Jonathan admitted you had never asked him anything at all.”
“Then how could he be a spy if he asked me nothing?” Jonathan snapped, making Madeline stir again. But Emily saw the doubt on his face as he looked at his brother.
“He could tell Lord Whitby what was happening here.” Her heart broke as she went on. “And at Rose Cottage.”
“I didn’t tell him anything important!” Stephen backed away, looking terribly guilty but also very miserable. “He kept telling me how worthless I was, kept telling me I was supposed to ask you all these things, and I wouldn’t, so he’d beat me until I gave him what he wanted to hear.”
“You didn’t look beaten before,” Timothy snapped.
“Whitby beats you on your back,” Jonathan said. “So the marks do not show.”
Emily remembered the day in the cottage when Stephen had flinched from her touch, and her empathy shifted again. She stepped closer to Stephen and tried once more to reach for him. This time he met her halfway, but he held her hand very tentatively.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Jonathan asked him.
“Because he said he’d tell you my secret,” Stephen whispered. “He said he’d tell everyone. But now he will for certain, so there’s no point in hiding it any longer.” He lowered his eyes to the floor as he continued. “I’m not a Perry. I’m a bastard. We found out last month; he was in the process of rewriting his will, and I had to retake the blood test as a formality, and it came back flagged. I’m not Neil Perry’s son. Mother apparently had an affair with the Minister of Foreign Affairs—Whitby had him killed, so I can’t meet him. They tested me when I was born, but I had cleared, so they didn’t bother inquiring further. Apparently Mother tricked the test somehow.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “He’ll tell everyone. Absolutely everyone.”
“But why would that matter?” Emily asked, feeling a bit piqued. “And why didn’t you tell me? You knew about
me
—”
“It’s not the same!” he snapped. “You didn’t build a life around a lie!”
“Hush,” Timothy snapped. He managed to extricate himself from Charles and stood, reaching for the knife on his belt. “Jonathan, we must assume he was followed. If this is all true, then Stephen is expendable to him. He would only have let him out to suit his purposes, and his purposes are to find both you and this daemon. We need to secure the tower—unless Stephen was forward thinking enough to lock the door behind him?” His tone indicated he believed Stephen had done nothing of the sort, and Stephen’s hot flush confirmed that, in fact, he had not.
Madeline still twitched when Jonathan laid her down, but he did not linger with her this time, glancing instead to Emily in silent request that she take his place, and Emily did so without hesitation as Jonathan fished within his clothes for his own weapon. He hesitated over the sword stick on his way to the door. Emily waited for him to pick it up and take it with him, but instead he passed it, handle first, to her.
Emily took it without a word, being careful not to slice open his hand. She felt a little dizzy as she held the gleaming blade as if she had just been knighted by a king. He smiled at her, then followed Timothy out the door.