"All the components are ready, then?"

"All of them, madam. They have been sourced from different firms so as to not arouse suspicion, and all have had the appropriate alchemical adjustments."

"Excellent. Then we shall begin a.s.sembling them this very night. Bring them to the cellar beneath this house. It links to a subterranean ca.n.a.l which emerges onto the river. We will then make our move tomorrow night."

The twelve figures nodded in unison.

"And what is our plan once we reach the forest?" one inquired, but Nimue held a finger to her mouth. She turned her head towards the door and flicked her palm. The lock clicked and the wooden frame sprang open, a middle-aged woman in servant clothes tumbling onto the carpet. She pulled herself up, eyes wide with fright, scanning the ice, the mirror, and the collection of dark figures before her.

Her mouth opened in a scream but, after another flick of Nimue's palm, nothing emerged but a frost-clouded breath. The door slammed behind her, and the lock clicked. The maid was hoisted off the floor by her throat and flung across the room, dropped hard before the mistress's throne.

"Listening in, were we?" Nimue whispered, her jaw set in a cold smirk. "Now that wasn't very polite, was it? I don't expect a provincial type like yourself to understand the magnitude of what we are attempting, but even so, whispers might find their way to the wrong ears..."

The maid's gaze was fixed on Nimue, but she became aware of something s.h.i.+fting behind her. The shadows thrown by the lamplight were congealing, rising off the floor and twisting upwards. Nimue's smirk broke into a tinkling laugh as the shadow reared and leapt. The maid's scream was never heard.

Jack, Bal, and Ruth returned to work the following morning unenthusiastic but energized. Jack still found the duration, fatigue, and hot conditions of the factory work nearly unbearable, but at least he knew their group would've progressed closer to their goal by the time he returned to The Kestrel's Quill. Now that he knew of his employer's a.s.sociation with Lady Osborne, the metal poles he and the other men were shaping intrigued him. Could these have some part in the Cult's plan, whatever it was? He saw an opportunity to delve a little deeper when he found himself on a workstation next to the uncommonly amicable boy he had exchanged a few words with on the first day. The boy evidently recognized him too because he smiled-highly unusual in the factory environment.

"How'd your pay stretch the other day, then?" the boy asked in the thick c.o.c.kney accent Jack had become used to over the last week.

"Not very far at all." Jack laughed. "But I managed to get drunk off it last night." He didn't try too hard to keep the boasting edge out of his voice.

"Well, that's something at least. I saved up for a Sunday roast-definitely worth it." The boy grinned. "I'm Dannie, by the way."

"Jack." They shook hands. "You don't have any idea what we're making, do you?"

"None at all." Dannie shook his head, glancing at the contraption before him in bewilderment. "Apparently this Goodwin fellow's a nasty piece of work though. Forbids any trade union members.h.i.+p among his employees, owns a big stake in the workhouses, and has his fingers in some very rotten pies from what I've heard..."

Ruth, meanwhile, had thought through her plan on the way to work. She needed an excuse to get into the upstairs drawing room, where Lady Osborne met all her a.s.sociates and likely kept her doc.u.ments. She found her alibi when Matron Flint fervently allocated to her the dusting on the first floor. Ruth made sure to do a particularly thorough job around the doorway of the drawing room until, as soon as no one was around, she twisted the handle and slipped inside.

Even by the standards she had become used to in this house, the room was ridiculously decorated. Seemingly every surface rippled with some kind of design in motion: an erratic diamond-patterned carpet, fleur-de-lis-encrusted wallpaper, floral cus.h.i.+ons and upholstery, lamps carved and smelted in the shape of forest beasts, and an absurdly decorous mahogany table on the opposite wall. A dank portrait of a stout old man hung on the wall behind the desk. The panels of dusty light falling from the windows lent the contemporary room the impression of being already very outdated.

Ruth made sure no one was about and then shuffled quickly over to the desk. A few papers were scattered over its surface. She riffled through them-bills, invoices, a couple of letters-nothing substantial in the way of evidence. She tried one of the hefty drawers, but it was stuck. She tried again, gripping the handle through her ap.r.o.n, but nothing. She glanced around for something to pick the lock with and stopped dead.

A girl was sitting on one of the sofas opposite her, so embalmed in beauty products that Ruth had initially taken her to be part of the ludicrously patterned furniture. But what was more unsettling was that the girl didn't seem to have registered Ruth's arrival at all. She was staring into the middle distance, porcelain face entirely blank of expression. In fact, she could have been a statue-her hands were folded in her lap in a formal fas.h.i.+on, and she didn't even appear to be breathing.

Ruth allowed herself to exhale and released the edge of the desk, which she had instinctively gripped. She shook her head, slowly walking around the desk and the obstacle course of furniture to stand in front of the girl, who still didn't react. Ruth stooped and waved inches in front of her face. Nothing.

"Are you alright?" she said loudly, touching the side of the girl's head.

Ruth immediately cried out and pulled away. The girl was evaporating before her eyes, skin and cloth vanis.h.i.+ng. Within seconds there was nothing to suggest the girl had ever been there.

There was a crackling sound behind her.

Heart pounding, Ruth spun around and staggered back, almost collapsing over a footstool. The grubby painting had disappeared. In its place, a full-length mirror hung, its surface perfectly smooth and unscratched. Frost clouded the insides, but through the mist Ruth could clearly see the figure of the porcelain girl hanging above the ground, expressionless face staring directly at her.

Chapter IX.

dark alchemy Alex screamed as the flames scorched his flesh, incinerating layers of skin. He almost pa.s.sed out, and, in his struggle to remain conscious, he felt suddenly adrift. He could see everything that had happened since his arrival.

Despite the Emperor's apparently magnanimous gesture to release him from prison, not much had really changed. He was no longer chained, but he had been confined to the Cathedral and allocated a room somewhere high in one of the towers. It was excessively simple: circular, the floor s.p.a.ce the size of an elevator shaft, with only a small bed and an alchemically barred window. Constructed entirely of stone, it was freezing, but at least he could now use alchemy. Most of his energies were spent keeping a fire burning.

He had considered trying to escape, but his ventures to the building's outer doors confirmed that black cloaked Cultists guarded every entrance. His only view beyond the Cathedral was his small window, and that was hardly comforting: a sprawl of lights from cl.u.s.tered houses and mighty skysc.r.a.pers; beyond that, churning ocean, sporadically illuminated by crunching lightning.

By day, his overwhelming emotions were of boredom and depression, but by night he found himself on the edge of a sea of fear. He knew of the unspeakable acts that went on in Nexus, directed at those captured in invasions or dissenters from the autocratic government and religion. He was woken from uneasy sleep by screams rising out of the darkness, wailing and begging for relief, for the torment to end by any way possible.

The Emperor had visited him several days after their talk in the throne room. Alex initially had reacted with incredulity, then with angered stubbornness, at his suggestion. "You want to teach me Dark alchemy? Are you crazy?"

The Emperor had merely smirked and led the way from Alex's tower to the throne room.

"I'm never using Dark alchemy," Alex had said firmly as he took up the allocated position on one side of the crossing. The Emperor had faced him, his robes rippling slightly in the gale rattling the stained gla.s.s windows.

"We shall see about that." And he had raised his arms. The hundreds of candles beside the throne had leapt up and combined into a single indigo-black pillar, sweeping across the chamber and striking like a gargantuan cobra. Alex's conjured diamond of protective light had shattered like brittle gla.s.s under the inferno's intensity.

He rolled onto his back, panting heavily. The dark fire was still there, now more like a shark, circling overhead. Gasping with pain, he tried to reach for the alchemical power again.

"Do not try to heal yourself," the Emperor bellowed. "Don't get rid of the pain. Channel it... I said no."

Light had begun to s.h.i.+mmer around Alex's arm and course down the burn on his thigh. With a noise like a whip crack, the sharklike flame dived and speared his bicep. Alex howled again, and his attempt at alchemy faded.

"Now get up."

Groaning, he hoisted himself onto his good arm and tried to stand. It took a couple of tries, but he managed, staggering up to lopsidedly face his captor.

"Well, go on."

Alex glanced around, a.s.sessing what elements he had to work with. He caught sight of the window above the Emperor and raised his good arm, palm like a knife. The window shattered, and the wind entered properly. Alex focused and willed it downwards, compressing it, hammering it upon his adversary like a boulder.

"You think I am a fool? You think I can't see Light?"

A dome of crackling Dark energy had formed over the Emperor's head, and now it inverted, encasing the wind within a sphere.

The Emperor clicked, and the sphere was tossed over towards Alex. The impact was like being smashed with concrete, accompanied by an electric charge that set his nerve endings alight. He fell to his knees, retching.

"I won't use it," he said quietly after a long time breathing.

"We will continue this exercise until you do."

"Well, you might as well kill me now, because I'm not going to."

"Really?" The Emperor had adopted his insidious rhetorical tone again. "You obviously know enough about Dark alchemy to understand it is formed from internal emotions rather than external elements. I'm sure we can coax it out of you."

Alex did know about Dark alchemy. He had seen the damage it had wreaked across the worlds he'd visited, including his own. To cave in and use it would make him just as bad as the Cult. "I refuse."

"That does not make you n.o.ble. It makes you weak. You have always been weak. Just as you couldn't stop your father beating your mother to death when you were seven, so you cannot defend yourself now."

Alex looked at him sharply. "You know nothing about that."

"On the contrary, I know everything about that. Or what about the casual drug abuse of your early teenage years?"

Alex was breathing heavily again but this time not out of physical pain. His stomach seemed to flip with the return of memories he had fought so hard to suppress.

"Or your friend Connor, so dear to you, who you were unable to protect from something as mundane as a speeding car?"

"Shut up." The rage swelled, scouring his insides, threatening to spew from his throat with searing venom.

"Or your undisclosed lifestyle choice, kept concealed with such care?"

"Shut up." He was dimly aware of the breeze beginning to pick up around him.

"Is that what you so very much wanted to tell Mister Lawson the night you returned to Earth-?"

"Shut up!"

He felt his control escape into the shadows of his mind. A tornado, laced with indigo darts, exploded outwards from around him in all directions, shattering all the remaining windows. The vaults of the crossing were filled with a tremendous rumbling as the fragments clattered to the marble floor.

Alex collapsed, utterly spent. Amongst the torrent of broken gla.s.s, the Emperor smirked. "Now we're getting somewhere."

Four days after their arrival at the goblin camp, the priest had returned. It was midmorning, and Lucy had been playing with Doch outside Maht's tent: a game of the girl's own invention, which seemed to be something like a cross between hide-and-seek and a doll's tea party but with the players inexplicably transforming into pterodactyl kittens at random intervals.

Ada had jogged down the path, waving like a madwoman. Though she might not have done exactly the same, Lucy shared her feeling of urgency: she wasn't going to miss out on what they'd been waiting for. She deposited Doch with her mother inside and called a few disconnected words of explanation as she ran off towards the center of the camp.

Sipping from a wooden cup, the priest sat cross-legged to the right of the matriarch, his layers of furs rivaling hers. Like her, he was immensely old.

Lucy joined Ada, Hakim, and Vince on the floor.

Hakim began to speak, but the priest waved him into silence with a frail hand. "The matriarch has explained your wishes to me. We shall go to the Cave. In fact, we shall leave right away."

Everyone looked round at him, alarmed, including the matriarch, who evidently saw fit to intervene. "Your Grace, surely your travel has tired you? You must wait a few days and rest-"

With the same rather irritating motion, the priest quieted her. "I am quite well." He stood, finished his drink, and turned to the Apollonians. "Collect your belongings and meet me at the northern gate." He nodded to the matriarch and departed.

There was silence as everyone recovered from the abrupt decree.

Then the matriarch spoke again. "It is, of course, the priest's decision to lead you to the Cave, and I cannot impinge on that. However, something is not right with him. You must keep an eye on him whilst you travel and ensure he comes to no harm."

The four of them nodded and stood to leave.

Chapter X.

espionage The smog-studded mist had descended once more as Jack, Sardar, Bal, and Ruth crept through the lamp-lit streets of Albion. They had waited until past midnight, guaranteeing that the last servants would have departed and that the Osbornes would be immobilized by sleep and several superfluous layers of bedsheets.

For the first time in over a week, the four of them had washed thoroughly. Sardar had rightly pointed out that if they hoped to remain undetected, trailing grime in and out of the house probably wasn't a good idea. However, the dirt's resilience had been unpleasantly surprising. By the time Jack had finished flaking off soot, the air of the factory and the entire city had seemed to crawl under his skin again. He looked forward to a proper shower aboard The Golden Turtle.

The corn-yellow moon swooped between chimneys as they approached the Osborne Manor. All the lights appeared to be off and all the curtains drawn.

Ruth led them down a driveway to the left and, withdrawing a thick ring of keys from her belt, unshackled the cast-iron gates. They slipped inside, careful not to let the metal clang, and made their way across the darkened courtyard to the interior door. Ruth repeated the action with a different key, and they were in the house.

Jack peered into the gloom as the door was closed behind him. They were in a servant's utility or laundry room, with folded piles of clothes loaded on shelves around them.

Ruth crept into the next room, and they followed in single file: through the kitchen with its monstrous stone that reminded Jack of the orphanage back on Earth, up spiral steps in the opposite corner of the dining room, past a colossal wooden table to the main hallway. The front door was directly opposite them at the end of a long Oriental rug. Flickering light s.h.i.+mmered through a curtained window, falling on the banisters of the main staircase.

They reached the top, and Ruth was about to set foot on the carpet, but Sardar held her back. Silently, and without leaving the stairs, he crouched and examined the floor. He muttered a few syllables and pa.s.sed his hand a few inches above the weaving. A projection of the floor, carpet threads cast in indigo light, rose from its real counterpart and vanished into the air.

"Alchemical alarm now disabled," Sardar whispered, straightening and proceeding. They came to the first door on the left and the elf pressed his palm to it, light flas.h.i.+ng and receding, to unlock it.

Ruth eased it open, and they entered.

Sardar raised his arms, and the lamps flickered to life. The drawing room was exactly as Ruth had left it: icicles clinging to the plastered ceiling and hanging off the overstuffed furniture, frost clasping the wallpaper and curtains.

Even under his overcoat, Jack s.h.i.+vered. "Why is it so cold in here?" It was then that he saw what Ruth had described.

Behind the desk, where a portrait might have hung, a slab of ice the size of a fridge was set into the wall. Encased in it, apparently completely frozen, was a girl in what, inexplicably, appeared to be hiking wear.

"She's an elf," he whispered, noticing the pointed ears and Middle Eastern complexion. "Is she alive?"

"I think so," Sardar replied, examining the frosty surface. "Otherwise there would be no point keeping her frozen. But we can deal with her in a minute. First, we should find what the Cult is up to."

Sardar made his way to the desk and thumbed through the papers. Ruth joined him, indicating where she'd already looked and pointing out the locked drawers. Jack and Bal hung back, checking the door every few seconds with paranoid glances.

Sardar beckoned them with a hiss. Jack and Bal almost stumbled over a footstool in their haste to get around the desk. The three others leaned in to see. The elf was holding up what seemed to be blueprints of a machine that reminded Jack of something from an H. G. Wells novel: a large sphere suspended above the ground by thin legs, extruding various spindly limbs-a kind of futuristic hunter spider. The only writing was a monogram printed in the corner.

"What does FGM stand for?"

"Frederick Goodwin Manufacturing," a voice answered from the doorway.

The four intruders looked up in shock.

Standing at the door, covered in a flowery nightgown and clasping a candelabra, was a middle-aged woman. Her hawkish eyes were fixed on them not with surprise but with something a little too close to hatred.

"Milady!" Ruth exclaimed. "Begging your pardon, but we were just, erm-"

"I don't think the formalities are necessary, Ruth," Sardar said coldly, staring at the woman.