Maud’s legs buckled. Robin grabbed at her arm and steadied her.
“Thank you, Cesare,” said Jack. He bent and rubbed at his own bad leg. “I shudder to think what we owe you after this.”
Alan held out the stick. Jack took it.
“Nothing owing,” said Alan.
“We have to move,” said Robin. “Hawthorn, I hope to God you have a strategy for us, because if not I’m heading up there to strangle them all with my bare hands.”
“Violet,” said Jack, turning to her. “We’ll need a curtain-spell in order to move unseen, and likely a shield after that. And at least one good illusion at the same time, if you can manage it.”
“I’m full to bursting.” Violet looked radiant with anger. “I can manage all sorts of things.”
Alan was sent up the other side of the lake, his apron hastily cleaned of blood smudges by a quick spell of Violet’s. Nobody watched him as he scurried across the ice bridge on that side. He was a servant, after all. Even when he stepped up onto the braided side of the bridge, like a boy straining for a better view of a parade, he was spared only the smallest of glances and frowns from the magicians nearby. They had better things to look at, after all.
The ice was very cold under Alan’s hands, but rough and solid as stone. He wasn’t afraid of slipping. And now he could see.
Edwin was in the centre of the icy stage. He didn’t seem too badly off, at first, except that he’d been stripped to the waist and was white and stiff with cold. He stood with both arms held helpfully out and down as if waiting for a valet to fasten his cufflinks. Someone had drawn a path of red ink down one forearm, a path that went meandering and liquid where it crossed the wrist and the hand.
His brother Walter stood next to him with a small silver knife in one hand and a silver bowl in the other. He traced the knifepoint delicately down Edwin’s second arm, and a new line of red sprang up in its wake.
Edwin didn’t move. Nor did he cry out. He stared out above the heads of the crowd. Alan watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. How much of this was real? How much of it was the illusion Robin had mentioned? The crowd murmured to one another. Nobody made any motion to help, or to stop this. The atmosphere was that of a huddled group watching a street performer, into whose cup someone had placed a shilling or a wristwatch. Any moment now it would appear again, or perhaps be transformed into a ribbon of silk. Any moment now.
To one side of the Courcey brothers and a few paces back stood Mrs. Vaughn, hands folded in front of her like an elderly schoolmistress keeping watch over her charges. And to their other side, much more prominent, stood George Bastoke.
Bastoke had a palm extended. Floating above it, turning in the light, was a large silver coin. He gave a nod of satisfaction, as Walter caught the new trickle of Edwin’s blood with the lip of the bowl, and broke into a new segment of speech. Alan didn’t bother to listen after the first couple of sentences. It was about what he’d expected: sacrifice and power and coming into birthrights, spoken with the rhythm of ritual, the cadence of Latin chanted at a midnight Mass. Alan half expected him to put the silver disc on his tongue and say something about bread and bodies, blood and wine—it would fit with the rest of this high-handed nonsense, wouldn’t it?
Alan needed to be closer to have any hope of perturbing the illusion. He climbed down from the bridge and wormed his way around the edge of the crowd, head bowed, until he was nearly at the front. He didn’t dare move too fast in case he caught the eye of anyone on the stage.
And there was Lady Dufay. She’d made her way up here, too, to Lady Cheetham’s side. Like everyone else, they stood watching the obscene performance. Lady Cheetham—Alan peered around a large lace flourish of bodice, and a gentleman’s beard—had a set expression. Alan couldn’t see her hands. Could he get to her after all, and tell her that she didn’t need to act, that help was on the way? Could he do it without drawing Bastoke’s gaze? Damn, damn.
Bastoke stopped speaking. Walter Courcey lifted the knife and put the tip over Edwin’s heart.
Some more murmuring arose. A young woman near Alan swooned strategically sideways into her partner’s embrace, keeping her avid gaze on the stage.
And then nothing happened for a little while, as if the four on the stage were posed waiting to have their photograph taken. Alan stared hard and thought of flowing water, paper loops, but only managed to make the whole scene waver and blur nauseatingly. A very powerful illusion, this one. What was going on behind it? Where was—
A blur of black and white erupted from the crowd very close to Alan, charged up the steps to the stage, and then kept charging, right at Walter and Edwin.
Robin.
Over the crowd’s fresh noise came a shout of alarm that sounded like Walter, even though the Walter on the stage hadn’t spoken or even moved, and—“Rolfe,” barked Bastoke, snapping the fingers of his free hand.
A bolt of golden magic flew from the front row of the crowd and directly at Robin, who had almost reached the Courceys.
It flew right through Robin and out the other side towards Mrs. Vaughn.
She didn’t move any more than Walter had, but there was a new cry, short and irritated and female, and suddenly the scene … changed.
It was still Edwin and Walter and Mrs. Vaughn. Instead of serene, the old woman looked angry and off-balance, and was patting at her skirts as if to stifle fire. She must have been holding the illusion, and now it was dropped.
Now they could see what was truly there, and—“Fuck,” Alan said, aghast. Audible dismay rose around and behind him like thunder.
Walter stood with the knife raised and his teeth bared. And Edwin—Edwin was not the resigned, anaemic figure with two thin cuts. He was heaving for breath, swaying on his feet, and his arms were a ravaged mess of blood.
It was hard to keep track of what happened next. Robin ran smack into Walter, who flinched and fumbled the bowl, and shifted the knife as if to drive it right into Robin’s face. Alan flinched, despite knowing that this Robin was an illusion. And indeed the knife sank through Robin like mist.
In the same moment, an exact copy of Robin seemed to step out of the air itself, behind Walter and Edwin. His face was a map of fury and he was holding Jack’s stick. He drew his arms back and swung it at Walter’s head like a cricketer driving for the boundaries.
Alan was close enough to hear the extremely non-illusory thunk as it connected.
Walter reeled, sank to his knees, then collapsed on his side with bowl and knife clattering from his nerveless hands.
“Violet!” shouted Robin. He threw himself between Bastoke and Edwin. Bastoke, recovered from the initial shock of events, was on the verge of completing a cradle.
The curtain-spell dropped—it must have taken incredible concentration to keep it up while also manipulating that illusion of Robin—showing Violet and Maud standing at the side of the stage. Dark and glittering ropes of magic erupted from Violet’s hands and flew at George Bastoke, wrapping around his body and limbs like covetous, angry snakes. His cradle died as his arms were forced to his sides. His face twisted in pure, outraged disbelief as he lost his balance and toppled to the ground like a felled tree.
The coin jolted out of his hand, rolled, and came to a halt against Walter’s unmoving body.