Will nodded, slowly, as Violet drew in a breath.
‘He’s not dead. He’s alive,’ Violet said, looking up at him. ‘It’s Devon.’
‘Devon? But he’s—’
A boy, he wanted to say. He’s a human boy. Will felt the strangest sensation pass over him, remembering Devon looking up from the dark wooden desk at the back of the shop, between bins of horns. White hair and too-pale eyes, and the subtly mocking way he had talked about ivory.
‘I found him near Bond Street. I wanted … I hit him. It felt good. But when his cap came off, I saw—’
The horn.
As Violet’s fingers lifted to the centre of her forehead, Will remembered Devon’s low-slung cap. Is it really true? he wanted to ask. But he could see the sick certainty in her eyes.
The stifling sense of that shop crowded with ivory came back to him. The shop that was a graveyard of dead animals, tended by a ghost. Devon, pale as a relic, watching over bones.
How could it be? How could a boy be a unicorn? He’d seen unicorns in his vision, white horses with spears of light on their foreheads charging into battle. Had one of them transformed?
His skin crawled as he remembered the moment in London when Devon had recognised him. Devon knows who I am, he’d thought, not understanding how deep that recognition might run.
And the thought that followed: If Devon was really a unicorn, what else might he know? The Stewards had legends passed down over generations, as writings faded and books crumbled to dust. But this was knowledge carried across time by a single boy.
‘That’s how Simon knows where to dig.’
‘What?’ said Violet.
Will was staring at her. ‘Simon has digs across the globe. He spends his time unearthing artefacts … the Corrupted Blade … the armour pieces of the Remnants … He knows just where to go and what to do. It’s Devon.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He was there.’ Will felt dizzy at the thought of it, darkly impossible. ‘Devon was there, he lived through the war, he was alive when the Dark King fell.’
Someone for whom the stories were more than just stories … someone who lived them, breathed them … it made the old world suddenly seem frighteningly real. And close. As if he could reach out his hand and touch it, as alive as memory.
‘It’s how Simon knew the secret of the Cup. It’s how he knew how to make a shadow. How he knew about the Shadow Stone,’ said Will. ‘Devon told him.’
Violet’s shocked face made it clear this thought was new to her. ‘That would make Devon as old as this Hall.’
His thoughts were already moving ahead, the strangeness of a unicorn fighting for the Dark. ‘Why is he working for Simon?’ That was the part of it that didn’t make sense. ‘All the images that we’ve seen of unicorns, they were fighting for the Light.’
‘People change sides.’ Violet said it with an odd defensiveness. Will searched her face.
‘What did he say to you?’
‘Nothing.’ She cut him off; he would get no more from her. ‘Come on. We need to wake the others.’
A single table and some stools were the only furnishings in the gatekeep. At Will’s call, the five of them had gathered in the lower room, down the short stairs from where they had slept on pallets on the floor. The gatekeep’s stone walls were solid and enclosing, and its mantel held a newly lit fire. With the door closed, you could almost believe that the Hall outside was intact. Almost.
He could see the haggard faces of the others, the shadowed tension in their eyes, the haunted look each of them wore. They had each ventured out into the emptiness of the citadel, Grace and Cyprian to scavenge the supplies they would need for breakfast, while Will and Violet saw to Valdithar and the two remaining Steward horses. Its vast silence had left its imprint on all of them. Only Sarah hadn’t left the gatekeep, spending much of her time curled up on her sleeping pallet upstairs, her back against the wall.
‘The Stewards are gone,’ said Will. ‘We’re all that’s left.’ Cyprian’s shoulders stiffened at that, but he stayed silent. ‘The Elder Steward told us that Simon was close to returning the Dark King. It’s up to us to stop him.’
Silence greeted his words.
‘He has the Shadow Stone,’ said Sarah. It was her way of saying, We can’t stop him. He could hear the dull defeat in her voice. He shook his head.
‘The Elder Steward said the Shadow Kings were the first step to returning the Dark King,’ said Will. ‘We don’t know why or how. But we know Simon hasn’t released them from the Stone yet.’