‘Do you think I’d keep that wretched thing! With its accursed lure bringing the wolves to my door!’
Will saw it before James, the way that Gauthier’s hands were gripped to the blanket, and the strange lumpen shape underneath. He has it. Whatever it was, this prize – he had kept it, holding it close to himself, clutched to his body as his house rotted around him and his people died.
‘I know you’ve kept it,’ said James. ‘Everyone keeps it. Everyone wants what it can do.’
Then Gauthier said, as if learning a great truth, ‘The Betrayer!’
James looked like he’d been slapped. ‘Why do you know that name?’
‘It knows you.’ Gauthier started laughing, a terrible sound on the edge of madness. ‘Have you come to get it for your master?’ James’s face turned white. ‘Do you want it? Do you want it the way it wants you?’
‘I knew you’d keep it with you!’ James spat the words out venomously. ‘You knew Simon was coming for it … You could have gotten rid of it. You could have destroyed it. Why didn’t you?’
‘You don’t know your master if you think it can be destroyed.’ Gauthier’s voice took on a dreamlike quality. ‘It’s the last thing my eyes remember. The look of it. The ruby and the gold. It’s perfect. It can’t be broken. It can’t be melted down. It’s waiting. For you.’ Those sightless eyes turned to James, and Gauthier’s face split in a smile. ‘You don’t want it to be destroyed. You want it. You want it on you.’
James snapped at those words, his invisible power slamming Gauthier and his chair violently backward with a crackle of air. Sprawled on the ground, Gauthier began laughing again. ‘There you are – you want me to put it on you—？’
It was their only possible chance – James’s eyes, his whole attention was on Gauthier furiously. Now, Will signalled to Violet and Cyprian. And in the single moment that James was vulnerable, the three of them attacked.
It had worked before. In London they had used Will as bait, while Violet attacked James from behind. And before that, Will had disrupted James’s power on the docks by crashing a crate down on top of him, the very first time they’d seen each other.
Now James’s head whipped around so fast that he glimpsed Violet’s explosive movements at the first sound – throwing out his hand. As if a great invisible force gripped her, she was thrown violently upward, hitting the ceiling with a cry of pain, then slamming back down again in a burst of fine plaster.
Hand still outstretched towards Violet, a single glittering look sent Cyprian flying backward across the room to hit the wall with a sick smash, blood coming from his nose and mouth. Pinned like a butterfly, Cyprian stuck there, halfway up the wall and unable to move.
And then those blue eyes were on Will.
Will had barely had time to pull the manacles out of his pack before he was yanked down to his knees and held there, his head forced to the ground and subjected to a crushing pressure, as if it were being stepped on by a shiny boot. He made a furious sound, unable to do anything but hold in place.
James barely looked ruffled. Dispatching the three of them had taken a scant few seconds. Will could taste the static in the air, the power around James crackling like the vengeance of a young god, even as he made it look effortless. He might just as easily have brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, except for the killing look in his eyes.
The Dark King’s most ruthless lieutenant. James strolled forward like a destroyer of worlds, and Will saw how utterly they had underestimated his power. In the old world he had ridden at the front of dark armies. In this one he had decimated a squadron of Stewards, lifting them out of the saddles and snapping their necks with his mind.
Now his attention fixed on Will.
Behind James, on the ground, Gauthier was trying to get away. Dragging himself from the chair with his arms made the thin blanket on his lap slip. Gauthier let out a cry as something spilled from the blanket to the floor and rolled, and for a moment, Will saw a curving flash of rubies and gold.
James turned helplessly towards it – and as he saw it, his eyes dilated, growing huge with pupil, and his whole body swayed towards the object.
Feeling the hold on him loosen, Will lifted his head. At the same moment, Cyprian slid down the wall with a thud, and Violet pushed herself up onto all fours.
James blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it. He tried to reassert control. Violet was thrown back again, though this time James looked unsteady. Breathing shallowly, James gestured and the room’s huge, rotting oak table slammed into Cyprian, crushing him against the opposite wall.