Or it was meant to.
Cyprian had never drunk from the Cup, and he didn’t have Violet’s strength, but he had always been the best of the novitiates. Even injured, he had a perfectly trained grace and an astonishing athleticism. He vaulted the table the way a Steward might have, landing and rolling to hit James low, knocking his legs out from under him. Cyprian started choking a second later, but James still looked half-dazed. He had barely begun to constrict Cyprian’s throat with his power before Violet was on him, delivering a blow that allowed Will to snap a manacle closed on his wrist.
The static air of magic in the room went out. Cyprian drew in a shuddering breath. On the ground underneath the restraining hands of Will and Violet, James was panting, his eyes hugely dilated, black with pupil.
They had him. They had him. Victory surged in Will’s blood. James was satisfyingly roughed up, his jacket off, his shirt torn, and his hair falling from its part into his face, blood on his lip from Violet’s punch. Violet and Cyprian both were bloodied, but the manacles were on James’s wrists now and Violet was holding him down.
The room was a wreck. The table had splintered, the floor was rained with burst plaster, and Gauthier’s chair was overturned. Gauthier was sprawled on the ground, and his fingers groped frantically in the grime, wormlike, for the curved circle of ruby and gold that had rolled away from him to lie a few steps out of his reach.
Will rose. Gauthier made a desperate sound at his footsteps.
‘We’re not your enemy,’ Will said. ‘We’re here to help you.’
‘You’re not here to help me. You’re here for it.’
It. Will could see it. A thick circle of rubies, set in gold. Too large for a bracelet. Too small for a crown.
‘For the Collar,’ said Gauthier.
Collar. That was the word for it, Will thought. It was made to close around a throat. Gauthier let out a low moan, as if he somehow knew Will was bending down to pick it up. Will looked up and saw the grasping way Gauthier was reaching out for it. At the last moment, he snatched up the blanket and used it to bundle the Collar up rather than holding it in his bare hands.
‘No—’ said James, struggling against Violet as Will turned back to him.
It was heavy. A choker. The gold of its rim was high enough to force a chin up. Set with rubies, it gleamed redly, like blood welling from a gash. Like the manacles, it opened on a hinge. Two semicircles of rubies and gold that swung open and would close with a snap on the right throat.
‘Don’t worry. I told you. We’re not going to let James take it,’ said Will.
The old man began to laugh. ‘You don’t know what it does!’
Will looked over at him. ‘Simon wants it. It will make him powerful—’
Gauthier laughed his mad laugh. ‘Aye. That’s true enough. It would make Simon the most powerful man alive.’
Will couldn’t help looking back at it, the deep red glint of the rubies and the gleaming curve of the gold. He felt the same pull from it that he had felt from the Cup. No, it was stronger, like a whisper in his ear, over his skin, in his blood. Take me. Use me. Do it.
‘What does it do?’ His fingers reached out to skim the edge of it, a desire to touch it, to feel it warm under his hands.
‘It controls the Betrayer.’
‘What?’ said Will. His fingers jerked back from it. He was staring at Gauthier.
‘You put that around his neck and he’ll obey you utterly.’ The words started a strange rushing in Will’s head. ‘The Betrayer! The only Reborn in the human world! He’s just a boy now, but when he’s fully grown? To command all that power?’
James was on his knees with his hands manacled behind his back. His split lip had already begun to heal, its only trace a smudge of red. Violet had a fist in his hair, holding his head up. Cyprian had a sword to his throat.
‘He’s lying,’ James ground out, but Will knew he wasn’t, could feel it. There was fear somewhere deep in James’s eyes. Will remembered the way James’s pupils had dilated when the Collar had been exposed. The way his whole body had swayed towards it. It was made for him; designed for his throat; red as his blood; gold as his hair; a perfect fit. And it wanted him. Ached for him.
A study in sadistic opulence, its bejewelled circlet turned even the idea of James into a possession. Simon’s Prize. Will shivered as he saw that the Collar had a gold link set at the back.
‘It pleased the Dark King to take the Light’s greatest fighter and turn him into a lapdog,’ said Gauthier. ‘His people never knew he was ensorcelled, only that he’d become the Dark’s lieutenant. They called him Anharion, the Betrayer. He kissed the Dark King’s lips, rode at the Dark King’s side, and slaughtered his own kind. They thought he did it of his own free will.’