Will turned his gaze to Violet.
‘There’s a room next to this one,’ he said to her. ‘Lock James in it.’
‘And then?’ said Violet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘WE USE IT,’ said Cyprian.
Will looked up as Violet returned from chaining James up in the kitchen, the door closing behind her with a soft click. Cyprian had righted Gauthier’s chair and returned him to it, while Will put the Collar on the mantel. It was still wrapped in the blanket, but he could feel it, a heavy presence, drawing his mind and attention.
‘We put the Collar around James’s neck,’ said Cyprian, ‘and send him in to attack Simon.’
‘We can’t just make James into our lackey,’ said Violet. ‘Can we?’
The question hung in the air.
‘It’s not forever,’ said Cyprian. ‘If he makes it out, we take the Collar off.’
‘You can’t take it off,’ said Gauthier.
Everyone turned to him; Will felt his words sink down into him, a cold stone in a lake.
‘What do you mean?’ said Will, his skin prickling.
Gauthier was in his chair, his dirty, rumpled jacket wrapped around him, part of the decay and disrepair that surrounded them. He clasped knotted hands that were blotched in the dim light. His pearly, sightless eyes looked not quite at Will.
‘There’s no latch. There’s no key. When you put it on, he’s yours forever.’ Gauthier’s whole body rocked in place slightly, as if eager. He spoke like a man quoting dark scripture. ‘Only his death will free him.’
Yours forever. The idea that the Collar was permanent, that James couldn’t take it off, made the prickling of Will’s skin turn into a deep shivery sensation.
Only his death will free him, thought Will, but it hadn’t. James was Reborn; he had died and risen again, and the Collar still wanted him.
Will looked down at the Collar, the shape of it under the blanket, the remembered gleam of its gold. The full scale of the choice they faced was before him. They could stop Simon, but the price—
The price was James. Forever.
‘How do you know that?’ said Will, looking back up at Gauthier. ‘How do you know what happens when James puts on the Collar?’
‘My ancestor was his executioner,’ said Gauthier as the breath left Will in shock. ‘Rathorn killed the Betrayer and interred him in a tomb, but even then, the Collar didn’t open. He had to saw off the Betrayer’s head to get it.’
‘He used a saw on James’s dead body?’ said Violet, revolted. She had taken two steps back.
‘The Dark King gave the order.’ Gauthier recited the words as if it was an old story told and retold many times. ‘Kill his servants, so that they would be reborn with him. Rathorn killed the Betrayer on the steps of the Dark Palace. He was supposed to inter the body in the Dark King’s tomb. But he couldn’t resist the Collar. He sawed through the Betrayer’s neck and took it … There was no one left to stop him.’
The horror of those final days swept over Will. The Dark King defeated by the Lady. The forces of the Dark driven back. And the death … a wave of death. How many servants had the Dark King ordered be slaughtered? Will imagined the executioner in the halls of the Dark Palace, looting the bodies like a crow picking over carrion.
Would that be their future if the Dark King rose? Miles of ground littered with the dead?
‘Rathorn fled with the Collar, hid it, kept it safe. A family secret, handed down over centuries. Now I’m the last, and Simon has tracked me down … He wants it … Wants it … He killed my son, you know. He thought I had passed the Collar to him. I would have. I just needed a little more time with it. I just needed—’
Gauthier’s hands clutched instinctively. The Collar had hollowed him out like a husk. Will thought of Rathorn, the long-ago executioner, taking the object that would blight his family, withering his descendants until all that was left was an old man in an empty house. He had thought it a treasure, but it had been a curse. Had he ended up like Gauthier, alone, half-mad, curled around the Collar in jealous protection?
But there was one thing about the story that didn’t make sense.
‘James was at his full power then. How did Rathorn capture him?’
Will looked at Gauthier, trying to see in him some echo of the past, a champion who had been able to defeat the Dark King’s greatest general. Gauthier stared back at him blindly.
‘Capture him? There was no capture. You don’t understand. It was the Dark King’s will, so James knelt and bared his throat for the stroke.’ Gauthier’s voice was a dark promise. ‘I told you. Put it around his neck and he’ll do whatever you tell him.’