Cyprian took in a shaky breath.
‘You think James will go back to Simon?’ said Violet, into the silence.
‘I don’t know that either,’ said Will. ‘But now he’s free from the Dark King too.’
‘And Gauthier?’ She looked at the shrunken old man, skin tight on his bones and still rocking a little on his chair.
Will knelt down in front of Gauthier, so that he could speak to him from his own height. ‘Mr Gauthier. I’m afraid that James was telling the truth about Sophie … you’re alone here. Is there someone we can fetch for you? Something we can do?’
‘Do!’ said Gauthier. ‘You can give it back to me, that’s what you can do! I’m the one who’s supposed to put it on him. I’m the one who’s supposed to have him! Not you—！’ Will stood quickly, his stomach roiling.
They brought in the bundle of kindling, six eggs that they found in the old outside coop, and a sheet full of apples from the overgrown tree, along with a fresh pail of water. Then they left the room in the farmhouse, where Gauthier’s voice still echoed. ‘He’s supposed to be mine! Obeying my orders with my Collar around his neck—！’
They rode back over the marsh towards the broken arch that now led to a silent, empty courtyard. Will didn’t want to go back into the Hall. He could feel his own resistance, the arch ominous in his mind, like the gates of a graveyard at night. Around him the marsh stretched out cold and wet under the grey sky, their horses ploughing through the mud.
‘What are we going to tell Grace and Sarah?’ said Cyprian, drawing up on his horse alongside him.
Cyprian had been quiet on the ride back, absorbing Will’s words. He had spent a lifetime training to be a Steward, following their traditions and their code. A Steward’s life was all he knew. Without the Order to guide him, he was lost – unwilling to drink from the Cup but without another framework for how to live. The idea that he might still be a Steward, but as Stewards were meant to have been, was a new thought. He asked about Grace and Sarah now without acrimony, a practical question that needed an answer.
But Cyprian was right. What to tell them? That they had come back empty-handed? That Will had given away their only weapon against Simon? That the Shadow Kings would be released and now there was no way to stop them?
The future seemed to stretch out with all his plans for Simon slipping away, and only the thought that he was not up to the fight that was coming.
‘Will?’ said a voice, and he was half aware of Violet behind him drawing her sword as two figures on horseback emerged from behind the gate.
Her beauty was like the golden sunlight of spring, even here on the cold grey marsh, though she and the pretty dappled grey mare she was riding looked utterly incongruous, the skirts of her blue riding habit soaked with mud that splattered and stained the legs and belly of her bedraggled horse.
Behind her was a young girl of about nine or ten, with thick eyebrows and a pasty face on a short pony. They looked very different, one beautiful and golden, one stout and plain, but the two girls turned to him as one.
‘You said if I was in danger, that I should come,’ said Katherine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KATHERINE COULDN’T STOP staring: at Will, at the strange clothes that he wore, at the mud and grime all over him, even at the black horse he rode. He dismounted and took a step towards her, his eyes wide and shocked. His friends looked like they’d come from a battlefield, their clothing bloodied and torn. His friends looked, she thought, like this ancient ruined gate, part of this bleak, empty and terrifying place.
‘You came,’ Will said.
He was here; she wasn’t alone on the marsh. She wanted to go to him. She wanted him to take her into a warm parlour, with a fire where she could sit and warm herself, and servants to bring her tea, while he wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and held her hands. But nothing was happening the way she had thought.
The rain had made the ride over the marsh at night into a cold, bedraggled slop through mud, her heart dropping out every time her sweet-natured mare, Ladybird, stumbled, Elizabeth struggling gamely behind her on Nell the pony. It hadn’t been long until they had both been sodden, shivering in their waterlogged skirts.
Her teeth were chattering. The boy and the girl standing behind Will were staring at her with unfriendly suspicion.
‘What is she doing here?’ the girl demanded, drawing her sword, a long, frightening weapon that looked too heavy for her slight body.
‘Will?’ Katherine said, not understanding what was happening, but scared of the two strangers and their drawn swords. She was so cold, her fingers numb in their wet gloves, her sodden skirts heavy. She didn’t know what to do.