Rubbing his wrists, he looked over and saw that Cyprian had driven his horse two paces back and was watching them with the tight-jawed calm of someone facing down fear.
He really thinks we might kill him.
Cyprian had released two dangerous prisoners on only the slimmest chance that they would help him. He was probably expecting Violet to slit his throat as soon as she was out of her manacles.
And he had freed her anyway. For a chance that she would help his brother.
Violet broke the silence, challenging Cyprian directly. ‘What’s the matter? Scared you’ll miss morning practice?’
It wasn’t what he was scared of, and they all knew it.
‘You have been out of the Hall before?’ said Violet.
‘Of course I’ve been out of the Hall. I’ve done eleven full patrols on the marshes.’ Cyprian’s chin lifted. His hands were tight on his reins.
‘Oh, eleven,’ said Violet.
‘Have you been to London before?’ said Will.
‘Twice,’ said Cyprian. ‘Just not—’ He broke off.
‘Just not what?’
‘Alone,’ said Cyprian.
You’re not alone, Will would have said to anyone else. But Cyprian had broken from the Stewards. And he was missing a lot more than morning practice. Once the Stewards realised he was gone, Cyprian would be branded a traitor who had betrayed the Hall to help a Lion.
In every way that mattered to him, he was alone.
So Will said, ‘We weren’t lying. We’re going to capture James and bring him back to the Hall.’
Cyprian’s wariness didn’t relax. ‘Not even a Lion is strong enough to attack James head on.’
‘I know how to distract him,’ said Will.
That part was true. He knew he could lure James out. He knew what would turn James’s head, what would hold his attention. It felt like innate knowledge. Like knowing the crate would break James’s concentration on the docks. He’d never forget the moment James’s eyes had met his – the sensation of coming home, as though they knew each other.
He told them his plan on the ride. Violet didn’t like it, but there was no alternative, and she knew it. ‘Nothing else matters if we don’t get Marcus back,’ Will said. He could see her remembering the Elder Steward’s words. Conjuring a shadow is the first step to returning the Dark King.
They had this one chance. This one opportunity to capture James and learn the location of Marcus. Everything was at stake, not just Violet’s reputation, or Cyprian’s future with the Stewards.
Stripping back to her London clothes as they arrived, Violet blended in. Cyprian stood out, a storybook knight plonked down into the middle of London. His white tunic was the most pristine garment in the city. If it had been a light, Will would have told him to put it out.
‘You look like a blancmange,’ said Violet.
‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Cyprian, lifting his chin again.
‘It’s like a trifle with none of the good bits,’ said Violet. ‘We could rub mud on him like we did with the horses.’
‘And with yourselves,’ said Cyprian, and it took Violet a moment, but her frown descended ferociously on her face.
‘Let’s see how clean you are after a dozen Stewards attack you on the marsh—！’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ said Will. ‘We’re here.’
They had arrived with about half an hour before dawn. On the docks, the warehouses and the foreshore would already be bustling with activity. But in this part of London the streets were deserted, only one or two lights in the windows, lamps lit in the rooms of the earliest of risers.
‘Are you sure you have to be the one to go in there?’ said Violet.
‘It has to be me. You know that.’
She nodded reluctantly. Behind her, Cyprian stood with one hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘The two of you get into position,’ said Will. ‘And don’t kill each other until we have James.’
A bell rang over the door into the silence, janglingly loud in a dark space crowded with strange shapes, and Will walked into the London shop alone.
Robert Drake’s place of work was empty of people, though pale curving surfaces were everywhere. Robert was an ivory merchant, and Will was surrounded by the sepulchral shapes of the ivory. Elaborately carved tusks, ivory animals worked into caskets, clustered pale figurines.
He walked in slowly. There was a counter at the back of the shop, and behind it two huge bins of horns, thick and white and curving in all directions. A light was faintly visible from a back room, and Will glimpsed a pallid boy sitting at a dark wooden desk on a raised dais.