Will turned hot, then cold. He looked around to the other Stewards, expecting to see his own disbelief on their faces. Father? No one looked surprised. But it was Cyprian’s grim expression that made him believe.
You two know each other? Violet had asked him. You could say that, James had replied.
‘What does he mean?’ said Will. ‘He’s your son?’
Distantly he remembered the Elder Steward saying, He adopted Cyprian and Marcus after his first son died six years ago.
It wasn’t – it couldn’t be – James, could it? Lounging in his chains, James’s eyes glinted with goading provocation.
‘I grew up wearing a little frock and reciting my vows like a good little Steward. They didn’t tell you?’ James leaned back, the corners of his lips curving.
The High Janissary was looking down at him without expression. Like the priest of an ascetic religion, his blue robes hung in folds, his thick chain of office gleaming around his neck. He passed his eyes over James coldly.
‘That thing is not my son.’
The words dropped like a cleaver. If there had ever been any connection between James and the High Janissary, it was severed.
Will swung around to look at the others. He saw the High Janissary’s hardened expression on all the nearby faces. The only person mirroring his own shock was Violet.
So they knew about him, thought Will. They all knew about him.
‘The Dark King’s general born into the enemy Hall,’ said James to Will. ‘What better way to learn their secrets and their plans?’
He tried to imagine James as a Steward, rising before dawn to dutifully put on the grey tunic, perform menial chores, practise diligently with the sword … It simply didn’t connect with the gleaming scorpion in front of him.
Underneath that was his own unfolding horror at how a Reborn had come into the world: not magicked, but birthed, to an unsuspecting woman. He had to fight to keep his reaction from his face. A reaction, he thought, was what James wanted – and what he couldn’t afford to give.
‘You weren’t the Dark King’s general. You were his catamite,’ said the High Janissary. ‘You were in his bed. Just like you’re in Simon’s.’
James’s lips drew back from his teeth, not quite a smile. ‘If I were the Dark King’s lover, Father, don’t you think I’d stay faithful to him?’
‘Bring the box forward.’ The High Janissary gestured to one of the waiting Stewards.
‘Whatever you do to me, Simon will return to you tenfold.’
A Steward carrying a cloth-covered rectangular box approached. As the cloth was removed, Will’s stomach dropped. He recognised the long, lacquered wooden box underneath, dark wood, the length of a walking cane.
The High Janissary spoke with calm authority. ‘You’re going to tell us where Marcus is. You’re going to tell us Simon’s plan. And then you’re going to lead us to him.’
‘I’m really not.’
‘Yes. You will,’ said the High Janissary.
A second Steward stepped forward, a woman with curling dark hair. She flicked open two latches, lifting open the box lid.
Gasps and reverent murmurs rippled across the rows of gathered Stewards, as at a holy relic. Will saw it, was pierced by the sight of it, as breathtaking now as the first time he’d laid eyes on it.
Nestled on a bed of satin, its beauty was painful: the beauty of what was lost. It lay inside like a shaft of light – a long, whorled staff of pearlescent ivory spiralling up to a pointed tip. James turned white.
‘The Horn of Truth,’ said the High Janissary.
Will remembered Devon’s words. The true cornu monocerotis. People will pay a lot for the idea that something pure exists. Even if the trophy means they killed it.
‘You know what that thing does?’ said James.
Will said, half quoting Devon, ‘If you hold it in your hands, you’ll be compelled to speak the truth.’
James laughed when he heard that. ‘Hold it? Is that what they told you? You have to do more than hold it. You have to stab me with it.’
It felt sickly correct the moment James said it. Will’s heart was pounding. ‘Is that true?’
It was true. He could feel it in the thick silence that greeted him, and the sense that this was quickly slipping out of all control. James’s eyes glittered.
‘Are you going to do the honours, Father?’ He tilted his head. ‘The chest? The thigh?’
No. Will took a step forward. ‘You’re not going to stab your own son.’ He was standing between them. ‘It’s not right.’