‘He knows what I can do,’ said James. ‘Or did you think he only wanted me for my pretty face?’
‘I think he wants you because you were the jewel in another man’s crown.’ The answer wound out of Will in the flickering light from the torch. ‘I think he has no idea of what you really are, or who he’s trying to summon. If he did, he’d never dare plunder the grave of a king.’
He had taken James aback. Like the torchlight, the surprise darkened James’s eyes, turning them from translucent blue to black.
‘What are you really doing down here?’ James said.
Simon’s Prize. James was the Betrayer, the closest thing in this world to the Dark King. He was valuable to Simon: part of his collection of old-world treasure, like the armour pieces he’d unearthed, or the deadly Corrupted Blade. Like each of those things, James was a tool, a weapon, and a danger in his own right. And he was here, alone and accessible. Will had only one question that burned inside him.
‘I want to know the name of the man who killed my mother.’
He’d surprised James again; that strange flickering look was back in his eyes.
‘What makes you think I’d tell you?’
Will stayed where he was, the cool obsidian wall at his back; it was stifling, an oppressive magic under its shiny surface. James felt it; they both felt it.
‘I keep my word. I’m loyal to my friends. I don’t forget when people help me.’
‘Didn’t my father warn you not to bargain with the Betrayer?’ James’s eyes had gone very dark.
The Betrayer. It struck him afresh that James was a part of the old world, like the obsidian walls, but James was new as well, not only of that world but also now of this one.
‘I think what people were is less important than what they are. And what people are is less important than what they could be.’
James let out a strange breath, and Will saw that he had not only James’s surprise, but underneath it, something else. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
‘Aren’t I?’
‘No. I don’t know what I’d thought the Blood of the Lady would be like. A golden hero, full of righteousness like Cyprian. Or a hapless boy unready for the fight. But you’re altogether more—’
‘More what?’
‘Effective,’ said James.
‘Tell me who killed my mother,’ said Will.
James gazed back at him. In the Hall above, the Stewards were in disarray. They were arguing over James’s words – over whether to attack, how to fight – but also over their very nature. The Stewards of the Cup were the elite inner circle, but with the dark price of their powers exposed, the novitiates and janissaries were in revolt. Yet down here, in this buried cell, priorities felt very different.
Just as Will began to doubt that he would speak, James said: ‘The one who struck the blow was Daniel Chadwick. But the one who gave the order was Simon’s father. Edmund, the Earl.’
Will felt his pulse race at hearing it, but there was one part that didn’t make any sense. ‘Simon’s father? Not Simon himself? But Simon’s the one trying to return the Dark King.’
‘Fathers hold a lot of sway over their sons,’ James said, his voice faintly mocking. Upstairs, of course, the High Janissary was deciding James’s fate.
‘Now you answer a question,’ said James, as though they were in casual conversation.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did you like holding the horn?’
He had returned to the warm, dangerous tone from earlier. It conjured up the moment when they’d been locked together upstairs, as if violence was a temptation. Will almost felt the horn in his hand again, and the slow, steady thrum of James’s blood.
Will said, ‘I think the Stewards asked you the wrong questions.’
‘What would you have asked?’
The provocative words were certainly a ploy. It suited James to keep him here, Will thought. And James was good at holding attention. Was it a natural skill or a learned one? Something from his other life or from this one? James was like the locked door to a world of secrets, unattainable and alluring.
‘Do you remember him?’ Will said.
He felt the shift – as if the past were here with them – an aching enmity – a war almost lost – James in princely red, with rubies around his throat. And a dark presence that he’d summoned without even speaking its name, growing, gathering its forces, becoming ever stronger—
‘No one else has ever asked me that.’ James’s voice was a little shaken. You feel it too, Will almost said. Instead of answering Will’s question, James said, ‘Do you remember her? The Lady?’