Different, too, were the edges of the bits, sharpened to a knifelike sharpness, and edged by that same curious silver inlay. Otherwise the darkness of the weir-bents seemed to increase as she looked at them, almost as if the shadows in the room were being sucked in, so that it felt as if she were looking through them, into the darkness of a vast night sky.
“Miss Quicke,” murmured Mrs. Harrogate, and Alice came back to herself with a start.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “What. What do I do?”
Mrs. Harrogate indicated the iron weir-bent. “This is the weapon. It may be used in the keyhole of any closed door, in any lock. It will fit. And when you open that door, the keywrasse will come out. Its purpose is your purpose; but it does not simply obey your commands. The keywrasse will try to master you. You must not let it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. One last thing. The weir-bent does not work in daylight. It can only be used at night. I do not understand how, or why; I only tell you what has been told to me. You must return the keywrasse through a door, and seal it again in the weir-bent, before the sun rises.”
“Or what?”
“The weir-bents are what hold the keywrasse in bondage. The longer the wrasse remains out of the weir-bent, the weaker that control becomes. When the control weakens too much, the wrasse will be free to act as it wishes, here, in this world. It will obey only its own desires. It will follow only its own appetites. You will no longer command it.”
“What will it do, then?”
“Let us not find out, hm?”
“But why is it I can do this and no one else?”
Mrs. Harrogate gave her an angry look, almost bitter. “Because you are the one who carries Jacob Marber’s dust. But you are not the only one.”
She meant Marber, Alice knew. Jacob Marber could control it also. She shivered and went to the door and started to slide the iron weir-bent in and then stopped. “Wait,” she said. “The other key, what does it do?”
“Weir-bent, Miss Quicke. It is called a weir-bent. The iron unlocks; the wood locks away. It is for closing. When it is time for the keywrasse to leave you.”
“Before sunrise.”
“Or you shall have to wait until nightfall, again. Yes.”
Alice nodded and turned back to the door. She slid the iron weir-bent in, and turned it.
Nothing happened. A long silence followed.
“You must open the door,” said Mrs. Harrogate, sounding faintly exasperated.
Alice, nervous, turned the door pull. The hall outside was narrow and dimly lit by a single gas sconce near the top of the stairs and Alice cautiously stepped out and peered in both directions. It was empty. Then she felt something slide against her ankle and she leaped back but it was only a cat, a black cat with one white sock, belonging no doubt to the landlady, and Alice glared at it and started to go back in, feeling a strange mixture of both relief and disappointment.
But Mrs. Harrogate, however, was standing transfixed in the middle of the room, staring at the cat.
And all at once Alice understood. She looked down, looked back, feeling ridiculous. “No,” she said. “The cat?”
It had padded noiselessly into the room and leaped now up onto the bedclothes and there it curled up, its long tail sweeping in around it. Calmly it started to lick at its white forepaw. And that was when Alice saw that it had two extra eyes, four in all, shining with light in the smooth black fur.
“What does it do?” she whispered.
Mrs. Harrogate calmly clasped her hands in the small of her back. She did not move. “It understands you, Miss Quicke. You may ask it yourself.”
“But it is here to help us, isn’t it?”
“We must hope so. Be polite; speak to it directly.”
“Hello, uh, kitty,” she said, feeling vaguely foolish. The keywrasse, if that was what it was, just continued its grooming. “My name is Alice Quicke. I, uh, I opened the door.… The thing is, we need your help. There’s a man, a—a drughr, that’s killing our friends. We need your help in stopping it. Please.”
The keywrasse raised its whiskers and yawned widely, baring its long fangs, and for a quick moment Alice thought it might acknowledge her, she thought it might respond in some strange uncatlike way, but instead it just leaped noiselessly down and padded to the window and jumped up onto the sill. And there it sat, head raised, ears dialed forward, peering out at the darkness.
“This is ridiculous,” Alice muttered. She had the creeping feeling that a joke was being played on her.