Despair soaked Edwin like spilled wine. He tried to burn the feel of Robin’s mouth into his skin along with the scratches and bruises, wanting almost to cry at the idea that he would wake up having forgotten how it felt to be . . . smiled at, yes, and touched in ways that he craved, and thought to be fascinating. He had been easy. Robin had walked into the maze of him and solved him with no string required at all, and Edwin had been stupid enough to let that slip out of his hands.
“All right,” said Robin’s voice, terse and clear. “Stop.”
The jerking-round of Billy’s head was the only clue that Edwin hadn’t hallucinated a speaking illusion of Robin Blyth through the force of his longing.
If it was an illusion, it was the strangest Edwin had ever seen. Emerging from the fading shimmer of a curtain-spell was a small group of people. It was Robin, along with an unfamiliar woman shaking the last sparks of the spell’s banishment from her fingertips, and Adelaide Morrissey. Who was standing with her feet planted and a longbow in her hands, an arrow drawn back flush with her cheek, for all the world as though Edwin’s parlour were an archery range.
The arrow was pointed at Billy.
Billy said, “What the devil . . .”
“Hullo, Byatt. This is, as someone once told me, a game of nerve,” said Robin. “I suggest you don’t move.”
It turned out that having a truly strong magician on one’s side made a lot of difference, when it came to quietly opening the locked door of a hotel suite and quietly tiptoeing, disguised behind a spell, through an entrance hall and into the parlour that Robin had seen in his vision.
Robin’s two contributions to the adventure thus far had been baroneting Edwin’s suite number out of the concierge, and managing not to step through the subtle shimmer of the spell and plant his fist in Billy Byatt’s freckled face. He’d been all for charging in as soon as the door was open, but had been persuaded otherwise by Catherine Amrit Kaur’s calm voice, laying out this plan. Robin felt rather silly; he’d worried Mrs. Kaur might be made incautious by emotion, given her history with Billy. She’d looked strained, and kept her hand on her sister’s arm as they listened, but she’d been a model of patient caution.
Robin’s emotions, as Billy talked about the contract, had been howling for caution to be thrown to the winds in favour of . . . well, punching.
“Kitty?” said Billy.
The yellow spell in Billy’s hands sat quiescent, half-built, already dimming as his attention wavered. Edwin leaned over and shook Billy’s wrist, dissipating it completely. Billy spared him only a quick, jerky glance before his eyes swung back to Kitty Kaur. He began to stand; Miss Morrissey said, “Ah,” warningly, and he froze.
Edwin looked like a poor reproduction of himself, tainted by disbelief. He’d been readying himself for something awful, Robin had seen it happening, and now here Robin was appearing out of nowhere. A magic trick. Robin managed a smile, giving Edwin something to latch on to, if he wanted it.
“Kitty,” Billy said again, a bewildered plea. “What are you doing here?”
“And where did you find a bow?” Edwin asked.
“Transformed a broom,” said Mrs. Kaur. She didn’t seem inclined to answer Billy’s query.
“I couldn’t be much help there,” said Miss Morrissey. “But I did get a ribbon at school for archery.”
“Edwin,” said Robin. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Edwin. Their gazes held. Robin had to bite his tongue against blurting out accusation and apology and admission, all at once. Edwin stood and began to cross the room.
Mrs. Kaur made a short, broken-off noise of warning, too late. As Edwin moved to step past him, Billy stood—grabbed him—Robin started forward to help, but came up short against Mrs. Kaur’s urgent arm.
“Hold it there,” said Billy.
Edwin held. Was held. The switch-knife pressed against his side was not large, but it winked deadly sharp in the light. Billy’s other arm snaked around Edwin’s chest, dragging Edwin back against himself.
“Edwin here knows that those of us without much magic have to rely on other things, from time to time,” Billy said. “It helps to have something in reserve.”
Edwin breathed shallowly and fast. Robin felt paralysed with the speed at which things had swung in their favour and back out of it. They could overpower him, certainly, but Billy had already shown he could move fast and believed in . . . broken eggs. Omelettes. Perhaps he didn’t like the idea of getting blood on his own hands, but he was cornered and annoyed and there was nothing hesitant about his grip on the knife.