“What if it was drier?”
“Drier?”
Robin gestured impatiently and kicked another tendril away from Edwin’s ankle. “After I fell in the lake, you—”
“Oh.” Edwin looked down at his hands. “Yes. All right. Stand close behind me.”
So Robin did, one hand holding his lighter at the ready. All around them the hedge crept inwards and upwards, tiny rustling sounds layering themselves into something almost animalistic. A growl of thorns. Edwin was shaking.
“You can do this,” Robin said. “I know you can.”
“You don’t know anything,” Edwin whispered, but it sounded like thank you.
He lifted his hands haltingly, palms together, then drew them apart. He cradled slowly, freezing whenever Robin moved; Robin managed to get his own trousers partially shredded, diverting the holly that was trying to wrap itself around Edwin’s legs, swallowing down the urge to scream at Edwin to work faster. Another minute and there’d be no space left for them to be standing in at all. But Edwin kept going, and soon there was a soft yellow glow between his palms.
“It’s working!” said Robin.
“It’s worked,” said Edwin.
He raised his glowing hands to his mouth, took a breath, and blew.
The drying spell that had swept over Robin in the boat had been a warm, pleasant breeze. This was obviously something more. The plant reared backwards at an angle. The hot wind gusting from Edwin’s lips swept, and swept, and kept sweeping—and the dark green turned the middling brown of dry, dead things in a patch a yard wide.
Edwin dropped his hands. His next inhalation was like the breath taken to save oneself from drowning.
Robin flicked at his lighter the four times it took to produce a flame. He held it up in mute invitation. Edwin dragged the flame in front of him by grabbing at Robin’s wrist. The holly shivered and growled around them. Just as slowly, though much less hesitantly, Edwin cradled a second spell.
“Magnification,” Edwin murmured. “Like the snowflake.”
“Very good, don’t care,” said Robin. Edwin could explain the damn spell clause by clause later, when they were out.
“Hold it steady,” said Edwin. “This might hurt a bit—sorry.”
It did hurt. A bit. Robin’s standards for pain had changed somewhat over the past few days. The flame balanced on the lighter grew and grew, and Robin’s forehead broke out into first sweat and then the unpleasant sear of standing too close to naked fire.
Robin held on until Edwin gasped, “Throw it.”
The dry yard of hedge went up with a sound like sucking air and breaking rocks.
Robin jammed his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and tried to peer through the shimmer and smoke. On either side of the dried patch the still-green holly had drawn back, as though from someone coughing on the Underground, and there were two thin gaps.
“There!” He was prepared to do more grabbing and pulling, but Edwin didn’t hesitate. One after another they leapt and scrambled around the side of the burning holly. The heat of the flames was uncomfortable, the smoke a dirty sting in Robin’s eyes, but he moved fast and was through, stumbling into an open space, before he knew whether he’d been burned.
They were in a wide square of gravel, surrounded by hedge on every side. Dead centre stood a marble statue of a woman: neoclassical, taller than life, the falls of stone fabric looking almost soft, her hands held close to her body and cupped together. Between those hands was a dark hole, as though one could reach into her body. A space for secrets kept safe.
Edwin was coughing. Now, with effortful breaths, he managed to stop.
“Out of the frying pan . . .” He gestured.
Robin’s objection that they had, if anything, gotten out of the fire, died on his tongue. The square of gravel was shrinking. The dry holly was already burning itself into glowing twigs and embers, but it was still too high and dense to shove through. And the gaps were gone. All of the non-charred holly was squeezing in: warily, gradually, as if they’d put it on its guard.
They’d reached the centre and now there was nowhere to go.
“I’ll try a ward.” Edwin screwed his eyes shut and worked painstakingly through the spell. He winced and started over twice, and held the final position for a long, long few seconds, during which Robin tried to convince himself that he could see coloured light, or anything at all, sparking into being in the cradle. But he couldn’t.
Edwin’s exhalation was one of defeat. “No, that’s it. The drying spell took most of my magic. Anything large enough to be useful now is going to take more than I have left.” He shook his hands out as though loosening the string that wasn’t there. “Any other bright ideas, Sir Robin?”