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  ‘Don’t you even dare breathe in the wrong way,’ I tell him. ‘I will fillet you.’

  He gives a snort, one so full of derision that I feel like kicking him, but he walks past us and follows Olga upstairs.

  As if we’ve planned it, Thorn and I fall in side by side, with me a slight step behind, covering our backs.

  Olga leads us into a brightly lit modern kitchen and it’s only when I walk in and I smell Bolognese sauce cooking that I realize how hungry I am. Wolf boy goes to the counter and starts putting cups out for coffee and tea. The way he moves around the kitchen tells me he’s been here before. But that still doesn’t make me any less nervous. Olga’s strained face and worried eyes make me feel deeply uncomfortable and I hover at the table, torn between staying and trusting her and the werewolf or turning around, leaving and trying to find somewhere else.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kit. Relax. Really – just put your stuff down and stop glowering at me like a thug. You Blackharts make everything an issue.’ She picks up a wooden spoon and jabs at the bubbling sauce. ‘Do you know Aiden Garrett?’ She nods with her chin at the young man who is yet to speak. ‘He’s Jonathan’s son.’

  I look at the young man again. I’ve never met any of the Garretts but I know who they are. Why was he here when his dad and the pack were in Scotland helping my cousins sort through the cattle mutilations?

  ‘I’m Kit Blackhart,’ I say to him when he turns to look at me. He surveys me frankly and I must meet with his approval because I’m treated to a smile that shows off very sharp white teeth against his tanned skin. ‘This is Thorn. From Alba.’

  ‘You guys look like shit,’ he says conversationally as he gives us each a nod before gesturing to the kettle. ‘Can I get you tea?’ His question is directed at Thorn, who doesn’t look at all out of place in the cosy kitchen. ‘We’ve got almost everything you people like to drink.’

  ‘Normal tea would be fine, thanks.’ There’s a tightening of Thorn’s mouth at Aiden’s term of ‘you people’ and I wonder what the undercurrent meant.

  ‘I’ll have coffee,’ I tell him. ‘Thanks.’

  Olga sits down at the table and I do too, but I keep my bag by my feet and my knife on the table next to me. Thorn seats himself with an obvious sigh of relief.

  ‘You need to tell me everything that’s happened,’ she says, leaning forward. ‘I got attacked by a handful of goblins when I was coming home from the grocery shop. I saw them off but I hurt my leg. And now I’m hearing all kinds of rumours about a coup in Alba, about dragons and other crazy things and now you guys are here looking like death.’ She pauses and watches Aiden pass us our drinks. ‘And I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve not been able to get hold of Jamie or Andrew, either. Where is everyone?’

  I feel the last bit of my hope drain away and stare at her in shock. This is not the reception I expected.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emm’s: Run by Emory Kassan, Emm’s is a renowned antique store in the Frontier. There are several branches of Emm’s throughout the human world, with a wide range of very wealthy clientele. The London store of Emm’s is run by Kassan’s adoptive granddaughter, Olga Kassan. Olga’s adopted mother was Emory Kassan’s only child.

  From an archived report filed in HMDSDI HQ, 1955

  It’s several hours later. The silence is only broken by the sound of the rain outside. Below us the shop lies in darkness and beyond the shop Mayfair and London huddle miserably beneath a wet cloak. It’s not really late by London standards but there are no cars out, no late-night office workers or partygoers. Sitting in the lit kitchen, it suddenly feels as if we are the only people in the world.

  ‘What do we do now?’ I ask Olga. ‘We don’t know anything else that might help us decide on next steps.’

  ‘Have you got any idea where else your family could have gone, Thorn?’ Olga asks for the umpteenth time. ‘The ruling house of Alba can’t just disappear off the face of the planet without someone knowing where they are.’

  Thorn looks at the list he wrote out in careful script, translating the place names for us. Between him and Olga they’ve tried contacting various people around the country but the phones are either going straight to voicemail or are just plain dead. It’s not a good sign.

  ‘These are the people who might know,’ he says, tapping his fingers on the scrap of paper. ‘And if we can’t contact them, then I don’t know.’

  ‘It is late,’ Aiden interrupts. ‘They could easily be asleep or out.’

  ‘Or dead.’ Olga arches an eyebrow. ‘Let’s be honest. If it were me staging a coup I’d take out anyone who’d help my enemy.’

  I say a bad word that Jamie would have made me pay for with a further five laps of the circuit back home and Aiden gives a surprised huff at my swearing. Olga just looks serious and to my surprise Thorn looks as if he wants to crumple and cry in frustration.

  ‘The Fae Holds are full to overflowing with escapees from Alba,’ Olga says. ‘There are horror stories of torture and . . .’ she gestures. ‘Well, you can imagine. Overthrowing a regime is always accompanied by posturing and violence. Our problem is that the Holds aren’t made to home a lot of homeless Fae. Their supplies are already running low and some of the smaller Fae are succumbing to Iron Sickness.’ The Fae Holds are five safe-houses created for Fae who visit the Frontier, linked to the Otherwhere through the Hold’s owner. That person is usually a powerful Sidhe who can sustain ties to the Otherwhere through his or her own magic, or by linking with an object of power anchored in the Otherwhere. The Holds are rare and unusual, and I’ve only ever been to one. The connection with the Fae realm was designed to foster a concentration of magic powerful enough to keep the Fae sustained while in the Frontier. The upshot of my visit was that my magic got a high just from walking into the place. It was as if I’d had a massive dose of adrenalin and my own magic had raged in my blood for long afterwards, even making me ill with a wild fever that had me hallucinating some pretty bizarre things.

  But if enough Fae creatures gathered in such a place, they would deplete those protective magics, leaving them vulnerable to a sickness some contracted in our world. This had many names, Frontier’s Bane being one of them. Iron Sickness another.

  ‘What do we know about the person in charge of the coup?’ Aiden asks Thorn, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Who would have the guts to take on your family? And win?’

  Thorn looks conflicted and I watch him struggling to talk about it. He’d evaded my questions about it earlier, but now, faced with other interested parties – people who could help – he seemed even more reluctant.

  ‘Has anyone coming from Alba mentioned anything?’ he counters, looking at Olga questioningly. ‘Do they know who it is?’

  ‘Not yet. No one has seen the leader but the rumours are that he is a very powerful sorcerer. And he uses sendings.’ She sees my blank look and explains hastily. ‘This sorcerer is strong enough to compel people to do what he wants – it’s like possessing them and it’s called a “sending”. So he’s strong enough to use sendings and on top of that he has a large army of wild Fae and creatures from the far North to do his bidding. Alba was not prepared for this.’ She narrows her eyes as Thorn shifts uncomfortably in his seat. ‘You know something?’

  ‘We used the broken mirror at the Manor and scried.’

  Olga scowls unhappily. ‘Are you both insane? That mirror’s not worked since the night your pa—’ She stops mid-sentence and draws a steadying breath. ‘Using a broken mirror is extremely dangerous. The magics that formed them are unstable. You could have been killed.’

  I have the grace to look embarrassed and guilty but Thorn squares up to her, being the brave one. ‘I had to know what was going on in my home,’ he says. ‘It was a risk I was prepared to take.’

  ‘What did you learn?’ Aiden asks before Olga can do some more shouting.

  ‘The mirror described a man, it didn’t recognize him outright, but it gave enough of a description for me t
o think that the man in charge is my father’s younger brother.’

  The room fell silent. Aiden looks worried but confused and Olga looks as if she wants to be ill.

  ‘Eadric? You’re saying Eadric did this?’

  ‘You know him?’ I ask, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  ‘Of course I know him. Eadric and I grew up together on the continent.’ She waves her hand. ‘A very long time ago now. He was never a violent man; he was content with his role as Aelfric’s younger brother. He loved his books and studying.’ Her voice takes on a reminiscent tone I recognize that older people fall into when they remember their golden childhoods. My nan had that exact same tone when she told me wild stories as a small child to get me to sleep, to keep the night terrors at bay.

  Thorn watches her intently for a few seconds before replying.

  ‘Even so, even if the description sounds like Eadric, I don’t know if it is him. There’s a lot of history surrounding my family. One aspect tells of a geas, a spell or curse, on the extended royal family. This prevents them from rising up against the rightful king. The geas I’m talking about is ancient, as old as Alba itself, and it secures the royal family’s position within the kingdom. There is a story that once, long ago in the past, a king had been threatened by his uncle. When he rose up against the king, the duke found himself surrounded by the guardians of the Citadel. They cut him down and those who conspired with him were banished and the rebellion was quashed. It is known in our history as the Night of Blood.’

  I can’t help my mouth twisting in distaste. ‘Nice.’

  Thorn favours me with a stern look. ‘The high king’s rule is absolute and unquestioned.’

  The way Thorn says it, so matter of fact, makes me realize that although we’ve spent a few hours together and I like him well enough, I really don’t know anything about him at all. I shift in my chair, suddenly uncomfortable.

  ‘So, if it’s not your uncle, who is it?’ I ask him, triggering more questions from Olga and Aiden.

  ‘Is there a way to break this geas?’ Olga is leaning against the counter, wiping her hands on a cloth. ‘If the curse can be broken, then the usurper could be your uncle.’

  ‘Do we have any other clues about this guy? Can it be someone else?’ Aiden asks in turn.

  Thorn shakes his head. ‘The ring described by the mirror is unique. My uncle was given that by my grandfather when he came of age. The roaring lion. No other ring like that exists and it’s unique to our family. It can’t be worn by anyone else.’

  ‘I remember the ring,’ Olga says unhappily. ‘But can we be sure? Could he have passed it to someone else?’ She moves to stand behind Aiden, favouring her good leg. ‘We have to be sure, Thorn, before you take matters any further. Accusing the wrong person here can easily destroy alliances . . .’ She gestures helplessly. ‘It could trigger a catastrophe – even worse than what’s going on right now.’

  ‘The ring is an heirloom and is Eadric’s alone. As is the ring that my father in turn was given on his coming-of-age day.’ He moves in his seat, the stiffness in his arm obvious in the way he holds himself. ‘I don’t know my uncle all that well. I met him when I was very young, maybe three years old. He had done something to upset my father and was called to Court. When he eventually came to the Citadel he was locked away with my father for several hours. I remember sitting in the courtyard by the stables watching my older brothers and cousins practise sword fighting when Uncle Eadric came out. He was in a foul mood. Pale and shaking with anger. He saw me sitting on a barrel and he heaved me up by the collar. He shook me so hard I bit my lip and he said in this voice, frighteningly quiet and full of menace: “Aelfric will rue the day he refused to take my counsel. The kingdom is lost. Alba will burn. I wash my hands of all of you. Boy, I hope you’re worth it.”’

  I find myself leaning closer to Thorn as he speaks. His handsome features are calm as he recounts the story but his voice sounds strained. ‘And then he flung me from him with such force that I went flying into a wall. I knocked my head and I remember hearing a roaring sound and there were flames. And then everything went black. I came to two days later and learned that I had tried to protect myself by casting fire at my uncle but it didn’t work very well and I set the stables on fire instead. But what was even worse was that my oldest two brothers had laid into my uncle and that it was only my father’s intervention that prevented them from killing him for attacking me. My father banished Eadric and his retainers. As high king he had the right to sentence his brother to death, but he showed him mercy, sending him to the wastes in the North, where he was watched over by my father’s chamberlain and his assistants. To show the Courts how serious he was about expelling his brother, my father cut all ties with him and ordered his name struck from the tree of Alba entirely.’

  There’s an awkward silence. I trade a grim look with Aiden but it’s Olga who speaks first after some time.

  ‘Am I right saying that by cutting him from the family tree, your father disowned his own brother, threw him out of the family? And that because he’s been disowned, he has no rightful way of attaining the crown?’ Olga’s voice is soft, measured. Her reasoning is easy to follow.

  Thorn nods, frowning. ‘Yes. Gods, it could be how he came to bypass the geas. If he is no longer family . . .’ He looks shaken. ‘I’m sure it didn’t cross my father’s mind either.’

  ‘It’s a good hunch,’ Aiden says. ‘It means that your uncle’s been planning this for a good, what – fifteen years or more? That is a long time to work on allies and getting people in place to help overrun the Citadel.’

  ‘I wonder what he meant, though, by what he said to you. About you being worth it. Do you have any idea?’ I have to ask the question, of course I have to. All of this seems to be focused on Thorn. He is definitely the key to the mess.

  ‘No. My father had his advisers, astronomers and sorcerers search for years to try and find anything that could pertain to the threat Eadric made. But they found nothing conclusive. Even so, because of what happened, word spread and no one wanted anything much to do with me. I became bad luck.’

  Scarlet kept low in the shadows as she neared the witch’s house – or Olga Kassan as the humans knew her. The rain fell mercilessly and she shivered beneath her cloak. But her rapid flight from Alba had a purpose and the news she carried drove her on.

  The buildings she slipped past were in darkness and few people were about. She saw a bearded man talking to a broken child’s doll in a shop window, not seeming to realize that the doll couldn’t hear him through the thick glass. He looked up at Scarlet’s passing and watched her suspiciously before scrabbling off, pulling a metal cage on wheels from beside the building and clattering along the pavement in the opposite direction.

  Scarlet shook her head, amazed by the mysteries of the Frontier. She soon neared the park, knowing the witch lived close by. She was about to vault over the fence when the attack came.

  The fight was brutal and fierce. She laid into her attackers with feet and fists, striving for a rhythm. She felt bones crack and heard grunts from them and smiled in triumph as one of her attackers let out a howl and collapsed to the ground. She stomped where she thought his throat would be and felt the crunch of larynx under her boot.

  Scarlet knew she had to end the fight, and soon. There were five of them, large and muscular, and her reserves were low. She had not slept or really eaten anything since her escape from Alba and she had lost her sword in the ribcage of a mountain ogre sent to bring her back.

  One of her assailants grunted something. A flash of steel caught her eye too late and she felt the blade slide home. For the longest time she felt nothing, adrenalin surging through her, but in the blade’s wake she felt burning.

  The smell of her blood on the rainsoaked air filled her nostrils, but with it, she recognized another scent. Sickly and sweet, it teased her with memories of walking with Kieran through the gardens of the Citadel, the night air heavy with the scent of
night-blooming flowers. Recognition came too late. Poison.

  She shrieked her anger and somewhere thunder rumbled. As fast as the attack had come they let her go and melted into the night. She fell, blood mingling with the rain on the pavement.

  Scarlet forced herself upright and hobbled the remaining distance to Olga’s door and used some hidden reserves to ring the bell.

  She sensed movement in the building as she huddled in the doorway, then at last the witch stood before her.

  Scarlet looked at her with relief. Finally, someone who would know what to do. But before she could speak, her strength failed and she crumpled into the woman’s waiting arms.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chimera: The word comes from Greek ‘kimaros’ and pertains to an animal or creature made up from the parts of three or more other animals. Rumours from the Otherwhere persist that some of the more adept sorcerers have been playing around genetically manipulating volunteers.

  From an archived report filed in HMDSDI HQ, 2009

  The sound of musical chimes startles all of us. Olga is up and away from Aiden’s chair in the blink of an eye. I have no idea where it’s come from but she has an ugly serrated combat knife in her hand and she looks alarmingly at ease with it. She gestures for us to stay seated and cat-foots it to the top of the stairs, where she flips open a panel in the wall and keys in a code on a numerical pad there. A small screen lights up and shows the outside front of the shop. There’s nothing we can see – apart from parked cars, the street and the park itself – all a bit blurry in the darkness.

  Stay there,’ she hisses back over her shoulder. ‘Aiden, if there’s an attack, leave the way I showed you. Get them out of here.’

  I tense up in annoyance but as I reach for my sword, Aiden’s grip holds me back.