he mumbled. “Where’s Mrs. Mordaunt?”
“She’s gone,” said Luc, “and she won’t be coming back. If I were you, I should take yourself home. Leaving now. It’s a long drive.” And, as an afterthought: “Tell your company to send the bill to Kaspar Walgrim.”
“They always do.”
“What we need,” said Bradachin when the man had gone, “is usquebaugh. Usquebaugh tae fight the devil, usquebaugh tae heal the hert . . .”
“Robbie Burns?” said Fern.
“Boggan,” said the goblin.
He fetched the whiskey. He knew where it was kept.
In the study of his Knightsbridge home, Kaspar Walgrim was sitting in front of his PC when he had the sudden impression that Time jarred. He found he had upset his sherry, and looked around the familiar room as if unsure where he was. His recollection of recent weeks—months—was inexplicably blurred. And then he blinked at the computer screen, and saw the details of the company he had invented, and the vast sums of the bank’s and clients’ money he had poured into it. In a frenzy he flicked through account after account, watching the money dodge here and there, acquiring a will of its own, ducking and diving, switching identities, bleeding away into the ether. He had never done anything criminal in his life, and now, seeing the evidence of his madness unfolding before him, his brain spiraled into panic. It was a dream, a nightmare—but no, the nightmare was over, and this was the awakening. He saw the name of Melissa Mordaunt and wondered fleetingly who she was. And then the memory returned of a woman with a bird’s face, a spike-haired harpy who melted into a raven goddess caressing him with fingers of silk, transporting him into a dark Paradise . . .
At Wrokeby, the spell wall in the attic shimmered into view, a woven net of strange and sinister beauty—and vanished. Kal reached through the bars, probing the air, feeling nothing. He withdrew his hand, his expression undiscernible beneath the mask of grime, the lice-ridden hair. (He had eaten the lice when he was hungry.) He knew what it meant. Morgus had been his mother, had rejected and tormented him, punishing him for his birth, his being, for the monster she had made him. And now she was dead . . . There was something in his eyes that might have been pain, or perhaps simply a longing for the pain that was suddenly no longer there. Then he thought of Fern thrusting her hand through the barrier. He seized the chains that fettered him, the muscles in his arms stiffening into rigidity. He was part werefolk: captivity had not weakened him. The chains creaked, link grinding on link, straining at the ring that held them to the wall—then snapped like breadsticks. His legs were free; a few more minutes and his arms followed. The manacles still clasped wrist and ankle, loose ends of chain clattering as he moved, but he could deal with those later. He grasped the bars, trying to force them apart, wrenching, bending. It took a long time, but he had time. His strength was more than human though his soul was less, and gradually the gap widened, and the bars twisted, tearing up the floor where they were embedded, sending great cracks zigzagging across the ceiling. After nearly two hours, there was enough space for him to insinuate his body between them. On the other side he straightened up, stretching; the muscle web across shoulders and torso flexed, tensed, and relaxed into suppleness. Then he moved through the attics, chains rattling faintly, his stench following him like a darkness. In the ghostless house there were no eyes to watch him go.
Downstairs he met Grodda, who at Morgus’s whim had brought him food: Nehemet’s leavings, mice she had trapped, worms from the garden. On the rare occasions when she had arrived with a proper meal, she always spat in the dish. Seeing him, she turned to run, but she was not fast enough.
He broke her neck.
Then he went out, leaving the door ajar, letting the country night flow in to fill the emptiness.
In Dale House, Fern and Luc were patching up their injuries. A search of the bathroom cabinet had yielded a selection of antiseptic creams, one or two suitable for minor burns, and such antiquated remedies as iodine and hydrogen peroxide. There were also Band-Aids of assorted sizes, lengths of bandages, pads of gauze. Luc had stripped off his damaged jacket and unstuck the bloodstained shirt from his