The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,124

decide her own path.’

‘And you would allow her to choose life here in this fortress of madness and dark? Even after you have sacrificed the years of your youth to find her?’ Deortha asked, uncomprehending.

‘All I want for her is joy and peace. I would not see her heart broken to salve my own ache.’

He watched Jenny’s face soften at his words. Her gaze flickered across his features, a question in her eyes.

Will stifled his swirling feelings for her, ready to plunge the dagger into the sorcerer’s chest. If nothing else came of this dismal affair, the death of the Unseelie Court’s scheming adviser would strike at the heart of their aspirations.

Before he could decide, the door crashed open. Jenny cried out in shock, her hand flying to her mouth. In a flurry of snow white, Mandraxas swept into the antechamber, eyes afire, with three Fay guards at his side. The sorcerer’s eyes widened with fear, and in an instant he had pressed something hard into Will’s hand. The King hurried to Jenny to see she was well. As the spy slipped the object under his shirt and into the waist of his breeches, Deortha whispered an instruction. He had barely finished when Mandraxas turned his coruscating gaze upon them.

At the King’s order, the guards forced Will and Deortha against the stone wall with the cruel blades of their halberds. Will felt the tip of the spear dig into his neck; one thrust and his head would be gone. He cursed.

Mandraxas fixed his attention on Deortha and intoned, ‘Take the traitor to the Scalding Rooms.’

Horror flitted across the sorcerer’s face, but he fought to retain his composure. He glared coldly at the King, but reserved a more lingering glance for Will, urging, perhaps, that they had business in common. He strode out with a halberd pressed against his back. The King stepped to Jenny’s side, and placed one slender finger under her chin to raise her head. He gazed into her eyes for a long moment and then brushed his lips against hers.

Will felt a flare of fiery anger, and jealousy too, he could not deny that. He struggled to reach the Fay King, only for the remaining guards to press their halberds harder still. He felt sticky blood trickle down his neck. And yet, as Jenny’s lips met her master’s, he swore he saw her eyes look towards his own.

Leaving her at last, Mandraxas strode towards him with a triumphant grin. ‘I saw you once, long ago in your terms,’ he said with contempt. ‘A callow youth. Not fit to dally with this proud woman, my consort.’

Though the King held the upper hand, the two faced each other as equals in love, their faces cold. ‘I have sailed across an ocean of years and half a world to find Jenny,’ Will said. ‘I have sacrificed my youth, my innocence, my dreams, my morals, to get her back. I have turned my skin to flint and my heart to steel. There is nothing I would not do to free her from your cruelty.’ He could feel Jenny’s eyes upon him, but he kept his gaze upon the King.

Mandraxas’s face loomed a finger’s width from Will. His eyes gleamed golden, his pale skin almost translucent, his breath ice-cold. ‘I always knew you would come for her,’ he whispered. ‘I welcomed it. I needed you here, in my hands. You were always the one who might waken her from this long, peaceful sleep, even after a thousand years, but now I have you she will be mine for ever. And you will suffer a thousand hells for your failure.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

THE FIRE ROARED in the grand stone hearth like a black-smith’s forge. Golden sparks surged up the chimney as shadows fluttered across the whirling figures. Dresses of mildewed grey swirled around in furious dance to the delirious rhythm of fiddle and pipe. Their cloaks flying, the Fay males caught the hands of their partners and whipped them around faster still. And with every spin the faces altered, hauntingly beautiful one moment, cadaverous the next. With the music ringing up to the vaulted roof, the fiddler and the piper danced along the twin tables running the length of the hall, deftly avoiding the platters of meat and bread and cheese which seemed at once both bounteous and corrupted by rot. On the Golden Throne, Mandraxas steepled his fingers and watched the Unseelie Court at play with the easy eye of a victor. Beside him