he could stuff them in his pockets and slouch defiantly before me. “You have no business being here. You went away and left him, left the Regent and all his people here to die . . . at the hands of your own kind.”
“That’s not what happened,” I said. He drew himself up haughtily.
“What are you doing in the Regent’s office?” said Molly. “Bearing in mind that I am getting very tired of this, and am only moments away from turning you into something small and squishy, with your testicles floating on the top, and then Riverdancing on them.”
He sneered at her, too. “I didn’t come back to avenge the fallen Regent. Or mourn his death. No, I just needed to be sure he really was dead. For my own peace of mind. He was a great man, you know. Everyone said so. Including him . . . But not always. No, not to everyone. Not to those he considered unworthy . . . I didn’t let him down! Not really. But he still wouldn’t take me with him to Uncanny. In fact, he told me to stay away. Gave orders that I was to be turned away from his door if I did show up! Not that I would have. I have my pride . . . He should have cut me some slack! I tried so hard. Really hard. But he was just so old-fashioned in his thinking. He didn’t understand . . . that you can’t be strong all the time . . .”
I looked at Molly. “Are you following any of this?”
“So far, it just seems to be whine whine whine,” said Molly.
I glared at the young man behind the Regent’s desk. “Who are you?”
“I’m Marcus Turner,” he said. “And you’ve never heard of me. It’s not fair. It’s not fair! I was going to be someone; everyone said so. Including him! The Regent of Shadows told everyone I was going to be someone important someday! But he betrayed me. Offered me the world, and then snatched it away again.”
“Why?” I said. “Why would he do that?”
“Because I dared to disagree with him! Because he was old, and limited in his thinking! He couldn’t see the big picture . . . Not like me. I made him the Regent of Shadows, you know. I made that possible. I was the one who found Kayleigh’s Eye for him. And you don’t even want to know how far I had to go to find the awful thing and bring it back. All the things I had to do . . . all the blood on my hands . . . Mine! Not his! I was entitled to something for myself. I was! For everything I went through, for him . . . I said to him, I said, we should break the Eye up, shatter the stone into a thousand pieces, so we could all have a shard. So all the Shadows could be untouchable, and unstoppable. We could have changed the world . . . But he said no! He said he’d seen where that led, with the Droods. He lied. He just wanted the Eye for himself. Old fool! We could have been greater than the Droods!”
“I am starting to follow this,” I said. “But I really don’t think I like where it’s going.”
“He let us down,” said Marcus. “He let us all down. So I tried to take the Eye back, for myself. Who had a better right? But he stopped me, kept the Eye for himself, and had them throw me out. Out into the cold.” He shuddered suddenly, and wrapped his arms around himself, as though to hold himself together. “But I fixed him. I fixed him . . . oh yes! I got the word out. On the one way the Eye could be taken from him, after he’d fused it to his chest. He thought he was untouchable, but I knew better!” He giggled suddenly—a high, nervous, disturbing sound. “I had my revenge! On him, and his whole precious Department! The life he built without me . . . That should have been mine. I wish I could have been here to see it when they came for him. When they all came crashing in, and it all came crashing down.” He glared at me suddenly. “He did die, didn’t he? Tell me the Regent died! I need to hear you say it. Tell me I didn’t make all of this