yourself that her being in whatever magical coma equivalent she’s in is what’s making the walls go wobbly. We bring her back, we solve that.”
Tara’s eyes narrowed. “That,” she said, “or we kill her and let her successor take over.”
“I don’t think she’s got a successor. The last pretender to the throne of London was Arty King, and the Prince of Wands took him out. Also, if I’m going to throw somebody near-unlimited mystical power, I’d rather it was somebody I knew wasn’t evil.”
Patrick’s voice crackled over the phone. I had a feeling he wasn’t that close to the handset any more. He was probably comforting his girlfriend. “I dislike this plan, Katharine. But I will suffer it for Elaine’s sake.”
Of course he would. The lamb. “Okay, text me the details. If you’re worried about messages getting intercepted then text half and email the rest. And take care of each other.”
“I always will,” he said portentously, then he hung up.
The moment I put my phone away, Tara rounded on me. “I have not agreed to this strategy.”
“I know.” I wasn’t trying to make this hard on her, it was just hard by default. “But I have to do this. We’d all be safer if you were in on it, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to be.”
She gave me a look that said I don’t appreciate having my hand forced.
“I think she’s right.” I hadn’t expected Genevieve to be on my side here; the lady had a world of her own shit to deal with. “The girl’s voice sounded familiar. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it but… while I was in the ice… it felt familiar somehow. She’s a part of this.”
“I will bring it to the pack,” Tara said. “You will do as you must, I know.” She took my hand and held it, her thumb stroking upwards across my fingers in a way that was quite different from the severe alpha-wolf vibe I was getting from the rest of her body. “When it is done, I will come to you. In the meantime, rest.”
And that was that. I retired to Tara’s room to wait for her, and for the pack to make a decision about whether they were going on a grail hunt with me. Given how abstract and metaphorical all this shit had been so far there was a good chance that I was putting two and two together and getting orange. But what else could it all be? I’d been dispatched on a weird dream-quest to find something that probably didn’t exist and told nothing about where to find it. If there wasn’t some key to the whole thing somewhere in the sorry mess of my life, what was the point of any of it?
My phone buzzed. I had a text and an email from Patrick outlining where precisely in the Lake District he and Elaine were hiding out. I also had a message from Dr Bright. Because oh yes, I had that to deal with too.
Have translated much of the book. Will meet to discuss at your convenience. How does this relate to your friend?
Well fuck. There I was thinking I had everything wrapped in a neat little bow, and an end came loose on me. There was nothing I could do about it now, though. I turned my phone off, tried to ignore the dull pain that was still throbbing in my arm, and shut my eyes. I’d just about drifted off when Tara slipped in beside me. I was curious about what the pack had decided, but not so curious that I couldn’t let it wait until morning. I rolled over onto my good side, and she slipped her arms around me and kissed me gently on the shoulder. We stayed that way until we woke.
30
Hills & Motorways
No dreams that night. Which was either a really good sign—that whatever power was guiding me had decided I was finally on the right track and their work was done—or a really bad one. Honestly I was just happy to wake up in the morning feeling halfway rested. Tara was unusually active, even by her standards, getting up bang on dawn and arranging for some resident medic to re-splint my arm, which was feeling—well I wouldn’t quite say better, but I was getting slowly used to the pain.
“Thanks,” I told her. “Not only for this, I mean—you know for everything. I’ve been fucking insufferable for the past, well, forever. And you don’t have to