London

Weyland and Noah left the house at dusk the next day. They stood outside for a moment, close together, looking up at the house.

“For the house,” said Weyland, “I care nothing. But what of the Idyll?”

“Whatever happens,” said Noah, “the Idyll will survive. We may need to build ourselves some new steps, but the Idyll will survive.”

He lowered his gaze from the house to her face. “Are you ready?”

Noah gave a wan smile. “No. I feel sick to the stomach at what I must do. But do it I will. I am sick of dancing to the Game’s tune. Now I will construct the dancing floor, Weyland, and fashion it to my own needs.”

“Catling is about,” he said. “I can sense her.”

“Catling is all about,” said Noah. “She is under our feet and in the air that we breathe.”

Weyland grasped her hand in his. “Noah, be careful.”

She squeezed his hand. “I have you, and all of the Faerie with me. How can I fail?”

Weyland had opened his mouth to reply, but before he could get out the first word there came a sharp and commanding step from the Tower Street end of Idol Lane.

Weyland and Noah turned to look.

And stiffened, their interlocked hands now tight, their faces guarded.

It was Ringwalker.

The Lord of the Faerie cradled the baby Grace in his arms, speaking soothing words to her, and carried her into the Realm of the Faerie. The woman who had once been called Jane, and who was now known simply as the Caroller, met him at the foot of The Naked.

“It is Grace!” the Caroller said, raising her eyes to the Lord of the Faerie’s face.

He gave a wry smile. “We are to babysit.”

Then the Caroller saw the ribbons about the baby’s limbs. “Dear gods, I can understand that Noah might want to secrete the bands within the Faerie, but Weyland?”

“He agreed, and thus undermined every notion I had formed of him. The world is turning into a strange place, my love.”

“What is Noah planning?” the Caroller asked.

The Lord of the Faerie told her, and the Caroller shuddered. “Catling will eat her,” she said.

“Then we must pray for her, and pray that either Noah, or Weyland, may overcome Catling.”

The Caroller gave a small shake of her head. “They both have the darkcraft within them. She will eat them. That is her nature!”

The Lord of the Faerie went white. “What can we do? We can’t just stand here and—”

“Hold the baby?” The Caroller laughed, the sound a lilting reflection of the Ancient Carol. “I think that is precisely what we should do. I think Grace may be the only thing that may save Noah.” She paused. “And Weyland besides, should we wish.”

Ringwalker walked slowly down the laneway towards where Weyland and Noah stood. He walked in his mortal form, as Louis de Silva, but there was no mistaking who and what he was, for power—and anger—radiated from him as if he burned with the heat of the sun.

“I wish I had never entered the cursed city of Mesopotama,” he said. “I wish I had never set eyes on you. I wish I had never—”

“Loved me?” Noah said. “I am sorry, too, Ringwalker, that you left it this long.”

The words stopped, and they stared at each other.

“You were both doomed, always,” said Weyland. “Do not now blame each other for it.”

“Do not dare to—” Ringwalker began.

“Weyland is right,” Noah said. “We were always doomed. The Troy Game could construct many things, and manipulate more, but it has no idea of love, does it? Whatever you and I might have been, Ringwalker, was murdered at the start by the Game.”

There were tears in her eyes as she finished, and it seemed to drain Ringwalker’s anger. “Noah, I am sorry. What can I do? You and I must…we must…’

“We must do many things,” Noah said, “but we are going to have to do them without those bonds of love which once we thought awaited us. I hope that we will walk on parallel paths, but I don’t think our paths will ever converge. Not now.”

Ringwalker’s eyes moved to Weyland. “Did you plan this?”

Weyland gave a grunt of humourless laughter. “I planned to use her, Ringwalker. I planned to destroy you through her, and then obliterate her. I planned to laugh in the doing. But what has this life wrought for any of us, save to demolish all ambitions and turn all plans into dust.” He paused. “Ringwalker, the prize is not Noah, not for either of us.”

Ringwalker cocked an eyebrow, his face set and hard.

“It is life,” Weyland said. “Freedom from the Troy Game. Its death is the only way any of us can live. Its death is most assuredly the only way any of us can live freely.”

“He’s right,” Noah said softly.

Ringwalker was looking back at Noah. “You need me for that.” He strode the distance between them, and took her chin roughly in one hand.

Weyland made to move, but Noah gestured to him to stay where he was.

“I know that,” she said. She did not move to free herself from Ringwalker’s grasp.

“You and I,” Ringwalker said, giving her chin a little shake, “are the Kingman and the Mistress of the Labyrinth. We control the Troy Game—”

To one side Weyland gave a short, derisory laugh.

Ringwalker’s face tightened. “We control the—”

“No, we don’t,” Noah said. “It thinks to control us.”

Ringwalker let Noah’s chin go. “You want to destroy it.”

Noah gave a small nod.

“You won’t succeed.”

“Not without you,” she said.

Suddenly all of Ringwalker’s anger and hurt boiled to the surface. “Why plead for me,” he spat at her, “when you have him?”

And with that, and with a final look of such fury that Noah had to avert her eyes, Ringwalker vanished.

They walked down Idol Lane to Thames Street, then walked west until they reached Pudding Lane just before Fish Street Hill.

There they stopped, both peering through the gathering darkness up the lane.

“Why here?” said Weyland.

“Because every dance must start somewhere,” said Noah, and she walked into the darkness.

The moment she vanished into the gloom of Pudding Lane, water sprites seethed up from the Thames, clambering over the wharves and docks that lined the river. There they lingered but a moment, taking only enough time to orientate themselves, before they scuttled forwards and vanished into the myriad alleyways connecting the city with its wharves.

In the Guildhall, Gog and Magog stirred, and sighed, and took up spear and sword.