TEN

The Savoy
Sunday, 3^rd September 1939

Jack was glad of his earlier promise to see if he could untangle Catling’s hex, because now it gave him the perfect excuse to sit close to Grace and observe her. He’d been unsettled ever since arriving in London—everything had been such a strain—but since this afternoon’s walk about London his anxiety had increased tenfold.

Something wrong. Something undefinable. Something unexplainable. Something shadowy.

And now Jack was certain that Grace knew something about it. He wasn’t sure if she was deliberately withholding information from him, or whether, whatever she knew, she believed it was so trivial as to be of no importance.

As he sat down next to her, gently taking her wrists between his hands so that she was forced to turn a little to face him, Jack wondered at what she had said earlier. Grace had known instinctively something was wrong.

Everything has been wrong for a very long time.

Was it just the Troy Game? What else had been wrong for a very long time…Jack certainly hadn’t felt anything when he’d been in London during the 1660s.

Or had that remark been nothing but a grab for sympathy? No, he thought not. There had been nothing pathetic or piteous about it. Merely a bland statement of fact, and of resignation.

He put his thoughts of the “wrongness” aside for the moment, and concentrated on Grace.

Dear gods, she was thin! Not just her wrists, but all of her. She was close enough to him that he could feel her warmth and see the rise and fall of her body with each breath, and with both warmth and breath Jack could sense her essential fragility. Under his fingers he felt the fluttering of her pulse—she was very nervous having him so close.

She was so afraid.

The room was silent, everyone staring at Jack, save for Grace, who had her eyes downcast.

Jack had her wrists enclosed within each of his hands, and now he ran his thumbs very slowly along the raised scars that twisted about her wrists, and then ran up her arms, curling over and about, almost to her elbows.

What he sensed there stunned him, and his eyes flew to Grace’s face.

She was staring directly at him now, but he could not work out if she was frightened or just…simply didn’t realise.

Jack opened his mouth, intending to say something, but Grace’s face closed over, shutting him out completely, and she averted her face.

“Jack?” Noah said.

“Nothing,” he muttered, sliding his fingers back down Grace’s arms to her forearms and wrists, trying to drag his disordered thoughts back to Catling’s hex around Grace’s wrists.

He had to have a quiet word with Noah, and soon.

Jack took a deep breath, and finally managed to concentrate on the hex. He ran his thumbs over the scars around her wrists and forearms, feeling them, discovering their nature. He understood that every time Catling struck, then these wounds opened anew.

Finally Jack raised his eyes to her. “Grace?”

She still had her face averted from his, and made no sound or movement.

“Grace, look at me.”

Reluctantly, she turned her face to his.

“I am going to do something now that will cause you some discomfort. Not real pain, but it will be uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

She gave a jerk of her head.

I’m sorry, Grace. Jack moved his thumbs again, this time shifting them so that they both lay beside the largest line of scarring on each wrist. His hands tightened very slightly, then he slid his thumbs under the lines of red scarring, and lifted the scars away from Grace’s flesh as if they were silken ribbons.

Grace gasped, and tried to jerk herself back, but Jack had a firm grasp of her wrists, and she could not move.

Behind her, Weyland put his hands on her shoulders, either to keep her in place or to comfort her.

“Take your hands away, Weyland,” Jack said quietly, not looking up, and, very reluctantly, Weyland lifted his hands away from his daughter.

Hello, Jack. Welcome home!

Jack froze, and he jerked his eyes upward.

Grace had heard that as well, but no one else had reacted.

Isn’t she lovely, Jack? Don’t you want to save her?

Grace started to tremble under his fingers, and he used his fingertips under her wrists and lower arm to stroke once or twice; gently, reassuringly.

Don’t think you can work out the knots binding these sweet little ribbons, Jack. It’ll kill her, and you, if you try.

“It’s all right, Grace,” he whispered. His thumbs had moved further up under the scarring onto her lower arms, and Grace moaned very softly.

No. It is not “all right”, Jack. Poor Grace suffers. You haven’t seen how badly she can suffer, yet. Would you like to now?

Abruptly Jack pulled his hands away from Grace.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

Her blue eyes went almost black with emotion, and to Jack’s horror he realised it was despair. He reached forward again, and took one of her hands. “It is not because of what was just said—” not because of Catling’s threats “—but because this hex is so intricate, so powerful, it has literally bound your life to the twists of the labyrinth. I can’t help you. And I am sorry about that.”

“Grace,” said Noah, who had risen and now leaned over her daughter, “perhaps you need to rest.”

“I don’t need to rest,” Grace said.

“She doesn’t need rest,” Jack said at precisely the same moment. Then, as an awkward silence descended, he said, “I wish I could help you, but I don’t know how.”

Grace turned her head away, and Jack had the feeling that it wasn’t in dismissal, but once again, as he’d felt in the car, that she was withdrawing because she didn’t want to be a nuisance.

Somehow they got through dinner. It was a generally silent affair, punctuated only with some self-conscious conversation, and the sound of plates being pushed away, their contents barely touched.

It had been a bad day for eating, Jack thought, and was torn between wanting desperately to make his excuses and return to Copt Hall and needing to have a quiet word with Noah. She was visibly upset, and Jack knew she’d allowed herself to believe that Jack could help her daughter.

Eventually the meal was over, and Harry said diplomatically that he and Jack were tired, that it had been an emotional day for everyone, and that if Weyland was still willing to hand a car over to Jack, perhaps he, Harry and Jack could repair to the garage?

The sound of chairs scraping back from the table was indecently loud. Before Grace had a chance to bolt for her room, Jack managed a quick moment with her.

“I am sorry,” he said again.

She looked at him with emotionless eyes, then turned her back and walked away.

What do you know? Jack thought, watching her, remembering what he’d felt from her arms. And what are you?

Friend, or foe?

Victim, or trap?

“Jack?” said Weyland, jangling a set of car keys in his hand.

Jack finally managed to have a hurried conversation with Noah as she helped him on with his coat.

“Noah, how did the four kingship bands make it into the Faerie?”

“Why do you want to—”

“Noah, please, just answer.”

“I turned them into golden ribbons and tied them about Grace’s arms and legs. Then the Lord of the Faerie carried Grace, and the bands, into the Faerie. Why?”

Jack stared at her, but before he could answer Weyland walked up.

“Jack? Are you coming, or not?”

The Savoy’s garage was situated within the basement of the hotel. It was filled with such an array of luxury vehicles that Weyland’s Daimler appeared almost ordinary. Weyland led Jack and Harry to a spot partway down the garage. Here was his Daimler, and beside it a pale grey-green Austin convertible, its cloth hood folded back.

Jack stepped close, running his hand admiringly over the soft leather of its seats.

“You would trust me with this?”

Weyland tossed him the keys, and Jack had to twist quickly in order to catch them.

“If it means you are gone from here,” Weyland said, “then, yes, I will trust you with it.”

He turned, walking away a few steps before halting and again addressing Jack. “I don’t know what you did to Grace this afternoon, Jack, but I can’t help feeling that she’d have been better off without you.”