FOUR

Copt Hall and London
Sunday 6^th April to Tuesday, 15^th April 1941

Of the six people involved in the entrapment of the Troy Game and the saving of Grace, only Weyland needed any degree of extensive training in the steps of the Dance of the Flowers. Even then, he needed merely to shadow Jack, to be his footsteps and body, and thus his training needed only to show him the steps of the dance, and not to train him in the arts of wielding its power. Jack could have taught Weyland the steps, but he left it to Grace and Silvius.

Once Weyland learned the steps, then Jack needed to be sure that everyone knew precisely what to do, and at what point in time they needed to do it. But that needed to be left until Weyland was quite ready.

One of the first things Jack did was to visit the king, explain to him what he wanted to do, and ask his permission to go ahead. George was appalled at the risk, but he finally nodded. Better to take the risk than submit the land to Catling’s rule.

Noah concentrated on building the devising that would shelter Grace from Catling’s hex. For ten days after meeting with Jack at Copt Hall, Noah isolated herself in a room at Faerie Hill Manor.

Here, she sat in a chair, its back to the closed door, facing an open window. The room had no lights, no heating, no stimulus of any kind save from the open window, and for these ten days Noah took no sustenance save from her power, nor did she move from, nor move within, the chair. She sat, clothed in her power as Eaving, staring unblinking out the window with sage green eyes shot through with lightning.

Exploring possibilities.

As Eaving, Noah’s very purpose was to shelter. As a Darkwitch and a Mistress of the Labyrinth she could bring added (and far darker) power to her goddess powers which would entwine her devising with a strength that would give it its best chance of success.

Firstly, Noah had to think of a physical place of shelter. Grace had to go somewhere, and it had to be a place that already was something of a fortress. That inherent quality would surely need to be buttressed, but if it were a natural fortress in any case, then its power would be so much more potent.

There was one place which shone out, but it had some massive problems. Noah kept returning to it, then discarding the idea almost immediately.

No, it had already been corrupted by Catling. She could already stretch her malevolent fingers in there.

So Noah tried to think of somewhere else, somewhere naturally safe from Catling.

And, over the three days, she came up with nowhere as suitable as her first thought. Even though it was corrupted, it was such a natural shelter, and one where Grace would feel so comfortable…somewhere where she would have no doubts, which would feel like home to her.

“If only I can protect it,” whispered Noah, over and over. If only I can devise some means to keep Catling’s claws out of it.

The Idyll.

When Weyland had originally constructed his Idyll atop the house in Idol Lane, he had, because of his secretive, close nature, instinctively made of it a fortress. Over the following years, as Weyland’s relationship with Noah had developed, so the Idyll had grown, eventually touching the borders of the Faerie.

But with the gradual disintegration of the Faerie over the past year, the Idyll had retreated. Noah and Weyland rarely used it, and the Idyll had isolated itself from what was happening within the rest of the land. Now, as originally, there was only one entrance. Weyland’s house on Idol Lane had been destroyed in 1666, so the Idyll had taken as its single entrance the next best thing—the steps leading up through the rebuilt spire of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East.

Noah could easily protect those steps, and the Idyll was so familiar to her that she knew she could just as easily devise a sheltering protection for it.

Indeed, the Idyll would embrace it.

Yet there was a problem. Catling had already penetrated the Idyll. In fact, it was the place where Catling had managed to hex Grace in the first instance.

For days Noah went over every possibility, tried to think of every complication, tried to think of somewhere else.

At the end of the ten days, Noah finally acknowledged that she had no choice. The Idyll was the best shelter possible for Grace…now all Noah had to do was craft a devising that would shelter both Grace and the Idyll from Catling’s hex. Noah needed to create a devising that not merely transported Grace into the Idyll (relatively easy) but would then seal the Idyll from Catling’s hex (supremely difficult).

Moreover, Noah had to build a devising that Ariadne and Silvius could work.

“Damn you, Jack,” Noah muttered tiredly as, finally, she rose stiff and exhausted from that chair. “Why not allow me to work this? Why not?”

Once out of the room in Faerie Hill Manor Noah went back to the Savoy, where she slept for eighteen hours.

Then she rose, bathed, ate—all under the concerned gaze of Weyland—then kissed her husband, and said she needed to speak with Ariadne and Silvius.

“I’ll be back tonight,” she said, and left him, still staring after her with worried eyes.

Ariadne and Silvius were at home in their Kensington apartment, and it was Silvius who opened the door to Noah.

“Ariadne is in the drawing room,” he said. “Come through.”

From the look on Noah’s face, and the weariness in her eyes, there was a great deal more Silvius could have said, but he thought it prudent to leave it for the moment.

Ariadne rose as Noah entered, kissing her on both cheeks, then offering her an easy chair in which to sit.

“Well?” Ariadne said as Noah sank down.

“I can build a devising,” said Noah, “and I have a place in which to shelter Noah—”

“Where?” said Ariadne.

“The Idyll,” said Noah. “You have heard of it, surely.”

Ariadne and Silvius nodded. “But I thought that Catling could—” Ariadne began.

“I can build a devising to thwart her,” Noah snapped. “My only dilemma is, can you, both of you, control it?”

“We are not to blame for Jack’s decision,” Silvius said softly.

Noah sighed. “I am worried for Grace, Silvius. You will hold the life of my daughter in your care, and I need to know if you can control this devising.” She tapped a hand over her heart. “I need to know here.”

“We will do all we can,” Silvius said, and something in the steadiness of his gaze apparently answered some of Noah’s doubts, for she visibly relaxed.

“I am building this devising with everything that I am,” said Noah. “Mistress of the Labyrinth, Darkwitch and Eaving, goddess of the land. Neither of you will have any trouble with the labyrinthine parts of the devising, and Ariadne will have no trouble with that part of it constructed from the Darkcraft, but as for that part of the devising constructed from my powers as Eaving, then—”

“Noah,” said Ariadne, “you forget that once I was MagaLlan of this land. I may not have been particularly devoted to the land, but I learned well and true. If you bring into this devising the power of the land, then I can understand it, and wield it.”

“And you forget that for countless centuries I lay in the heart of the labyrinth with the dying Og,” said Silvius. “The power of the land is not as foreign to me as I think you assume.”

Noah stared at them, then she smiled, and relaxed even further. “I had forgotten, both of those things. Ah, what is the matter with me? Maybe we have a chance, after all.”

On the afternoon of Friday the eleventh of April Jack and Grace were walking through Epping Forest when the White Queen appeared to them.

She startled them so greatly, suddenly appearing on the path as they turned a corner, that both of them jumped and gasped.

“Next week,” the White Queen said, not giving either a chance to speak. “Wednesday the sixteenth.”

“What?” Jack snapped. “Should we expect the second coming then?”

To his and Grace’s surprise, the White Queen’s mouth actually twitched in a smile.

“You can expect a large raid that night,” she said. “A very powerful one.”

Grace glanced at Jack, then looked back to the White Queen. “You want us to open your Game that night.”

“Are you ready?” the White Queen said.

“To open the Game, yes,” said Jack.

Again the White Queen twisted her mouth in a smile, but this time it was humourless. “And when shall you be ready to finish it?”

“Soon,” said Jack.

“You have a month,” said the White Queen. “The best time to close it, and to trap the Troy Game, will be the night of the tenth of May.”

“Another air raid,” said Jack. “No doubt destructive.”

“You need all the power possible,” said the White Queen. “Are you not capable of handling it?”

“I am sickened by it,” said Jack, “knowing what horror it wreaks.”

“You cannot warn people,” said the White Queen. “To warn them will be to warn Catling.” Then she took a step forward. “Will you be ready, father-Jack, to close out my Game in a month’s time? Can you do it?”

Without giving him time to answer, the White Queen swung her cold black eyes to Grace. “Are you ready, Grace? Ready to do what is needed, even though you will be trapped in the—”

“She will be saved,” said Jack.

“Really?” said the White Queen, and then she vanished.

Really? The word rustled about them, twisting away on the wind, and Jack took Grace’s hand, and smiled at her.

“Really,” he said, his voice solid with certainty.

She did not return his smile.