Rise of the Darklings (28 page)

He opened the door wider, and dim light spilled out into the corridor.

“I think you three had better come with me,” he said. “It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

T
he young man ushered them quickly through the library and into his office. It looked no different than when Emily had come in searching for a lantern, more like a cozy sitting room than an office. The fire still crackled away in the hearth, its warmth emanating through the room. Emily longed to stand before the flames and let the heat seep into her freezing limbs.

She heard a click and turned to see Sebastian locking the door.

“Don’t worry,” he said when he saw Emily and Jack exchange looks of alarm. “Just making sure no one interrupts us.”

Interrupts what?
thought Emily nervously. She looked
around, marking the room for any escape routes. There was the window, of course, and another door nestled between the ceiling-high bookcases, but that was it. She glanced surreptitiously at the door. At least he had left the key in the lock.

The young man gestured toward the chairs that formed a circle around the fire. “Please. Sit. You all look freezing.”

Emily, William, and Jack sat in the chairs closest to the fire. There was a small table in front of them, and on it was a silver plate loaded with cakes and biscuits. Emily’s stomach grumbled. It had been a whole day since she had eaten.

“Help yourself,” the young man said, nodding at the cakes. “It’s a vice of mine, I’m afraid. But I suppose it is better than tobacco or gin. My name’s Sebastian, by the way.”

William and Jack both reached out eagerly to snatch up a cake.

“William!” snapped Emily.

William stopped, his face radiating disappointment. Jack froze as well, looking like a chastised schoolboy. Sebastian smiled thinly and took one for himself.

“I assure you, they’re not poisoned, if that is what you are worried about.” He took a huge bite, swallowed, then sighed with pleasure. “Delightful.”

That was good enough for Jack. He grabbed a cake and popped the whole thing into his mouth. William watched him, impressed.

“Please, Em?” he begged.

Emily hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. William grinned and took two off the plate, stuffing them in his mouth at the same time, grinning at Jack around a mouthful of cake.

“Now,” said Sebastian, “I suppose it is too much to hope that you have the stone with you?”

“What stone?” asked Emily, rearranging her features into a mask of innocence.

Sebastian chuckled. “Come now, child. Let us not insult each other’s intelligence. Your little performance was quite convincing, you know. You should join the theater.” He glanced at Jack. “And you have quite a burst of speed about you.”

Jack nodded, accepting the praise. Emily said nothing. She leaned forward and took one of the cakes, nibbling at the edges.

“So, do you have the stone?”

Emily shook her head, and Sebastian sighed. “Ravenhill is not going to be happy.” A quick smile appeared on his face. “So I suppose that’s one good thing to come of all this.”

Emily’s surprise must have shown on her face.

“What? Have you
met
Ravenhill? A more unpleasant individual I don’t think I have ever encountered. I’ve tried to get him thrown out of the Order—” Sebastian stopped, a guilty look on his face. “Sorry. I’m not very good with secrets.
Tend to spill the beans at the slightest provocation. That’s why I’m here all the time. They don’t like me mixing with the public.” He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Why don’t we make a deal? You tell me what has happened.
Everything
, mind. And I will answer any questions you have.”

Emily swallowed her cake. “Any questions at all?”

Sebastian nodded. “On my honor.”

“How do I know you won’t lie?”

“How do I know
you
won’t lie? We’ll just have to trust each other.”

Emily thought about it. On the one hand, Corrigan had told her how evil the Order was, and she had believed him. With someone like Ravenhill chasing you around, it was hard
not
to believe. But on the other hand, Corrigan had lied nonstop since she had found him in the alley. How much of what he told her about the Order was
actually
true?

Sebastian seemed able to read her thoughts. “I could have turned you in already,” he said. “Please,” he said earnestly. “You can trust me. I’m a good person.”

His plea brought unexpected tears to Emily’s eyes. She didn’t know why, but his solemn words seemed to touch her somewhere deep inside. To trust someone with the power to help, to believe they had your best wishes at heart and no ulterior motives—it would be wonderful to feel that again. She hadn’t experienced such a thing since before her parents
disappeared. Oh, there was Jack and Will, but it was different with people her own age.

Emily searched Sebastian’s eyes. She saw no malice there, only concern and sympathy.

“I want to help,” he said quietly.

Emily glanced at Jack. “We could do with a hand,” he said.

“I trust him,” said William.

Emily smiled. “You’d trust anyone who gave you cake.” Still, Jack was right. They could certainly do with some help.

So Emily told him everything that had happened since she had first walked through the alley. How Ravenhill had been there, how she had helped Corrigan, the story of her brother supposedly being taken by the Unseelie, and her breaking into the Order’s offices to get the stone back. She moved on to the Queen’s betrayal, and how she had said the parchment would reveal the location of the key, and how angry the Queen was when it instead had turned out to be a riddle. Sebastian jotted down the words of the riddle in a notebook, then leaned back in the chair, a troubled look on his face. Emily ended with her escape and appearance at the library door.

The only thing she left out was how the Queen had acted as if she knew Emily, and all that talk about having waited
for her for years. She hadn’t even told Jack about that. She didn’t understand it herself, and instinct told her to keep it quiet.

At last, she finished talking. “I don’t like this,” said Sebastian. “Not one bit.” He straightened up. “Perhaps it is fortunate that you became embroiled in all this. At least now we know the Queen plans to make her move soon.”

“What do you mean?” asked Emily.

“The Order and the fey have been at—well, not
peace
, that’s too strong a word—but we’ve tolerated one another’s presence for a good two hundred years now. Ever since the war. We thought things were getting better.”

“But they’re not?”

“It doesn’t appear so. It looks as if the fey were simply biding their time, searching for this clue.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “What do you know of us? The Invisible Order, I mean?”

Emily shrugged. “The Queen said you’ve been around for centuries. That you want to destroy the fey. She said a man called Christopher Wren locked the door to Faerie, trapping them all here.”

Sebastian stood up and went over to the bookcases. He pulled out a huge book that was about half the size of William and brought it back over to the fire.

“Could you move the cakes, please?”

Emily moved the tray to the floor. Sebastian placed the huge book on the table, where it dropped with a heavy thud. The leather cover had a strange emblem on it. Emily studied it curiously. It was a circle, but the circle was formed by two thin dragons, each of them curving around one half of the circumference. At the top, their jaws were locked together in battle, and at the bottom, their tails were twined around each other.

Inside this circle was an eye with an almond-shaped pupil.

“It’s a dragon’s eye,” said Sebastian, seeing the direction of her gaze. “This book is the
Historia Occultus
—the Hidden Histories. It contains all the known history of the Invisible Order. Diaries of our leaders, details of the fey, historical accounts—everything.” He opened it up carefully and leafed through the brittle yellow paper. There was a lot of neat cursive writing on the pages, interspersed with different types of illustrations. Emily saw a painting that looked like a stained-glass window, armored men fighting an army of the fey.

“The Society has existed in one form or another throughout all of recorded human history,” said Sebastian. “No one is sure how it began. Some say it was started by one man. One simple, uneducated farmer whose unbaptized child was stolen by the fey. So he formed a small group of likeminded individuals—probably those who had had their own babies stolen—and they vowed to destroy those responsible.

“Other legends say the Order was started by Merlin the Magician, although back then he was called Myrddin. The story goes that the fey took his only daughter, Inogen, and from that moment on, he vowed to save others the heartache he had endured.

“Yet other legends say Merlin was trained by the Order to be their ultimate weapon. The legend went that he was half-fey himself, so he had the power of magic and a loyalty to humans.

“Whatever the truth, with the formation of the Order, so started the first war between the humans and the fey.” Sebastian looked sad. “A tragic story. The legends do not do it justice.”

He absently turned another page. This one was filled with writing, lists of names in columns.

“But why are the fey here?” asked Emily. “The Queen says they have their own world to live in.”

“Ah, yes, but that world is … ethereal. It is not the same as our world. There, ideas take shape in reality, but it is an insubstantial place, like a dream. No, the fey much prefer our world, with blood and mud and humans whom they can rule. Their goal is total subjugation of our species. It always has been. That’s why they stole babies, you see. They were trying to raise humans who would be sympathetic to their cause. They were actually quite successful.

“Anyway, the Order made it its duty to stop the fey. We were always there, passing the knowledge down through the centuries. And waiting, always waiting for the war we knew would come.”

“And did it?”

“Oh, yes. In sixteen sixty-six. We don’t know the details—a lot of our records were destroyed in the Great Fire—but we do know that when the Order locked the gateway to Faerie, the fey went to ground. We thought—we
hoped
—that they had given up. But it seems they were simply waiting, licking their wounds.”

“How did Wren lock the gate?”

Sebastian shrugged. “That information has disappeared, I’m afraid. All we know is that he somehow locked it and hid the key.” He sighed wearily. “And now if what you say is true, the fey have found a clue to that hiding place. They won’t give up, Emily. If there is the slightest possibility that the Queen can open the door to Faerie and bring her armies through, she will pursue that chance.”

“Can you do anything?”