Scarlet in the Snow (30 page)

I took out the handkerchief and said, ‘This is for Celeste,’ and shook it. Instantly, to my delight, into my lap shimmered a gauzy blue scarf threaded with gold embroidery in the shape of flowers with tiny jewels in their centre. It was enchantingly lovely, exquisitely made and absolutely covetable.

I took up the comb. ‘Again, for Celeste,’ I said, and ran it through my hair. A flower swirled down at once, only this time it didn’t fall softly, like the silk flowers had. No, it fell with the weight of stone, for this flower was carved out of a single piece of white opal with shifting colours inside it like the fires of the earth.

These were gifts for a rich girl, not the humble pretty things I had received. Magic that fitted its recipient . . . Which would Celeste prefer? I had to give her the choice. The tin of sweets would be of no interest to her, I was sure. But it was probably a good idea for me to take some more, for though I was still some way from the twenty-four-hour deadline for each, it was better to be on the safe side. I swallowed half a Faustinian sweet
and half a Champainian one, and then I had to somehow endure the three hours till I could return to the Durant residence. I paced round and round that wretched park more times than I cared to count, each strike of the clock making my heart beat faster.

I was in the street at the back of the house well before ten o’clock. The stone wall of the garden faced me: it rose steep and high, and was topped by jagged bits of broken glass that shimmered under the moon like lethal icicles. There was a door of metal, set tightly into the wall, and firmly locked. Any idea I might have entertained of getting back into the Durants’ house over the wall – if Celeste did not keep her promise – quickly faded away. As for going through the front door, well, there was still Remy to get past. And after that, Celeste’s father. And if she had told him what had happened, I’d never be allowed in again. How ironic that it was in his house that the darkest sorcery was being practised, under his very nose!

I could tell him the truth, of course. But I hesitated. To him, Golpech was an eminent doctor and someone to be trusted, who was trying to make his godson well. And me? Well, I was a liar who had entered their home under false pretences, who had inveigled his airheaded daughter into showing me the glass room and who sought to corrupt her with promises of magic.
I
would look like the enemy, not Golpech. No, I had to rely on myself and my own resources.

I paced up and down, up and down, waiting, waiting for what seemed like another age before I heard the lock rattle and the door open silently on oiled hinges.

‘You’re here,’ Celeste said unnecessarily. She was wrapped in a magnificent cloak with a sable-lined hood. In the moonlight her porcelain face glimmered in the shadow of the dark fur.

‘Yes. Has the doctor gone?’

‘Left half an hour ago. And Papa’s gone to bed. All’s quiet. Did you bring it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then show it to me now,’ she ordered, ‘before I take you any further.’

I took the gauzy scarf out of my pocket and held it in one hand, with the opal flower in the other. ‘Choose.’

‘What? I don’t understand. Are these what you’ve brought me? I thought . . .’

‘Have you ever seen anything quite like these?’ I said, interrupting her. ‘Look at them closely.’

She did, and I saw her eyes widen as she took in the little jewels on the embroidery, and the flash of colours deep in the opal. ‘No, I haven’t seen anything like them. But my father is rich and he goes to exotic lands. He could probably find me things like this somewhere.’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘he most assuredly could not. For no human hand created these. They have come from pure
fei
magic.’
Fei
was
feya
in the tongue of Champaine.

‘How . . .’ Her eyes were huge now and her tongue was unconsciously passing over her lips.

I had taken the handkerchief and comb out of the box and put them in my pocket before I came into the garden. Now I pulled them out. I handed her the comb and said, ‘Comb your hair.’

‘What? With this cheap thing?’ she said with great scorn.

‘Trust me. Do it and you’ll see,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice steady, and hoping with all my heart that the magic wouldn’t forsake me.

It didn’t. As Celeste ran the comb through her hair, something that flashed a brilliant white fell out of her black ringlets and dropped at her feet. She picked it up and uttered a cry of sheer delight. ‘Oh, how beautiful!’

It was a brooch shaped like a white daisy, carved from a single large pearl, each petal rimmed with tiny diamonds that gleamed in the moonlight. She looked at me, her eyes aglow.

‘I told you,’ I said cheerfully. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it.’

Luel was here, I thought. Nearby. Working her magic in secret, for reasons best known to herself.

I looked around quickly, but there was nobody in the walled garden except Celeste and me. There was nowhere Luel might hide, only bare trees, a still fountain and some moss-eaten old statues. The garden didn’t look much like the one in
Summer Morning
, not at this time of the night or the year, but it was still clearly the setting. If Luel was about, then she was keeping herself invisible and . . .

‘What about the other?’ Celeste’s voice made me start.

‘Eh?’

‘So I’ve seen what the comb can do. What about the handkerchief? I want to see what it can do,’ she said impatiently.

‘Shake it then,’ I said, handing it to her and taking back the comb, ‘and you’ll see.’

Celeste shook the handkerchief – and there was a pair of the prettiest, softest dancing slippers you ever saw, in pale blue satin with golden buckles. Taking off her own shoes, she slipped them on. ‘Why, they fit me perfectly,’ she said in wonder.

‘Of course. That’s how magic should work,’ I said. ‘It fits you perfectly. If it’s good magic, that is. But bad magic makes
you
fit into
it
. There’s the difference.’

She stared at me. ‘How do you know so much about it?’

‘Oh, you get around, in my job,’ I said hastily. ‘You hear things.’

‘Where did you get these from?’

‘They were given to me as a gift. That’s all you need to know.’ I took back the handkerchief. ‘So – now you’ve seen what each can do, which do you choose?’

She shot me a sideways glance. ‘Both.’

‘What?’

‘I want both,’ she said levelly, her eyes narrowed. ‘Or I don’t let you in.’

My heart sank. ‘But that’s not what we agreed to.’

‘You either do as I say or you don’t go in. And then I’ll go to my father and tell him you’ve been trying to bribe me.’

I looked at her. Her eyes glinted with a nasty light. I knew that if I thwarted her she’d do just as she said. But
I also knew that the need to possess the magic had taken a powerful hold of her mind so that I was still in a strong position. I didn’t really want to give Celeste both things, but more than anything I wanted to get into that room. ‘Very well, you can have both.’ She stretched out an eager hand, and I took a step back. ‘Wait a moment. One now, the other
after
you’ve let me into the room and not interfered.’

Celeste stared at me suspiciously. For a moment I feared that caution would overcome greed. Then she nodded, and held out her hand again. ‘Agreed. If you throw in the shawl and the opal rose too.’

I shrugged. ‘As you wish.’ I gave her the handkerchief, and she pocketed it, scooped up all her things, and gestured for me to follow.

As we went back through the dark, silent house, down long corridors, I was attempting to fix the way in my head. I needed to try to understand the layout of this house in case anything went wrong – her father awakening, the doctor returning, servants prowling about – and I had to hide till we could get into the glass room. But nothing happened, and soon we were back in the dark antechamber. Celeste pulled down the light lever and the room sprang into view. Ivan was as motionless as before, but it seemed to me that the helmet shone with a much brighter glow.

‘Did the doctor increase the dose of
antirentum
by any chance?’ I asked.

‘Yes, he did. What’s it to you?’

‘I’m just interested. Now, are you going to open up or not?’

‘Impatience,’ she snapped. ‘Why you think it’s so interesting to stare at someone lying there like a log, I can’t imagine.’

That she could describe the man she had grown up with, that she was supposed to be in love with, in such a way sent a shiver of repulsion down my spine. Cold selfishness like that was a form of madness, I thought, a soul-sickness. Felix Vivian might be a hollow shell because of black magic, but Celeste was hollow by nature, without any help from sorcerers.

‘I don’t suppose you can,’ I said tightly. ‘Now, if you want the comb, enough delay.’

Celeste snorted and pressed her thumb to the knot in the glass. Instantly, the panel in front of us slid open and we stepped through. As soon as we were inside, the panel closed behind us, sealing us into a quiet, still space that felt completely cut off from outside. For the wall we’d just come through had an odd feature: from the outside, you could look through it, but from the inside it was completely opaque, and the other walls with their interlocking image-imprinted panels dazed the eye so that you could not see through them either. And the light made you feel as though you’d stepped into another world, of moonlight and shadows and shifting images – a cold, timeless box of light floating somewhere yet nowhere.

‘There,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. Now give me the comb.’

‘No,’ I said, my eyes fixed on the still figure on the bed. ‘Not till I’m ready.’ I started to walk towards the bed.

‘What are you doing?’ she said uneasily.

‘No interference,’ I said tightly. ‘Remember?’

‘You can’t go near him,’ she snapped. ‘It isn’t allowed. Come on, get out.’

‘Shut up,’ I said brutally, rounding on her. ‘You think that’s all the magic I have, those baubles I gave you? If you interfere, I’ve got something much more powerful, something that is very dangerous indeed.’

Her eyes widened with shock. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Really?’ I said, pulling Luel’s box out of my pocket, and taking out the tin of sweets. ‘You see these? Just one of these is enough to cause a storm of poison gas that will overwhelm you at once. Not me, mind, just you.’

Her lips were white. ‘No . . . you can’t . . .’

‘You want to test it?’ I asked, holding up the lozenge in my hand. ‘You’ve seen the magic of the other things. You really want to test this one?’

She shook her head. ‘Who . . . who are you?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’m someone who can make things very unpleasant for you,’ I said brusquely. ‘And as for what I want, it is that you go and stand over there –’ and I pointed to the wall we had come in through – ‘turn your back to me and put your fingers in your ears. And don’t you dare move till I tell you to. Understood?’

If looks could kill, I’d have been stone dead. But I didn’t care what she thought or how she looked, only that Celeste did as I’d told her. And she did, without another murmur.

I approached the bed, breathing hard. Oh, he was so still, so very still. Even this close to him, his skin had that waxwork look of the dead, his features fixed into an expression of bland impassivity.

I held out a trembling hand and gently touched his forehead. It was icy cold, and the chill of it went right through me. Under the bedclothes he wore a plain shirt and loose trousers of soft pale cloth. I put my head to his chest and I could just hear a feeble pulse, but slowed down so much it was as though his heart hardly beat at all. But on the crown of his head, the skullcap pulsed gently, and I saw that what I’d taken for silver mesh was in fact a network of very fine clear glass tubes, through which a silvery liquid flowed, with a whispery, sinister sound. This must be the
antirentum
.

More than anything, I wanted to tear that horrible thing off his head. But something stopped me; an uneasy feeling that if I did that right now, when he was unconscious, it might hurt or even kill him. I had to find some other, more gentle way of getting through to him. His spirit was there, I had to believe that. I had to believe I wasn’t too late.