Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(89)

‘When you ask me for – a life in exchange. I’ll do it. I’ll owe you.’

Silyen paused, seeming to consider the offer. He could probably kill someone with Skill alone, Abi thought, remembering the dead deer and withered cherry tree in the autumn woods all those months ago. But then the boy nodded. In the same instant Dog winced. It was as if a bond tying his hands had been cut; a lock inside his brain picked.

Abi wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it looked a lot like permission given.

‘That’ll be three things you owe me,’ the Young Master told the man. ‘An escape, a life, and a name.’

‘A name?’

‘Don’t you want to know your name?’

‘Not mine.’ A terrible longing filled Dog’s eyes. ‘My wife’s.’

Silyen Jardine smiled. He leaned forward, placed his mouth close to Dog’s ear, and whispered. Then pulled back.

‘So I’ll see you later, as we arranged. I’ll be a bit busy until then.’

Dog stood staring intently at Silyen with something that wasn’t devotion, but wasn’t hatred either. It was gratitude, she decided – and this meant Silyen Jardine now had a larger claim on Dog’s assistance than she ever would. So much for that plan.

Dog wiped his nose and face on the arm of the overalls. He took the other end of the leash in his free hand, and wrapped it around his palm. Then he snapped both ends, testing his grip.

Without another word he turned his back on them and walked towards the house. Abi didn’t want to see what came next.

‘Busy night for all of us,’ said Silyen brightly. ‘I’ll get to your brother later. But I’ve something to do here first. I think you’ll enjoy it, Abigail.’

‘My brother?’

‘May be useful to me,’ Silyen said, waving a hand airily. ‘I sensed his potential that first night at the gate. But I’d better get going. I think my audience has recovered enough to pay attention.’

And the Equal was off again, walking easily through the chaos and confusion of the ballroom to its very centre – to where Abi had last seen her brother, blood-drenched and shaking.

Had Luke known what he was doing? Had he done it willingly?

She didn’t want to consider the idea, but if Abi was honest with herself, it was possible. Who knew what had happened to her little brother in Millmoor during the months they were all apart. The slavetown had been in a state of turmoil. She knew that much from Jenner’s cryptic comments, and from snatches of conversation between Lord Jardine and Heir Gavar that she’d heard as she passed unnoticed from room to room.

Had someone there preyed on Luke’s vulnerabilities? Twisted his mind and used him?

If that was how it had happened, Abi would find them out.

Would make them sorry.

The sound that interrupted her was as shining and beautiful as her thoughts were dark and discordant. A surging, chiming rush, as from thousands of bells struck all at once. Abi’s eardrums tingled.

Then the effect was spoiled by a woman’s terrified cry. People were pointing upward, so Abi looked. This night had already birthed more horrors than her brain could process. What was one more?

The black sky was studded with stars of glass. They hung overhead, unimaginably sharp and deadly. From jagged blades – some still edged with blood – to tiny shards and sparkling dust. Abi had read that once, thousands of years ago, people believed the heavens to be a crystalline sphere surrounding the Earth. The night sky above Kyneston now was what that might look like smashed into millions of tiny pieces, the moment before they all fell.

But they didn’t fall. Instead, the galaxy of glass rotated slowly. More chimes shivered in the cold air as shards struck each other, but not a sliver broke off. Then the glittering mass curved down to the ground, encircling them all.

Abi looked at Silyen. He stood in the centre of the space, arms upraised and face rapturous, like some musical prodigy conducting an orchestra only he could see.

Every piece of metal, from vast girders to lace-like ornamental tracework, rose slowly into the air. Those slaves who had been trapped beneath them and still lived groaned and sobbed. Abi flinched as a side strut lifted past her, hovered at head height, and continued its ascent.

In mid-air the pieces of metal melded as smoothly as Heir Ravenna’s body knitting itself together. The ironwork locked like an immense skeleton, all backbone and draping wings: a roof ridge, columns and beams, rivets. The suspended glass shards contracted inwards, moulding to the frame.

The East Wing raised itself over them like a great metal monster with a flayed and shining hide, Equals and slaves alike swallowed in its belly.

The whole structure flared like magnesium, too bright to bear. And when Abi had blinked away the shapes seared into her retinas, she saw that the vast ballroom stood intact once more. It was as if the evening’s disaster had never happened.

Silyen hadn’t finished just yet. Lumps of masonry were flying back up towards the shattered stone mansion, dropping into place like some giant’s version of a stacking brick game. Kyneston’s sheared-off wall rose layer by layer, the people inside gradually disappearing from view as if the Young Master was walling up his family alive.

‘Abigail!’

Arms seized her roughly from behind and spun her round. It was Jenner, his face so begrimed his freckles could barely be seen.