A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding #1)(58)

“Edwin?”

“Still among the living.” The words were rough with pain. “Run.”

And they did. The bulges of holly were forming on either side, catching Robin in the range of the splintery explosions as often as they caught Edwin. Robin risked a look over his shoulder only once, saw hints of movement among the gathering shadows, and gave that up as a terrifying mistake. The corridors were shorter, the corners tighter. They must have been nearing the centre.

“Another dead end,” panted Edwin. “Turn around.”

Robin turned. His breath rasped hot in his throat. The constant stop-and-start of it all, not to mention the fact that his body was tensed against damage, was draining his strength as no rugby match or regatta ever had.

He turned again. And again, circling on the spot, until he was facing the same way he’d started. There was no path anymore. Just the holly hedge, rising up on all four sides. “Well, running’s stopped working,” he said. “Time for magic.”

“I can’t—”

“You have to do something, because my best left hook isn’t going to do much against a sodding bush. What would you do? If you had your string?”

“Fire,” said Edwin promptly.

“Fire—God, I’m a congenital idiot.” Robin dug in his pocket and pulled out his lighter. “Can you do anything with this?”

At least Edwin no longer looked on the verge of tears or a shaking fit. He’d solidified, somehow. Robin remembered Lord Hawthorn’s words: Courcey here just loves a good puzzle. Edwin jerked himself away from a fresh grasping branch, which left deep pink scratches across the side of his neck, and gazed with narrowed eyes at the holly. “I don’t think it will be enough,” he said reluctantly. “Even if I managed a magnification, it takes a hell of a lot of power—a lot of heat—to get green wood going.”

“What if it was drier?”

“Drier?”

Robin gestured impatiently and kicked another tendril away from Edwin’s ankle. “After I fell in the lake, you—”

“Oh.” Edwin looked down at his hands. “Yes. All right. Stand close behind me.”

So Robin did, one hand holding his lighter at the ready. All around them the hedge crept inwards and upwards, tiny rustling sounds layering themselves into something almost animalistic. A growl of thorns. Edwin was shaking.

“You can do this,” Robin said. “I know you can.”

“You don’t know anything,” Edwin whispered, but it sounded like thank you.

He lifted his hands haltingly, palms together, then drew them apart. He cradled slowly, freezing whenever Robin moved; Robin managed to get his own trousers partially shredded, diverting the holly that was trying to wrap itself around Edwin’s legs, swallowing down the urge to scream at Edwin to work faster. Another minute and there’d be no space left for them to be standing in at all. But Edwin kept going, and soon there was a soft yellow glow between his palms.

“It’s working!” said Robin.

“It’s worked,” said Edwin.

He raised his glowing hands to his mouth, took a breath, and blew.

The drying spell that had swept over Robin in the boat had been a warm, pleasant breeze. This was obviously something more. The plant reared backwards at an angle. The hot wind gusting from Edwin’s lips swept, and swept, and kept sweeping—and the dark green turned the middling brown of dry, dead things in a patch a yard wide.

Edwin dropped his hands. His next inhalation was like the breath taken to save oneself from drowning.

Robin flicked at his lighter the four times it took to produce a flame. He held it up in mute invitation. Edwin dragged the flame in front of him by grabbing at Robin’s wrist. The holly shivered and growled around them. Just as slowly, though much less hesitantly, Edwin cradled a second spell.

“Magnification,” Edwin murmured. “Like the snowflake.”

“Very good, don’t care,” said Robin. Edwin could explain the damn spell clause by clause later, when they were out.

“Hold it steady,” said Edwin. “This might hurt a bit—sorry.”

It did hurt. A bit. Robin’s standards for pain had changed somewhat over the past few days. The flame balanced on the lighter grew and grew, and Robin’s forehead broke out into first sweat and then the unpleasant sear of standing too close to naked fire.

Robin held on until Edwin gasped, “Throw it.”

The dry yard of hedge went up with a sound like sucking air and breaking rocks.

Robin jammed his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and tried to peer through the shimmer and smoke. On either side of the dried patch the still-green holly had drawn back, as though from someone coughing on the Underground, and there were two thin gaps.

“There!” He was prepared to do more grabbing and pulling, but Edwin didn’t hesitate. One after another they leapt and scrambled around the side of the burning holly. The heat of the flames was uncomfortable, the smoke a dirty sting in Robin’s eyes, but he moved fast and was through, stumbling into an open space, before he knew whether he’d been burned.

They were in a wide square of gravel, surrounded by hedge on every side. Dead centre stood a marble statue of a woman: neoclassical, taller than life, the falls of stone fabric looking almost soft, her hands held close to her body and cupped together. Between those hands was a dark hole, as though one could reach into her body. A space for secrets kept safe.