The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(27)

“Sandy?” Mal all but ran over to the bed. “I’m here. Speak to me.”

Sandy blinked up at him. “Brother. Back so soon?”

“What do you mean, soon? It’s September.”

Sandy sat up and rubbed his face. “September. Really?”

“Yes, really.” Mal went over to the window and started opening the shutters. “What are you doing still in bed in the middle of the day, anyway?”

“Resting. I’ve been watching over Kit whilst he sleeps, since he’s still too young to wear a spirit-guard–”

“Why?

“His soul needs to put down roots in the dreamlands, if it is ever to blossom. If we cut him off from it now, Kiiren will be lost to us. Perhaps forever.”

“No, I meant why do you need to watch over him? There can’t be that much danger, surely, not this far from London.” He turned back to the room, blinking away the after-images of the sun’s glare. “The guisers–”

He stared at his brother. If he had thought Sandy looked pale in the darkened room, it was nothing to what the cruel light of day revealed. Sandy’s complexion was a sickly white, his skin sagging from features almost as gaunt as they had been back in Bedlam. His dark hair hung lank and tangled around his shoulders, and his beard hadn’t been cut in weeks.

“Dear God, Sandy, have you not given one thought to yourself these past months?”

“I can’t let them near him!” Sandy made to stand, but tottered and would have fallen if Mal had not dashed forward to catch him.

“You’re no use to him like this. Come on, let’s get some food inside you. I can look after Kit.”



With Mal’s help and encouragement Sandy’s condition soon began to improve, and as the weeks passed they fell into a comfortable routine of alternating patrols in the dreamlands. As on their earlier explorations there was no sign of guiser activity, and the devourers kept to the shadows where they belonged. Mal began thinking of ways to persuade Sandy to ease off on the patrolling, so that he could go back to London without having to worry about a relapse. Perhaps Coby was right and they would arrest him the moment he set foot in the capital, but he couldn’t hide here forever.

Christmas came, followed by the turn of the year and the traditional exchange of gifts. Mal gave his wife a bolt of blue-green Naples fustian for a new gown and Kit a hobby-horse with a real horsehair tail, both sent up secretly from London by Lady Frances. In return he received three new shirts with whitework collars and cuffs, and a bottle of neat’s-foot oil with a child-sized thumbprint in the centre of its wax seal.

“Perhaps Daddy will show you how to look after your horsey’s saddle and reins after dinner,” Coby said as Mal kissed Kit’s brow in thanks.

Kit said nothing, only waddled off with his skirts hitched up either side of the hobby horse.

“I have no gifts for either of you,” Sandy said, clutching his own new shirt to his chest. “I had no money to buy anything, and I have been distracted–”

“No matter,” Mal said. “You give us your time and love, every day. And night.”

Sandy nodded his gratitude.

“In fact…” Mal took his brother by the elbow and let him out of earshot of Coby and Kit. “I need your help. Tonight.”

“Oh?”

“I found something in the dreamlands, a few nights ago. At first I thought nothing of it, but it was there again last night when I patrolled. I think it could be the evidence we have been seeking all this time.”

“Then Charles was telling the truth?”

“Yes. At least as he saw it.”

“But why now, I wonder,” Sandy said. He glanced over at Kit, who was galloping unsteadily around the room. “We searched very thoroughly when we first returned to England.”

“That was what puzzled me. Surely the traces would have faded with time, not renewed themselves.”

Sandy laughed. “It is no use applying your schoolmasters’ logic to the dreamworld, brother. Dreams have no reason, or at least, their reasons are their own.”

“Then I will let you interpret this mystery, since you are so much more knowledgeable than I.”

Sandy looked up, his expression grave. “You have more knowledge than you know, if only you would dare open your heart to it.”

“Last time I did that, people died. Or have you forgotten?”

“It was fear that made you hesitate,” Sandy replied, reaching out to rest a hand on Mal’s wrist. “And hesitation made you vulnerable. That is not what our fencing-master taught us.”

“I know.” It came out as barely more than a whisper. Mal cleared his throat. “Very well, I shall endeavour to be bold and grasp the nettle. Tonight.”



“This will be easier if we share a bed,” Sandy said, leading the way through into his own chamber. “We don’t need your wife coming in and waking you.”

“If you insist,” Mal replied.

It was strange being back in his own room with Sandy, undressing for bed and arguing over who got to use the tooth-stick first, as if the past fifteen years had never happened. The last time… the last time had been the night they were initiated into the Huntsmen. After that, Sandy had to be locked in a room by himself. Mal climbed into bed and stared up at the shadowy canopy, trying to empty his mind of the day’s bustle and achieve the calmness that would allow him to step into the dreamlands without needing to fall asleep.