Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(80)

‘Can I have a look?’

Foxglove tilted her pad against her chest to hide it and suddenly I realised that the loose top she was wearing was a linen artist’s smock – in fact, all she needed was a beret and the cliché would have been complete.

I thought of Molly and her Edwardian maid’s outfit and wondered if the costume was significant. Noted fairy botherer Charles Kingsley argued that many of the true fae take particular care to array themselves in the garb that most closely represents their nature.

Not a maid, and not a warrior queen of the Stone Age but what – an artist?

I tried hard not to smile because I know about artists. Well, musicians really. But same difference.

‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘It can’t be as bad as my work.’

She gave me a suspicious look which I returned with as much sincerity as I could muster.

She came to a decision and leapt to her feet. Flipping her pad shut, she took two steps and flew up the shaft and out of sight.

I sighed and went back to my book, in which Morgoth nicked the eponymous jewels and had away with them back to Angbad. Sorry mate, I thought, not my jurisdiction. Did you have them insured? Whereupon F?anor gets a crime number and a leaflet about being on guard against theft and the wiles of the personification of evil.

Like I said, I think I was wearing a little bit thin at that point.

Supper was pizza, which arrived in a Pizza Express box along with garlic bread and a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola. Caffeine at last, I thought, and saved half the bottle for breakfast. While I ate Foxglove sketched me from across the room and, to my surprise, showed me her work after I’d cleared up. She was good – having caught me in a few bold charcoal strokes. I must have looked impressed because she gave a little hiss of pleasure and turned pink.

I let her pose me for more work, because in a kidnapping situation you’re supposed to take every opportunity to bond with your captors. The theory being the more they relate to you as a person the harder it is for them to casually off you when the time comes.

The light from above turned rainy grey and we could hear heavy drops bouncing off the glass roof far above. As it grew dark, Foxglove kept going until I was fairly certain that she was drawing from memory.

I used to think that being forced to attend one of my mum’s family’s christenings was most the boring thing I’d ever done – now I know better.

Posing also turned out to be surprisingly tiring and I think I fell asleep almost as soon as I got into bed.



Apart from delivering breakfast and lunch, Foxglove left me alone for most of the day. That at least allowed me to confirm that without her presence the bubble definitely weakened. Not enough that I could actually do a spell, but enough to explain why she had to sleep down in the oubliette with me.

I wondered if Molly could have the same effect. If she did, that would allow us to make truly magic-proof cells in the Folly. Then the main obstacle to locking up practitioners like Martin Chorley would be making the Folly PACE compatible – custody sergeant and everything.

Still, I’d got the impression that Foxglove had already slept in the oubliette before I’d arrived. Perhaps she was more comfortable sleeping in her little bubble. Which begged the question – would Molly be more comfortable sleeping in the same? Which, of course, led to one of those three in the morning thoughts – what if she already was? I knew she had her lair in the front part of the basement where Nightingale pointedly never intruded, and I’d always followed his lead. She could have been spending her nights in Narnia for all we knew.

After supper – kebab again, which at least meant I got to have Foxglove’s leftover pitta and salad – she brought out her sketchpad and charcoals and looked at me expectantly.

I clowned a bit to see if I could make her laugh, trying various heroic poses which backfired when she insisted that I stay fixed in my impression of Anteros, god of requited love, as depicted by Alfred Gilbert’s statue in Piccadilly Circus. Which meant standing on one foot while leaning forward and pulling an imaginary bow and arrow.

I lasted all of five minutes before falling over, which caused Foxglove to make the short hissing sound that I recognised as laughter. She motioned for me to take up the pose again, but I refused and she had to make do with Peter Grant heroically massaging his ankle.

Foxglove kept it up until the light began to dim.

‘Do you like working for Chorley?’ I asked, as she packed away her work.

Her head tilted as if considering the question.

‘I mean, does he pay well?’

There was a short hissing sound again.

‘So why work for him?’

The mouth turned down and she pressed her wrists together and held them out as if they were handcuffed or bound with invisible rope.

‘You’re a prisoner?’ I asked.

The mouth turned mournful.

‘Not prisoner,’ I asked. ‘Slave?’

Foxglove’s head drooped and her hands, still invisibly bound, dropped into her lap.

‘How?’

Without looking up, Foxglove shrugged and slid under her duvet and went to sleep.

I wished I could.



‘Hi, Peter,’ said Lesley. ‘You awake down there?’

It was after lunch the next day and Lesley, sensibly, didn’t come down to join me. Instead she stood at the edge of the hole and called down.