Page of Tricks, page 17
Quentin sat huddled on a bench as close to the ferry’s bow as possible, with Windsor by his side, and he did his best to keep them both warm despite the bitter wind.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to find him?” He tore his gaze from the chalk faces on the horizon and looked at Windsor.
Windsor clacked his beak and looked affronted that Quentin might even doubt him.
Quentin nodded. “How is he?”
Windsor hesitated. He blinked his little eyes, then let out an uncertain rumbling noise that Quentin could barely hear above the waves and constant churn of engines.
He frowned slowly. That was a less positive response than he had hoped for. “Bad?”
Windsor cawed faintly and waved his head in a so-so manner with his beak parted.
“But not too bad?”
Windsor clacked his beak to agree.
Quentin hunkered down in his jacket and scowled at the cliffs as they drew closer.
They were so close now. So close. And then he’d save Laurence, and everything would be over.
And he could sleep at last.
Their routine was reasonably practiced by the time they docked and transferred to another taxi. A few onlookers snapped pictures, but most likely more of Windsor than of Quentin. He hoped, at least.
“London, please,” Quentin asked of the driver. “King’s Cross.”
It was best to begin from a central hub. From London, they could travel outward with more haste than attempting to dawdle around the entire country by train or taxi. Once they were moving, Quentin eyed Windsor in the footwell and wondered how the hell they were supposed to find Laurence when the bird’s communication was so limited.
That said, he had managed to guide Myriam all the way to Rufus’ house. But then, Myriam owned a car, and Quentin was beholden to public transportation. If a train overshot, he was stuck on it until the next stop, which on faster trains could be another hundred miles.
He leaned down and feigned checking his shoelaces while he murmured to the bird. “Are we going the right way?”
Windsor clacked his beak quietly.
Quentin nodded as he straightened up. If they reached London without complaint from Windsor, he could discount the entirety of Kent, and likely everything from East Sussex all the way to Cornwall. From there, they could travel to the Midlands, then farther north if required.
It was the best search plan he could think of: travel directly up the center of the country, then branch off as soon as Windsor requested a change of direction. They sat in silence all the way to London.
King’s Cross was, perhaps, a mistake.
Quentin looked up at the departure board, bewildered by the constantly-scrolling options, but he could think of no other way to cross large swathes of the country at speed. He couldn’t get Windsor onto an aircraft, and a taxi couldn’t match the train for speed, but this station had several platforms, some of which even seemed to have more than one train lined up at them. It was hectic, crowded, and the constant noise of hundreds of people was hammering at his head.
It didn’t help that all the words seemed to blur together, and the longer he squinted up at them, the worse it got. The orange text on black board was like candlelight flickering in the darkness, and he swayed on his feet.
Something stabbed into his ankle, and he gasped and looked down.
Windsor chattered at him, and it felt very much as though the bird were accusing him of not paying attention.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and consulted his phone. His best bet would be the Glasgow train, so far as he could tell. It took six hours, but had a stop every half hour or so, and he could hop off to backtrack more slowly once Windsor indicated that they must change direction.
Windsor launched into the air, to squeals of delight from a gaggle of schoolchildren, and went to perch atop the departures board while Quentin made his way to the ticket office, and then it was a long wait until they could board the next train. A wait during which Quentin felt himself slipping further away from any ability to remain on his feet.
The theory Neil had — that when Quentin created heat or fire from seemingly nothing, it actually drew on energy from within himself — seemed to make sense. Having used his gifts all night long to keep himself and — later on — Windsor from freezing had coupled with his pre-existing sleep deprivation to push him into a state of exhaustion so bone-deep that he was barely able to keep awake. But he must.
He had to find Laurence.
Nothing else mattered.
Orange candlelight flitted across the black expanse of the departure board, and blood dripped from the letters as the reshaped themselves.
Glasgow.
Quentin sucked in air and squinted.
There was no blood. Of course there wasn’t. His brain was becoming increasingly unreliable, and it was obsessed with trying to make him ill. All the talk of Halloween last week must have given it some awfully funny ideas. He focused on the board long enough to pick out the platform number, then set off toward it, weaving his way through the crowd with no effort to make it part for him. The farther he got from the crowd, the less the noise bothered him.
He passed through a ticket barrier and found his way into yet another first class train carriage, then waited inside for Windsor to enter so that he could open the sliding door for the bird and lead him to a seat.
Quentin sank down into the plush, comfortable leather of a reclining chair. He stretched out his legs beneath the table and closed his eyes for a moment. All he needed was to recoup some strength, and he’d be good for a few more hours yet.
The candlelight flickered behind his eyelids. In the distance, or maybe not even here at all, he thought he heard a mother humming a lullaby to her child.
Too weak to fight it any more, he allowed himself to slide down into the darkness, comforted by heat from the radiator at his side and the song from a mother that wove itself around him.
29
Laurence
The high was slipping through his fingers. Laurence tried to cling to it, desperate not to go through withdrawal again, but he knew it wouldn’t stay.
This was what heroin did. It made everything perfect, then snatched that away from you, and every tiny thing about your life couldn’t possibly match how amazing it was while high. Everything was just so much better with it: food, movies, sex… Goddess, sex on heroin was almost too good.
He groaned as the bliss gave way to a deep ache. Like every joint, every muscle, had been worked to their limit, his body wanted nothing to do with him. But rest wouldn’t solve it either.
Only another hit ever solved it.
If he could get to Morgan, get to some water, it should help, though. It had restored him from all of Freddy’s abuses, washed away his withdrawal. He’d been ready to face the world, renewed and invigorated.
Until now.
Laurence snarled and forced himself to move. He pushed against the soft floor and sat upright as his eyes fought to open.
“Well, what do you know,” Frederick mused. “It worked.”
The material beneath his hands was like cotton, not grass. His mouth was dry and his eyes were still sticky, so he rubbed them with his palms.
He didn’t know why he was at all surprised to find himself in a plush king-sized bed with overstuffed pillows and a thick duvet. Everything turned to shit in the end, so why not this too?
It was the withdrawal talking, but he didn’t care to argue with it.
“Interesting,” Frederick said.
Laurence grimaced and rubbed his face to try and breathe some life into himself, but it just made his cheeks ache. The bristles of his beard scratched his palms and he hated it. By the time he managed to force his eyes to open, he’d just about had enough of the mortal world already.
Frederick lounged in an armchair by a tall window that looked out onto red-leaved trees and bare branches. He was wearing his usual sort of thing, pale casuals that were exquisitely tailored, which seemed the exact opposite of what casual should mean.
Where there was one, there was usually the other, so Laurence squinted around the room to try and find Mikey, and located him sitting on the floor by the room’s only exit, his back resting against the door, bright red hair tamed by some product or other.
The room was a pretty reasonable size by Laurence’s standards, which meant it was probably way too small for Freddy’s tastes. The guy might own it, but there was no way he’d choose to live here.
Laurence pushed his bedsheets off and glanced down at himself. He was still in his own clothes, so at least they hadn’t done any weird shit. Other than putting more fucking smack into him against his will, anyway. He rubbed at the already-healed injection site in his elbow and snarled at Mikey, but Mikey said nothing.
“You’ve got what you wanted,” Laurence croaked as he turned toward Freddy. “I’m here now. Stop the withdrawal before it gets bad.”
Freddy quirked an eyebrow in a gesture so reminiscent of Quentin that it made Laurence’s heart skip. “Why would I do that?”
“So we can talk!” Laurence said the words as he swung his feet out of bed. “C’mon, man, I know you ain’t doing all this shit because you wanna. Your dad is gonna wreck Mikey if you don’t do what he wants, but you’re going about it all the wrong way.”
He waved vaguely toward his own head. “Fix it. Talk. And if you don’t like the talk, you can always fuck me right up again. I can’t stop you.”
The thought of Freddy inflicting withdrawal on him at some unspecified future date was terrifying, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to be free of it right this moment. That was what usually drove users right back to the H, and it damn well worked.
Freddy traced his lips with his fingers a while, then lowered his hand. “All right. Why not?” he said, as though debating whether to have dessert.
Laurence chewed on his lip and waited. It took a minute of silence between them before the ache, the fear, the need all washed away. His mind was as clear as it had been in Avalon, and Laurence had to remind himself that now wasn’t the right time to beg Freddy for a cure to addiction.
“Thanks,” he breathed. “Look. You said it yourself, right?” He nodded toward Mikey. “The duke’s gonna do to him what he’s told you to do to me if you let him down again. You don’t want to be doing any of this shit, do you? This—”
He broke off and curled his toes into the carpet to ground himself. “This isn’t you, Freddy. You hate getting your hands dirty. You made that more than clear when you found out what Kane was doing.
“And you know your dad’s doing this to weaken us all, right? You’re smart! You know we’d be better off all working together than doing his grunt work for him!”
“Yes, if all we are going to do is sit around and state the obvious, I fear this will be a tedious conversation.” Freddy sat forward, elbows shifting to the armrests of his chair. “Do you have a point to make?”
Laurence nodded. “Let me go,” he breathed, “and I will go straight to your dad and kill him. No more collateral, no mess, no fucking around. Mikey stays safe, you stay alive, everything’s done.”
Freddy sighed and sat back. “I’ve been over that option, Laurence. It does not work. You cannot kill him.”
“Why not? You’ve been in my head, you know what I can do. By the time he notices I’m there, I’ll have cut his throat open.”
Freddy nodded. “Thereby leaving enough incriminating evidence around to net yourself a life in prison. Do you think Icky would thank either of us for that?”
“You’re a lawyer, right?” Laurence frowned.
“Not yet, no. I couldn’t represent you even if I were, though. Conflict of interest.”
“But you can turn up to a court case and influence a jury.”
Freddy rolled his eyes a little. “And you honestly believe Icky can wait that long? These things take months, even a year or more. He will fall apart if you are in prison.”
“You’re trying to make him fall apart right now,” Laurence argued.
“I am trying to get it into his thick head that he needs to be the one to put an end to Father’s shenanigans once and for all,” Frederick countered. “If Father could kill Mother without leaving any trace of evidence at the scene, then Icky can learn to do so too.” He flicked his fingers idly. “This is a waste of time. I’m sorry, but I’ve been over every permutation.”
Laurence wet his lip slowly and tried to figure out a way to just make Freddy see.
“I do see,” Freddy murmured. “We all know what Father’s doing. He knows that together we could defeat him, so he is robbing us of that potential alliance. There is no way Icky will ever forgive me for what I’ve done here. None. You shouldn’t either. I accepted that as the cost of my actions.”
Laurence narrowed his eyes. “Then you must have had some other plan, right? C’mon, man, you weren’t seriously just gonna fuck me up and assume Quen was gonna aim for the right target, right? Talk to me! Even if you make me forget all this later on, just talk to me!”
He sucked his lip, then shook his head. “Wait, no. Don’t. Have you got a sharpie? Let me at least ward the place so your dad can’t scry on us.”
“He can’t eavesdrop on our thoughts,” Freddy said.
“You assume.” Laurence shrugged. “Like, I’m only scratching the surface of what magic’s capable of, but can you absolutely guarantee your dad doesn’t have some mind-reading spell available?”
Frederick hesitated, then frowned faintly. “It isn’t an option I had considered viable,” he admitted.
Mikey got to his feet and opened the door. “I’ll go get a Sharpie,” he said.
Freddy nodded and rose to his feet. He waited for Mikey to shut the door, and looked out of the window with his hands in his pockets in silence for a few minutes.
Laurence debated what to say. It was too much to hope just yet that Freddy might see sense and help him; but surely it was a good sign that he hadn’t yet returned to torturing Laurence, right?
Freddy tutted softly and turned his back on the window. “This should already have been over,” he muttered.
Mikey hurried back into the room, pen clutched in his hand. “Found one,” he huffed. He offered it to Laurence, but didn’t meet his gaze.
“Thanks, man.” Laurence took it and popped the cap off, then took a moment to make sure he remembered all the sigils he needed. He’d removed all of Rufus’ and re-done them himself for the practice, but that was a couple of months ago, and he hadn’t had to do it since.
The memories of re-warding the mansion blossomed forth with crystal clarity, and he blinked.
“You’re welcome,” Freddy said.
Laurence shook his head and beckoned to them both. “Thanks. Okay, you’re both gonna need to stand in the middle of the room. It’ll make it easier for me to move around, that’s all.”
“Of course.” Freddy took Mikey’s shoulder and steered him out of Laurence’s way.
Laurence nodded, then headed for the door frame and got to work defacing the wallpaper.
Goddess knew how much time they had, but he couldn’t afford to mess it up, so he worked with careful precision and checked each sigil before moving on to the next.
For once, he appreciated the idea of working in chalk. There would be no erasing a mistake made with a Sharpie. They’d have to move to another room and start over.
He pushed that thought aside and knuckled down on his spellcasting.
30
Quentin
“Hush, hush, time to be sleeping. Hush, hush, dreams come a-creeping. Dreams of peace and of freedom. So smile in your sleep, bonny baby.”
Quentin stirred as the lullaby crept through his thoughts, but the pain it caused made him whimper, and his eyes flew open.
Mama’s hand stilled on his forehead, and her bright blue eyes creased with worry. “Go back to sleep, Tintin.”
He wanted to stretch, but the fear over how much it might hurt made him stop. “I can’t.”
She brushed the hair from his face and smoothed it away from his head. “You must rest.”
Quentin swallowed down a knot of terror. “I’m useless, aren’t I?”
Mama stiffened. Her expression shifted to something angry, if only for a moment. “You are not useless, Tintin. Not now, not ever. Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because I’m always like this.” He tested each of his arms, slowly straightening one and then the other to see which one was more useable. His left protested less, so he used that one, and slowly brought his hand up to his face so that he could wipe his eyes. “I can’t do anything without injuring myself. How am I ever supposed to take over from Father if I cannot even put one foot in front of the other?”
She withdrew her hand and sat stiffly in her chair. “None of this is your fault. None of it. Don’t ever blame yourself.”
“I’m supposed to be the heir apparent to the Duchy of Oxford, Mama.” Quentin lay his arm back down with care and gave up on trying to withhold his tears. What was the point? He was damn worthless, and crying about it just let everyone else know how completely unsuited to the task he was too. “How can I do that when I’m this bloody stupid?”
His mother shot to her feet and stalked away from him. Her usually impeccable demeanor was suffused with a barely-contained rage that held her shoulders stiff and balled her delicate hands into fists. “Quentin, please. Don’t say such things. This won’t last forever. You’ll get better. You always get better.”
“And then I get worse.” He grit his teeth and tried to sit up, but the pain was too much.
What the hell could he have fallen on that made his arse hurt this much, for God’s sake?
“But it isn’t your fault,” his mother argued. “It’s never your fault, Tintin.”
