by I had paid a visit to Ashdown Castle before, only a few weeks past. On that occasion, the place had been half a ruin, with parts of its roofs fallen in, glass missing from the windows, walls tumbling down — a wreck, in short. What a pity, too, for it was a large, rambling old place, five centuries old, with appealing higgledy-piggledy architecture all built from unusual brown brick.
The several sloping roofs were all intact, now. The windows glittered with bright, new glass, every rickety wall had been rebuilt or stabilised, and there had even been some cleaning done to its decorative stone embellishments. How they had achieved so much in so short a space of time was beyond me to imagine; I could only gape in astonishment, and marvel again at just how much money these people had to throw around.
‘I really, really want to know who’s funding this lot,’ I muttered to the Baron.
‘Yes,’ he replied, grimly. ‘We were thinking the same thing.’
By we I supposed he meant himself and Their Majesties. It wasn’t just the money, either. They behaved with the splendid insouciance of people who think that laws are beneath them, and are confident of there being no conceivable way any unpleasant consequences could ever be brought to bear for breaking them. I’d wondered before how many connections they had in advantageous places, especially since Lord Garrogin’s duplicity had come to light.
Probably that had occurred to Their Majesties, too.
Our invitations were accepted at the door by a pair of young women in blue uniform robes — or mine was, anyway. The Baron needed no invitation. He had only to announce himself and his eminence did all the work (with a little help from his best and most charming smile, perhaps). The girls on the door looked thrilled as they waved him in. Was it because he was handsome, or because his presence here was another coup for Ancestria Magicka?
In the great hall — whitewashed walls inside, high ceiling, remarkable painted murals depicting forest scenes — we found a large number of our fellow guests already milling about, many of them with champagne glasses in hand.
We also found Zareen, loitering near the door, with George Mercer in tow. He wore a black tuxedo; she was devastating in a slim column of a black dress, her eye make-up dramatic.
‘Half the Society’s coming,’ she hissed as she drew us aside. ‘They’ve invited everyone.’
‘So I learned from Val. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?’
We both looked at George Mercer, who had the grace to look uncomfortable.
‘They’re looking to expand,’ said Zareen in disgust. ‘At our expense, obviously.’
The same conclusion Milady and I had reached in our separate deliberations, but I was no longer certain that was all that was going on. There was too much show, the party was too big, the guests too varied. What Zareen had said was probably true enough, but what other motive lurked behind all this effort and expense?
‘I’d like to know where Jay is,’ I said to George, as pleasantly as I could manage considering that I wanted to choke the information out of him with my bare hands.
He grunted. ‘You’ll find out.’
‘Once we’ve given you the information you want, you mean?’ I was ready to do that if it meant getting Jay back.
But Mercer rolled his eyes. ‘No.’
I thought Zareen was looking a bit shame-faced. Had she already spilled everything?
She caught my look, and sighed. ‘They know all about that bloody island already, all right?’
‘They do?’ That shed some interesting new light on things. ‘All about it?’
‘As much as we know, anyway.’
Mercer, to my interest, looked like he wanted to say something, but he hesitated and Zareen swept on. ‘Last recorded position off the coast of Scarborough, vanished since to an undiscovered location.’
He was definitely looking shifty. ‘Do you also have an inkling as to where?’ I said — politely, I swear!
The man sighed, ran a finger around the collar of his shirt as though it was choking him, and walked off, muttering something about a drink.
Zareen’s smile grew satisfied.
‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said, but then amended that to: ‘Mission almost accomplished.’
‘What mission?’
‘My secret George Mercer mission.’
‘Does it have anything to do with getting Jay back?’
‘Sort of.’
I gave up. I’d always known that Jay and Zareen did not altogether get along, but I hadn’t expected to find her so unmoved by his mysterious plight. Remonstrating with her was useless. I walked away.
The Baron leaned down to whisper in my ear. ‘I think that she has not had the success she was hoping for with Mr. Mercer, but is embarrassed to admit it.’
Hmm. Was she embarrassed or just hopping mad? Either way, uttered in his smooth, calm tones, the idea sounded reasonable, and some of my irritation and dismay dissipated. He was probably right.
I came to a dead halt halfway across the hall, because a familiar figure approached from the other side of the room: an extremely tall figure, clad in robes. ‘Lord Garrogin’s here?’
The Baron looked about as pleased to see him as I was. ‘Bloody cheek,’ he muttered.
I was better pleased to see Rob and Nell there, and Val arrived shortly afterwards. I didn’t see Miranda, though I was on the watch for her.
I began to feel bad about turning my back on Zareen like that. I knew she was in a difficult position between the Society and George Mercer, and could hardly be blamed for having slightly confused loyalties. She would be doing her best. I ought to be a better friend.
But when I turned to go back to her, she was not where we had left her a few minutes before. It took me a few seconds to locate her among the mass of sumptuously clad guests; they were as curious about the castle as I was. A ceaseless flow of party-goers streamed from door to door, disappearing into the depths of the building and coming back again, probably in search of more champagne.
I would join them in exploring before long, but first… ah, there was Zareen, in a corner by herself. She had her eyes closed. As I drew nearer, I saw that she was pressed into the walls, one hand laid palm-flat against the pale plaster. Her face was pale and drawn in that way I was beginning to dread seeing.
I approached carefully, wary of startling her. ‘Zar?’ I said softly.
Her eyes snapped open. They were only half filled in with black, yet, but the colour was spreading into the whites. ‘Ves. You know the…’ she trailed off as Alban came up beside me.
‘Carry on,’ I murmured. ‘The Baron’s all right.’
‘I’d rather not.’ The look in Zareen’s eyes too nearly resembled fear for my liking, so I was glad when Alban took this in good part, and moved quietly away again.
‘The Greyer cottage,’ Zareen continued, pitching her voice lower. ‘And how George and Katalin almost beat us to it.’
‘Yes.’
‘We thought they were trying to purloin the services of Wester, and maybe one of the Greyers, for themselves. And we were right.’
‘But you exorcised them, so that put paid to that plan.’
‘But it didn’t. It’s something George said earlier today…’ Her eyes fluttered shut again, and she visibly swallowed. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in her mind at that moment. ‘There are more Waymasters like Wester. Millie Makepeace, for one, and George claims they’ve another tame one in some building somewhere, he wouldn’t say in any more detail. But I think that’s not the half of it. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’
‘Once, a few weeks ago.’
‘Notice anything different about it?’
‘Only everything.’ I told her about the castle’s formerly derelict state.
‘Building works,’ Zareen whispered, and said hoarsely: ‘Ves. There are at least seven spirits loose in here.’
‘Seven?’
She nodded. ‘Perhaps more, I am having trouble separating them. Some of them are… really not happy.’
I’ve a notion my face turned as paper-white as Zareen’s. Seven spirits, most or all of them conveyed here with or without their consent, their bones sealed into newly rebuilt floors or walls. Possibly more than seven. ‘Are they all Waymasters?’
‘At least two of them are. One is called Bonnie Bishop. I know this because she keeps shrieking her name at me. She was a healer in a village called Combe Greening. Edward Visser kept a charms and cantrips shop in Amesbury. Harriet Theale was a vicar’s wife in a parish called Bodwell. Two of them are talking in languages I cannot understand and the rest are just— I can’t distinguish.’ Zareen gripped her head, her eyes wide and staring now, and black from edge to edge. ‘Eight,’ she said with forced calm. ‘Toby McNeal, Kinross. Waymaster and baker.’
‘Zar.’ I took hold of her hands, and tried to make her look at me. ‘Zar, stop. Where is this coming from? You were fine a few minutes ago.’
‘They were silent until a few minutes ago. I didn’t know they were there. They woke up, all at once.’
That boded poorly. The party was just getting underway, pretty much everyone was here who was going to be here, and now the ghosts in the walls woke up?
‘I need George,’ said Zareen shakily, and tried to pull free of me.
I hung onto her. ‘We’ll find him together. Come on.’
Baron Alban, bless him, had not been oblivious to this. He was at my side in an instant as I set off across the hall, supporting Zareen. He took up a position on her other side, his bulk helping to shield her from unwanted attention, and with his superior height he was the first to spot George Mercer slipping through a half-concealed door at the back of the hall.
We followed.
‘Stranger Arts?’ murmured the Baron to me as we passed through the door.
‘Mm.’
He looked more sympathetic than repulsed, and duly went up yet another notch in my estimation.
‘George!’ gasped Zareen. ‘Stop. Please.’
For a moment I thought he would ignore her, but to his credit he slowed, and turned around. He looked every bit as bad as Zareen, if not worse, his face chalk-coloured and his eyes pitch. Shadows crept across his skin, giving him a chilling, cadaverous air. ‘I told you to stay away,’ he said, his voice rasping like rusted metal.
‘And that’s why I came. You’re holding them here, aren’t you? You’ve got to let them go.’
‘I can’t.’
‘George. They’re tearing themselves to pieces.’
‘They’ll tear me to pieces if I try it.’
‘If they do, so be it.’ Zareen was ice-cold. ‘You should never have done this.’ She swallowed, choked, and added: ‘Nine. Bob Malley, Kellswater. He wants to go home, George.’
George’s reply, whatever it might have been, was drowned by a sudden blare of music from the hall. No, it was not coming from the hall, or not only from the hall. It was coming from everywhere at once. I might have suspected a complicated speaker system, except that the music — strings and trumpets, with something of the fanfare about it — seemed to explode from the very walls. Then came a woman’s voice. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Ashdown Castle! Ancestria Magicka is delighted to make your acquaintance. Your presence is kindly requested in the main ballroom for the first of several scintillating surprises, so make haste! We begin in five minutes!’
A look of utter horror flashed across George’s face, prompted by… what?
‘Ten,’ said Zareen. ‘Felicity Bennett, Ivybridge. Seamstress.’
‘Right,’ I said, straightening my spine. ‘Zar, you need to stop this. Shut them off. They’ll drive you insane, and there is nothing you can do for them at this moment.’
Zareen nodded ready acquiescence, to my relief — but then she shuddered so violently she almost fell to the floor. The Baron and I caught her between us.
I stared flintily at George, my heart pounding. ‘What is going on here?’
But I was too late. He gave the same tearing shudder as Zareen, but while she had weathered it, George did not. His eyes rolled up and he collapsed.
