20

20

I always liked the drive from London to Oxford. My dreams of paying for my family through my glittering career as a scholar had been laughable—I was paid a pittance for the teaching I did and usually told to be grateful for free room and board. But when I had won my Merlin Scholarship, I had given every scrap of the money I had saved for tuition fees in case of failure to my family. They, in turn, had given it back to me with interest in the form of a battered yet beautifully functional two-seater motorcar. I had protested roundly, even as I had stroked the smooth green bonnet.

"I meant for you to put that into the farm or Rose's schooling!"

"Rose is fine," Matthew had said. "So's the farm, at the moment. Tell you what, if that ever changes, I'll steal the car back; would that make you feel better?"

So I had taken it, and the freedom it gave me as I rattled along the highways was a continual delight. I loved being able to drive to Pendle Hill for Christmas or a week in the summer holidays, or up to Manchester to visit Iris, or down to London with some of the other Camford postgraduates to see a play and have dinner. On a summery evening like this, with the wind tugging at my hair through the open window and the narrow roads through the Chiltern Hills curving ahead of me, it seemed impossible to hold on to the panic that had followed me down. Alden had eased that, anyway. He was telling the first minister that very evening—by now, he may have told him already. Hero would be safe. Nothing bad would happen. Surely what we had done as thoughtless eighteen-year-olds couldn't be so hard to undo.

I knew better than that, really. Two men had already died—three, including Lord Beresford. Thomas had been stolen away and locked out of this world. It was already too late to undo anything. And yet I was still startled, as I turned down a country lane framed by hedges and overhanging trees, to see that lane start to slowly spin in the distance.

My mind recognised it at once for what it was: an illusion. I knew exactly how to construct it myself. My eyes didn't believe me, and my hands swerved the car on reflex before I mastered them and put us firmly back on the road. It was supposed to disorient me, to force me to stop the car, that was all. I had to pass through it and out the other side. It couldn't hurt me. The real danger was whoever had cast the spell.

The spell was a strong one. The road ahead twisted in a circle, the enclosing trees spiralling into a long green tunnel. It resisted any attempt at a counter-spell, and when I drove toward it, the car too began to swivel and rotate as though the laws of physics had turned to nonsense. I closed my eyes and floored the accelerator. Dizziness swept over me in a single nauseating wave, and then it lifted, and my eyes opened to a mercifully clear stretch of road.

The sky, though, was no longer clear. Above the rattle of my own car I heard a reverberating thrum, like a swarm of bees overhead. I craned my neck to look up through the trees, expecting to see the shadowy form of another illusion. Instead, I saw something far worse.

I had never been very interested in the various aircraft that had fought in the war—Matthew and all the other village lads were infantry. But my sister Holly had always had a weakness for machinery, and she had taught me enough to recognise the various types by their markings and silhouettes. Bearing down on me from overhead was a Bristol Fighter.

I knew then, with a certainty like death, that this was very serious. An illusion could have been a robbery attempt—they were not unprecedented among mages. Highway robbers, though, did not fly in old wartime aircraft. I could see two men in the pilots' seats, and they were no criminals. They had the matching headgear and grim, focused concentration of professionals.

They were directly overhead, too late to try to evade them. I braced myself for gunfire and bullets. None came. Instead, the second pilot leaned out the side of the plane, raised his hands, and began to throw spells.

I could hear some of them over the roar of his engine and my own—binding spells, freezing spells, spells designed to incapacitate. All of them required far more precision than was possible from a plane aiming at a moving target, but all it would take was a lucky shot.

I tried to swerve the car back and forth, as much as was possible in the tight lane enclosed by trees and stone walls on either side. They had chosen the location of their ambush well. Spells hit to my left and right like falling stars, and there was very little I could do to avoid them. Even so, I thought they had missed me entirely, when a sharp, deep sting jabbed my right bicep.

I cried out and swatted it on reflex. My hand brushed metal; I glanced down, just in time to see a gleaming brass pellet burrow into my upper arm. It was the size of the nib of a pen, shaped like a tiny insect—I felt the wriggle of tiny legs and the buzz of filmy wings under my skin before it stilled.

My heart plummeted. I had read about these in a journal only last term—a new way to deliver spells, one that required far less precision on the part of the caster. So far, it had been used exclusively for tracking spells. From now on, whenever I did magic, the caster would know exactly where I was. No sense in worrying about that now, of course. The mages overhead knew exactly where I was already, and if I wasn't careful, I wouldn't be going anywhere for them to track ever again. What bothered me more was that only one group of people were authorised to use that spell. These were Guards, the small branch of police that investigated crimes for the Board of Magical Regulation. And there was only one reason why they would come for me.

The plane was turning, coming in for another barrage.

Before I stopped to think, my fingers twisted and I spoke the words for flame. Every culture has a version of that particular spell—I tended to use the one in Latin—and it throws just enough fire to ignite a bundle of wood or coal. This one ascended in a sharp curve into the air; the plane swerved, just in time to miss the flames scraping the tail. I gripped the wheel, trembling. God, what was I doing? If that had struck, it would have gone up in a fireball—I had seen enough footage of planes crashing on the news reels at the cinema. I would have had two murders on my hands, and no way to proclaim my innocence. I couldn't strike back. I had to get away.

Another cascade of spells dropped my way, great invisible comets that shimmered the air. I veered the car sharply to the right, scraping the thick trees that lined the path. The misfired enchantments fell, close enough to heat my face, one glancing off the bonnet with a chime like cymbals clashing. Some small part of me found it interesting—I had seen powerful spells displace the air before, I had read the theories on the phenomenon, but I had never been in a position to observe it so clearly. The rest of me was more concerned with the fact that I had to get off the road. As long as I was stuck in this narrow lane, I wouldn't last.

Only one thing for it. I opened the door on the driver's side in preparation, then with a deep breath, I wrenched the wheel to the side.

At this point, the road was lined with thick hedges, not stone walls. Even so, the impact was bone-jarring. My head crashed forward to the steering wheel; my mouth filled with blood as my teeth split my lip. I had barely the presence of mind to slip out the door and crawl through the gap in the hedge my car had opened, fighting my way through the thick gorse as best I could, keeping low to the ground. With luck the trees overhead would hide me from sight.

It wasn't enough, though. The plane was turning about, coming in for another attempt. If I got to my feet and ran, they would see me; if I stayed where I was, I would be hit by another, far more incapacitating spell, or the plane would land and the Guards would dig me out of the hedges like a particularly stubborn weed. I had only one idea, and it was a desperate one. It just had to work.

The rattle of the plane's engine was louder now, its shadow falling across the road. I was ready this time. Pressed to the earth, heart pounding, barely feeling the prickles and twigs biting my skin, I stretched my hand out and waited. I couldn't see the spells themselves, but I heard the high scream as some of them fell, and saw the sparks hit the ground as they failed, one by one. I waited as they came nearer, nearer still, and then I whispered the words and twisted my fingers, and my car was suddenly a ball of flame.

Even I was startled at how swift and dramatic it was. It was noiseless, no warning, just heat and fire and smoke. I choked as the acrid smell reached me, and deep beneath the adrenaline my heart cried out. I had loved that motorcar.

I held very still, and waited. With any luck, the Guards in the air above would believe that their magic really had accidentally struck the car and set it alight—and me with it. The way spells reacted with machinery was still unpredictable and unexplored. Even if they didn't, though, they would have no choice but to abandon the chase for now. Soon there would be cries from the surrounding farms and people coming; already the haze was enough to make the ground difficult to see from above, and by the time they landed, the fire would make it impossible to get close. Besides, they had me marked now. The next time I used magic, they would find me.

The fire was spreading, hot fingers stretching out to the trees and creeping across the grass. I stayed pressed to the ground, mouth buried in my sleeve to stifle coughs, flames inching toward me. The thrum of the aircraft roared overhead, closer, closer—then, at last, it spiralled away. When I dared to raise my head, the plane was a faint dot on the horizon, headed back to London.

I should have felt relief, tempered by far greater fear. I was safe for now. I was, suddenly and unexpectedly, not safe for much longer. The life I had built for myself was over, and something new and desperate had begun. But just then, my chest was burning with such fury there was no space for anything else.

Only one person on the Board could have sent that plane. Only one person had known where I was going to be.

"You bastard, Alden," I said out loud. "You bloody coward."

I couldn't go back to Camford. They would be waiting for me there; I'd be arrested as soon as I went near the Oxbridge. And soon that would be true of anywhere I went. Those same newspapers that had told my students about Hero would tell them about me by morning. My face would be splashed over the covers, the pages filled with stories about whatever terrible thing I had done. It wouldn't be the Ashfield door—Alden was right that there was no way he could pass that off as my work alone. Perhaps the story would be that I was helping Hero, or that I knew where she was. There was only one place I could think to go.

I had one advantage over the Families. They had grown up in a magical world. By adulthood, they used spells constantly, thoughtlessly, like drawing breath. The tracking spell they had managed to cast on me relied on the assumption that I would be unable to refrain from using magic too. The difference was, I had lived the first two-thirds of my life without magic. I knew how to get by without it, if that was what I had to do.

I spent the rest of the night walking, following the road as best I could, ducking down into the hedgerows at any flare of headlights or unexpected snap of a twig. I was some twenty-five miles out from Oxford—a long walk, it was true, but my family would have laughed at me for thinking it a hard one. Matthew would have covered that in a day during the war, in far worse conditions.

It was hard, though, despite what I told myself. The roads were rough and overgrown, and my stupidly nice going-to-London shoes were scuffed and blistering within an hour. Hunger set in, then thirst, and both were tormenting. As the night crawled on, it was all I could do to keep one foot in front of the other and my legs pushing grimly forward. I had always heard that a tracking spell was painless; this one kept up a niggling, burrowing itch that deepened to a throb after the first few miles. Worst of all was the fear. It was a constant shadow companion, freezing me when a light from a car appeared on the horizon, nipping at my heels with sharp teeth when the roads were dark and silent, until I thought I would go mad. In many ways, those long, lonely hours were the worst of my entire life.

I don't wish to dwell on them. Suffice it to say, by the time I made it to Oxford station, the sun already hot and high in the sky, I was grubby and footsore enough to draw surprised glances from the crowd, and I had to swallow several times before I found the words for the ticket officer. "A one-way ticket to Manchester, please."

I'd have to change trains there or find some other form of transport, but I didn't want to declare up front where I was going. Too dangerous. It was all dangerous now.

Thankfully, the train was almost ready to leave. I bought some wilted sandwiches and tea from the station, bolted them too fast on board, and then settled back as the train drew away from the platform. I dozed with my head against the window of the carriage, body exhausted and mind reeling, watching a blur of grey skies through half-closed lashes.

I should have known. The words went over and over in my head with every turn of the wheels until the train took on its own voice. I should have known. I should have known.

I had known Alden hadn't wanted the Ashfield gate exposed. He had made that very clear on that terrible morning, and nothing that had happened since had ever changed his mind. I knew he was capable of lying, of keeping secrets, of persuading others to keep them too. The only thing I didn't know was to what lengths he would go if someone went against him.

He'd warned me, all those years ago, when his words were still able to be taken for adolescent exaggeration. I'm not a good person, Clover. You believe I am because I'm clever and charming, but neither of those things are virtues. And you've never tried to cross me in anything I want to do.

I was crossing him now. But I was exhausted and angry and scared, and I couldn't help grieving bitterly not just for Hero and the collapse of my entire life, but for what Alden had once been to me and what he had become.

It was after dark again by the time I reached Lady Winter's square redbrick house. The windows were dark too, its inhabitants long since asleep. And yet I felt the tickle of security charms against my skin as I climbed, stumbling, over the fence that bordered the property, and wasn't surprised at all to see the door open and a flicker of candlelight appear at the top of the stairs.

"Please," I said, before Lady Winter could say anything. "I know this is an imposition. But I haven't anywhere else to go."

She must have hesitated. The entire country was looking for me. This wasn't refusing to get rid of some old books on faerie lore. Hiding me was more than an imposition, it was a terrible risk. It never showed on her face.

"Well," she said calmly. "You'd better come inside."