All Good Things Read online

  “We don’t even know why she killed them all,” Max said.

  “As long as she doesn’t get another chance to kill me, I don’t really give a flying fuck about her motivations,” Rupert said, resuming his attack on the jelly snake. “But I’ve finished what I’ve been working on and now I need you.” He waved the last of the snake in Max’s direction.

  “So we’re just supposed to forget about George Iris?” the gargoyle said with a snarl. “After all he did?”

  “Get this job done, and then I’ll make the Iris Patroon break George Iris and chuck him into Mundanus with nothing more than the skin on his back. Okay? It’s just a matter of…priorities.”

  “We can’t ignore everything else,” Max said. “The puppets are getting bolder by the day. I’ve shut down the Second Sons, but in Aquae Sulis the Master of Ceremonies is already suspicious. If he and his sister feel confident enough to shut down a mundane school with a bomb scare, they’re going to do worse very soon.”

  “A bomb scare?” Rupert raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t sound like a puppet tactic to me.”

  “There’s a bomb from the Second World War that’s been found in the grounds, apparently,” Kay said. “Some builders found it during renovation work. But the day before it was reported, we picked up a massive spike of Lavandula magic there, so we think they might have been involved. We don’t know why, though.”

  “The Peonias must have pissed them off,” Rupert said, disinterested.

  “And you should know that Londinium is unstable,” Max said. “The Viola Patroon expelled Bertrand Persificola-Viola from the Nether in disgrace, and the Violas are one of the wealthiest allies of the Duke. And the Duchess has left him.”

  “And I should care about this because…?”

  “Because unofficially Londinium is now within your jurisdiction, along with the rest of the Heptarchy,” Max said. “Instability in the Nether usually results in more risk-taking as the puppets try to gain the backing of their patron to mount a coup.”

  Rupert scratched the stubble on his chin. “Still not as important as this. I don’t want you working on anything else, Max, not until that woman is dealt with.”

  He reached into his pocket as the gargoyle stalked forwards. “There are people being used like machines in the basement of the Agency’s headquarters,” it said in its gravelly voice. “We need to get them out. And Cathy said—”

  “Do I need to say this again with like pictures or something?” Rupert shouted. “I have zero fucks to give about anything except this.” He pulled out a new gadget from his inside pocket. It was smooth black plastic and the size of a small cigar tube. “This will find that woman if she’s anywhere on this island. If she crosses the sea, it’s a problem. So you need to go find her fast.”

  “And then do what?” the gargoyle asked. “She has weird hybrid magic. She could turn us inside-out or something.”

  “I’m working on that part, and I’m nearly done,” Rupert replied. “I just need an exact location. It’s legwork, that’s all. It feeds info to your phone and Kay’s database too. She’ll be able to track where you are and support from here.” He noticed Kay roll her eyes. “What?”

  “I’d like to do more in the field,” she said. “I know it’s not safe, so we need to find a way to fully protect me. We’ll need it in the future, right? Once this project is done with?” At Rupert’s blank expression, she sighed. “We need an alternative because you can’t make more Arbiters.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Ethics and consent.”

  “Shit, can we deal with one thing at a time?” Rupert tossed the gadget to Max. On closer inspection, Max could see a row of ten tiny lights running up the side of the device, currently greyed out.

  “They change colour when you get closer,” Rupert said. “You’ll get more info on your phone app, but you have to keep that thing on you for it to work, okay? It’s got all the clever stuff inside. She’s somewhere in the north-west of England as far as I can tell. Start in Manchester. There aren’t any puppets there, so she might have chosen that for a base.”

  “Rupert, I’m serious,” Kay said. “We need an alternative, then we can recruit faster.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But you’re not going out into the field.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I need an apprentice.” He stuffed the last piece of the jelly snake into his mouth. “And I want it to be you.”

  3

  Cathy scooped up the remnants of iris leaves from the hearth and chucked them into the fire. “So how do you know Sam?”

  “I came to commission some ironwork from him,” Beatrice replied, padding barefoot over to the armchair farthest from the fire. “He offered to let me stay while he works on it. And you?”

  “Oh, that’s a long story.” She didn’t know what to say about it, given that it involved the Fae and a Sorcerer.

  “He told me it had something to do with Exilium, but not the details.”

  “So…you know about all of that stuff, then?” When Beatrice nodded, Cathy sat on the sofa. “Sam and I got tangled up with a Sorcerer who chucked both of us into Exilium to do his dirty work. I made sure Sam didn’t get royally screwed over by the Fae, and Sam…” She looked at the flames, trying to work out the best way to put it. “Sam became one of the few people I trust.”

  “Was it Rupert of Mercia?”

  “No, Ekstrand, from Bath. What an arsehole he was. Do you know everything about Exilium and Mundanus and…?”

  “Yes. I used to work for a Sorcerer.”

  Perhaps that had made her social skills atrophy. Cathy wished she had as good an excuse. “I’m from the Nether. I just left it. Again.”

  Beatrice leaned forwards, her gaze focused so intently on her that Cathy had to look away into the fire. “Tell me more.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I think we may have something in common.”

  Cathy hesitated. Could Beatrice have been sent by the Irises? No, she was already here when she’d arrived, and no one had any idea she’d left Will at that point. For Sam to let her stay suggested that he trusted her. She took a breath, wondering whether to just shut the conversation down, when there was a scream from the kitchen.

  “Mrs M?” Cathy called from the door. “Are you okay?”

  Mrs M’s red face poked into the hallway. “Sorry, pet, there was a spider the size of a bloody dinner plate in the pantry. Just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  Cathy smiled and went back into the living room. Beatrice didn’t even look concerned. “Spider,” Cathy said. “Mrs M hates them.”

  “Tell me about why you left the Nether.”

  “The first or the second time?”

  “Both.”

  Once Cathy started, it was hard to stop. It was so rare that she could talk to anyone about what she’d done. She didn’t name her family or her patron and Beatrice didn’t ask for those details. She was a good listener, and it helped to talk about something she felt proud of. But as Cathy went on, describing the forced marriage and the husband she didn’t name, it got harder. The shame crept in, bringing with it the fear that she wasn’t ever going to be free. What kind of feminist activist was she, hiding in a man’s house, hiding behind his power from another man? “Why are you so interested in me?”

  “Lord Iron protects you unlike any other. Why? What is it about you that made him take you in?”

  Cathy pulled a cushion close, needing something to hide behind. “I think I remind him of his wife. That’s all.” When Beatrice continued to stare, she added, “I was trying to change Society. In the Nether, I mean. I was trying to make it better for women. And I failed.”

  “Is that why you ran away?”

  “Wow, you really don’t dress things up, do you?” Cathy sighed. “I ran away because of the betrayal. But even before then I was losing hope anything could ever change there. I just can’t see a way to do it, not when all the men who hold the power have no r
eason or inclination to share it. Nothing ever changes in the Nether. Short of burning the whole bloody place down—which is literally impossible—I can’t see what could ever make it better.”

  Beatrice’s unexpected smile was broad. “You’re so angry.”

  “I am so far beyond angry I don’t even know what to call it.”

  Beatrice tilted her head, evidently considering something, when a movement at the window drew Cathy’s attention. It had got dark some time ago and she hadn’t closed the curtains, being out of the habit of doing so herself. Nervous of the way Beatrice was staring at her, Cathy crossed the room and looked out. Perhaps it was just an owl. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness, so she closed the heavy drapes and went back to the sofa.

  “We do have something in common,” Beatrice said. “We both want to see the end of the Nether. The difference is that I know how to bring that about. I just need your help to do it.”

  “Wait, what?” Cathy held up her hands. “Do you mean destroy it? But what about the people who live there?”

  “They would be forced to live in the real world, just like everyone else.”

  Cathy reeled. The end of the Nether? Really? Without that place, not even the Patroons could keep every member of the Great Families fully closeted away. With multiple influences instead of just one monochrome Nether Society, the change she craved would be inevitable. Perhaps more; perhaps Society would simply disappear, with everyone scattered amongst millions of other, normal people, like salt grains spilt on sand. It would be so much easier for those who wanted no part of it to just slip away, find their own path. Maybe even freedom. “How would you do this?”

  “I have some knowledge and skills of my own.” Cathy had the feeling it was an understatement. “But I need Lord Iron’s assistance and he is unconvinced by my plan. This is where I need your help.”

  “You want me to persuade him?”

  “I do. He will listen to you in a way he won’t listen to me.”

  “I don’t know…” Something about this made Cathy uncomfortable.

  “Surely you want to see the end of the Nether? There would be no need to hide here anymore. The prison they want to put you back into wouldn’t exist.”

  There was a tug in her heart. Life in Mundanus without the dread of being pulled back to the Nether…Cathy could barely imagine it. “But it’s not enough, not for me. The Fae won’t leave me alone just because the Nether isn’t there anymore.” She doubted Lord Iris would abandon his plan for a child just because she’d changed address. And Lord Poppy would still seek her out, just to torment her, regardless of the existence of the Nether.

  “Ah, I see.” Beatrice nodded. “Then I propose this: you help me to succeed in my plan to destroy the Nether, and I will teach you all you need to protect yourself from the Fae.”

  Cathy raised an eyebrow. “Look, I’m sorry, I barely know you. And I’ve been screwed over so many times lately, I just can’t believe that you’re just going to make everything I’ve wanted to happen come true, just like that!”

  “It was my twin brother who betrayed me,” Beatrice said after a pause. “We have both known what it is to be moulded by men, grown into shape by the confines of a prison of their making. We have both known what it is to fear being our true selves, to push ourselves into their spaces. Spaces which are not theirs to keep. That they stole. That they cling to now, like fat dogs who fear hunger. We have both been punished for wanting more, for being more, for needing more than they deign to give us.”

  Cathy couldn’t breathe, as if her chest was filled with something else. Her skin tingled and her pulse raced and she suspected magic was being worked, but it was unlike anything she’d felt before. There was something compelling in the rhythm of Beatrice’s words.

  “You carry within you the purest force of destruction,” Beatrice continued. “When the time is right, together we will destroy the prison they wove with lies and false promises of protection. We will unleash such a freedom upon the people you care for that there will be no man, no rule, no fear that can bind them.”

  New tears started to roll down Cathy’s cheeks, but not of shame or fear, not even of guilt. Of hope. Then the doubt seeped back in. Magic usually meant manipulation. “But how can I trust you?”

  “We will make an oath than binds us both. And when it is done, I will teach you the way to work that magic too.”

  Cathy closed her eyes, forced her senses inwards as best she could, needing a moment to check that she wasn’t about to do something stupid. “Wait…you killed your twin brother?”

  “Yes.” Another pause. “When we are bound by the same oath I have with Lord Iron, I will tell you why it was necessary.”

  “Will it bind my will to yours?”

  “No. It will mean that each of us will know if we are about to betray the other. And if we do, we have the right to destroy each other. If you have no intention of harming me, then it shouldn’t be a concern.”

  Cathy frowned and opened her eyes, looking at Beatrice as boldly as she could. “I have no intention of that now. What if that changes?”

  Beatrice laughed more heartily than Cathy thought she’d be capable of. “Life is risk. And to pass on my knowledge to you is one I am willing to take. I have worked so hard for so long to make this happen. I want to find a way to work with Lord Iron, rather than resorting to working against him. You will make that possible.”

  Cathy was about to reply when the sound of the front door opening and then closing again soon after interrupted her. She paused, listening for the sound of Sam calling her name, as he’d taken to doing every time he got back from the forge or whatever else he got up to, but there was only silence. Maybe he thought she might be in bed.

  She balanced the risk of tangling herself up with this strange and obviously powerful woman against the risk of being trapped in Sam’s house for the rest of her life. Freedom was all she’d ever wanted, and if it meant throwing her lot in with Beatrice—the only option she could think of—then she had to take it. Having a direction again, just a thing to do, was better than stewing in her own misery.

  “Agreed,” she said. “But you might want to know that Lord Poppy thinks my true potential is to destroy everything. Not just the Nether.”

  Beatrice’s smile was devilish. “It is written across your soul for me to read like poetry. It’s the reason we are having this conversation. The only people who need fear it are those who wronged you.”

  “Okay. I’ll take the oath.”

  Beatrice came to sit on the sofa. “We rest a hand over the other’s heart,” she said, and Cathy rested her hand over Beatrice’s heart at the same time as hers was covered. “When I speak a secret to you, you will know it for what it is and its worth. When you speak it to another against my wishes, you will know if you are about to betray me, and in betraying me, yourself. The same for any secret you share with me. Now, Catherine, you say the same to me, and mean it.”

  Cathy said the words back with Beatrice’s guidance. She didn’t feel anything happen. When it was done and Beatrice returned to her chair, Cathy tried to remember the times she’d interacted with Ekstrand and his magic. “What kind of magic was that? It didn’t seem like sorcery, but it was too structured to be Fae magic.”

  “It is a hybrid of the two. We will go through it in detail tomorrow. Now, tell me how to persuade Lord Iron to assist me.”

  Cathy shrugged. “He’s not a machine. I can’t tell you the right buttons to press.” At her blank expression, Cathy realised that maybe Beatrice didn’t have a frame of reference for that analogy. “What does Sam object to? He hates the Nether. I don’t understand why he’s not helping you already.”

  “I believe his main concern is the fact that the Fae will be free once more.”

  Cathy twitched. “What?”

  “The Nether can only exist in the place between the Split Worlds; the only way to destroy it is to undo the work of the Sorcerers and restore reality to the way it should be. N
o Exilium, no Mundanus. Just one restored world in which humanity and the Fae co-exist.”

  For a moment, all Cathy could do was blink at her. “That’s the plan? No wonder Sam won’t go along with it! It’s fucking bonkers!”

  Beatrice looked away, mouthing Cathy’s last words to herself, as if she didn’t understand them. “I am still unaccustomed to discourse. It seems I need to persuade you that my plan is correct, yes?”

  Cathy twisted the corner of the cushion in her fist, trying to keep control of her anger. “I’d rather you just lay it all out for me, rather than persuade me. You deliberately left out information so I would be more likely to bring Sam onside.”

  “Ah. I understand. Will it help if I tell you that I have already killed one thousand three hundred and fifty-two people in the pursuit of my goal? My brother was only the first.”

  “Holy shit! No, that doesn’t help at all!”

  “Why not? I thought you were concerned about my deliberate obfuscation of the truth. I am being truthful and accurate.”

  Beatrice seemed calm while Cathy pressed her hands against her face in shock. “Shit.”

  “Would it help if I explained that I only did this because if I hadn’t taken such action, and if I don’t continue to pursue my goal, millions of people will die?”

  “I don’t know if it will help, but I need to know why.”

  “The Elemental Court is destroying the balance of life on Earth. Despite all of the evidence proving this to be true in the language of science, nothing is being done, because the Elemental Court are driving it. They are being driven mad by their own nature, as they are left unchecked by the Fae. Splitting the worlds and forcing the two courts to exist in separate realities is making both of them more extreme and more dangerous. The Sorcerers would not accept this. I tried to persuade them when they thought I was one of them. I showed them the proof. They refused to accept it, because they had become too accustomed to their power and could not accept that their greed could lead to their destruction.”