Bitter Seeds

five

11 May 1940

Walworth, London, England

Marsh arrived home before sunrise. But for the chatter of songbirds ushering in the dawn, the city was quiet in this hour when the distinction between night and morning lost its meaning. The blackout kept the streets dark.

Though Liv had been sleeping fitfully in the past few weeks, he didn't want to ring the bell and risk waking her. He fumbled through his pockets, seeking his house key. Several moments passed, during which he envisioned the key jostling out of his pocket during his motorcycle ride (had that been just yesterday morning?), his encounter with the girl, or during the bumpy Channel crossing. He even started to wonder if the girl had picked his pocket, but then his fingers brushed the cold metal.

The door swung open, sending bright light spilling down the steps and into the street, when he pushed the key into the lock.

The door was unlocked. It hadn't been latched. And the lights were still on.

Exhaustion resisted him as he forced his mind into focus again. Too many hours on constant alert had frayed his nerves, but a single thought burned through the fog in his mind. Just hours ago he'd been speculating about Jerry spies watching him and Liv.

A setup. Oh, God, how did I miss this for so long?

Marsh slammed the door behind him. “Liv? Liv!” His voice echoed through a quiet house. He trotted from room to room. She wasn't in the den; she wasn't in the kitchen. He went to the garden, hoping that perhaps there'd been an air raid alert and she'd simply fallen asleep in the Anderson shelter. But she wasn't there, either.

Back inside, he bounded up the narrow stairs two at a time. The bedroom was a scene of disarray: the drawers of Liv's wardrobe stood open, and her clothes were strewn across the bed and floor.

Scenarios, event sequences, spooled out in his head. He captured the girl in France ... her handlers contacted assets in London ... they snatched Liv in retaliation.

No, no, no, no. It made no sense.

But if the girl knew him, she probably knew something about this, too.

I'll yank those goddamn wires from her head one by one.

Marsh had the telephone in hand, ringing Stephenson, when he found the note: Darling—Labor started. Have gone to hospital with Will. Love, Liv. xx P.S. Stop worrying, you lovely fool!

She'd taken the time to leave a message, knowing how terribly he'd fret if he came home to an empty house.

The sudden release of tension left his knees weak. Marsh slumped against the wall, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He did a little of both.

Hailing a cab at this hour was out of the question. Marsh covered the first two miles to the hospital on foot. He would have run the rest of the way, too, but for an alert ARP warden just coming off his watch at dawn when he heard the echo of Marsh's footsteps down the street.

“Olivia Marsh? Olivia Marsh?” At the hospital he chanted her name like a mantra, confronting people with it. A nurse directed him to the room Liv shared with two more new mothers.

Liv slept propped up in bed, her head tipped to one side and her mouth slightly open. Sweat had plastered her hair to her forehead, but now it had evaporated, leaving her bangs frizzy, disheveled. Dark bags hung beneath her eyes. Her face was round and puffy.

She'd never been more beautiful.

And in the crook of one arm, held close to her chest, nestled a bundle of pink swaddling.

Marsh tiptoed across the room to Liv's bedside. He leaned over her, tugging as gently as he could on the folds of blanket to get a first look at his baby.

“Hi, you,” said Liv in a hoarse voice. She smiled. It was an exhausted smile, but it touched her half-open eyes. “You're home.”

Marsh kissed her sweat-salted lips. “I'm so sorry I wasn't home sooner. I'm so sorry.”

Liv lifted the bundle. “Meet your daughter.”

His baby felt lighter than a snowflake. Her tiny face was bright red, and her eyes and mouth were scrunched together under folds of baby fat. Wisps of pale hair traced across her perfect scalp like gossamer.

She smelled marvelously. She smelled like family. Her silken skin tickled Marsh's lips. He hadn't shaved, so he took care not to let his whiskers scratch his daughter. Nothing would ever hurt her. He'd tear the world apart, brick by brick, if he had to.

Liv scooted over on the narrow bed. Marsh lay on his side, cradling their daughter between them.

“You look absolutely manic,” she said. “I left a note.”

“I found it. Eventually.”

“I'm glad you're home.”

“Me, too.” He kissed his daughter and his wife again. “Me, too.”

In spite of his exhaustion, hours passed before the cogs in his head finally ground to a stop so he could sleep.

Congratulations. It's a girl.

11 May 1940

Westminster, London, England

The invasion of France forced Will's hand. He'd planned to pitch his idea to Marsh before approaching Stephenson. But Marsh was stuck somewhere in France with the Jerries closing in. Will had to speak with the old man at once.

To hell with von Westarp. They needed to find Marsh, and Will knew how to do it.

Will tried SIS HQ first, knowing Stephenson hadn't finished moving his office to Milkweed's new space in the Old Admiralty. The old man had used his clout to turn Milkweed into a semiautonomous agency isolated from the rest of SIS. By declining the promotion his seniority deserved after Admiral Sinclair died, Stephenson gained a few favors from Lieutenant Colonel Menzies, the new C.

But Stephenson wasn't in the Broadway Buildings. Will decided to cut through the forty acres of St. James' Park on foot, because walking to the Admiralty was easier than riding the Tube to Charing Cross and then backtracking.

He exited the park directly across Horse Guards' Road from the Admiralty. He found Lorimer having a smoke on the steps. It appeared the Scot was having a rest. But then Will saw that Lorimer was studying something in his lap. It looked like a belt with a strange battery attached to it.

A smoldering cigar hung from the corner of Lorimer's mouth. The man smoked less frequently these days; good tobacco was hard to come by. Lorimer looked up as Will approached. He removed the cigar from his mouth with fingers discolored by long exposure to developing reagents.

“Missed the excitement, Yer Highness.”

“So I gather. I can't find Stephenson.”

Lorimer jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just returned from meeting the new PM.” He paused to puff on his cigar, then added, “He took the film with him.”

“Ah.” The old man hadn't wasted any time briefing Churchill on Milkweed. “Good. I need to speak with him about Marsh.”

Another puff. “They're in the cellar.”

“They?”

“Marsh, Stephenson, and the prisoner.”

“He's back?” Giddy relief flooded through Will, followed by confusion. “Wait. Prisoner?”

Lorimer waved off the question while he took another puff. “Have Marsh explain it to you. I'm busy.” He focused his attention back on the battery, turning it this way and that.

“I certainly intend to,” said Will. He bounded up the stairs two at a time. Near the top, he paused, patted his pockets, and turned. “Oh, damn. Hi, Lorimer, I wonder if you'd part with a cigar?”

“You don't smoke.”

“Heavens, no. Dreadful habit. Can't abide it.”

“I had a shit time getting my hands on these.”

“Ah. Well. It's for a good cause. Morale, you know.”

Lorimer fished another cigar from the breast pocket of his overalls. He handed it over, grumbling. “My last.”

“Brilliant.” Will tipped his hat to Lorimer. “Cheers.”

The space beneath the Old Admiralty was a rabbit warren of vaulted brick tunnels that intersected in groined arches. They extended almost to St. James' in the west, under Whitehall in the east, and practically to the Admiralty Arch in the north. The fortified section had less character, gray concrete corridors lit with naked lightbulbs that cast severe shadows.

Will found Marsh and Stephenson standing outside one of the storage rooms at the end of a long corridor. The pair spoke quietly, occasionally peering through the square window of glass and wire mesh set high in the steel door.

Marsh was saying to Stephenson, “And then she gave me this.” He twirled a daisy in his fingers. The crumpled flower had seen better days. A petal fluttered to the concrete at Stephenson's feet like a bit of crepe paper.

Will cocked an eyebrow as he took in the flower. “You devil, you. I see it clearly now: a trail of broken hearts across France, winsome milkmaids and Parisian grandes dames.”

Stephenson ignored him. “She didn't say anything else?” he asked, again staring through the grille.

“No. I dosed her after that. Hi, Will. And nothing of the sort. It's—”

“I should hope not,” said Will. With a little flourish he produced the cigar and popped it into Marsh's mouth.

Marsh jerked back in alarm, yanked the cigar from his mouth. “Blech.” He spat. Marsh didn't smoke. “A simple 'congratulations' would suffice. Blech.”

Will laughed. “I'd get used to this if I were you. I believe it's traditional.” He pounded Marsh on the back.

Stephenson indulged in a little chuckle. “He's right.”

“So,” said Will, “boy or girl?”

“Girl,” said Marsh. He smiled, but the hard light highlighted the dark papery skin under Marsh's eyes. It made him look gaunt. And his hair was mussed. The poor fellow looked as though his last sleep had been several days ago. In a haystack.

“You look awful,” said Will.

“I've heard.” He started to turn toward the window again, but then the stopped and turned. “Thanks for getting Liv to the hospital, Will. I can't thank you enough.”

“It was nothing, Pip. I was glad to help, and as it happened your neighbors had left her high and dry.”

Marsh nodded more thanks, but a strange look passed between him and Stephenson as he did so.

Looking back and forth between them, Will asked, “And what, pray tell, has kept you from your loving wife? You made a rather hasty exit from the Continent, I gather.”

Marsh summarized the events of the past several days. Just as he'd done with his Spanish adventure, he made it all sound routine: secret meetings, speeding toward the German army, capturing a foreign agent.

After Marsh wrapped up his story, Will pointed at the window through which Stephenson had been peering. “Our new guest?” Stephenson nodded. Will peeked inside the makeshift brig.

The storeroom was empty but for a cot. A woman lay across it, hair fanned about her head like a sable halo. Darker-skinned than he'd expected. She had bony ankles.

“Heavy sleeper, is she?”

“I dosed her as we entered the city. Better if she doesn't know where we are.”

At this, Will rolled his head back, feeling dense—Ah, of course. I'm hopeless. Again he caught the glance flickering between Stephenson and Marsh.

“I sense you chaps are hiding a bloody great secret.”

“She knows things, Will.”

“Things?”

“She knew my name. And that we'd just had a girl.”

Air whistled through Will's teeth as he inhaled. Though he was a tyro in this business, he understood Marsh's liaison work for the Entente, and meeting Krasnopolsky, had both been carried out under false identities. And if those had been compromised—

“A mole?”

“Or,” said Stephenson quietly, “we have to consider the possibility that somebody has been watching Marsh. Perhaps watching each of us.”

The news made Will feel naked, exposed. He suppressed the urge to glance over his shoulder, but only just. “Why? And since when?”

“Since Spain would be the logical conclusion,” said Marsh. He pointed through the window. “And there's more. Look. She has the wires.”

“No?”

Marsh nodded. Will's palms slapped the door as he pressed himself to the window for a closer look. “I'll be damned.” He couldn't see anything under all the hair. “I don't recognize her,” he said.

“She's not in the Tarragona film,” said Stephenson.

Oh, hell. Nothing for it, then. “Ah. Well. Speaking of that, and since I have you both here—though you ought to be home right now, my friend—that's something I wanted to discuss.”

Stephenson said, “At last. You have an answer for us?”

“No and yes. As to what von Westarp has done, and how, I still can't say.” Stephenson frowned. Will continued, before Stephenson could object: “But! There's a way to find out. It's a bit drastic ... In fact, I came looking for you,” he said, pointing to Stephenson, “to suggest instead using this approach to find Pip in France.” He grinned at Marsh. “Glad we didn't have to.”

“How do you propose we obtain this information?”

“Simplicity itself,” said Will, expressing a confidence he didn't feel. “We ask the Eidolons.”

“Who the hell are the Eidolons?”

“Not who, Pip. What.” In response to blank stares, Will elaborated. “A warlock doesn't perform magic. A warlock isn't a magician. A warlock is a negotiator. A warlock changes the world around him by petitioning an Eidolon to circumvent the laws of nature. The Eidolons, being entities that exist ... outside ... of space and time, acknowledge no such laws.” He looked at Marsh. “That night in the Bodleian? The thing you felt was the passage of an Eidolon not quite noticing us.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Marsh.

“I fail to see how this helps us,” said Stephenson.

Will said, “It's clear from the film that what ever von Westarp has done, it's quite unnatural. That means the Eidolons are involved. But the most vexing thing about that film is how it shows no evidence of the negotiations. Which has made his methodology a deuce to unravel.”

“So,” said Marsh, warming to the subject, “we just ask these Eidolons to tell us how the Jerries are doing it?”

“More or less.”

“It can't possibly be that simple.”

It won't be so bad, if I'm properly prepared.

Will rubbed his aching hand and shrugged. “Mostly.” He pointed at the makeshift brig. “In fact, our little guest is a boon. Having her on hand could simplify things.”

“We've got Lorimer at work on her belt,” said Marsh.

Stephenson nodded. “Set it up, Beauclerk. I want it done as soon as you can. And you,” he said, squeezing Marsh's shoulder, “go home. That's an order.”

Will slapped him on the back again. “I'll walk out with you.”

Marsh pulled him aside when they reached the top of the stairs. “I need to ask something of you.”

“I am, as always, your servant. What can I do?”

“Look, Will,” said Marsh, looking at his feet. “First, I'll always be grateful to you for looking after Liv while I was away. But now I need you to keep your distance from my family. Just until ...” Marsh made a vague gesture that encompassed their surroundings. “ ... until this is over and things go back to normal.”

Will took a step back, feeling slapped. “Why?”

“Because if they're watching us, we have to keep as separate as possible.” Marsh raised his voice, perhaps even without realizing it. His eyes flashed. “I can't protect my wife and daughter with you leading the Jerries straight to the bloody house. When I arrived this morning, the door was unlatched. Practically wide open. Was that you?”

The question, and the accusation veiled within, caught Will off guard. “I, I don't know. Perhaps—”

“Well, it was you, or it was the Jerries rummaging through my house after you'd taken Liv. Didn't occur to you to watch your surroundings, did it?”

“I stood for you at your bloody wedding.” The words came out forcefully, propelled by bitterness and hurt. “I introduced you.” Will's voice echoed in the corridor. “You wouldn't have Liv if it weren't for me.”

Liv deserved better than to be cloistered from the world. She would suffocate. If Will understood that, why couldn't Marsh? The man didn't know what he had. Will spat, “She isn't a china doll and she isn't a trophy. Were she my wife, I'd have the respect to warn her of danger.”

Marsh's eyes narrowed, and he pulled himself to his full height. Though he was still shorter than Will, his anger gave him a palpable force of presence. Will had never seen him truly angry; he immediately regretted his words. Marsh tamped down on the fire in his eyes with visible effort, leaving just a smoldering irritation there.

“Stephenson's arranging to have one or two men from SIS keep an eye on Liv and the baby, to find our watchers. Anything more runs the risk of drawing attention to Milkweed. Including your visits.”

“Haven't I at least earned the privilege of meeting your daughter?” Will's question acted like a bellows blowing fresh air on hot coals.

But Marsh swallowed the anger again. This time he shrugged, as though physically shaking it off. “The war will be over soon, and then things will go back to the way they were.” He patted Will on the arm. “Honest.”

Will knew that pressing the issue would only start a row when Marsh clearly wanted to avoid one. He resigned himself to hoping for a quick end to the war, so that he could visit with Liv again and meet Marsh's daughter. Someday he'd get to be an uncle. “Can you at least relay my congratulations and best wishes to Liv?”

“Of course.” Marsh tried to lighten the mood. “By the by, does Lorimer know you stole one of his cigars?”

Will played along, though he didn't feel like it.

12 May 1940

0deg41'13” East, 50deg26'9” North

It creaked and it sweat, this submersible coffin.

Every few minutes another bead of water rolled down the hull, leaving behind a trail that glistened like tears on the face of some iron leviathan. The droplets formed around the welds and rivets where the hull plates joined together. The submariners called it sweat; they said it was condensation from inside the boat.

But to Klaus's eyes it looked like the English Channel bleeding through the steel skin of Unterseeboot-115.

It was nearly as cramped as the box that Doctor von Westarp used to punish him. The crew—made more crowded than usual, and therefore more churlish, by Klaus's presence—breathed one another's breath, breathed air tainted with a hydrocarbon cloy of diesel that lingered long after the engines had been switched to electric power for silent running. He could have escaped the constriction by drawing upon the Gotterelektron, but that would have meant dipping into the store of extra batteries they carried. And Gretel had been vague on why they were necessary.

He needed to rest. Though how anyone could sleep on a U-boat defied imagination. Every time he closed his eyes, another creak or groan echoed through the boat. And then his eyes would pop open, and he'd watch another bead of water rolling down the hull, and he'd be achingly aware of the ocean poised overhead to crush them at any moment.

He wished the submariners hadn't told him about the minefields. The Channel had already claimed several U-boats; the coast of Scotland was a safer insertion point. But this route was faster, and the Reich's commanders had every reason to expect a successful mission: Gretel had foreseen it. Or so she led them to believe. But as for the ultimate fate of the submarine, she had also kept that vague. This mission might include a three-mile swim to shore, and it would be just like Gretel not to mention it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated on breathing. He forced himself to relax, to take in air with a slow, relaxing rhythm.

The hull groaned as the boat sliced through the sea, changing depth once again.

Three days since he'd had any sleep. Before long, he'd start hallucinating.

Klaus pulled the crumpled paper from the breast pocket of his uniform. Soon he'd have to change clothes, but as long as he could get away with it, he wore his uniform. The Gotterelektrongruppe insignia on his collar raised eyebrows and more than a few confused glances among the crew. They hadn't learned to fear it yet. Not so with his rank insignia. He was an SS-Obersturmfuhrer. That, at least, these submariners understood.

He unfolded the note he had found in his pocket on the night of the Ardennes offensive.

Dear Brother: By the time you relay the contents of this note to

Standartenfuhrer Pabst, I will be in the custody of our enemies... .

12 May 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

Have you come to take me to the ball?”

“Get up.”

Marsh hauled the prisoner to her feet from where she'd been sitting cross-legged on the cot. He pulled her arms behind her back. So thin were her wrists that the handcuffs, twin bracelets of cold iron, hung loosely on her feverish skin.

She craned her neck to peer at him over her shoulder. “No flowers?”

With his hand between her shoulder blades, he nudged her out of the cell. The ridge of the wire beneath her frock rolled away from the pressure of his fingers.

“But you presented a bouquet to Olivia when you first took her to dinner.”

The twisted, unexpected invasion of privacy riled him. Were the prisoner a man, Marsh wouldn't have hesitated to give him a little shove. And the prisoner, unable to catch himself, would have taken a tumble on hard concrete. A petty thing, perhaps, but it would make the point.

Threaten my family, will you?

But at that moment, looking up at him with faux innocence, she seemed so fragile. He remembered the bruises on her face when he'd first glimpsed her in Barcelona. Marsh also remembered the surgical scars. She'd been treated terribly, and she was too small to defend herself.

How could she have known about the corsage? A lucky guess, perhaps ... but she also knew Liv's name, and about the baby. And she had known Marsh was carrying ether in his pocket ... And she wore the same kind of battery harness seen in the Tarragona film.

Was she a mentalist of some sort? A mind reader?

Perhaps she couldn't stop herself from saying the things she did. Perhaps she'd blurted out something she saw in somebody's mind, some dark secret, and received a beating in return.

“How do you know the things you do?”

Her eyes widened in a caricature of harmlessness.

He tried a different tack. “You act like you know me. Perhaps you also know that you're better off here than you were with your companions.”

Silence.

“We just want to understand what von Westarp did to you, and why.”

When she wanted, the woman had one hell of a poker face. It slid into place now, an expressionless mask.

He sighed. “Don't ever mention my wife again.” As he took her elbow and led her toward the stairs, he added, “Or my son.”

She twisted around to look at him again, a frown tugging her eyebrows together.

“Aha.” Marsh snapped his fingers. “Gotcha.”

Her eyes narrowed; her expression frosted over.

Milkweed enjoyed a fair bit of seclusion in this disused corner of the Old Admiralty. It more or less had its own stairwell between the cellar and the second floor. Which meant that Marsh could get the prisoner upstairs without piquing unwanted interest. He kept a firm grip on her forearm—enough to prevent her from running, not enough to bruise her—as he escorted her past the offices that Stephenson had wrangled for the project. Several still stood empty but for gunmetal-gray filing cabinets and second-rate wooden desks adorned with typewriters that predated the Great War. Most rooms either had no furniture at all, or had been used for storage.

By day, these rooms along the rear of the building enjoyed a view of St. James' Park. Sunset over the park shone through a gap in the blackout curtains. Marsh pulled the prisoner aside and fixed that.

At Stephenson's insistence, they gathered in one of the smaller, interior rooms. Easier to keep out prying eyes and ears. Will had indicated that the location was immaterial.

Lorimer was there already, as was Stephenson. Marsh set the girl on a stool in a corner farthest from the doorway. He unlocked her handcuffs, pulled her arms around to the front, and then fastened one wrist to the pipe of a radiator. She watched the others with bored indifference.

Stephenson caught Marsh's eye, inclined his head toward the prisoner. Get anything out of her?

Marsh gave his head a minute shake as he closed the door. Nothing, sir.

Lorimer had determined that the object on her belt was indeed a battery, but of a sort he'd never seen. How it worked and why it was jacked into her skull remained a grotesque mystery. For the time being, it sat unmolested in Stephenson's vault until Milkweed could recruit a few science boffins to help Lorimer reverse-engineer the thing.

Getting a doctor to study the prisoner had been easier. Stephenson arranged the examination under the cover story that she was a rescued victim from the camps. The doctor blanched when he saw what had been done to her, but he studied the woman at length. But the purpose of the wires, and the significance of their locations on her skull, confounded him. He'd claimed there was no meaningful pattern to her scars. It was as though somebody had tried countless different combinations at random.

Many of the scars, he'd said, had formed long before the girl had stopped growing.

Von Westarp's children.

Lorimer came over. He slapped Marsh on the back. “I hear congratulations are in order.” The prisoner turned to watch them. Marsh looked from Lorimer, to her, and back. The Scot nodded, taking the hint. “You owe us a celebratory pint,” he whispered.

The prisoner watched everything. Marsh wondered if she knew what they had planned.

Will hurried in, carrying a moth-eaten paisley carpetbag in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He tossed the carpetbag in the corner. It clunked to the floor with the ring of metal on wood.

“Sorry, sorry gentlemen. Sorry I'm late.”

“Nice bag, Will. I didn't know you collect antiques.”

Will doffed his bowler and shrugged out of his suit coat. He hung them both on a rack behind the door. Then he unbuttoned his sleeves. Rolling them up, he said, “That ugly thing? That's the reason I'm late, actually.”

Marsh leaned down to open the bag, but Will waved him off. “Hi, hi, no need for that.”

“Then what's it for?”

“If everything goes well,” said Will, “nothing.”

“And if it doesn't?”

Will's sigh—loud, explosive—dispelled the atmosphere of good humor that normally surrounded him. An angry Will was so rare that at first Marsh didn't recognize the scowl. Will snapped: “Is a smidgen of optimism so much to ask for, or has that gone on the rationing list, too?” His shoulders slumped. “Apologies. I haven't slept.” Sounding more like his usual self, he concluded with a feeble smile, “As to the bag, best not to trouble ourselves with such matters.”

Stephenson joined the others. They huddled together as though part of a rugby scrum. Marsh took care to keep one eye on the prisoner as he listened to Stephenson whisper:

“I don't like this. Why does she need to be here?”

Will said, “Far easier to query the Eidolons about von Westarp's handiwork if I can point to an example.”

“I still hate it. This thing you can do is our only leg up right now. You want to parade it in front of her.”

“Aye,” Lorimer said.

Will laughed quietly. “Unless that film is a great hoax, she has seen this all before. Trust me.”

Stephenson frowned, then nodded. The four men emerged from their huddle. Marsh checked the prisoner. She cocked an eyebrow at him with a playful look in her eyes.

From the briefcase Will produced a dish, a tin of safety matches, a bundle of dry twigs, and a sheaf of yellowed papers. The pages were curled and even cracked in places. Will set the sticks atop the dish in the middle of the floor.

“How does this ritual work?” Stephenson asked.

“No. Not a ritual.” Will fixed the old man with a stare, looking serious. “Negotiation.”

Stephenson shrugged. “What ever you want to call it.”

“Hear me now. Rituals and ceremonies are a load of made-up pageantry played out by loonies in robes dancing around bonfires on the solstice. A negotiation is the means of getting something done, for a price.”

Marsh interrupted: “What kind of price?”

Will waved off the question. “A trifle. 'By the pricking of my thumbs,' and all that.” But his gaze flicked to the carpetbag, and for a moment something akin to worry or concern creased his face.

But then his expression lightened. He exclaimed, “Ah! Speaking of which.” He rummaged in his pockets for a moment before producing a clean white handkerchief and a safety pin. He crossed the room to join Marsh and the prisoner. Will extended his hand, as if asking her to dance, and gave her a little bow. “Your hand, my dear.”

The prisoner seemed unimpressed.

Marsh asked, “What are you doing?”

“I need a sample of her blood,” said Will. To the prisoner, he added, “I'll only take a drop.”

Marsh took her by the wrist and raised her free hand toward Will. Her skin still felt warm to the touch. Will deftly nicked the woman's thumb with his pin. A scarlet bead emerged from the pad of her thumb. Will dabbed at it with the handkerchief, then inspected the small rust-colored stain. He held it up for all to see.

“Yes,” he said. “This will be sufficient.”

The woman watched it all with an air of bored detachment. But then again, if their suspicions were correct, she had seen scenes like this many times before.

Will returned to the center of the room. “Now. The principle is very simple. First, we have to catch the attention of an Eidolon. Once we've done that, we negotiate with it. Since we're merely asking for information, and not seeking to circumvent natural law, the price will be minor.”

Marsh frowned. “Will, it can't possibly be that easy.”

“Ah. Well. There is a catch. The Eidolons don't have the same relationship to the universe that we do. In some sense, they are the universe—intelligent manifestations of it. You don't expect them to speak the King's English, do you?” He thumped the stack of papers. “This is my grandfather's lexicon. The lingua franca of the Eidolons is a very, very ancient language. We call it Enochian.”

Stephenson lowered his voice. “I still maintain this dictionary of yours is our single advantage at present.”

“She won't pick up a word of it. None of you will. You're far too old.” Marsh cocked his head at this, but Will didn't elaborate. “Enochian is much too archaic for our lexicons to include terms for modern things like wires, batteries, and brain surgery. And I'm quite certain no warlock has ever had need to express the concept of, well, what ever's been done to her. Trust me. The odds of success are much higher if I can simply show her to the Eidolon.” He brandished the bloodstained handkerchief. “Which is why I needed this.”

He folded his long, gangly legs beneath himself and sat on the floor. “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen.”

Marsh opted to stand. So did Stephenson and Lorimer.

Will arranged the twigs into a small mound on the dish. “This part isn't strictly necessary,” he said, “but it's how I was trained. Helps me focus.” He lit a match and touched it to the kindling. The flame licked at the wood. “Be warned that once we catch the attention of an Eidolon, things might seem a bit odd.”

“Odd?”

“It's tempting to say that reality warps around the presence of an Eidolon, but that's not quite right. If anything, they're more real than we are. So rather, reality follows them. Orbits them. Things become more real than you might otherwise be used to. It can be unsettling.”

Marsh shuddered, remembering the Bod. And that had merely been the passage of an Eidolon; it hadn't dallied. He asked, “What should we expect?”

“Hard to know. Phantom smells, sounds, visions. Maybe nothing. It's different every time. Now shush.”

Aromatic cedar smoke trickled up from the burning tinders. It stung the eyes. Will stared into the flames.

Marsh pressed the backs of his fingers up against the smooth curve of his jaw. He cracked his knuckles, waiting for something to happen.

Will breathed deeply, sighed, then pulled an antler-handled jackknife from a trouser pocket. He raked the unfolded blade across the thin pale ridges that lined his palm. Blood welled up from the laceration. It trickled between his knuckles when he clenched his fist.

His lips moved. He mouthed the words, rather than give voice to them. The room was silent but for the crackling flames and the creak of floorboards underfoot when Marsh shifted his weight.

Will spoke.

The man sitting there was, as far as Marsh could tell, the same old Will. But the sounds coming out of him were not. These were not natural sounds.

Rather—they weren't natural for a human throat. It ranged from a bass deeper than anything Will could have produced within his body to shrieks and whistles that weren't heard so much as known.

And then, as had happened one night in Oxford, the room pitched like the deck of a sloop in high seas. Marsh staggered. He leaned against a non ex is tent cant in the floor. He wondered how any of this could possibly be captured on film. Is this why it seemed so incomplete?

And then the fire spoke. It was the same language, but now unfiltered through a human vessel.

Enochian was the wail of dying stars, the whisper of galaxies winging through the void, the gurgle of primordial oceans, the crackle of a cooling planet, the thunder of creation. And beneath it all, a simmering undercurrent of malevolence.

We are pollution, a stain within the cosmos, Marsh realized. And we are not welcome here.

Within the altered logic of that room, the reason for Will's self-injury became evident. Spilled blood carried the promise of eradication. It catches their attention.

Marsh retreated from the fire on trembling legs. The gypsy woman clenched his arm. Her icy facade had melted away, and in its place hung the visage of a terrified girl. She'd gone pale; she trembled. Her back was pressed to the wall, as though she tried to push herself out of the room.

An awareness suffused the room, the suffocating pressure of a vast intelligence. Something looked at Marsh. Saw him. He grappled with a primal urge to run, to hide, to render himself unknown and unnoticed once more. But hiding was impossible. The Eidolon was everywhere. Everything.

It must have looked at the prisoner, too, because her fingernails drew blood.

My God, Will ... How can you negotiate with something like this?

Somehow he did. Will conversed with it, like a microbe and a man sharing a common tongue. His attention stayed on the fire, but Marsh knew that in reality—reality?—the Eidolon was everywhere. Inside every atom.

Will rifled through the sheaf of pages on his lap. “It appears I'm somewhat rustier than I'd realized,” he muttered. When he reached the end of the pile, he started again, flipping through the papers more frantically.

The Eidolon's presence rendered every silence an eternity in a perfect, lightless universe.

Marsh tried to look at his watch. He couldn't tell if it was running in the proper direction.

Will stopped halfway through the pile. “Oh, dear.” He set down the sheaf of papers with shaking hands.

“Will?”

Very quietly, he said, “Pip.”

“What did it say?”

“Do us a favor.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to open the bag.”

“What?”

“The bag, please.”

Marsh staggered across the room and zipped open the carpetbag. It was stuffed with towels and bandages. Nestled beneath the linens were a thin leather cord, a wooden bit riddled with bite marks, and a pair of gardening shears.

“Will?”

“The Eidolon's price,” said Will, “is a fingertip.”

“Like hell it is,” said Lorimer. “Tell that thing to lick my nadgers, Yer Highness.”

“Are you out of your mind, Will?”

“I can't do it myself.”

“Then I'd say it won't be done.”

“The price has been negotiated. It will be paid.”

“The hell it will! Tell it to sod off.”

“My friends.” Will spoke in a rigidly neutral tone. The strain of maintaining his composure and concentration showed in the beads of moisture on his forehead. “One does not renege on these negotiations.”

“Don't be a damn fool,” said Stephenson.

Will made a gesture that encompassed the room, and by extension, the Eidolon. “My friends. Do you truly want to double-cross it?” In the same strained monotone, he continued, “The price will be paid, regardless of our desires to the contrary.” His voice wavered. “Mine in particular. At best we can control the circumstances of the payment.” He looked at Marsh. “And I'm asking you, Pip, to help me. I can't do it myself.”

“Will—”

“It's waiting. Please. Don't make it worse.”

Marsh felt as though he were trapped inside a fever dream. He watched himself take up the cord, bit, and shears. The curved blades of the shears scraped across the floorboards as he fought for balance on the swaying floor. The noise fell into a gulf created by the Eidolon's presence. Everything sounded hollow and insubstantial.

“I'm not staying for this shite,” said Lorimer. “I'll find some ice.”

Stephenson barked, “Get the brandy from my desk, too.”

“No!” said Will. “Sir. I can't, ah, I have to be of sound mind to finish our transaction.”

Marsh looked between Stephenson and Will. “Look, Will, I know it goes against your grain, but perhaps you should consider bending your principles this—”

“No. Let's just get it done.”

Marsh struggled to cross the inconstant room.

The floorboards rattled with a heavy thump, as if struck with something large.

“STOP!”

Everyone jumped.

Marsh halted in his tracks. “What was that?”

“You heard it, too?” asked Stephenson.

“Ignore it. It's a side effect of the Eidolon, just as I warned you,” said Will. “Makes us hear and see things. Real things. And my wish to make this stop right now is very real.”

Lorimer paused on his way out the door. “Oy! What are you smiling at, lassie?”

Indeed, the prisoner's terror had evaporated. Now she sat in the corner with a cat-canary smirk on her face. Both corners of her mouth curled up. She looked even more satisfied than she had at the cafe. If anything, she looked ... giddy.

Still in a dream, Marsh kneeled next to his friend. Since Will was left-handed, Marsh looped the leather cord just above the last knuckle on the smallest finger on Will's right hand. He pulled it as tight as he could, until the flesh underneath turned bone-white and the tip of Will's finger turned purple. Will winced.

As he tied off the cord, Marsh said, “I'm sorry about what I said yesterday.”

“No apology necessary.” Just for a moment, the impish glint returned to Will's eyes. “But if we're doing apologies, then this is as good a time as any to confess that I rather fancy your wife.”

Marsh smiled. “I know, Will.”

“But I give you my solemn word I'd never do anything to hurt either of you.”

“I know that, too, Will.”

Marsh tested the knot. It held. He put his hand on Will's shoulder. “Are you absolutely certain about this? We can find another way.”

“I'm certain. And no, we can't. Just please do it quickly. Please.”

“I promise.” Marsh handed over the wooden bit.

Will stuck it in his mouth. He closed his eyes, set his hand on the floor toward Marsh, and turned away.

Marsh crouched so as to put his weight on the shears and make the cut as quickly as possible. The metal blades reflected the angry orange light of the embers. He centered Will's fingertip between the blades, made certain they would land above the tourniquet.

He counted. One. Two—

Three things happened at once. The blades crunched together at the center of Will's finger. Will screamed. And the blood trickling down Marsh's arm, where the prisoner had gripped him, caught the Eidolon's attention. It noticed Marsh again.

This time, it took a closer look.

Marsh's ego crumbled under the scrutiny of a boundless intellect. It fixated on his blood. It looked at him, in him, through him, from within the very space he occupied. He smelled the iron in Will's blood; saw those same atoms forged deep in the heart of a dying star; felt the pressure of starlight on him; heard the quiet patter of a fingertip hitting the floor, Will's sobs, and the popping of novae. It studied the trajectory of Marsh's life, peered into every dark corner... .

The Eidolon withdrew. The fire spoke again.

Will clutched the mangled hand to his chest and coughed out the bit. It dropped past his slack lips, trailing threads of spittle. Will gaped at Marsh, trembling and looking paler than anybody should.

“My God,” he said. “They've given you a name.”

“Will? Are you—?”

Will waved him off. He pushed himself upright. Now his speech didn't sound quite so impossible as it did before, riddled as it was with utterly human sobbing and trembling. But he managed to respond to the Eidolon, and held up the bloodied handkerchief with his undamaged hand.

The suffocating presence focused on the handkerchief, and then oozed across the room to the prisoner. She trembled. The sense of malice loomed over Marsh while the Eidolon inspected her.

The back-and-forth between Will and the Eidolon continued for moments or perhaps millennia. Marsh didn't bother to look at his watch.

Will reverted to English. “No!”

The presence receded from the room. In the eternity between one heartbeat and the next, it was gone. The room returned to normal, but for the blood misted on the floorboards alongside Will's fingertip.

Marsh crouched next to Will again. He took his friend by the shoulders. “Will, we have to get you to a doctor.”

Stephenson came forward. “What happened? What did it tell you?”

“He's going into shock,” said Lorimer, who entered carrying a bottle of brandy, though no ice.

Stephenson held him back. “First things first. What did you learn?”

Will struggled to enunciate through his chattering teeth. “Nothing.”

“It failed? Don't tell me this was all for naught.”

“No ... it worked. But ... the Jerries ... what ever they're doing, the Eidolons have no part in it. It isn't magic. I don't know what it is.” His eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out.

The prisoner let loose with a self-satisfied, “Hmmmph.”

Stephenson motioned at Marsh. “Get her out of here! Lorimer, help me with Beauclerk.”

“Get up.” Marsh took the girl by the elbow as Lorimer and Stephenson draped Will's arms over their shoulders and carried him out of the room.

What a fiasco. Will had lost a finger, and for what? They hadn't learned a damn thing about what the Jerries were doing at von Westarp's farm.

She paused, staring into the room where earlier Marsh had adjusted the blackout curtains. Now the room was properly shadowed. Though it felt like the negotiation had gone for days, it had lasted only long enough for the sun to set. A blackout violation was the last thing they needed.

Marsh pulled the prisoner aside and double-checked the curtains. He took her elbow again.

“Hmmm,” she said, looking pensive.

Marsh frowned. “What?”

“It hasn't worked yet,” she said, almost to herself. “But I understand now.”

Marsh pried, but she said nothing more while he escorted her back to her cell.