The Pyramids of London

TWENTY-TWO

Aunt Arianne had left a note that she wasn’t to be woken for breakfast: an irritating development because Eleri wanted money from her before they set out on their next round of workshop visits. The morning improved when Griff found a wooden sword in the attic. Even Eleri joined in for dashing fights against a broomstick, but that soon palled, for they were impatient to get on.

“No money left in the safe,” Eleri said, restively swinging the sword while Griff went for drinks. “Amasen horns are gone too. Doesn’t trust us.”

“She probably sent it to the bank,” Eluned said. “Would you have taken some?”

“Why not? Said she’d give it to us. Not really the Aunt’s anyway. Or half yours.”

“I don’t think I had to give nearly as much allegiance. I only see the forest when I’m with her.”

“Still wasting our time. Stayed out late drinking. Only cares about herself.”

This was entirely unreasonable, but Eluned knew Eleri in this temper wasn’t going to listen to argument. What they needed was a distraction.

Griff, pounding up the stairs, happily provided.

“Elli, Ned, the things from the old house have been delivered!” he shouted, grabbing a crowbar and racing out again.

“Don’t call me Elli,” Eleri snapped, though she lost no time chasing down after him, eager to retrieve what little they’d been allowed to keep from their parents’ workshop.

The main hall of Forest House was far too large for a dozen crates and trunks to make much impact, but it was still a formidable pile up close. Griff was already working on the first crate with the help of one of the new day staff, an easily-flustered man called Jack.

“There’s my big trunk,” Eluned said, not sure she was ready to be reunited with her old sketchbooks.

“The one on top of it should have the design folders,” Eleri added, relieved.

Griff produced a tremendous cracking and splintering noise, and hopped backward as the side of the upright crate he’d been working on fell toward him.

“Try not to scratch up the floor,” Eluned said, then frowned, counting. “Why are there so many crates?”

“This isn’t ours!” Griff said, tugging a large framed painting out of the crate. “Is it?”

It was a landscape, a heat-drenched grassland dotted with gazelle, and a lone flat-topped tree drawing the focus of the scene.

“It’s a Ngoyo.” Eluned slid another painting out, and found a lush-curved woman done in quick brushstrokes of deep purple and black. “This is a Salzine.”

Eluned forgot the floor in the flurry that followed, until the great hall was strewn with paintings, along with a mixture of things that clearly belonged to Aunt Arianne—pistols and neatly bundled letters and a very silly hat, all red and purple plumes.

“She had these all along.”

Griff, who had been dancing about in the hat, stopped short, then said: “I think I’ll go wake Aunt.”

He put down the hat and scurried up the stairs, and Jack followed his lead, picking up one of the empty crates and carrying it off toward the cellar.

“She had these all along,” Eleri repeated, voice throbbing. “We could have kept the fine tools. The workshop. The house.”

“But why should Aunt Arianne have to sell her things, so we could keep ours? And besides, we had that fulgite all along.”

It did seem a pity that Aunt Arianne could not have sold just one of the small fortune of paintings, but Eluned was careful not to say that—not that anything would make much difference to Eleri now that seething anger had overtaken her. She began listing all the things she had particularly wanted from their parents’ workshop, stalking through the strewn artwork.

“This is what we’re having a drama about?”

Aunt Arianne, barefoot in her nightgown, looked like she’d had no sleep at all. She definitely didn’t seem at all inclined to calm Eleri down, and Griff glanced from her to Eleri, then took a skittish leap off the stairs to stand beside Eluned. He could be so fearless about some things, but Eluned could see he was going to work himself into a sick-fever if she didn’t do something soon.

“You’re not even able to understand what you did!” Eleri was only just not shouting. “You took away all their things! How could you be so selfish as to have all this, and yet still make it so awful!”

“Those are copies,” Aunt Arianne said, the words very crisp and clear. “Done by students of your grandparents.”

Eleri drew breath, then swallowed it as she processed what had been said. Aunt Arianne stalked the last few steps down into the hall, looking among the scattered contents of the packing crates, and picked out a leather case. From it she took a bundle of cloth and unwrapped an exquisite bronze, two hands in height, of a hare poised to take flight, ears high and eyes alert.

“This, however, is one of the few bronzes your grandmother ever did, and worth more than your parents’ entire estate. It’s the only thing of my mother’s that I possess. So tell me, Eleri, should I have sold it so you could keep a collection of tools intact?”

“She didn’t mean it,” Eluned said hastily.

“Eluned, there’s no need for you to play peacemaker. Your sister is perfectly capable of facing the consequences of her own temper.” But Aunt Arianne’s expression was no longer so tight, and she sighed. “Why don’t you and Griff go put together a picnic basket, and we’ll have morning tea in Hurlstone?”

That meant she had investigation things to talk about, but though thankful for the excuse to escape, Eluned shot a worried glance at Eleri, not certain she wanted to be left. Eleri’s jaw was set. Not a good sign, but she gave no hint of wanting Eluned to stay.

“Do you think I could have the picture of Rome?” Griff asked, hurrying Eluned to the kitchen to avoid any further explosion. “Who was that by?”

“Was that the ink in Huaxia Classical style? I’m not sure—maybe Han Ying? I loved the bronze.”

“Mm.” Griff was not likely to be impressed by anything about a bronze hare but its value. “Could we take the custard tarts, Ned?”

Eluned hesitated, since the tarts were clearly marked ‘dessert’, but then nodded defiantly. “We could use a treat.”

They planned a lavish morning tea: thick slabs of bread layered with cold corned beef, cheese and pickle, and they could use precious oranges and lemons to make fresh juice.

Griff drifted away during the bread-slicing, then hissed: “Eleri’s crying.”

Eluned was at the kitchen door in an instant, but the argument was obviously over. Aunt Arianne was sitting on the far stairs, and Eleri had her head in their aunt’s lap, and she really was crying, really sobbing, as she practically never did. Eluned stared, then hooked her fingers into Griff’s collar and hauled him back to the table, and when Jack poked his nose cautiously up from the cellar she roped him in to juice oranges, and gave him a doorstop of a sandwich in return. Then, when Eluned checked that it was safe, they all went out and moved empty crates into the cellar, and the paintings and trunks into the dining room. They finished before Eleri and Aunt Arianne came back downstairs, both thankfully looking more like their normal selves, in a drawn sort of way.

“No, Tante Sabet was using them in guest rooms,” Aunt Arianne was saying. “But it seems she’s decided that now I have a permanent address, she has an excuse to redecorate.” She smiled down at Eluned and Griff. “If we go by airship, do you think you could cope with a trip to Lutèce, Griff? It really is past time you three met some more of your family, and we could easily fit in a trip to celebrate Eleri and Eluned’s birthday before the school term starts.”

“Really an airship?”

“Truly an airship.”

Griff danced briefly on the spot—a sign that he was still quite anxious—then said: “We could try. I want to see the Towers of the Moon.”

“They’re certainly worth seeing. What do you two say? Birthday in Lutèce?”

“Yes,” Eleri said, definitely. “So long as we can visit the museums.”

Collecting the picnic basket, they strolled out toward the grove, discussing the technicalities of travel, and the fact that they would be entering an area of different territorial allegiance, and all that entailed. Strange that yelling at Aunt Arianne had somehow brought about a relaxation, a feeling of family that Eluned hadn’t found with her before.

As usual Aunt Arianne studied the roofs as they walked toward the gate, though there was only a single raven today, which could very well really be a raven, and not people spying. But once the gate to the Great Forest had closed behind them she said calmly: “The Huntresses are keeping watch on the house as well. Personally at night, and probably controlled cats by day.”

“What?” Griff clutched at Eluned’s arm, looking over his shoulder as if expecting an attack. “Why?”

“My best theory is they’re watching for another sphinx attack.”

They walked through the tumbled walls of the town before London, to what had become ‘their’ spot: at the feet of a vampire turned to stone, overseen by a ram-horned snake of Cernunnos and watching in turn an automaton perched stubbornly motionless on a waist-high wall. It should not feel at all familiar, should be scarcely believable: to sit on the fringe of the Great Forest, to glance up at a castle shrouded in cloud, and across at a shining white tower, while remembering Dem Makepeace warning them about ‘passing gods’.

And then Eluned forgot even the wonders of Hurlstone as Aunt Arianne caught them up on all the things that had happened the previous night. They let her talk without interrupting because it was hard to believe they’d finally found what they were looking for.

“Then it’s over?” Griff asked. “The police will find out the rest?”

“I very much hope they will find the proof we were looking for,” Aunt Arianne said. “And there is a strong chance that one of those who died last night was directly responsible. But untangling this gang of thieves does little to solve the problem of Monsieur Doré, and of sphinxes, and whoever it was who asked for the stolen fulgite to be bought back. And Albans.” She frowned.

“I want to continue investigating workshops,” Eleri said firmly.

“Then be more than ordinarily careful. I suspect we are currently in more danger than previous, not less.”

“We better get on if we’re going to go today.”

Eleri stood, stepped toward the path back, then turned and walked over to the converted mannequin. And it dropped off its perch into the tall flowers on the far side of the wall.

“Did it fall off?” Griff asked, springing up to peer into the floral mass.

“No, it moved.” Eleri hitched herself up on the wall, then dropped down among the flowers. “And it’s…can you see where it went, Griff?”

Aunt Arianne calmly repacked the picnic basket and Lila watched with regal indifference as Griff, Eleri and Eluned hunted among cosmos and cowbells for an automaton that really was not small enough to hide so easily.

“You’ve got pollen all over your face, Griff,” Eluned said, trying not to giggle.

“Least I’m not wearing a spider in my hair,” Griff retorted, then hastily checked his own head. He was less bothered by insects than furred and feathered animals, but that didn’t mean he was willing to give them rides.

“What do we do, Aunt Arianne?” Eluned asked, swiping semi-accurately at her hair with her wooden hand. “How are we going to catch it?”

“I suspect the first step would be to stop trying,” Aunt Arianne said, hoisting the picnic basket. “The more interesting question, don’t you think, is why you suddenly need to?”

“You mean why did it finally move?” Griff asked.

“What were you planning to do, Eleri?” Aunt Arianne asked.

“Check whether any moisture had gotten to the mechanism.” Eleri’s nose was orange, and she stood indifferent to purple petals tickling her chin, her brows drawn together. “Can it possibly—how can it possibly have known? It doesn’t have any ears or eyes, and even if it did, I’ve picked it up more than once since we put it here. It’s never reacted before.”

“Not until you decided to open it up. Which of course makes the reaction entirely to be expected—what would you do if someone proposed to remove your lungs, just to check them over?”

“You—are you saying it read her mind?” Eluned scanned the area again, unsure whether to be nervous.

“I have no idea. But whatever is controlling Monsieur Doré clearly finds us strange and threatening.” Aunt Arianne set the basket on the wall, and looked at the gold-crowned amasen draped on a broken pillar. “Lila less so, I think. But we are effectively keeping…a kind of person prisoner here. I find myself decidedly uncomfortable with the question of what to do next.”

“We should put a pencil and paper out, in case it wants to write us a message,” Griff said.

Aunt Arianne glanced at him, then smiled. “I think I’ll do that. And you three, if you’re intending to be taken at all seriously at these workshops, better go wash up.”