Catherine Fisher - Obsidian Mirror

But this had to be done.

She knocked on the door.

No answer. “Venn? It’s Sarah.”

She knew he wasn’t asleep. She said, “Let me in. Piers has sent you tea. He’s worried stiff.”

She balanced the tray and groped for the handle, her wrist encircled with a white ring where the snake had grasped it. She eased the door open.

His room. She had expected a mess, like Jake’s, but it was spartan. Nothing on the shelves, no clothes, none of his prized ceramics. The furniture was black, modern, glossily lacquered. In all its surfaces reflected snow was falling.

“Leave me alone, Sarah,” he said, his back to her.

“You are so like Jake. Anyway, you don’t mean that. Part of you must be excited about what we did.”

“Must I?” He was sitting in a chair facing the window.

She put the tray on a table and turned. “I spoke to someone in the past. It’s a breakthrough! Piers will repair the damage.”

“It’s over,” Venn said. “Burned out. Finished.”

His voice chilled her. She walked over to him. “He says it looks worse than it is.”

“He’s lying. You can take your money and go tomorrow. Where the hell you like.”

“I don’t want to—” She stopped. Because he was holding a small revolver in his right hand, loose and careless. As she watched, he cocked the trigger back, and turned its muzzle into his stomach.

The tiny click leaped in her heart.

Tap.

Tap, tap.

Snow was falling on the window. Jake ignored it. He stared into the dim embers of his bedroom fire, the marmoset curled cozily on his lap.

Had Sarah been lying? Maybe the first time, but this time he had heard that voice, that querulous question. Hadn’t he? After the confusion of the explosion he wasn’t even sure anymore.

Was she really some mixed-up patient dragging them all into her madness? Not that Venn needed dragging. And if the Chronoptika had really swallowed his father, could they ever get him back again, especially after this disaster? Piers had been upbeat, but even he could see the damage. If only he could get close to the device on his own, maybe there was some way it would respond to him.

Maybe now, tonight!

Tap. Tap.

The small noise filtered through his drowsiness. He focused on it, realizing suddenly that it was too regular for snow or wind. He put the monkey on his shoulder and went quickly over to the window and listened.

Tap.

Carefully he unlatched the shutter. Nothing. The sill was cluttered with his father’s books; he pushed them aside and knelt up there, Horatio’s arms wrapped firmly around his neck.

Outside, snow fell in slow diagonals, twirling out of the dark. The Wood was a black emptiness against the sky.

With an abruptness that made him yell and jerk back, a figure hauled itself over the sill and gazed in at him. He glimpsed a flicker of eyes, then the bang of a fist on the glass.

Jake opened the casement.

Gideon crouched outside, gripping tight to the ivy. He was white with cold.

“You!” Jake stared.

“I thought I told you to keep a window open!”

Jake shrugged. “Get in before you fall.”

“I can’t. You have to pull me in.”

The wind roared between them. “Why the hell should I?” Jake snapped, irritated.

“Because no one has, for centuries.” Gideon’s fingers slid, bone white on the ivy bines, his eyes green as the leaves. “And because I saved you from Summer and I paid for it. You owe me.”

Jake stared at him.

Then he leaned out and gripped the changeling’s hand, and hauled him in.

Very quietly, so quiet she barely heard her own voice, Sarah said, “For God’s sake, be—”

“Careful?” Venn didn’t look at her. “Too late. I should have been careful four years ago. Now maybe I should finish it here. Who would care?”

“I would. And Piers.” She sat on the bed, stubbornly calm, staring him out. “Don’t be insane.”

“That from a girl who thinks she can become invisible?”

She didn’t smile. Instead she said, “Tell me about Leah.”

It was an enormous risk. For a moment she thought he would really lift up the weapon and fire right in front of her, but then he waved the weapon a fraction to the right. “There she is. Look at her, Sarah.”

The portrait was positioned so it could be seen from the bed. It was modern in style, a woman’s face, dark hair, high cheekbones, laughing at some private moment. Not beautiful but intelligent, and full of life. Sarah stared, fascinated.

Venn said, “My family has a reputation. Half human, half Shee. Difficult. Untrustworthy. Since I was a boy I’d been used to loneliness. I didn’t care. I was consumed by ambition—I burned with curiosity about the world, wanted to go everywhere and see everything, to cram it all into me, to fill up the emptiness. I was never satisfied. Even after Katra Simba, after the honorary degrees and TV series and money and fame, I was empty. Not fully human. Until I met her. It was up on Dartmoor. I was driving home, late one night, and it was raining hard. Just up by the crossroads to Princetown the headlights raked over a car, with someone leaning over the open hood.

“The rain was lashing down, so I pulled up behind and kept the headlights on full. Then this figure in a black hooded raincoat straightened up and yelled at me. ‘ Don’t just bloody sit there. Get out and help!’ ”

“That was her?”

He nodded. “Oh, that was her. Caught in that flash of light, behind the rain. Caught like a hare in the headlights. Wild and free.”

He was silent, shuffling the gun loosely in his hands, so Sarah handed him the mug of tea. He took it, absently.

“We were married for two years. I was a different man. It was as if some old nagging pain had been healed. Can you imagine that?”

“I think so.” She curled up her legs and glanced again at the painting. Then at Venn. He laid the weapon on the table and the mug of tea next to it. He sat back. She could almost feel him gathering strength for what would come next.

“The last time I saw her was beside a car too. But it was so different. Hot, dry, arid. A blazing sun. A road that looped around the mountains above a sea scored by luxury yachts and ferries. Wild and free, yes, and I was driving too fast. And the bend went on and on and my foot went down and then a truck was in front of us and I twisted the wheel…” His voice was a whisper. “The things you wish you could forget are the ones that stay with you. Her hair, all tangled in the grass. A small fly crawling on her forehead. Her eyes, looking at me. Not seeing me.”

Sarah couldn’t move. It was as if the horror of his memories had woven a spell around them, had invaded the dark room.

Snow piled and slid on the window. She forced her voice to the cliché. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“Blame?” He turned his gaze on her. “You have no idea. I don’t blame myself. I don’t exist anymore. I haven’t drawn a breath since that day. I’m buried as cold and as deep as she is.”

His self-loathing filled the room with a numb despair. She glanced at the door. She desperately wanted Piers to walk in, or even Jake. Anyone. And yet this was her chance and she had to take advantage of it, now, without pity.

“And so you think, with this device…?”

He looked at her, sharp. “Always the device, Sarah.”

“Well, I’m the one you’re experimenting on. Who made it anyway? This Symmes, he wasn’t the inventor.”

He shrugged. “Maybe this man Maskelyne. Maybe Mortimer Dee. Maybe it’s even older. But I know Symmes got it to work.”