Obsidian Mirror (36 page)

After Rebecca and Maskelyne had trudged away in the deep snow, warm in borrowed coats and boots, Wharton gave a great yawn and said, “Sorry. I really need my bed.” He smiled at Jake. “Maybe I might even get a few days at home after all.”

“Before you go back,” Jake said.

Wharton’s face fell. “Great. The play’s the thing. That bloody school.”

“Perhaps,” Piers said softly, “Mr. Venn’s godson might need a personal tutor.”

Everyone looked at Venn. He shrugged. “What do I care? Do what you want.” He stood up, then turned on the small man abruptly. “And you! Where were you when all this was going on? You’re supposed to be guarding the place and you just vanish.”

Piers shrugged. “Busy busy. Janus scuppered every power source we have. Cue heroic efforts by yours truly.”

One of the black cats, washing its face on a chair by the fire, stopped and stared at him. He glared back at it, hard.

Venn said, “Stay if you want,” and went out, toward the study.

“Let me think about it.” Wharton turned. “Merry Christmas to you all.”

To his surprise Sarah came and kissed him on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, George,” she said.

Jake ran upstairs to check on the monkey. He found Horatio curled in tight sleep on the pillow of his bed, and just for a moment lay next to him and rubbed the smooth dark fur.

The marmoset snuggled under his arm.

They had failed. But they could try again. Dad was out there somewhere, and they had time, all the time in the universe, to find him again. And Moll. Maybe even Moll…

He woke with a start.

The room was dark. Someone had put the lights off and pulled the quilt over him; he shrugged it away and sat up, then slid off the side of the bed and hurried to the door, opening it and listening.

Something was wrong.

Wintercombe Abbey was utterly silent in its deep frost. But there was one sound, very faint, and it was coming from below. He raced down, filled with an unreasoning dread, fleet and fast below the moon-striped
faces of the portraits, hurtling along the corridor to the kitchen, but it was empty, the teapot cold, the fire almost out.

Cursing himself, he ran back. Outside Venn’s study he stopped, hearing her voice, and then Venn’s, low and ominous.

He went in.

Venn was lounging in his armchair, one arm hanging over the side, a whisky glass in his hand. The bottle, half empty, stood on the littered desk.

Sarah, by the window, turned.

They both looked at Jake.

“What’s going on?”

She shrugged. “It’s time for me to go.”

“No.” He stepped forward, barring the door. “No way!”

“Why stay? I can’t do what I came for, and you see me as a danger, rightly. I have a duty to ZEUS. I have to find my own way, sort out my ideas, do research, work out what to do next.”

Venn laughed, slurred and bitter. “And if you find out how to save the future, you’ll come back and tell us how?”

“Yes,” she said.

Jake took a step forward. “Sarah.”

“Good-bye, Jake.” She was at the window.

He said, “You know this house in the future.”

She was still. “I know its ruins,” she whispered. Then, abruptly she turned to Venn. “Don’t give up on the mirror. You will succeed.”

He shrugged. “Words. Meaningless.”

His moroseness annoyed her. “I know. In my past Leah
does
come back.”

He sat up, slowly. His ice-blue eyes caught the moonlight. Shadows of branches moved down walls and ceiling.

“Prove it.”

She came over and pushed something into his hands.

It was a small diamond brooch in the shape of a starburst. He stared at it with open, vivid astonishment. “Sarah!”

She smiled. “Till next time.” She turned away.

And wasn’t there.

Jake gasped, dived after her.

The window latch was lifting, the casement swinging wide. He heard a scrape, a breath of effort, but Venn had leaped up, shoved him away, was grabbing at the swinging casement, hauling himself onto the windowsill, yelling at the empty snowfield.
“Sarah!”

Her whisper came so close, it tickled his skin. “You and Leah had no children.”

Her breath warmed his cheek. Close behind, Jake barely heard his answer. “No.”

“But you will have,” she said.

A crunched landing in the snow outside. Her voice, calm and clear in the frost.

“I’m your great-granddaughter, Venn. Yours and Leah’s.
That’s how I know.
”

Then there was nothing but the creak of the window against the frame, and a soft shower of dislodged frost.

Jake said, “She might be lying.” His voice was quiet.

Venn spun, slid down with his back against the bars. He stared at the brooch in astonishment. “This was Leah’s, Jake. I buried it with her.
In her coffin
.” He looked up, and out at the snow, then flung the window wide and yelled, “Sarah!”

No one answered.

A single set of footprints led away, through the snow, into the dark.

End of Book 1

About the Author

C
ATHERINE
F
ISHER
is a critically acclaimed author and poet and was named the first Young People’s Laureate for Wales. She graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in English and a fascination for myth and history, and has worked in education and archaeology and as a lecturer in creative writing. Her genre-busting novels, like the
New York Times
bestselling
Incarceron
and
Sapphique,
have given her the reputation of being “one of today’s best fantasy writers,” as noted by the London
Independent
. Ms. Fisher lives in Wales in the United Kingdom.