Page 118 of The Shadow Key

‘It’s the dagger from the portrait,’ he murmurs.

Suddenly, Miss Carew’s head pokes around the door.

‘Hurry!’ she hisses, urgent. ‘Someone is coming!’

Henry swears, and Linette pushes the black feather back between those awful pages. Then she looks down at the one in front of her and makes a choice.

Linette takes the dagger from Henry’s grasp, slices the page from the book. He stares at her aghast.

‘Are you trying to get us caught?’

‘Do you have another idea?’

She pushes the page into her pocket and Henry swears again, rewraps the dagger with hurried movements, places it back in the drawer.

‘Beth wyt ti’n ei wneud i lawr yma?’

Linette and Henry freeze. That is Cadoc Powell’s voice.

That is Cadoc Powell’s hand pushing the study door open; that is Cadoc Powell holding a candelabrum aloft, standing there in his nightshirt, wig dangerously askew. His eyes go from Linette, to Henry, to the book on Julian’s desk, then back again.

‘You should not be here,’ the butler says finally. His voice is measured, carefully devoid of emotion. ‘It is best you all go back to bed.’

Behind him Miss Carew hovers in the hallway, eyes wide. Linette draws herself up, determined not to show her own fear that has clamped itself to her ribcage with sharp tenacious claws.

‘Exactly where we were going,’ Linette replies, trying to hide the wobble in her voice. Next to her, Henry very slowly closes the book, replaces it in the cabinet, shuts the door. ‘We’re finished here, aren’t we, Henry?’

She does not wait for him to answer. Linette sweeps around the desk as if she has every right to be there and crosses the study floor.

‘Step aside, Cadoc,’ she says.

But Cadoc does not step aside. Instead, he stares at her. His expression is impenetrable, and desperately Linette keeps her face the same, hopes he cannot hear the pounding of her heart. Then, finally, Cadoc lets her and Henry pass to join Miss Carew in the corridor.

They do not look behind them as they retreat, but Linette can feel the butler’s piercing gaze at their backs like knives, and outside, the wind in the trees cries a soulful warning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It does not take Henry long to pack his belongings for he brought very little with him to begin with. The medical books from Guy’s have been returned to his trunk, the unused vials of Lady Gwen’s poisonous tincture kept safely wrapped above those, his box of surgical implements laid carefully on top. Angharad has already left his laundered clothes in a folded pile on a chair, so little effort is required to fill his portmanteau once again. It is all done within minutes.

Three items of luggage: the trunk, the portmanteau, the knapsack. As Henry ties his cravat he looks at them set down by the bedroom door, and briefly feels sadness that this is all he has to show for his life, that it is so very little.

This will be the second time he has moved in as many months. He had not wanted to come here and yet, now, Henry does not wish to leave. He feels duty-bound to Lady Gwen, to Linette, for last night something shifted, like a chess piece moved across a board. He thinks of Julian’s grisly grimoire, what they found within it. Strange symbols, ritualistic circles. The feather of a black hen. He hears the word Linette uttered, teasing the back of his skull, tries to deny it but cannot.

Demons.

It was always said that the Hellfire clubs of Wharton and Dashwood’s day danced with the idea of Satanic rituals, but that had only ever been rumour, conjecture; Julian and his club, this so-called Order of Berith … did they really believe they could summon a demon? It was madness, pure madness, but what irritates Henry more than anything else is that after all he and Linette have discovered they still do not have any sure answers. What actually happened to Gwen Tresilian? Why has Julian kept her drugged all these years? Henry dips his hand into his pocket, presses his thumb into the shell he finds there, worries the dulled spikes with his thumbnail. With a frown he pictures the gold dagger they found in Julian’s desk. Linette told him her mother had spoken of a golden blade. Could it be she saw it in use? What else did she say? Wings. Beating. Poor, poor thing! Was it the hen she spoke of? And, of course, that strange chant he heard her utter at dinner: Hoath, Redar, Ganabel, Berith. So many things Lady Gwen has said now make perfect sense. Is it possible that the cult did something to her?

And what, if anything, does Dr Evans’ death have to do with any of it? Did he die as part of some ritual?

Henry does not know what to think. What he does know is that demons do not exist, any more than hounds of hell and everything else he has heard of since he came to Penhelyg. Whatever Julian is playing at, well, that is all it is. Play. A game. The Order of Berith is nothing more than a chance for him and his friends to exercise their sordid fantasies away from the prying eyes of London’s beau monde.

What is to be done though? Henry thinks of the page Linette took, the only clue remaining to them. That page is the key. They must, however, be careful. He and Linette might have come closer to discovering the truth of Plas Helyg’s past, but they are not the only ones to know it.

Cadoc Powell caught them. He caught them, but said nothing. And it is that very act – that lack of confrontation – which makes Henry distinctly uneasy. One more person not to trust. And to leave Linette at Plas Helyg alone does not sit well with him at all.

Yet what choice does he have? It is clear Julian wants Henry out of the way. Which means there is a reason, a reason Henry cannot know until he does leave. No, he will quit Plas Helyg today as instructed and become a willing player in this game of which he does not know the rules.

But first, he must see Gwen Tresilian.

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