The Slanted Worlds by Catherine Fisher Page B

He gazed at the dark reflection of the room, the mess of machinery, Piers sitting exhausted and cross-legged among the tangle. “You! What do you say?”
    â€œI think she’s right, Excellency.”
    Venn took the bracelet from Sarah’s hand and held it up in his frostbitten fingers. She saw how its silver enigma angered him, how frustration and despair were eating him away. Without looking at her, his voice a low snarl, he said, “Do it.”
    She turned fast, grabbed Wharton, and shook him awake. “George. Get dressed. Get the car. Quick.”

    High on the moors, the air was frosty in the dawn. The sun was barely up, struggling through a great bank of cloud in the east, and as the car rocked and bounced along the frozen track, she had to grab the map to keep it open on her lap. “Be careful!”
    Wharton drove grimly. “What about my suspension! Are you sure it’s up here?”
    â€œSo Piers says.”
    How Piers had found out where the scarred man was living, she had no idea. But the rutted track led to a gate tied with rope, and as she jumped out to open it, she saw the stunted trees of a small pine copse, and beyond, far on the horizon, pale as a diamond, the sea.
    She stopped, astonished.
    â€œSarah?”
    She had never seen a sea so beautiful. She stared at it in utter delight. Wharton got out of the car and came up behind her. He said quietly, “So how is the sea different at the End of the world?”
    â€œIt just is.”
    â€œYou could tell me.” He sounded fascinated. “You should tell us, Sarah, about how it is there. About what Janus has . . . will do to the world. Maybe the mistakes need never be made . . .”
    She glanced at him then, at his wide-eyed curiosity, thinking again how naïve these people were, in their green world with their clean water and ancient buildings and comfortable, convenient lives. How to them the future was something that they would never see. A story, nothing more.
    For a fierce, angry moment she just wanted to shock him violently out of his complacency. But she made herself shake her head. “Not now, George. I couldn’t even begin.”
    Before he could answer, she had unlooped the rope and pulled the gate open, lifting its heavy metal bars out of the stiff mud. “Leave the car. This track’s too narrow.”
    He took the keys and let the door slam, loud and alien in the silent morning. The track was lined with gorse bushes, their furzy branches already green, and small sturdy bluebells lurked in the bottom of the scrappy, sheep-gnawed hedge. Walking down, Sarah felt the soft rustle and brush of the rough grass against her legs calming her, the wind whipping her coat wide.
    Wharton came behind, watching her. He knew she had almost told him something then, had been on the edge of some revelation, and drawn back. The girl who could become invisible still held so many secrets. Now she was pointing into the wind. “That must be it.”
    A small Devon long-house of whitened stone, its lichened roof below them in a fold of the hills.
    â€œIt looks quiet.”
    â€œNot empty. The chimney.”
    A thin wisp of smoke dissipated as he looked.
    They hurried down the steep track. Opening the gate, Sarah walked up to the door and raised her hand, but before she could knock, it was opened.
    Maskelyne stood there, winding a scarf around his neck. He wore a dark coat. She saw the livid scar that disfigured his face, and behind him, in the gloom of the interior, a table set with scattered pieces like an abandoned board game.
    â€œI’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice choked with eagerness. “Let’s go.”

10
    I will arise when the Three shall call me.
    And when the Wood shall Walk.
    Tombstone in Old Wintercombe Churchyard
    I N THE POLICE van driving across London, Jake was chained to the burly sergeant and squashed against the window. It was raining,