There is an ugly old water treatment building in the New Forest, about a hundred miles west of Hastings, which looks out over the strait between the coast and the Isle of Wight. It stands high on a hilltop like a castle cast in concrete, complete with arrow-slit windows and round corner towers.
Of course, that building isn't really a water treatment facility at all—it's the Solent Oubliette, a Horseshoe facility for the containment of magically enhanced criminals; a prison for witches and fey. A prison for Lord Éven of the Shade.
All of this was explained to me by Operator Harper Kahn, who described the building's purpose while leading me to a meeting room. She left me there alone to call my mum. As the number dialled, I watched the sun setting in a rhubarb sky over the calm dark sea through the tall narrow windows. Not a drop of fish in sight.
"Well, that is good news," Mum told me when I explained that Éven had been arrested. "That means we can put this behind us, and you can concentrate on your exams."
"Life isn't going to snap back to normal after this, Mum."
"Maybe not, but we'll manage," she said. "I've made shepherd's pie. It'll be in the fridge when you get in."
Back to normal.
Beneath my feet were prison cells holding who-knows-what monsters, wizards and freaks. One of those cells held the boy that I couldn't help falling for, despite everything he had done.
Was he reckless? Yes. Was he dangerous? Yes. Did he care about me?
I didn't have an answer for that.
He said he did. He said I was important, and I had to believe he meant it.
He was a crusader, a provocateur, and a brilliant and ambitious thief with a master plan to rescue his people's treasures. Yet, amid all of that, he had found time and reason to come to me again and again. He had risked his life to help me. He had been captured because he fought to protect me. Somewhere in the madness of everything he was doing, there was part of him that cared for me. It had to be true.
Yet, what he felt for me and what I felt for him didn't matter in the slightest. There was a good chance that I would never see him again. And though I did not trust him, though I knew he wasn't good for me, I wanted more than anything to see him again.
Harper knocked on the open door.
"Mr Frazer? He wants to talk to you."
* * *
Éven was being held in a small room with iron-plated walls. He was chained to an iron chair across the table from Lawrence Keele, Horseshoe's head of Intelligence. Grace, Harper and I stood in another iron-plated room and watched through a one-way mirror that was latticed on both sides with wire. Operator Harper cautioned me not to get too close; "The wires carry a low-level electrical charge."
Éven sat with his head bowed, his shoulders slumped, his hands palm down on the table top. Keele had his arms crossed and his eyes fixed like lasers on the prisoner.
"He said he would only give his confession if you were here to hear it," said Grace. "I think he wants to justify himself to you."
Grace pressed a button to broadcast her voice into the interview room.
"He's here."
Éven straightened up and lifted his head. He turned and looked at the mirror. He searched for me, but he couldn't see me.
"Ben? Can you hear me?"
Grace nodded to let me know that I could answer.
"I'm here," I said.
Éven smiled. I felt a jump of happiness in my heart. He smiled because he heard my voice. He smiled because he cared.
"I'm glad," he said. "I want you to know that I am sorry. I did not mean to make you vulnerable. I did not mean to turn your life upside-down. I did not mean for any harm to fall on your family. I only meant to help my people."
Lawrence Keele unfolded his arms and squared his shoulders. "Help them how, Lord Éven?" he asked.
Éven turned back to his interrogator. "You know what I did, Mr Keele. Your Horseshoe Men were there at every step." He allowed himself a grin. "You were worthier opponents than I had anticipated."
"As much as I appreciate your feedback, we're not here for that," said Keele. "We want to know who you're working with. We want to know what else you've stolen, and who you gave it to. We want to know how a kid like you knew where to find those objects. Tell us the whole story, and we can go easy on you."
"Bring Ben in here with me," said Éven. "Let me see him face-to-face."
Keele shook his head.
"Your lordship, do you think you're the first trickster I've dealt with? This is as close as you and your friend are going to get. If you make a full confession, we'll let him visit you another day. If this is all you're going to give us we'll put you in the brightest, best-lit room we can find, and we will hold you there until you glow orange, and you will never see your friend again. How does that sound?"
Éven sat back in his seat and squeezed one hand with the other, as if kneading the tension out of his knuckles. The skin of his hands turned red as he pinched it. He turned back to the mirror.
"Can he still hear me?" I asked.
Grace shook her head. "You're not here to have a conversation, Ben."
"Please. Let me speak to him." I knew this might be the last time I ever got the chance, and I needed some answers. If I never saw him again, I needed something to take with me.
Grace looked to Harper for a second opinion. I didn't see her give one.
"All right," said Grace. "But I can cut you off in an instant, so choose your words wisely." She turned on the microphone.
I took a deep breath.
"Éven?"
He smiled again, and the words poured out of me.
"Éven, I know you didn't mean to put me or my family in danger. I know that wasn't your intention, but it happened. Ligeia almost killed my brother. Kain captured my mum. I could have been cut to pieces or drowned or pounded flat, so I think I've had my share of danger.
"But this is not just about me. Three agents died trying to protect my mum, because you brought Kain and Selkie into our lives. You could have choked everyone in Gloucester or washed the town of Whitby out to sea. I don't want to think what could have happened to that farmhouse near Boston.
"Through all of that, I think...I think you really cared about me. And I want you to know that I cared...I care about you too. And if that's the case, if you really care, this has to stop. If you mean what you say, that you didn't want to leave me vulnerable, you have to tell them everything. You have to tell them why you did these things, and you have to tell them what else you have planned, and they can put a stop to it and everyone can be safe. Whatever you were doing, it's over now. It's time to tell them the truth."
Grace released the button. She put her hand on my shoulder.
Éven shook his head.
"You have a true heart, Ben, and I admire that, but you are asking me to abandon my people, and that is something I cannot do.
"The scales have been tipped towards man for too many generations. I only seek balance. My plans must play to completion. I am the restoration. I cannot abandon my cause until I am done."
"Who are you working for?" asked Keele.
"I work alone," said Éven.
"We know that's not true."
Éven's smile faded to a vulpine sneer and the tension rose in his shoulders. His face when he spoke to Keele was different from the face he showed to me. I wondered which one was his true face, and which was the pose.
"I work alone, Mr Keele."
"No. Someone put you up to this. Your queen told us that. Someone killed the last trickster from your court and gave that power to you. You're eighteen years old and you know formidable people and powerful secrets that no-one your age should know. You know things that we don't know."
"There are many things that you do not know," said Éven.
Keele ignored the insult. "I think someone told you about these things. Someone told you about Tiana Cavendish's attic. Someone told you about the red sands."
Éven narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
"I am not finished with the sands."
"Well that's just too bad, your lordship. You're never getting close to them again."
Éven bared his teeth in a sneer. I was a little frightened by how feral he seemed.
"Do you think there are places I cannot reach?"
"I'm confident there are."
"You have them in Lancaster House, down in the vaults beneath your headquarters. I tracked their journey as far as the London wall. The vaults are the only place you would take an object of such power, and you think the sands are safe there because it is the one place where no pure-blood fey has ever set foot."
"And you think you'll be the first?"
"I'm sure of it."
"You're wrong," said Keele. "You're not leaving this prison."
"Very well," said Éven. "I am not leaving this prison. Yet I will be the first of the fey to set foot inside your vaults."
Keele leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the table. "If you say so. In the meantime, you're stuck in here with me, so I'm going to give you a choice. You can cooperate. Tell us who's behind all this, and we'll tell the finder-general that you cooperated, and we'll ask for a lighter sentence.
"Or you can stay quiet and we'll throw the book at you, and maybe hand you over to Queen Zorya and let your court decide the punishment. We know the Court at Dusk takes a strong line on justice."
"I am justice," said Éven.
"You think you're untouchable because you're the Twilight Prince. You crossed the line, Lord Éven. You stirred up disharmony. Queen Zorya and the Nightmother could tear you to pieces for what you did for the mirror witch alone. Another Twilight Prince will soon take your place."
Éven frowned and looked down at the shackles on his wrists. Keele had shaken his certainty.
"My queen will forgive me, when all this is done," he said. "I could not know what Drych would do with my gift."
"Or what Selkie would do with the alicorn? Or what Kain would do with the cup?" Keele scoffed at the claim. "Alykonides is still out there somewhere with the Dayshade; a self-righteous madman with one of the most volatile substances known to man. Whatever he does with it, that's on you—unless you tell us who's really behind this.
"Who told you about Selkie and Kain and Alykonides?" Keele continued. "Who told you about the objects you stole? If you won't tell me, tell Frazer. He's still here, watching you posture and pout. Tell him why you brought all that trouble to his family. Tell him why people had to die to protect his mum. Tell him why you made him put his life on the line time and time again trying to put right the chaos you created."
Éven looked pained. He stared up for a moment, as if to weigh his response, and he finally looked at the mirror. I knew he could only see his own reflection, but I knew with just as much certainty that he was looking for me.
"I work alone," said Éven. "I had some guidance. That is all."
"Give me a name."
"I cannot tell you his true name," said Éven. "I do not know it. He calls himself the Barren King."
Keele looked over at the mirror. Grace was already on the phone.
"Adam, it's Grace. We have a name. The Barren King. Does that mean anything to you?" She put the phone on speaker so that we could hear Dr Southey's answer.
"I don't think so. I'll get the researchers on it. Grace, listen, there's something else. We think we've found a pattern. You're not going to like it."
"What do you mean? What pattern?"
"Hastings, Belas Knap, Boston, Whitby, Liverpool. We couldn't see it because we were looking at the wrong map, but I'm fairly sure the next attack is going to occur in one of two places, and one of them is right where you're standing."
I felt my breath catch in my throat as I saw the way that Grace looked over at Harper.
"We have to lock down the prison," said Harper. "I'll inform the governor."
"Maybe it won't happen," said Grace. "We have him in custody."
"That's not his MO," said Dr Southey. "The witch's seed is the only event he triggered personally. In all other cases he had someone else trigger the attack—Selkie or Kain or Drych."
Keele continued his interview on the other side of the glass, unaware of the panic setting in just feet away.
"Who is this Barren King?" Keele asked. "What does he claim to be the king of?"
"He is the king of the twelve realms, and the king of the two worlds," said Éven. "Or he will be. Mr Keele, do you happen to know what time it is?"
Keele checked his watch. "It's quarter to nine. It's already dusk, Lord Éven. You're not going to break out of this room, not even at your strongest hour."
"Of course not," said Éven. "You said it yourself. I am not leaving this prison."
The alarms sounded.
* * *