"He can't be dead," said the Admiral. "We wouldn't be so lucky."
I didn't respond to that. I knew she wasn't saying it for my benefit. The memory of that moment, of the gunfire, was too fresh and horrible in my mind. They would have killed him. They would gladly have ended him right there. I was sure they hadn't, but not because they weren't willing to try.
The Admiral's intended audience was a meeting of the heads of Horseshoe, in a wood-panelled windowless room with a wall of televisions at one end.
According to Dr Southey, the room served as England's cockpit in the event of a magical war. In any 'mundane' crisis the authorities typically met in a secure above-ground bunker called COBRA, which stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. In the event of a magical crisis the heads of Horseshoe meet at Lancaster House, in Horseshoe Division Directorate Room A. It doesn't have such a tidy acronym, but its nickname is "Hydra".
Three of the seven heads of Horseshoe's Hydra were present for this meeting—the Admiral and Dr Southey, and the deputy director, Vice-Admiral William Lennox, a handsome black man in his forties. The other directors attended via remote link, and two of them were people I knew. Grace, head of civilian relations, and Keele, head of intelligence. They were already on a helicopter heading to London from the Solent Oubliette.
The only non-heads in the room were me and the secretary, a young man named Lieutenant David Choi. These were the people who would determine Éven's fate.
"We must assume that the suspect is still at large," said the Admiral. "The situation is this: Lord Éven of the Shade, the Twilight Prince, the trickster of the Court at Dusk, has orchestrated a series of attacks on our nation at the apparent instigation of an unidentified figure known only as the Barren King. Dr Southey?"
Dr Southey stood up and clicked the remote in his hand. An image appeared on the video wall; the bookplate from Southey's diary. There was Dr John Dee with the horseshoe in his hand and the map of England on the wall behind him, and the motto beneath that read; 'We have cast a horseshoe and affixed it to our island.'
"Right, here we are," said the doctor. "The last known portrait of the first master of the Horseshoe Men; Dr John Dee. This image, you may know, was etched some years after he left the post, when Queen Elizabeth died, and King James of Scotland inherited the throne. James hated magic. He implemented a much harder line against the fey.
"Dee believed that James would push the fey to extremes and spark fresh hostilities that would make us less safe. We suspect that Dee took precautions against that eventuality. We always assumed that the motto beneath this portrait was a reference to the Horseshoe Men, but I've been investigating the locations of Lord Éven's attacks and I now think that Dee meant a different horseshoe, and the engraving was a clue to its significance."
Dr Southey clicked again, and the image changed to a poorly drawn 17th century map of England. I had seen the map before among Tiana Cavendish's treasures, in the bags and boxes that the doctor had sorted through. The geography was distorted, but everything was almost in the right place.
"We think that this map belonged to Dr Dee."
The doctor clicked again, and Tiana's rusty old horseshoe appeared on the screen beside the map.
"We also think that this horseshoe was Dee's."
He clicked again. The horseshoe moved over the map, transparent so that the map was visible behind it.
"This, then, is the key. Dr Dee and his students conducted a ritual to purge the nation of magic. Seven rituals at seven locations along the English coast. Seven nails to hang a horseshoe on the kingdom."
"Are you sure about this, Dr Southey?" asked Lennox.
"We're working backwards from what we know, deputy director," said Southey. "Lord Éven orchestrated magical attacks at six of the locations marked on Dee's map. We're still digging through the records, but we think that Dee, or one of his students, visited each of these locations in the last years of Dee's life."
"I thought our people thwarted Lord Éven's attacks?" said Lennox.
"Yes, sir. But we didn't prevent them. Each attack used an item of extraordinary power to stir up one of the quintessential forms or elements of magic; a water monster in Hastings, a fire monster near Boston and an earth monster near Liverpool; wild magic at Belas Knap; shifting magic at Whitby; and quiet magic in the New Forest."
Southey tapped the six locations on the projected map.
The seventh nail hole lined up over the city of Colchester on the east coast.
"So, the final attack will occur near Colchester," said Lennox. "And our thief plans to conjure, what, a monster of the air?"
"That is our belief," said the Admiral. "Half an hour ago, Lord Éven broke in to our vaults and stole a reed from the mouthpiece of a 16th century...what exactly was it, doctor?"
"A dulcian," said Southey. "Woodwind instrument. Belonged to Maximillian II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Our guess is that the mouthpiece held one of the Pannonian reeds that grew on the banks of the Danube, where the great falcon of the winds went to its final resting place. Those reeds can summon the creature back. We thought they were all destroyed, but Lord Éven may know better. He seems to know a great many things that we don't."
"And assuming the worst," said Lennox. "What happens if we can't prevent the attack on Colchester?"
"Think of it like pulling out the seven nails that Dee and his student hammered into the island," said Southey. "If that horseshoe was meant to keep magic at bay, Éven is ripping out the nails so he can invite magic back. He says he wants to restore what was taken from his people. We thought he meant their treasures, but now we think he means this island. He's going to try to take the island back."
"London is secure, of course," said the Admiral. "London has its own protection going back to the Accords, but the rest of the country is under threat. If Lord Éven succeeds, we could be looking at a civil war. And that's not the end of it. Mr Frazer, tell the room what Lord Éven said to you."
I cleared my throat, and Vice-Admiral Lennox fixed his eyes on me.
"He said, 'Eight nails to fix a horseshoe'."
Lennox looked again at the horseshoe on the screen, and the seven holes over seven towns.
"What are we missing?" he asked.
"We thought there might be an eighth hole under Dee's thumb in the engraving," said Southey. "Now that we have the actual horseshoe, we know there are only seven. They're so unevenly spread that we can't even ascertain where an eighth nail would go. The map and the horseshoe only correspond to each other."
"If the Twilight Prince is planning an eighth attack, we have no intelligence on it," said the Admiral. "That means we have no choice but to stop him in Colchester."
"How many people do we have in Colchester, ma'am?" asked Lennox.
"Operator Jhabvala has twelve agents on the ground with orders to detain Lord Éven by any means necessary. An additional twenty agents are on their way, as well as several of our more trustworthy arcane consultants. As soon as this meeting is adjourned, I will send Mr Frazer and his protective detail to join them."
Lennox's intense stare swivelled to me again.
"I don't mean to speak out of turn, ma'am," said the deputy director, "but is it a good idea to put him in the field? He worked with the thief. He participated in his escape from the Oubliette. I'm not even sure why he's in this room."
"We all have our reservations," said the Admiral. "Mr Frazer's unique gift helped us to end three of the six attacks. He may be essential to ending the seventh. I asked Mr Frazer to be here because he is closer to this than anyone, and I want to be sure that he understands the stakes. Mr Frazer is ready to serve his country."
"Is that true?" asked Lennox.
I took a sip of water to wet my throat.
It was a fair question. The Vice Admiral clearly knew my history as well as anyone else in this meeting. He knew my loyalties were divided. But Éven was unstable. There couldn't be any question about my loyalties now.
"I don't want war," I said. "We have to stop him."
"Very good," said Lennox. "Welcome to the team, Mr Frazer."
Of course, it wasn't that simple. Yes, we had to stop him.
But it was up to me to save him.
* * *