Long Live the Queen (Book 5 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Seven: Egress

As far as they were able to agree on anything, they agreed to go to Oxford.

Faustus said he would not be joining them, but didn't elaborate further. It might have been to do with magic. Perhaps if he stepped outside the demon realms, his true age would come upon him in an instant, and he would drop down dead on the spot – or turn into a pile of desiccated bones that would clatter to the ground like bamboo.

But Jack suspected it was more to do with terror and pride: the terror of leaving a place he was so used to that he wore it like a suit of clothes – to the extent that he needed no other clothes when he was inside it. And the pride of not wanting to admit that the world had gone on without him – that he was irrelevant and even ignorant in the nineteenth century that was whirring on so busily above his head.

"Yet egress may prove no simple matter," said the old man. "The fire-mines to the north are not serviceable for man to cross, and you are too many to fly atop the dragons."

"Why can't we just go out that way?" said Alice, pointing to the well-opening far above, which was shedding a shaft of moonlight into the cave.

Faustus didn't even bother to look up. "'Tis but for light and communication, my Darwin. None living may enter or leave by such passage. Thereby I ensure my solitude and my obedience."

"Your obedience?"

"Thought you I would trust myself?" said Faustus, with a slight smile. "Three hundred years to remain in exile from my fellow man? Reason could not serve to keep me, for reason has a life full short in solitude. Necessity must keep me. I lose all else."

Alice drummed her fingers on her knee. "And every minute we remain here is – what? An hour in the outside world?"

"I know not the equivalence."

"Of course you know not," she muttered. "You always know not."

She pursed her lips for a moment, and then told them how it was going to be. She proposed splitting into two parties. The women, who could cross the fire-mines without any trouble, would go out that way and take the stagecoach to Oxford. The men could ride the dragons back to the demon realms and exit through Elsie's door

"Naturally, you'll arrive before us. We'll have to stop at an inn to bathe and dress appropriately." She looked at Ellini – with her bare shoulders and black corset – as she said this. She had never liked the Charlotte Grey costume.

Jack imagined Alice, Ellini and Val bathing together like the three graces, and sighed. The lake water had worn off enough for him to feel like a living man again. And, unfortunately, a living man imagines things.

Ellini slipped away while they were making plans. She was in the dragons' cave, at the bottom of the hill of rubble, by the time Jack noticed.

It wouldn't normally have been possible for her to slip away from him. He was normally so aware of her. But there were too many natural leaders in the old man's cave – Alice and Faustus both wanted to do things their way – and Jack was finding it difficult to take charge.

He should have realized that it didn't matter what the plan was, or who won the arguments. Ellini would still go after Myrrha. He slipped down the hill of rubble as fast as he could, in case she was planning on doing it right now.

One of the dragons had lowered its head to hers, and she was talking to it. Jack just heard the tail-end of a 'thank you' as he reached the bottom of the hill.

"-you. For sending my message," she murmured. "I think it worked."

"It did."

Her shoulder muscles tensed a little, but she didn't turn. Jack shuffled round to look at her. She was staring at the floor, but with a gentle, rueful expression – like the despairing amusement – which encouraged him to go on.