Page 54 of Skullduggery
‘No. She won’t answer her door, not to me, not to anyone. And the Assigney mansion is heavily warded against intruders.’
‘That must be why Athair wants your parents to encourage Lady Rose to go for a walk – he can’t get past her ward.’ I hesitated. ‘But why does he want to get to her? Why go to all that effort?’
‘I honestly have no idea.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ I whispered.
Otis and Hester exchanged glances. ‘Well,’ Otis said with forced cheeriness, ‘not all mysteries can be solved. We’re reunited now, so let’s get back to 2024 where we belong.’
Hester nodded vigorously. ‘I want Google. And cat videos. And avo on toast. Get out the skull so we can go home.’
Hugo frowned. ‘I don’t have the skull. It’s in 2024 with Gordon.’
She stared at him. ‘You mean,’ she said, her voice rising, ‘we’restilltrapped here?’
I hushed her. We were some distance from Culcreuch Castle but Athair still might hear her. ‘It’ll still be under the Fonaby Stone,’ I told her. ‘We can get it once we’re done here.’
‘We don’t have to retrieve it, Daisy,’ Hugo said. ‘The skull’s magic will only last for so long. Gordon told me we’ll probably stay in this time period for several days, but not for weeks. He couldn’t give me an exact time frame but sooner or later we’ll be pulled back, whether we want to leave or not. We don’t belong here. Natural order will force us to return to our own time.’
Otis somersaulted in mid-air. ‘Thank goodness!’
I wasn’t so happy. ‘So we have limited time to help Lady Rose.’
‘Yes,’ Hugo said. ‘But wewillhelp her.’
We exchanged brief smiles then I thought of something else. ‘If my time here is limited and I’ll soon be pulled forward to 2024, you didn’t have to travel here, Hugo. You could have waited until I returned. You didn’t need to save me.’ I looked at Hester and Otis. ‘You didn’t need to save any of us.’
He gave me a long look and dropped his voice. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Daisy. Whether you need me or not, I’ll always come and save you. No matter what.’
My mouth went dry; so hehadheard me when I’d whispered after him after our encounter with Baudi. For a long moment we gazed at each other until Hugo cracked a mischievous grin. ‘And I think now you’ll find that I’m definitely in the lead. I’ve rescued you more times than you rescued me.’
I thumped him on the arm. ‘Piss off.’
He planted a swift, hard kiss on my mouth. Almost immediately, I lost the tight grip I’d been maintaining on my magic and the ground beneath my feet rumbled. I hissed with irritation and stepped back, fumbling for a spider’s silk pill. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We need to get away from here before Athair realises I’ve just set off a mini magical earthquake near his house.’
Hugo grinned. ‘As my lady commands.’
Chapter
Twenty
Hugo clearly hadn’t experienced the same financial worries that I had. With some time to prepare before he arrived in 1994, he’d acquired the right sort of cash to see him through and had already used a chunk of it to rent a nippy little car. I left the stolen motorbike hidden behind the bush, made a mental note to return it to Pemberville Castle later, then hopped in next to him.
For reasons I didn’t want to articulate, I didn’t want to leave his side even for a short journey down the road. I kept glancing at him to reassure myself that he was definitely there. Although he was driving and focused on the road, his hand kept straying to mine and every time our fingers brushed I felt a frisson of happy delight. Yeah: I wasn’t falling for Hugo. I’d already fallen. Hard.
I babbled away in a bid to hide my turbulent thoughts, explaining all that happened since I’d landed in 1994. It was satisfying to see Hugo’s growing astonishment at everything I’d achieved; sure, I was still a junkie elf with wayward magic and a fiend for a father, but I also had style.
‘Do you think that fiend Vargas was telling thetruth about expelling all your magic in one go to achieve control of it?’ he asked when we finally turned into the driveway that led to the Assigney mansion.
‘I wouldn’t trust a fiend in the slightest, but there’s no reason to think he was lying. I’ve never come close to releasing all my magic because I’ve always been too worried about the consequences. But it could work.’
‘It sort of makes sense,’ Hugo said slowly. ‘It’s like turning your computer off and on again, I suppose. But emptying yourself of all your power in one go isn’t easy. I did it once when I was a teenager and experimenting.’
‘And?’
He pulled a face. ‘It took a long time to expel all my magic, I destroyed several acres of good farmland, was grounded for a month afterwards and spent three days sleeping off the effects. If you do this, you’ll be incredibly vulnerable afterwards.’ He hesitated. ‘There’s also no telling what effect the spider’s silk in your system will have. You might need to go cold turkey before you try.’ He cast me a side glance. ‘You don’t need me to tell you how dangerous that could be.’
He was right. I didn’t dare wean myself off spider’s silk until I could control my magic, but I couldn’t control my magic without spider’s silk. Even under the best of circumstances, any withdrawal had to be carefully managed if I wanted to avoid killing myself in the process. It was a question for another time, however; Lady Rose’s impending disappearance took precedence.
