Between Two Thorns (32 page)

“She wasn’t strangled,” he said. “She would have struggled but there’s no sign of it, and not enough bruising either.”

“Maybe the bloody great big stalk growing out of her mouth had something to do with her death,” the gargoyle said. “Maybe the marks are from her own hands as she was choking.”

“Maybe…” Max muttered. He straightened up, saw the gargoyle heading back to the entrance and followed it.

It was staring at Lewis, at the cut across his throat, Jackson’s body and the knife in Lewis’s hand. “Something’s not–”

“Lewis was left-handed,” Max said and pointed at the knife held in the wrong hand. “And if he killed Jackson and then someone else slit Lewis’s throat, there would be more blood, in an arc across Jackson’s body. In fact, there should be more blood altogether.”

He went back into the cloister, walked between the bodies. “I don’t think any of these people killed each other, I think someone wants us to think they did. These wounds haven’t bled as much as they should because they were made after the person had died. And there are no other injuries, no other signs of struggle on most of the people supposedly strangled. This has all been staged.”

“Then how did they all die?”

“Quickly,” Max said. “And all at the same time, otherwise someone would have raised the alarm. That’s why Winston was in bed, because he didn’t have a chance to get up.”

“That doesn’t sound like Fae magic to me,” the gargoyle said. “And I can’t see Lady Rose or the Thorns taking the time to do this.”

“No,” Max replied. “We need to tell Ekstrand. Even though there was Rose magic here, it wasn’t a Fae who killed these people. We were meant to think that. There’s no way an innocent could have found this place, and the Camden Chapter wouldn’t have been able to kill everyone instantly… which means only one thing.”

“It must be a Sorcerer,” the gargoyle said. “And I bet it’s that one in charge of London.”

 

Acknowledgments

Every book has its own story. This book was brought to you by a serious of such unlikely events and good luck that it would better fit within the pages of the novel rather than this little bit at the end. The only difference is that these are true. And there were no fairies involved, thank goodness.

Firstly, there's the person this book is dedicated to. You know who you are, you know I could never have thrown everything into this book and those that come after it without your generosity, sense of adventure and just plain craziness. Thank you.

Next is Paul Cornell who told me to tell Lee Harris about the insane thing the person above enabled me to do. If you hadn't given me that advice Paul, I wouldn't be writing this now. Thank you.

Thanks, in turn, to Lee Harris who looked at me like I was crazy, discovered I actually was but still liked my book enough to give me the contract I never thought could be mine. Thank you for believing in the Split Worlds and for all your support and encouragement.

Thanks to Adam Christopher for listening to me freak out about one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in my writing career to date and being so totally calm, truthful and sage at me over coffee. And for introducing me to DMLA and ultimately leading me to…

Jennifer Udden, my agent. Thank you for listening to me hyperventilate and try to explain a really big imaginary world when I was still very much in it. You've made me a better writer and you totally understand all my creative craziness. Thank you.

Thanks to my beta readers Conall, Tracy, Heike, Kate, Mum (hello Mum!) and my grandmother. Your feedback made the book better, I hope you like what it turned into!

Lastly, and by no means least, a great big fat thank you to my husband, Peter. You listened to the first drafts and told me the truth, you reassured me when the Fear got loud and helped me untangle plot and brain knots. But above everything else you have believed in me, even when I haven't believed in myself. Thank you, my love.

 

About the Author

 

Emma Newman was born in a tiny coastal village in Cornwall during one of the hottest summers on record. Four years later she started to write stories and never stopped until she penned a short story that secured her a place at Oxford University to read Experimental Psychology.

In 2011 Emma embarked on an ambitious project to write and distribute one short story per week – all of them set in her Split Worlds milieu – completely free to her mailing list subscribers.

A debut short-story collection, From Dark Places, was published in 2011 and her debut post-apocalyptic novel for young adults, 20 Years Later, was published just one year later – presumably Emma didn’t want to wait another nineteen… Emma is also a professional audiobook narrator.

She now lives in Somerset with her husband, son and far too many books.

 

enewman.co.uk
 

twitter.com/EmApocalyptic

 

Read over fifty short stories by Emma based in the Split Worlds at

SplitWorlds.com
 

 

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A Rose by any other name

Copyright © Emma Newman 2013

Cover art by Sarah J Coleman (
inkymole.com
)

All rights reserved.

Angry Robot is a registered trademark, and the Angry Robot icon a trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Ebook ISBN: 978 0 85766 321 4

UK Paperback: ISBN: 978 0 85766 319 1

US Trade Paperback: ISBN: 978 0 85766 320 7