Silvertongue (30 page)

And if the Stone was a bit larger in the days to come, no one would notice because no one ever saw what was important about it anyway, if they ever noticed it at all.

“He, um . . .” began Edie, nodding toward Little Tragedy.

“Yeah,” said George, standing decisively and pulling her to her feet. “Absolutely.”

The Gunner, the Queen, and the two soldiers watched George and Edie work on the broken boy. Because they were not close enough, they didn’t see the small shape that Edie outlined inside the boy’s chest before she and George closed him up and made the join smooth with their hands.

“I know,” she said quietly, seeing George’s smile. “Sentimental claptrap. You’re smiling because you think I’m being stupid. But he tried to save me. And yeah, I know none of them have really got them. But it’ll mean something to him because he cared about not having one.”

“They may not have them that we could see if we cut them open, but they’ve got them where it counts,” said George. “And you know why I think that is?”

“Why?” she said.

“It’s what my dad used to say: If you’re going to make anything good, anything worthwhile, you have to put your heart in it. That’s why I’m smiling. Not because I think it’s stupid. Because you knew that without being told.”

And once more he hoisted her to her feet, and they stretched and looked around them.

“What are we going to do with that?” said Edie, nodding at the new statue of the Walker.

“Leave him to rot,” said the Gunner.

“No,” said George. “I think everyone should enjoy this. Bring him.”

“Where?” said Edie.

“I know just the place,” said George. And as the Gunner loaded the Walker’s statue onto the chariot, they handed Little Tragedy and the remains of the Duke to the two soldiers, who carried them away with a smile, promising to get them back on their plinths by turn o’day.

“So. You are both
master
makers,” said the Queen quietly, sounding impressed for the first time ever. “That has never happened.”

“No.” The Gunner grinned. “Mind you, there’s a lot of that about.”

“How can that be?” the Queen said, looking from one to the other.

And as they rode slowly back through the snow, Edie told her. When she got to the bit about seeing her mother and George’s father on the bridge, the Queen stopped the horses and looked hard at them both.

“So you think this man, this man who was George’s father, is your father too?”

Edie looked at George. “Feels about right, yeah,” she said carefully.

He gave her a complicated look, as if saying it out loud had jerked things to a level he hadn’t quite got a handle on yet. Probably because he hadn’t known it was there in the first place.

As they walked on to Trafalgar Square, they passed other spits returning to their plinths, often carrying the broken bodies of others who had fallen in the great battle so that they could be healed by turn o’day when it came.

At Trafalgar Square they picked up a chariot load of shattered bodies that needed to be taken in the direction they were going. They saw that some spits were returning for a second load and were now carrying dead taints as well. This was because Bulldog had persuaded them that most of the malice in them had been whipped up to an unaccustomed frenzy by the darkness and the Ice Devil, and that London would be a drearier place without them.

Edie caught George looking from the Walker’s statue in the chariot to the empty plinth on the northwest corner of the piazza.

“George . . .” she began, realizing what he had in mind.

“Why not?” he said. “Every victory needs a monument.”

“He’d hate it,” she said, grinning slowly. “Everyone seeing him scared and beaten.”

In no time, George organized a line of spits to pass the Walker from one to the other and up onto the empty plinth, and they all stood for a moment, enjoying the sight.

Then the Gunner hoisted the lifeless body of the Officer onto his shoulders, and George and Edie walked between him and the Queen, who led her horses on foot.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Edie as they walked along the Mall.

“We’re going to the Natural History Museum. I’m going to mend the carving I broke,” George replied. “And then we’re going home.”

“George . . .” said Edie.

There was so much that was impossible about the last sentence that she didn’t know where to begin. She just ran right out of words and shook her head.

“I know,” he said. “But after everything we’ve done, everything we’ve seen, everything that’s impossible, explaining you to my mum is only going to be . . . difficult.”

He looped his arm companionably over her shoulder. She let it ride for a couple of steps.

“What’s that?” she said.

“My arm,” replied George. “Get used to it.”

And he left it there.

As they and the Red Queen and the Gunner walked together into the west, and the sun ahead of them lowered into an increasingly golden sky, time started again, not in a jerk, but slowly: the snow seemed to melt away gently before their eyes, and as the whiteness disappeared from everything, the color bloomed back into the city around them, like spring returning. Movement began as people slowly appeared again in this layer of London. First they faded back in slow-motion, almost like animated watercolors of themselves—pale opaque ghosts that slowly became denser and richer as they passed.

“George,” said Edie. “The black mirrors turned white.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I was thinking about that.”

“The black mirrors led to the outer darkness,” she said. “What do you think happens if you go through the white mirrors?”

“I don’t know,” he said, yawning. Edie saw it and caught the yawn herself.

And it seemed the most natural thing in the world when George looked down and saw that she had snaked her arm easily around his waist.

The Gunner grinned and stole a look at the Queen. She raised an eyebrow, the merest hint of an answering smile twitching the side of her mouth before she got it under control as they all walked together into the bustling life and color that was returning to warm the stone heart of the city.

Just as George and Edie might not have found their way safely to the end of their journey without the help of a strong mentor like the Gunner, I wouldn’t have got their story into print like this without the help of my own extraordinary friend and guide Kate Jones. Kate was without doubt one of the all-time good guys, someone who got the joke (and greeted it with a gurgling and deeply infectious laugh). She had a really great mind and an even bigger heart. She died with terrible suddenness just as I was setting off on the third leg of this trilogy, and I still find it hard to write about her in the past tense. So, Kate, I’m going to use the present tense, not just out of denial but because you are in my heart as I write, as you are in the hearts of so many of the large tribe of friends and colleagues: I owe you more than I could ever repay, for which—now and forever— thank you.

I am also very grateful for the good-humored and painstaking care taken by everyone at Hachette, especially my excellent editor Anne McNeil, who, along with Rachel Wade, helped me to get out of my own way more times than I am comfortable remembering.

As I began, so I end: Mom and Dad, thank you again for all you’ve given me, especially for passing on the love of stories. Jack and Ari, these books are for you. I hope you go out into the world and find the magic all around you. It’s just a matter of looking with an open heart.

And finally, Domenica, thanks for everything, especially for being the magic that I found.