Page 116 of The Salt King

“Why do I feel as though dream castles don’t have to follow the rules of real castles?” he said, beginning to feel like he had after he had been shot: feverish and echoey. Something was coming after them; he could feel the push of the unnatural joy grinding nearer, and eventually it would be at this door, and when it was . . . would he just open the door? Jericho was strong enough to pick him up and stop him doing it, but Jericho would have nowhere to go with him. They were making what must have been their third circuit of the balcony, the snow stinging whenever they faced into the wind. In a sudden clatter, ravens flew overhead and settled on a tower in what he was almost certain was not the north, though everything in his mind insisted it had to be. The ravens were laughing a hacking laugh.

“Well, they don’t if you go around thinking about it like that,” Jericho said. “Come on, Brocken, what kind of witch are you?”

Avelyn looked up at him. “All right, dickhead. I don’t know if I can change what I believe just because it’s convenient—can you?”

Jericho looked a little helpless, but then his eyes slipped past Avelyn’s shoulder, and he brightened. “Well, it doesn’t matter, because there are stairs there. We just didn’t see them, it’s the angle of the gallery I think.”

“Oh, okay.” Avelyn turned around, then stopped. There were indeed stairs, but they definitively had not been there before. “I want to think there will come a point when I know not to believe you, but I’m worried you believe I’ll believe you too much for that to happen.”

“That’s possible,” Jericho admitted.

“So much for free will,” Avelyn grumbled.

“No, you can do it to me just as much as I’m doing it to you.”

“Can I though? Because I feel like your joy and goodwill to all humans and otherwise is bulletproof. The Devil could flap down over there, and you’d ask if he’d like a biscuit, and he would.”

“Well, believe properly then. You’re not trying hard enough.”

Avelyn didn’t look away from him, but dropped down into a crouch to scoop up some snow. Jericho realized what was about to happen and ran away, though not quite quick enough, and yelped when the snowball hit him in the head.

The ras hit Avelyn sideways and bundled him up: that was the King laughing. He swayed. It was good, painfully good, but again, different to what was coming up behind them. It faded again as Jericho brushed himself off, shaking snow out of his curls and muttering about Gen Z, and in its outrun, Avelyn had a wash of pure affection for him. Adoration wasted; yes, he knew all about that.

“Which way?” Jericho asked, halfway down the steps and clearly ready to run away from him again.

The light was bright on the north side of the courtyard. Avelyn pointed, suddenly sad and tired. What time was it, and how long it had been since they’d last slept, or eaten? It felt like a long time.

He heard the chink of armour and chain mail before it reached the top of his mind. In an abstract way, he thought what a sinister noise it was, how you’d run from it if you heard it out in some field a thousand years ago, and stand on the edge of the woods, powerless to do anything while those riders burned and salted the earth.

Then he understood and dragged Jericho into what little shadow there was in the cloister.

The knights galloped into the courtyard.

The men and the horses were so heavily armoured, it was hard even to see their eyes. The noise of hooves and chainmail shuddered the ground, and blue pennants snapped in the torchlight and the falling snow. Someone shouted an order in a language Avelyn didn’t know at first. After a lag, he thought it might be French.

Behind their pillar, broad but not enough to hide them if the knights were looking for anyone, Jericho drew Avelyn in front, so that Avelyn was tucked between him and the stone. Avelyn looked back, not wanting to be human-shielded, but Jericho put one hand against the pillar, locking him into place with a glance that said, Argue with me now, and I’ll make your insides come out of your nose. Avelyn shut up.

The knights were dismounting. Some of them were trying doors around the courtyard. Avelyn watched them, mesmerised. They had dark halos, like the stag, but they looked real. They were talking to each other, taut and on the edge of panic, he thought. He couldn’t tell what they were looking for.

Both of them stayed perfectly still. The knights were kicking in doors just along from them. There was nothing shielding them from view at all but the shadows between the torches and, maybe, the knights’ assumption that there was nobody else here.

We aren’t here, Avelyn tried to think. They can’t see us, they can’t see us, just like the police in the Outside, we’re just not here, and they can’t . . .

He could feel he wasn’t doing it right. It didn’t feel like it had when he had convinced himself there was snow for Jericho’s hand before. He didn’t believe it. He was just wishing. He knew they were going to see.

There was a crash as a knight destroyed a door. He stamped out again, and Avelyn didn’t understand what he was saying, but it was clearly swearing. The man stood for a second, breathing hard. His hair was part shaved, cut short to fit under his helmet, dark but greying. There was frost on his armour. It looked heavy, and he moved slowly with it, but easily. The clothes under it were dirty. He looked like he had been riding for days. The hem of a blue cloak lined with heavy white fur brushed the ground, muddy to three or four inches. He left far deeper prints in the snow than Avelyn and Jericho had.

Prints.

It wasn’t snowing enough to have covered their own yet.

Avelyn saw the knight’s gaze follow them, then travel upward until their eyes met.

The sword he drew from its sheath on his back was almost as tall as he was.

For an excruciating second, Avelyn had no idea what to do—God knew someone like that would break him in half without trying—and then like a choking engine, common sense kicked in, stuttering but functioning.

“Stop!” Avelyn yelled in Latin. “We’re priests! We were sent from Rome!”