He knew the way to the duke’s office. Goddess how he wished he didn’t.

Laurence crept along the eerily familiar corridor until he reached the double doors which would open up into the duke’s personal arcane library. He passed antiques and artworks which had to be worth more than everything he’d ever owned in his life, and not a single one of them was out of place. There was no frost, no melting ice, no scorch marks.

How could there have been such a disturbance outside, yet nothing now?

The only option he could think of was that Quentin had blacked out, and that meant he’d been brought all this way against his will.

Laurence bared his teeth and placed a hand against the door, then reached for the handle with the other. He braced against it to hold it as steady as he could as he turned the handle and pushed.

The door wouldn’t open.

Laurence put his shoulder to it, but there was no movement, so he crouched down and peered into the tiny gap between the doors.

There was no metal between them. No sign that the doors were locked. But he caught a glimpse of something else instead.

The distant glimmer of stars deep within the void.

Laurence pulled back and tilted his head toward the door, but he heard nothing. No sound of breath, no movement. If Quentin was in there, he wasn’t in the duke’s office.

The pathway to the sanctum was open.

Laurence stepped back and span on the balls of his feet. If the sanctum replaced the outer library, he would only be able to get to it through the inner doors, and that meant he had to gain entry to the duke’s office some other way.

The office had windows. He remembered that very clearly.

His lips pulled back as he backtracked to the previous room.

This was a hunt.

This was the prey he had coveted for months. The one Herne had tried to tell him he wasn’t ready to land.

Laurence picked his way through an overly fussy sitting room and crossed to the windows. He unlatched one and forced it up, then wriggled out the moment the gap was big enough for him, and fell to the gravel as lightly as he could.

There was light coming from the next set of windows along.

Laurence shimmied along the wall, his shoes pressing into the gravel and making very little sound.

He would need to break in. The latches were inside. He stopped beneath one of the office windows and listened.

Nothing.

Quentin wasn’t on this plane any more. And nor was the duke. It was the only way they could evade Laurence’s hearing at this sort of range.

He had to take the chance that it worked both ways.

Laurence looked toward the lake and reached for Windsor. Bring me part of a tree.

Windsor responded. Yes.

Laurence hunkered down and waited. After a minute he felt Windsor drop from the branches, and it only took another minute for the bird to cover the distance between them.

Windsor landed on his outstretched arm, with a fresh twig in his beak.

“Perfect,” Laurence whispered. “Go.”

Windsor took off, and Laurence pushed his energy into the twig, forcing life into it to bolster the tiny amount of energy it still had. Once he was sure it had survived being pecked free from a branch, he trapped it between his own teeth, then leaped up to grab the windowsill above his head.

Laurence hauled himself up, his feet struggling to find a foothold in the brickwork, but once his chin was level with the sill he spat out the twig and caught it with his thumb, then rolled it up against the bottom of the window frame.

Then he forced the twig to grow.

It sprang a tiny shoot of new growth out into the fraction of a gap between frame and windowsill, and he held it firmly in place with his thumb as he pushed the shoot all the way through to the inside of the office.

Then he made it all expand.

The twig fattened, and so did its offshoot. Fresh, living wood strained against old, dead wood, and the frame began to creak.

Laurence pushed harder, and the latch snapped away, tearing free of the window frame with a crack which sounded almost like a gunshot to his ears.

He didn’t wait around. His fingers snaked into the gap and he shoved the frame upwards even as his feet began to slip down the wall. He contorted his way into the gap and flopped through to the duke’s office like a snake shedding its skin, then rolled quickly onto his feet and crouched by a cabinet.

The office was empty, but Quentin’s scent was here. Fresh. Bright.

Laurence prowled toward the desk and tugged open the drawer the duke stored his astrolabe in. As anticipated, the device was missing, so he eased the drawer shut again. He sneaked around the desk and to an armchair where Quentin’s scent was strongest. As he took a deep breath, he ran his hand across the leather, but the seat was cold. Either Quentin hadn’t sat here for long, or he’d been gone more than a few minutes.

He pressed on toward the library doors. They were closed, but he had to hope that they would open for him, else all he could do was wait.

Laurence wasn’t very good at waiting.

He moved as slowly as he dare toward the doors and turned the handle, then shoved hard.

The door gave in without any resistance. Laurence stepped over the threshold between one world and another, and the brief disorientation - while expected - was enough to bring him to a halt.

The sanctum was exactly how he remembered it.

* * *

He didn’t know what to pay attention to first. Quentin’s scent trailed to the center of the chamber, where Quentin lay in a fetal ball, and Laurence’s heart pounded at the sight of him but he wasn’t alone.

Crouched over him was his father. Older than any of Laurence’s visions of the man, but still unmistakable. Broad, but not as muscular as Freddy. Dark-haired, but more gray than Quentin. Laurence could readily make out features which one or the other of his sons had inherited, the most obvious of which were his cold, gray eyes.

The walls fanned out either side of the doors, and were lined with shelves which were mostly obscured by the light from candelabras standing a meter or so in front of them. There were twelve of those in all, each bearing five lit candles, and they were far enough apart that Laurence could readily estimate the room to be about twenty meters across. Bigger, then, than the library it overlapped in the real world.

He held his breath. Quentin was unresponsive to his Father’s touch, but thankfully nobody here was naked.

Laurence circled slowly away from the door. If he had managed to enter without attracting the duke’s attention he might be able to…

To what, exactly? He had no weapon, and he doubted that he could kill the man fast enough to prevent the duke from having a chance to defend himself. No matter how quickly Laurence moved, the duke could throw him off in the blink of an eye.

The duke frowned and stood slowly, then looked toward the doors. “I know you are in here,” he rumbled.

Laurence froze.

“Step forward.”

Laurence grit his teeth and held still. “What did you do to him?”

The duke’s gaze swiveled slowly toward Laurence, narrowing down his position. “Nothing. He’s blacked out.”

“But what did you do to him to make him do it?” Laurence eased to his left after he spoke, sticking to the shadows thrown by the candlelight.

“I don’t answer to you,” Hieronymus answered. “You must be the florist.”

Laurence said nothing. He refused to be goaded. Instead he continued to circle around, hoping to at least get behind the duke.

“Quentin was out of control,” the duke said idly. “Again. He usually comes out of these little tantrums of his own accord. It’s only a matter of time. However, I am beginning to suspect that he may well be too volatile to learn what must be taught.”

Laurence ground his teeth as he gripped the nearest candelabra. The metal was cold beneath his hand. “You can’t teach him magic,” he said hoarsely. “He can’t take it.”

Hieronymus rounded on Laurence’s voice. “He must. There is a lineage to maintain, a legacy which must continue. He has no choice.”

Laurence snatched up the candelabra and roared with fury as he charged the duke. He swung the wrought metal like a quarterstaff, and the candles extinguished with a sfffft as they swept through the air.

And then his charge halted.

He’d expected nothing else, and allowing the duke to provoke him was a dumb mistake. He knew better.

“You’re a monster!” He snarled the words as the duke held him in place. “The things you did to him, all for what? So he could learn magic? It wasn’t worth it! The universe chooses who it’s willing to listen to and you weren’t it. Let it go!”

Fire flared inches from Laurence’s face, and he yelped as the candles re-lit themselves from it.

“You have no idea what this family has endured throughout the generations, all to maintain the line,” Hieronymus countered with quiet calm. “Other families have gone extinct as the years have passed, but we are still here, and we will continue to be here for generations to come. I will not be the one who lost it all.”

Laurence glanced toward Quentin, then to the duke. “You’ve already lost it all,” he snarled. “Look at what you’ve done to your own children, man. You raped Quentin, for crying out loud. You threatened to murder Freddy. I guess you still have Nicholas, right? Or did you fuck him up too?”

The duke’s left eye twitched briefly. He closed the distance, taking his time, until he was well within Laurence’s personal space, and then he began to scrutinize Laurence, inch by inch, searching.

Laurence spat in his face. “I’ll kill you,” he hissed as the duke withdrew a handkerchief to wipe his cheek. “I’ll find a way, and I will kill you for what you’ve done to him.”

“You Americans.” The duke showed Laurence the handkerchief.

It glistened with Laurence’s saliva.

Laurence’s breath hitched. His eyes grew wider.

Another mistake.

The duke carefully folded the handkerchief to preserve the spit within, then reached for the thong around Laurence’s neck and tugged. He pulled on it until the pendant came free of Laurence’s shirt, and then he drew it over Laurence’s head and stepped away altogether.

Laurence fought against the hold around him, but it was every bit as firm as Quentin’s could be, and he was helpless as the duke stepped so far away that the talisman’s connection to his aura fizzled out and the gentle green light died away.

Hieronymus tutted as he wrapped the thong around his handkerchief. “Frederick appears to have erred,” he murmured, “and broken the wrong thing. You’ll have to wait here while I go take care of my newly errant son.”

Laurence snarled as the duke retreated. “Leave them alone! They did what you wanted. They broke me. They brought Quentin to you.”

“You don’t look very broken.” Hieronymus smirked briefly. “You’d best hope I’m back soon. Without any connection to the mortal realm I have no idea how much air is in here. You might wish to extinguish the candles to preserve what you have.”

He backed out and the doors shut.

Laurence lurched forward and raced to reach them, but the world span under his feet, and the sanctum was severed from the office once more. He grabbed the doors and heaved on them, but they wouldn’t budge.

He banged on them a few times, but if this plan were truly disconnected now, the duke wouldn’t hear it, even if he were remotely willing to set them free, and Laurence sagged against the door in defeat.

They were prisoners, and the only item which could free them was on another plane of existence.