“I wanted to run,” Jack admitted. “But I had nowhere to go.”

“You don't run toward anything, Jack, you just run away. That's how it's done. Anyway, the next thing we know, fireworks are going off at the high school and you and Hastings are hip-deep in it. We couldn't figure that out. The kidnappers, I mean. We thought we had everyone accounted for.”

“Traders,” Jack said bluntly. “Leesha Middleton was working with them.”

“I should have known!” Ellen scowled. “So Paige is finally clued in, but now you and your family are completely inaccessible. Wizards and wards everywhere. When you disappeared, the story was, you'd gone to England. The Red Rose assumed you'd gone to fight, so they called a tournament so they could set the date and location.”

“You could have avoided this,” Jack pointed out. ”You always had access, even after the kidnapping failed. “It would have been easy enough, a blade in the throat, a quick getaway. Why am I still alive?” He looked down into the mirror and waited for her answer. For the truth.

“I don't know! Paige was always pestering me about it. He made things … very unpleasant. I kept telling him there was never an opportunity, that Snowbeard or Hastings were always around. I just kept thinking of your … your mother finding you, all that mess. I guess I'd rather have a fair fight, one with rules. And now we're going to have one.”

She picked up the Rules of Engagement and began leafing through it. “It's time to get going, Jack. Considering I have a ten-year head start, I'd suggest you study hard,” she said mockingly. “Don't think Shadowslayer will save you. I'll have your blade when this is all over. And get that thing away from me!” She pointed to the mirror.

Jack shrugged and returned it to his place under his sweatshirt. He considered what he had seen. “I don't want to fight you, Ellen,” he said.

“Don't you think it's a little late for that?” Her voice was cruel. “Lots of people will be disappointed. They're looking forward to seeing someone killed.”

“I don't want to kill you,” Jack said.

“I hardly think that will be a problem,” she said coldly. She gestured at the weapon on the table. “Maybe you'd better take your advantage while you can.”

Jack stood up. “Good night, Ellen.” He moved to the door, dissolved the locking charm, slipped silently through, and was gone.

Chapter Seventeen

The Game

Jack slept fitfully the first part of the night, but in the early morning hours he fell into a deep and healing sleep. He awoke to a commotion outside and then the sound of Will swearing at the window. Partisans of the Red Rose were pre-enacting the tournament outside the cottage. As might be expected, Jack was getting the worst of it.

“Don't encourage them, Will,” Jack said, without moving. He felt strangely at peace. He lay back on the pillows and said a prayer for the day ahead. He'd finally left behind the dreadful whiplash of possible outcomes for the tournament. He knew what he was and wasn't capable of. And now he had a rudimentary plan. It was not a great plan, nor one that was likely to get him out alive. But it was a kind of template, nevertheless.

Jack slid out of bed and got into the shower. He made the water as hot as he could endure, and stood under it for a long time. Then he pulled on his T-shirt and shorts, towel-dried his hair, and measured out his medicine and swallowed it. Everything had the divinity, the significance of a ritual being carried out for the last time.

He pulled out Blaise's mirror and turned it so it reflected back the light. He was afraid to look into it, unable not to.

When Jack looked into the glass, he saw a young man standing in a clearing. His hair was a red-gold color and hung to his shoulders. It gleamed in the shafts of sunlight that poured through a rooftop of trees. He was arrayed for battle, in gleaming chain mail and carrying a sword. The Shadowslayer. He carried a helmet under one arm.

But then perhaps the battle had already occurred, because the warrior was surrounded by bodies. Hundreds of men lay about him, some of them cut to pieces, men who had died fighting. There was something uncannily familiar about the features of the man. Jack lifted his hand, ran it over his own face.

The bodies on the field. Were they friends or enemies? Jack didn't know.

Hastings had already gone. Will paced from room to room like a caged animal looking for a way out. Fitch was morose, his face a study in dread. It didn't look like they'd slept much. When Jack came back from Ellen's, Will and Fitch had asked him about the visit. Jack said only, “It's Ellen, all right.”

After breakfast, Jack sat down at the little desk in the front room and found some paper and envelopes in the drawer. He began writing letters—to his parents, to Aunt Linda, Will, Fitch, Nick Snowbeard—and Ellen. He sealed them up and addressed them neatly. He tried to leave them with Will and Fitch in turn, but they backed away, looking panicked.

“You're crazy, Jack,” Will said. “Stop thinking like that.”

Jack shrugged and left them on the desk. He wondered how his death would be explained if he died at Raven's Ghyll. Fortunately, that was not his problem.

Hastings returned, stamping wet grass from his boots in the entryway. He had been down at the lists, surveying the field conditions. "Bloody wet, but it's still in the shade. The weather's fair, so it should dry off by afternoon.” Jack and Hastings had been over the field a number of times the day before. It was relatively flat, considering the terrain surrounding it, but made treacherous by small gullies and streambeds that tunneled through it. Stands of tall grass and small bushes made them difficult to see. Jack estimated the entire field of play was about the size of a soccer field. It seemed overgenerous for two people.

Hastings was uncharacteristically edgy. Maybe he's regretting the bargain he made, Jack thought. Given all of Ellen's years of training, Jack didn't exactly look like the horse to back. Unless you were betting on a legendary sword.

The wizard fussed over Jack's weaponry. He'd laid out Shadowslayer along with a short dagger, a small shield, a mace, and a sling. There was also a razor-sharp axe, similar to the one Jeremiah Brooks had carried. The weight and use of it was familiar to Jack, courtesy of the frontiersman.

The cottage hummed with tension. Will was so angry with Hastings that he could hardly look at him. Jack spent a half hour reviewing the Rules of Engagement, but he found himself reading and rereading the same paragraph. Fitch tried unsuccessfully to concentrate on the Weirbook. It was almost a relief when it was time to get ready.

Jack methodically pulled on the heavy canvas breeches, tunic, boots, and a bishop's mantle made of chain mail. The Rules of Engagement permitted little in the way of armor. He slid his arms into leather gauntlets, laced them up using his teeth. He belted his sword around his waist and picked up the small shield. “This is all I'll need,” he said, and left the rest where it was.

Hastings frowned. As Jack pushed past him, the wizard put out a hand to stop him. “This plan only works if you win,” he said quietly.

“Who does it work for?” Jack asked, swinging around to face him. They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Jack nodded to his friends. “Could you guys find my gloves? I think I left them in the bedroom.”

The boys were eager to do something, anything. They disappeared into the other room. “I don't see them,” Fitch was saying, when Jack pulled the door shut and locked it.

“Hey!” Will pounded on the door. ”Jack! Let us out of here!"

Jack spoke through the door. “You're better off in here. Trust me. I'll see you in a little while.”

There was a rising storm of protest from behind the door. Someone threw himself against the other side of it, and the door shivered with the impact. It was a good, sturdy door, however, and Jack thought it would hold. He turned to Hastings. “Let's go.”

Jack had estimated the galleries would hold several thousand people. He understood there was a great deal of money riding on the match, though he deliberately hadn't asked about the odds.

Apparently the parties had gone on all night. Servants with trolleys were hauling away empty bottles and other debris from private pavilions. The day was growing pleasantly warm. Pleasant in the stands, Jack knew, but it would be deadly hot on the field.

There were still open seats in the reserved section and box seats, but they were filling fast. The galleries were splashed with bright patches of red and white, shot with occasional silver. Pennants bearing the red and white rose snapped in the breeze. Here and there a spectator had even raised a hastily-assembled pennant for the Silver Dragon. Influential council members had erected tents along the sidelines. Jack glanced into one of them and saw an elaborate buffet laid out inside. Beer and wine were already flowing freely. The cries of vendors rang out over the hubbub of the crowd. By now, the sky was a whitewashed blue. It was a beautiful day.

A lusty cheer rose from the crowd when they spotted Jack walking along the sidelines. Jack was popular even among those who had bet on his opponent. It was common knowledge that he had been in training for only a few months. Some of those present had watched him working out with Hastings the day before. Everyone agreed that the Warrior of the Silver Dragon had considerable talent. Given a little more experience, he would be outstanding. Too bad he wouldn't be back, said some.

Linda, Mercedes, Blaise, and Iris were all waiting at the side of the field. Linda's face was haggard, and her eyes red-rimmed from crying. She wore jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, intentionally nondescript. She embraced Jack for a long moment, then held him out at arm's length. “You haven't changed your mind?”

Jack wasn't sure that changing his mind was still an option, but he shook his head. “No, I'm in.” When he saw how stricken she looked, he said, ”Look, it will all work out. Why don't you go up and stay with Will and Fitch at the cottage until it's over? Not that they'll be very good company."