At the mention of the weapon Sgàthach looked as if she might argue but then her expression hardened into resignation and instead she hurried for the stairs. Her speed caught Number Five by surprise and he almost had to run to keep up. Behind him he could hear Number One lead Number Three down. He was tempted to slow down and wait for them but Three seemed to be managing well enough and he had spent much of his working life sneaking around strangers homes in the dark looking for ways to kill them.

Outside Sgàthach headed for the forge where the Blacksmith was back at work. ‘You’ll have to finish later. I need the forge now.’

‘The blade is at a critical stage…’

‘Ninane, I said now. If your blade can’t wait then take it to your own forge.’

The blacksmith glared at Sgàthach and Five wondered if she would argue. Perhaps she considered it but if she did she showed little sign. After a final scowl at Sgàthach she picked up the glowing sword blank in her bare hand and left the forge.

Five stared after her wondering why she wasn’t horribly burned by the hot metal. She walked, with inhuman grace, to the well and leapt over the side, red hot metal still in hand.

‘She jumped in the well,’ said Six.

‘That is Ninane Du Lac,’ said Sgàthach. ‘Whom the legends call the Lady of the Lake. She’ll be just fine.’ Her words were punctuated by the ringing of metal on masonry.

Five turned back to the forge to see Sgàthach, sledge hammer in hand, knocking a hole in the chimney.

‘If you’re going to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for me.’ Sgàthach pulled on something that had been bricked into a secret space inside the chimney. ‘Not only do I have to rebuild the chimney but I’ll need to find a new hiding place for this.’ She pulled it free of the rubble. A five foot long pole sticking out of a metal box.

'Oh look,' said Six, 'it’s a pole in a box.'

'Respect the pole,' said Five.

‘Is it so terrible?’ said Three and Five could hear in his voice that he was fond of Sgàthach and didn’t want to believe that she could make something evil.

Sgàthach shrugged and looked down.

‘If that thing is what I think it is,’ said Five. ‘Then she’s right to hide it. It should never be used on anyone.’

‘And yet here we are.’ Sgàthach put the pole in Five’s hand.

‘About to do a terrible thing,’ said Five.

#

'Now is not the time,' said Sorrow, leaning over the table as if trying to protect Number Seven from Cutty’s words.

'But Number Four must already know,' said Cutty, 'Why else would she be killing them in numerical order? It’s narrative engineering. She must know what he is.'

'What?' said Seven.

'I say we should leave well alone,' said Sorrow.

'Leave what alone?' said Seven.

'And I say you’re compromised,' said Cutty, rising to her feet again and glaring at Sorrow. 'You’ve fallen for it the same as everyone else does and now you’re scared in case we break it.'

'WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?' Seven was on his feet. It was all he could do to keep his arms by his side, though he knew that his hands were clenched into fists.

Sorrow held his gaze for a moment but then slumped back into her seat. 'Fine. I see how it is.'

Seven looked to Cutty, still standing behind her desk, arms crossed.

'Sit. The Fuck. Down!' she said.

Seven sat, but barely. He perched on the edge of the seat, leaning forward as if already running. He’d never felt so off balance before.

Cutty folded her skirts beneath her and sat. 'I can tell you. But I can’t tell you for free.'

'What?' Said Sorrow and Seven as one.

'There has to be an exchange otherwise you’ll owe me a favour and if you owe me a favour then the Morrigan might decide to repay it. I don’t want to find out what she’d consider an appropriate payment.'

'But you just solved the Raven thing,' said Sorrow.

'That was my job. Knowing secrets is my job. Keeping secrets is my job. Helping you is my job. Reading all these files is my job. Blowing SIS’s biggest secret to someone who’s not on the Department payroll is not my job even if it is the person the secret is about. That is a favour.'

'You want money?' said Seven.

'No. An exchange. A secret for a secret. It doesn’t have to be a big secret. Doesn’t have to compromise national security. It just has to be a secret that I don’t already know.'

She made it sound like nothing, but the moment he thought about it Seven realised that there was a problem. Most of the secrets he knew were in his files. She either already knew them or soon would. It had to be something that he’d never written down and although he hated paperwork he’d always been scrupulous about passing on information.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

That just left the things he’d learned when he was off duty. Technically he’d been off duty in Monaco when he’d been entertaining Mrs Lowenstein. And the Boss had insisted that the details of the Lowenstein affair not be put in writing.

Seven took a flimsy sheet of paper from the top of a small pad on the desk. Cutty passed him a pencil. He summarised the true fate of Dex Lowenstein as quickly as he could, careful to lean on the bare wood of the desk so he wouldn’t leave an impression on anything. He passed the paper to Cutty.

Cutty read the words, grinned and said, 'And people say there’s no justice in the world.' She snapped her fingers and the paper caught fire and burned away to nothing in less than a second.

Seven jerked back. Sorrow had said she was a witch but he hadn’t been expecting that.

'Oh, sorry,' said Cutty, 'I should have warned you.'

'I should have been expecting magic,' said Seven. Would that word ever stop sounding ridiculous?

'That wasn’t magic. That’s flash paper. I requisitioned the pad when they made me the Secret Historian. First chance I’ve had to use it.'

'When you’re done showing off,' said Sorrow.

'Give me a second to get my equipment out,' said Cutty, searching through her desk drawers.

'Equipment?' said Sorrow, 'I thought you were going to explain.'

'Demonstration is always better than explanation.' Cutty moved the laptop from the centre of the desk and replaced it with a flat stone with a hole through the middle, a polished metal mirror in the ancient Celtic style and an elderly Polaroid camera.

'That’s your equipment?' said Seven.

'I’ll stick on a pointy hat if it will make you feel better,' said Cutty.

'Please, not on my account,' said Seven.

'Could you both stand up for a moment, please?' said Cutty, directing them with her left hand as she held the camera with her right. 'Excellent, a little closer together for the camera…' There was a bright flash of light, far brighter than from an ordinary camera, and a click.

When the spots cleared from his vision Seven saw Cutty remove the Polaroid picture and lay it, face down, on the desk.

'Remain standing for a moment. Sorrow, can you take a really good look at him?'

Sorrow looked Seven up and down then stared intently at his face. Seven resisted the urge to wink at her for at least two seconds before giving in.

'I need you both to sit down and relax,' Cutty’s voice had taken on a syrupy, hypnotic tone. 'Sorrow. I want you to close your eyes. Now picture Officer Dee as clearly as you can. Exactly as he is. As he was a moment ago when you were looking at him.'

Sorrow smiled.

'Describe him to me. Clothes on for preference,' said Cutty.

'He’s 6’1', slim build, black hair or maybe very dark brown, blue-grey eyes. He’s got kind of a longish face, square chin, cheekbones that could cut you, thin lips with a slight sneer to them, straight nose and a vertical scar in the middle of his right cheek.'

Seven couldn’t argue with her description.

'Slim build?' said Cutty. 'You told Alex he looked like a porn Spartan.'

'A what?' said Seven.

'Not actual porn,' said Sorrow, 'Just not very historically accurate.' She closed her eyes again as if to better imagine his body. 'There’s a lot of muscle there when he takes his shirt off.'

'So he’s thinner with his clothes on?' said Cutty.

'I suppose…' said Sorrow.

'And blue-grey eyes? Not a piercing, icy blue that would both freeze and melt the heart of even the purest maiden, as Cherry put it in her many, many texts on the subject?'

'Depends on the lighting but just now they look blue-grey.'

'Thank you. And congratulations on an excellent physical description of the fiction suit he’s wearing,' said Cutty.

Sorrow’s eyelids shot up. 'You mean that’s not what he looks like?' said Sorrow.

'Nope,' said Cutty and Seven had rarely heard a word sound more final.

'Yes it is,' said Seven, 'That’s the face I shave every day.'

'No it’s not,' said Cutty, 'That’s the face you see in the mirror, but it’s not the face you shave.'

Sorrow stared at Seven again. She leaned in uncomfortably close as if inspecting the scar on his cheek. 'So what does he look like then?' she said.

It was Cutty’s turn to stare at him and she was relentless. 'He’s about 5’10, and a half. Maybe 5’11' when he’s not carrying a pulled back. And he is not slim. I can see where the porn Spartan thing comes from. He’s got huge shoulders and a torso like a superhero. Dark blond hair. Ice blue eyes like a young Paul Newman. Quite a broad face with a strong chin. Full lips and sad eyes. No facial scars.'

Sorrow squinted at him as if trying to force her eyes to focus.

'No,' said Seven. 'Just no. NO. I know how tall I am. And I am not blond.'

Sorrow reached over to caress his forehead. She ran her fingers through his hair. Then grabbed a couple of strands and yanked. She laid the hairs on the dark brown wood of the desk and they did seem to be lighter than the wood.

'He’s easier to see with this,' Cutty tapped the stone with the hole in the middle. 'Hold it up to one eye and look through it.'

Sorrow looked through the stone. She recoiled slightly but then looked again. 'Still hot though. I definitely still would,' she said.

'I think he’s better looking than the suit,' said Cutty.

Sorrow nodded slowly.

'I am right here,' said Seven, 'and I am not a piece of meat.'

'Try this,' said Cutty and she handed him the metal mirror.

He wasn’t expecting a perfect reflection like a glass mirror but it should have been good enough to recognise himself. Yet the face that looked back at him belonged to a stranger. He frowned and the stranger frowned back at him. Everything about the face was wrong. The colouring, the too-full lips, the eyebrows that sloped instead of arching, the nose that was too wide.

The face in the mirror wasn’t a bad looking stranger. If the boss had sent him to seduce this guy he would not have complained too loudly that it should be Number One’s job. And he wasn’t exactly a stranger. There was something familiar. He’d seen that face before but he couldn’t quite place it.

Cutty flipped over the Polaroid picture and slid it in front of him. And there he was. Tall, slim, black hair and stormy eyes and the scar back in its proper place. Sorrow held the stone over the picture so he could look through it and the stranger was back. An inch or so shorter than Sorrow but very broad.

Cutty was right. There was something very sad about the eyes.

He grabbed the stone and moved it around so he could see the whole picture. Through the stone he could see Sorrow’s wings in the picture exactly as he’d seen them the night before.

He held the stone up to his eye and looked at Sorrow. He could see her wings but they looked untidy somehow. He turned the stone toward Cutty but all he saw was the palm of her hand as she blocked his gaze.

'Not going to happen. I never promised you any of my secrets.' She took the stone back.

'I don’t understand. Why do I look different?' said Seven. He slumped back in his chair.

'Let me tell you a story,' said Cutty.