Whitmarsh loomed over Ess, eyes darting from her, to Daisy, to Shades' body and back. Ess looked at Shades, slumped on the floor, half propped up by the bed. Blood matted his hair and his head lolled forward.

"Let me help him," she said.

"Stay where you are."

"But he could swallow his tongue like that. He should be put in the recovery position."

Whitmarsh glanced down and shrugged.

Ess looked at Shades again. The blood appeared to have stopped flowing, at least. That was a good thing, right? And his face wasn't blue. Even so, she needed to do something. Whitmarsh wasn't a big man, but he obviously had no compunction about using violence. Appealing to his better nature wasn't going to work; she doubted he had one. "You think we're alone? There's others who know where we are, what we were doing."

"I doubt that."

"But there are. Standard operating practice. How do you think we followed you unnoticed? Multiple cars, backup teams."

Whitmarsh snorted. "You think I haven't had you investigated? By proper investigators, that is. What the hell does a new-age therapist know about anything?" He glanced down at Shades again. "Okay, soldier boy might, from what little in his record isn't redacted, but it doesn't matter. So what if someone else comes? I have dust to spare." He glared at Daisy. "A lot more, seeing as it's obviously been holding out on me." He pointed the rolling pin at her. "I'll deal with you later. As for you --" He turned back to Ess and frowned. "You were pretty susceptible the other evening at Michael's, but not this evening. Why's that?"

Ess looked at Daisy, the fear and hatred on the model's face unable to mask the perfect bone structure, the smooth skin, and those eyes... What had Whitmarsh said? She didn't even look human? Wasn't he even a little enchanted?

"You think you're the only one that's immune to dust?" she said. Ah, that struck home. Whitmarsh raised his eyebrows for a moment. So he was immune? How did that work? She tried to remember what Oz had said about fairies. Something about susceptibility. The more something, the more enchanted. Artistic? Something like that. So did Whitmarsh lack any artistic talent? No creativity, so Daisy was unable to enchant him? That would explain why he was Davenport's monkey, and not the organ grinder. Could she use that? She licked her suddenly dry lips and tried to lie with the conviction Oz found so easy.

"Okay, it took a little while to work out the cure, but we did. Did your research tell you I'm bloody good at remedies and potions? And now we're spreading it around, me and my team. Your little game is over."

Whitmarsh pursed his lips and stared at her, then looked down at Shades. "No, I don't think so, otherwise soldier boy here would have been immune too. No, I reckon you've just got a degree of immunity. How much, I wonder." He moved to the doorway. "Lots of dust in the air, I imagine. Stand up."

Ess rose cautiously, eyes fixed on Whitmarsh. He grinned. It wasn't a pleasant expression.

"Kick him." He jerked his head towards Shades.

"What?"

"Kick him. Hard. In the face."

"Fuck you!" Ess remained where she was, the fear in the pit of her stomach suddenly turning to anger.

"No? Not even the slightest urge?" Whitmarsh shook his head. "Shame. Because if you'd done it, I might have been convinced you could be persuaded to forget all of this. As it is --" he shrugged. "We can't have you running around trying to tell the electorate that Michael is in league with fairies and goblins."

"So you're going to kill us? You think that's going to help his political career?"

"Kill you? Oh dear me no." He looked down at Shades for a moment and see-sawed his free hand. "Mind you, now you come to mention it. But no, that's not my style. Besides, I would hardly want the attention. Not yet. Not until we've established our seat of power. No, I'm going to do a lot worse than that."

He'd chained Daisy up for weeks in this claustrophobic bedroom. How long could the three of them survive chained up in this room before someone went stark raving mad? Or did he mean something even worse?

"Do you know how many media people I have in my phone?" Whitmarsh reached into his inside pocket and took out his phone. He wiggled it in her face. "Not just journalists and editors, but spin doctors, marketing people, campaign managers, the works, not to mention people in Whitehall. Do you know how little it takes to turn Fleet Street into a mob? Who are they going to believe in a couple of days? Some new-age spinster who believes in fairies and magic, or the combined forces of reason, science and the government? By tomorrow morning half a dozen people will be briefing against you. I wonder what sort of sexual deviations could be hinted at? By tomorrow afternoon you'll be trending on Twitter, along with UFO conspiracy nuts and sad perverts caught having sex with sheep. It might even help us. At least it'll raise Michael's profile." He sniggered. "A witch-hunt. How appropriate. I'll just have to keep you quite for a day or so. And even if you find one person to believe you, so what? Daisy won't be here anymore." He glared at Daisy. "And it'll be producing much more dust for us, now I know it can produce more. No, in twenty-four hours you'll be a laughing stock, and then you can shout from the rooftops, dear. No one will be listening."

"No one? Are you sure?"

He shrugged. "No one who matters. Now, I wonder if you'll be so good as to lie face down on the bed for me."

Ess glared at him, clenched her fists and made no move towards the bed.

"Or I could just break your knuckles. That would work." He hefted the rolling pin, testing the weight. "Or your boyfriend's."

She looked down at Shades, still and slumped on the floor. Be faking it, she thought. Leap to the rescue. Just this one time, do your macho thing. Either Shades couldn't hear her desperate thoughts or he was a very good actor. She sighed and moved towards the bed.