by Holly Race
‘Did you get her?’ I ask him.
‘Who?’
‘Helena – Ellen.’
‘Oh yes,’ Samson says darkly. ‘Lord Allenby wants you and Ollie to be with him when he talks to her.’
We follow Samson down to the lower levels. The barred door to the dungeons is unlocked. Inside, a damp, bleak space is lit only by candles. Lord Allenby sits in silence on a wooden bench at the entrance. When he gets up to greet us he looks more tired than ever.
‘I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to join me for this, Fern, Ollie.’ We pass a series of thick, anonymous doors that line each side of the corridor. I catch glimpses of other treitres inside each one, most of them in their human forms. One or two stare at me curiously, or with anger. Others look utterly defeated. Allenby unlocks the furthest one.
Helena Corday is chained to the wall by her hands and feet. Her hair is just as dark, her face just as delicate as it is in real life. Yet something is different. Then I see what it is. There is no fear or concern in her expression.
‘Hello, Ellen,’ Lord Allenby says.
‘Lionel.’ She smiles thinly.
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘You were meant to.’
‘What did you do with Clement’s body, Ellen?’
‘I threw it into the Thames.’
Lord Allenby stares at her in disgust. ‘He was your friend.’
Ellen stares at me, but says nothing. It’s me who breaks the silence. ‘I think I understand why,’ I say.
She raises an eyebrow, permitting me to speak. ‘You didn’t belong in the knights. You were scared all the time. And Mum promised you that she’d find a way to help you, so you’d fit in.’
Ellen nods. I’m now entering shaky territory, feeling my way as I go.
‘She was researching morrigans. She wanted to see whether they could be used to remove whole emotions.’ I look at Lord Allenby and Ollie. ‘Samson thought about removing self-hatred, to combat a poisoner.’ I turn back to Ellen. ‘But what if Mum wanted to remove something else? What if she wanted to take away all of your fear?’
‘Go on,’ Ellen says.
‘I don’t know exactly what happened next, except it went really wrong. Mum was upset about it but she didn’t say exactly what happened in her diaries.’
Ollie chimes in, ‘Too much fear turns us to stone, but not enough and we are no longer human.’
I nod. ‘It’s all going wrong, she wrote. You weren’t the same person afterwards, were you?’
Ellen smiles at Lord Allenby. ‘Shall I show them?’
‘No,’ Lord Allenby says, stepping forward.
‘I can’t hurt them now. The boy has the power, doesn’t he?’
Ollie tentatively takes Ellen’s hand. I grasp his wrist and am immediately thrown into an anonymous London street.
The first shock is seeing my mother alive, younger than she’d been in the memory of her murder. The portrait from the archives didn’t do her justice. She is beautiful, yes, but there’s an intriguing hardness to her as well. She’s spiky, I realise, like her handwriting. With a rush of affection I suddenly, strangely understand exactly why she fell in love with my soft, devoted Dad.
She’s watching me – Ellen – eagerly. Next to her are two men. One I recognise as a younger, clean-shaven Lord Allenby. It’s so strange seeing them together. In my head Mum has been frozen at twenty-seven years old. Eternally young. But Lord Allenby looks so much younger than he does now. I don’t recognise their companion – a stocky, brown-haired man – but I guess that this is Clement Rigby.
A morrigan is feeding on Ellen – on me – piercing the skin just beneath the collarbone. I can’t feel that needle-like beak, but a sense of bliss washes over me. Then the morrigan finishes, sated, withdraws from my skin and takes flight. Ellen turns to my mother.
‘How do you feel?’ Mum says.
‘Incredible,’ Ellen replies. She looks down, almost without thinking, at the fang tucked into her belt. She removes it.
‘Shall we go hunting?’
My mother smiles, and Allenby and Clement cheer and clap her on the back. Ellen doesn’t want their congratulations, though. She wants to ride this feeling of control. She begins to run, outstripping the others, even Mum. It doesn’t take them long to find some targets – werewolves attacking a young dreamer. The others ready their weapons but Ellen stops them. ‘Let me try.’
Ellen throws herself into the fray. I know she’s being reckless, but seeing all this from inside her body gives me an inkling of how she feels. She doesn’t care. She is totally fearless. She’s enjoying her work.
Her fang slashes left and right as she whirls between the werewolves, not caring about the flesh they rip from her moving form when they catch her. At first I think, Good for her. It reminds me of the adrenalin rush I got after saving that little girl from the wolf-children. But then Ellen’s movements take on a more worrying edge. It’s like being in the passenger seat of a car going too fast. She starts to prolong the deaths, getting so caught up in her newfound bravery that she’s forgetting what’s important. The dreamer, the young man, is still fighting one last werewolf.
Ellen stabs the werewolf in the back and hauls it off the boy. Clement cheers, but Mum sees what’s about to happen.
‘No, Ellen!’ she shouts. ‘Not him!’
But it’s too late. Ellen raises that long fang and stabs down, again and again, into the boy’s stomach, his chest, his neck, until he’s nothing but a pincushion of blood. Mum is screaming, grabbing Ellen round the waist, trying to pull her back, shouting, ‘Not him!’ over and over. Lord Allenby is trying to wrestle the weapon from her grasp. Clement just sinks to the ground in shock.
Gradually, Ellen comes back to herself, panting fiercely, eyes wide, already looking for her next target. ‘Did I get them all?’ she keeps saying. ‘I got them all, I did it, I did it, I did it, did you see me do it?’ As her breathing slows, she looks down and sees the dreamer lying in his own blood. She looks at the fang in Lionel’s hand, comprehension dawning. The only sounds are of the man’s ragged final breaths, and of Mum sobbing as she grasps her friend round the waist, half hugging, half imprisoning her.
I pull out of the memory at the same time as Ollie. We look in horror at Lord Allenby. He avoids our stares, but says, ‘No one ever found out what we did. They just learned that a dreamer had died on our watch. We were all called into Lady Caradoc’s office to answer for what happened. Una took the blame for it. She said she’d distracted everyone. She accepted the punishment for all of us.’
‘She made you pay for it, though, didn’t she?’ I say. ‘She demanded a debt.’
‘You were wrong about one thing, Lionel,’ Ellen says. ‘Sebastien found out what happened that night.’
‘He read your memories?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Una warned me about that, but I didn’t care. That’s the problem with not feeling fear any more.’ She looks at Lord Allenby. ‘I think you all knew what you’d done to me. You started distancing yourselves from me after that night, apart from Una.’
‘I didn’t mean to –’ Lord Allenby starts, but Ellen interrupts him. Her features are twisted into a smile, but I can’t see any emotion behind it.
‘I didn’t think I belonged before and after that night I definitely didn’t. I couldn’t feel fear any more. I couldn’t doubt myself. I was halfway a treitre before Sebastien ever learned what I’d done and offered to help me complete the transformation.’
‘But why, Ellen?’ Lord Allenby says. ‘What happened with that dreamer was … You were never a murderer.’
‘He offered me a second chance. He said that if I joined his cause he would give my life back to me.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
When Ellen speaks it is with such quiet dignity that I almost feel sorry for her. ‘You will never understand how lonely it is to have no fear. At the end, when all was done, after I’d killed for him in Annwn and spied for him in Ithr, Seb
astien was going to return it to me. He was going to allow me to live as I used to –’
‘But you know that’s not possible,’ I interrupt. ‘You know what he’s planning on doing to Annwn – you wouldn’t be able to live like you used to. You’d just be one of his zombies like everyone else.’
Ellen turns her head away, like she doesn’t want to hear it.
‘Does it matter, as long as she believes it?’ Lord Allenby parrots Medraut’s line. And I see that he’s right. Ellen had to believe that Medraut would make this happen for her. By the time she realised he was lying, she had done too much to turn back.
‘That doesn’t explain why you killed Mum,’ Ollie says. ‘She’d retired from the thanes. She wasn’t a threat to Medraut any more.’
‘She was,’ Ellen says, and this time there’s real pain behind her words. It’s the first time she’s shown any true emotion. ‘She was more of a threat than ever. Why couldn’t she have stayed out of it? Why did she have to go looking? She told me that she’d found something that would defeat Medraut forever. I thought she’d stop looking for it when she resigned, but she kept coming back to Annwn.’
‘Looking? For what?’ Lord Allenby says.
But Ellen doesn’t reply. Lord Allenby goes to the door. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry for what we did to you. I hope you know that we just wanted to help you. I’ll try to help you again now, but in return you’ll need to tell us what you know.’
Ollie and I follow Lord Allenby to the door. I look back before I leave.
‘When you messaged me I thought you were being cruel. But you weren’t, were you? You were asking for forgiveness.’
Ellen stares at me. ‘I don’t know any more. Nothing seems to have purpose when you can’t be afraid of the consequences.’
I make to leave.
‘Wait!’
She is standing now.
‘If I’d known …’ she falters.
‘Known what?’
‘Do you think you could have helped me? If I had waited … If I’d known you had Immral too?’
I shrug. ‘What does it matter now?’
She smiles shakily. ‘You’re right. It’s done. It’s all done now.’
I should despise her, but all I can feel is pity.
Lord Allenby is waiting for me upstairs.
‘What did she say?’ he asks.
‘Nothing that makes a difference.’
Lord Allenby signals Ollie and I to follow him to his office, but before we go far there’s a shout from below, then the sound of crunching metal and wood. A reeve staggers up the stairs. His face is covered in scratch marks and his nose is broken. ‘She’s gone!’ he gasps. ‘Ellen Cassell’s escaped. She’s gone up to the eyrie.’
Allenby, Ollie and I look at each other in horror. We know what this means. I race ahead of the others, half flying, half leaping up steps. The eyrie door has been hauled open. I hear someone protesting, and then a shout of alarm. I round the final corner to see a veneur collapsed on the steps outside the eyrie.
‘She’s crazy!’ he splutters. ‘She’s going to upset them all!’
‘That’s the point,’ I say softly, walking to the door.
Inside, Ellen is twirling around and around, flinging the hoods from the morrigans and chasing them from their perches.
‘Ellen!’ Lord Allenby shouts. ‘Please don’t do this!’
But she doesn’t answer him. The air inside the eyrie is a tornado of bat-like wings and sharp beaks. They whirl around her and she stretches out her arms, inviting them in. One by one, they land. On her shoulders, her chest, her hair. They stab their beaks into her legs, her arms, the soft flesh at her throat. They begin to feed.
I cannot look away. Her eyes are closed at first, but then they open and find mine. We stay like that for a long time. Veneurs gather behind me in the doorway, but there’s nothing anyone can do for her now.
I can no longer see Ellen clearly beneath the flock of morrigans. Then I realise that I can’t see her because she is fading away, blurring like a badly taken photograph.
Something brushes against my arm. Ollie’s hand is there, open. He is offering it to me as a comfort. I take it.
Ellen is very faint now, translucent as a ghost. Then she disappears forever.
53
October 1993
Una trailed the other knights as they filed towards the portal that would take them from Stonehenge back to Tintagel. She played with her new weapon, not really looking where she was going. A sharp little knife. It was less elegant than she’d imagined any weapon of hers being. Still, it was beautifully crafted, whoever or whatever had crafted it – she still wanted to find out exactly how that worked. Was it wholly her imagination that had made those little grooves in one side of the blade? Or was some outside force, some judging god trying to tell her what kind of person she really was?
It was the first time she’d felt uneasy since the white light had called her from her bedroom to the platform outside Tintagel. When she’d seen it, she had felt only intrigue and excitement. It was obvious that the light wasn’t trying to hurt her, so the logical alternative was that it was offering her an adventure, and Una never said no to an adventure. When the old woman, Lady Caradoc, had explained the truth and shown them some of what Annwn could do, she had felt like punching the air in triumph. Una loved a conspiracy, loved a secret society, and now she was inside one.
‘Do you need a hand?’ an eager-looking boy asked her. She took him in. She remembered seeing him recruited into the reeves. Not interesting, not interested.
‘I’m fine, thanks.’ He dallied next to her, so she had to pointedly say, ‘You go ahead.’
This was the problem with groups of people her own age. They had a tendency to want to make friends indiscriminately, just so that they could be seen to have friends. It was as though they thought they were in a game of musical chairs and none of them wanted to be the person left standing when the music stopped. Una wasn’t worried about that. She could click her fingers and conjure up as many friends as she pleased. No, she would choose the people she was interested in, and in her own time.
‘Leave me alone,’ she heard someone saying from a little further ahead. It was a timid voice but the words were strong. The girl who had spoken was crumpled on one side of the pathway, clutching something in her hands. The eager boy was hovering over her, wanting to be helpful. Idiot. Anyone could see the girl just wanted some space.
‘Making a habit of pestering young women, are you?’ Una said, more sharply than she’d intended. The boy scurried off.
Una watched the other girl from a distance. She didn’t seem to want to engage with Una either, so Una stayed where she was.
‘You’re a knight, too, aren’t you?’ the girl said. She looked up from a tear-stained face and Una suddenly recognised her. She was a mousy little thing, with unremarkable shoulder-length hair and eyes that squinted in a way that told Una she wore glasses in Ithr. There was a desperation in her expression that almost made Una walk on.
‘You were amazing, the way you just knew what to do when that man attacked you. And volunteering to go first? I couldn’t ever be that brave.’
Una shrugged. A suck-up. Great. Now, how to get out of this before the girl assumed a friendship that Una no longer wanted?
Suddenly, Una became aware of someone behind her. She knew immediately who it was, without needing to turn around. When they’d been waiting to take the Tournament almost every eye had been dragged towards him. When he’d shaken her hand upon joining the knights, her whole body seemed to vibrate. She didn’t like it. No one should be able to command that kind of control over anyone without their consent. It made him dangerous.
‘Medraut.’ She acknowledged the boy as he came to stand over the girl. His friends loitered at a distance.
‘Ellen, wasn’t it?’ he asked the girl. She nodded, as captivated by his violet eyes as everyone else.
‘Better try to buck up,’ he
said. He indicated her weapon, which Una now saw was a huge fang, something that had once belonged to a dragon or an anaconda. ‘You’ve got to try to live up to that, haven’t you?’
Although his voice and expression were kind, Una bridled at the undercurrent of mockery. She wanted to say something, but for once her spirit deserted her.
But Una didn’t need to say anything, because Ellen had sensed Medraut’s tone as well. Her eyes sparked. She opened her mouth in a thin grimace, and she hissed at him. A proper, melodramatic, snake hiss, to match the fang she was holding.
Medraut took an involuntary step back. Una laughed.
‘See you back in Tintagel then,’ he told her, walking on.
Una stepped forward and offered Ellen her hand.
‘I’ve decided something,’ Una said.
‘What?’ Ellen said, allowing Una to pull her up.
‘You’re going to be my friend,’ Una replied. ‘My best friend. Okay?’
And she led Ellen back to the portal, tucking the other girl’s arm inside her elbow, like a gentleman leading a lady to a dance.
54
The next few nights are a series of bittersweet events. Natasha taking me out for a gallop, away from London’s nightmares and out across vast meadows teeming with fairies, past ancient villages where thatched cottages sprout golden flowers, all the way to the coast where Lamb and Domino paddle in the mouth of the sea. Samson appointing Ollie and I joint second in commands of Bedevere. Dad going all out with the cooking to make some of my favourite dishes. He seems to have taken my collapse as a sign that I’m not eating well enough, and I’m not complaining.
But the best moment of all is when Ollie approaches me in the knights’ chamber one night.
‘I lied to you,’ he says. ‘That night when we found Mum’s research? I said that the shelf in the wall was empty, but it wasn’t. There was one thing on it.’
He hands me a sealed letter with my name scrawled on the front in Mum’s handwriting.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
He shifts guiltily. ‘I wanted to see if there was another one … I was going to use it to get you to come back if the messages from the others didn’t work, but then you agreed and …’