Resolved not to brood over it, Ivy threw herself into unpacking, organizing and putting away her family’s belongings with such determination that Marigold and Cicely soon retreated and left her to it. She worked hard all day and slept that night without dreaming, and when Molly rang the following night with a triumphant report of her first day at school, she listened with as much interest as a friend should.
“So everything’s all right, then?” Ivy asked, when Molly had run out of stories to tell her. “You haven’t had any more feelings of being watched?”
“Not a one,” Molly said. “They went away as soon as I left Cornwall—maybe even sooner. I’ll let you know if they come back, but I really don’t think they will.”
Ivy was relieved to know the other girl was doing well, and when their conversation ended she felt better than she had in a long time. Surely she’d done the right thing by staying here, and there was no need to wonder what might have been.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to stop wearing the copper bracelet. It had turned cool, but not uncomfortably so, and Ivy had grown so accustomed to having it around her wrist that she felt naked without it. But late that night as she lay listening to her sister’s gentle snore, the metal suddenly flared hot enough to make her gasp, then icy cold. And when Ivy snatched off the bracelet to examine her wrist, there was a red mark all around it.
“What do you think it means?” she asked, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed as Marigold examined the burn. She didn’t expect her to heal it: only male faeries could do that particular kind of spell. But Marigold knew more about magic in general than she did.
“I’m not sure,” said Marigold. She picked up the bracelet and turned it over in her fingers. “But if you hadn’t told me Martin had put a spell on this, I’d never have guessed it was magical at all. Where did it come from?”
Ivy hesitated. She hadn’t told Marigold that she and Martin had found the treasure together, much less that he’d given her a half share. “I think it belonged to his family,” she said, as truthfully as she could.
Marigold went still. Then she set the bracelet down on the nightstand, out of Ivy’s reach. “I didn’t realize you’d become so close.”
Ivy sighed. “Mum, it’s not… whatever you think it is. But Martin’s done a lot to help me. All of us. If he’s in trouble—”
“I doubt that,” Marigold said. “I think it more likely that he broke the spell himself, so that no one could use your bracelet to find him.”
Or because he no longer trusted Ivy to watch his back. “Maybe, but what if we’re wrong, and he needs our help?”
“Martin can look after himself. He always has. But there are things I need to ask you, Ivy.” She smoothed the blankets over her knees, an oddly self-conscious gesture. “You never told me how Martin escaped the Claybane. Was it your blood that freed him?”
“Yes,” said Ivy, “though I—” She was about to say I don’t know why it worked, but Marigold cut her off.
“And that week you spent away, before you came to offer us Molly’s house. Were you with Martin then?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t like—”
“Oh, Ivy.” She sighed. “I know what it’s like. You believe he cares for you, that he would never willingly hurt you. But you wouldn’t be the first to believe that. Or the first to be wrong.”
“What are you saying?”
Marigold put a hand over her eyes, as though the light of Ivy’s skin-glow was too much for her. “He’s an actor, Ivy,” she said. “He can be anything he wishes, or thinks you want him to be. And I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but… he can lie.”
“I know that,” Ivy said. “He told me himself.”
Her mother looked startled, but she was quick to recover. “Yes, but don’t you see? If Martin can lie to others, he can lie to you. You can never trust him, because you can’t know who he really is.”
Which was the same thing she’d said about spriggans. “But you trusted him once,” Ivy said impatiently. “You must have, or you wouldn’t have sent him to the Delve to find me.”
“Only because I was desperate,” Marigold said. “And I knew he would do as I asked, because he owed me a great debt. I risked my own safety to hide him from his enemies, even though he’d once betrayed me—”
“Betrayed you?” Ivy’s resentment dissolved into shock. “Why?”
“To save his own skin, of course.” Her lips thinned bitterly. “We were both fleeing from the Empress at the time—me to Cornwall, he to Wales. When our paths crossed on the way out of London, he made me believe I could trust him, and that we would be safer traveling together. But once the Empress’s hunters caught up to us, he led them onto my trail so he could escape.”
Martin had confessed to being a liar, a spy and even a murderer, but he’d never told Ivy that. Probably because he knew how angry she would be if she found out. All the years Ivy had thought her mother dead, Marigold had been fighting to escape the Empress’s power and get back to her family. And when she finally got her chance, Martin had stolen it from her.
“And I wasn’t the only one he betrayed,” Marigold said sadly. “There was a faery girl named Rhosmari, not much older than you, who Martin promised to guide to safety—but instead he handed her over to the Empress. And one of the first things he did as the Empress’s servant was to kill a helpless old man, a human, who didn’t even know he had offended her.”
Ivy swallowed the sickness that had risen in her throat. Even though she had no doubt her mother was telling the truth, part of her wanted to protest that Martin had only acted in ignorance, or because he had no other choice. She knew him too well to believe him entirely selfish, or that he felt no remorse for the wicked things he’d done.
But what if she’d only ever seen what Martin wanted her to see? What if all his actions toward her, even the most seemingly noble and self-sacrificial, had been part of some cunning deception?
Marigold brushed a stray curl back from Ivy’s face. “I don’t blame you for taking pity on him,” she said. “You have a caring heart, and he knows all too well how to turn that to his advantage. He can make himself seem honest, sincere—even vulnerable, if need be. But he has no loyalty to anyone but himself, and his own freedom, his own desires, will always be more important to him than yours.” She cupped Ivy’s chin in her hand. “I know it’s hard for you to believe right now, but you’re better off without him. Let him go.”
Ivy closed her eyes, wrestling with her conscience. She’d misjudged Martin once, to her own shame, and she didn’t want to make that mistake again. Yet even if she could be sure he hadn’t meant to sever the link between them, what could she do? Without the finding-spell on the bracelet, she had no way to track him. And he’d warned her, however teasingly, that if the bracelet went cold he was probably dead.
“You’re right,” she said at last, though the words made her feel heavy inside. “I have work to do here, and people who need me. Martin can take care of himself.”
The striving of birds to kill,
or to save themselves from death, is beautiful to see.
The greater the beauty, the more terrible the death.
— J. A. Baker, The Peregrine
The last leaves of autumn had fallen, stripping the wood below the Delve into a skeletal tangle of wet grey trunks and crooked branches that offered no shelter from the November wind. Even the greenery that had once grown thick around the adit had died into sodden heaps, and there were no birds or animals in sight.
Ivy crouched by the small fire she’d built inside the adit, feeding twigs into its crackling mouth. She was glad of the wool coat her mother had bought for her on their last trip to Truro, but in the chill damp of the tunnel, it was hardly warm enough. It was a good thing Martin had taught her how to make a campfire, or today’s meeting with Matt and Jenny would be miserable indeed.
She sat back, absently turning the copper bracelet around her wrist. The burn it had given her was long heal
ed, but the memories it brought were still bittersweet, and she wondered if she’d ever know what had become of Martin. Had Thom Pendennis kept his word, and led him to his fellow spriggans? Was he with his own people now, safe from Rob and the other faeries who’d been pursuing him? Perhaps happiness was more than he deserved: certainly Marigold seemed to think so. But Ivy couldn’t help hoping he’d found a little peace at least.
She’d built the fire up into a discreet but cheering blaze, and was holding out her hands to its warmth, when Mattock’s crunching steps sounded at the mouth of the adit. She rose, expecting to see Jenny behind him. But he was alone.
“Jenny’s going to be late today,” he said, before Ivy could ask. He kicked a stone closer to the fire and sat down on it, blowing into his cold-numbed hands. “She had an errand to run for Nettle, so she told me to go ahead.”
That was nothing unusual these days. Like many of the older piskeys, Nettle lived deep in the Delve where the poison was thickest, and she’d grown too feeble to keep up with all her duties as the Joan’s attendant. Over the past few weeks she’d been relying on Jenny’s assistance more and more, which sometimes made it difficult for the piskey-girl to get away.
“Did she say whether she’d had the chance to copy out Yarrow’s records?” Ivy asked.
“I doubt it,” said Mattock, taking off his flat miner’s cap and pushing a weary hand through his hair. “Between looking after her Mum and the other aunties, she’s not had much time to spend with the healer during the day. And after that business with Copper and his ‘little bit o’ medicine’, Yarrow’s taken to locking up the infirmary whenever she isn’t there.”
Ivy couldn’t blame her. The stubborn old knocker had decided that if his cough hadn’t gone away it was only because Yarrow was being stingy with her doses, so he’d marched into the healer’s cave and helped himself to a whole bottle of her strongest remedy. His wife had found him unconscious on the floor of their cavern, and he’d nearly died.
“What about you?” she asked Matt. “Did you get anywhere with Hew and Teasel?”
Matt grimaced. “I thought it was a sure thing, when I overheard Hew grumbling to her about Betony. But when I got them alone and mentioned that I’d been having a few doubts about the Joan myself, they looked horrified and said I shouldn’t talk that way. They’ve been avoiding me ever since.”
Ivy’s heart sank. The older couple, who’d lost their only son when Betony refused to let a search party travel more than a half-day’s journey from the Delve, had been their best hope of starting a resistance against her. But like all the other opportunities they’d pursued, it had evaporated like a will-o’-the-wisp as soon as they tried to seize it. What would it take to make their fellow piskeys realize the danger they were in? Even with so many sick and weak among them, they still clung to their belief that their Joan knew what she was doing, and that they had nothing to fear.
“And Betony?” Ivy asked, without much hope. “I suppose she’s still as healthy as ever.”
“Of course.” Mattock picked up a stick from the woodpile and began whittling it with his hunter’s knife. “She’s outside as often as not, these days—Gossan too, now that she’s got him training the young hunters.”
“Well, could we use that? Ask people if it doesn’t seem unfair that the Joan and her consort can go above whenever they please—or at least point out how much healthier they are for doing it?”
“I tried that,” said Matt, tossing a curl of wood shaving onto the fire. “But you know what everyone thinks? The Joan and Jack have more magic than the rest of us, so of course they don’t get sick. And the reason the Joan’s been spending so much time on the surface is because she’s looking for the spriggan that put a curse on us.”
Ivy let out a groan. Of course. Martin had escaped from the Delve, much to the Joan’s displeasure; now that Gillian was dead, he was the obvious scapegoat for the piskeys’ troubles. Maybe it was a good thing he’d disappeared before Betony could find him…
“Ivy?”
She looked up.
“I know you had a lot on your mind when you came back to the Delve last time,” Matt said, his blue eyes intent. “And what with Gillian and… everything else, maybe you’ve forgotten. But do you remember—”
“I’m here!” Jenny popped up at the mouth of the tunnel, breathless and windblown. She hurried to the fire, hugging her rabbit-wool shawl about her, and Mattock stepped back to give her room. “Ugh, it’s cold,” she said. “But wait until you hear what just happened.”
“What?” asked Ivy.
“Nettle’s too sick to attend the Joan anymore. So Betony’s letting her go.”
The news shouldn’t have surprised Ivy as much as it did. The old woman had been unwell for some time, after all. But Nettle had always had such a firm, no-nonsense air about her, with her bright black eyes and wits as sharp as her tongue, that she’d seemed practically immortal to Ivy.
“Do you think she’s dying?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “But Nettle seems to think so. Because when I was tidying up for her after lunch, she called me over and told me she’d had her eye on me for a long time now, especially since I started helping Yarrow. And then she said she’d like to mention me to the Joan.”
“Mention you?” Mattock dropped the stick he’d been holding. “Jenny—you mean she wants you to take her place?”
Jenny gave a wavering smile. “I think so.”
“But can she do that?” asked Ivy. “Isn’t it the Joan’s right to choose her own attendant?”
“She can refuse Jenny if she wants,” Matt said, “but Nettle’s served too long and too well for Betony to ignore her dying wishes. It would be an insult, and people would wonder. Especially since any fool can see Jenny’s a better choice than any of the other girls our age.”
He had a point. There were only two other unmarried piskey-girls in the Delve old enough to take on such a responsibility, and neither of them had anything like Jenny’s reputation for hard work, unselfishness, and good common sense. There was only one problem, as far as Ivy could see.
“But if you’re attending the Joan,” she said, “you’ll have to stay by her all the time. You won’t be able to meet with us anymore.”
Jenny’s smile faded. “I know. That’s the part that scares me. I’ll have to be so careful. I don’t think I’ll be able to come outside at all.”
Mattock and Ivy looked at each other. Losing Jenny would be a blow, but it could also be a tremendous opportunity. And if Jenny refused Nettle’s offer, it would look even more suspicious—after all, why wouldn’t she want one of the most prestigious positions in the Delve?
“It’s not so bad,” Matt said at last. “If you have a message for Ivy, you can always send it through me. Besides, winter’s coming, and soon you won’t want to be outside anyway.”
Jenny nodded, but the worry on her face remained. Ivy slipped her arm around the other girl’s waist. “There’s nobody I trust to do this more than you,” she said. “Betony likes you, I think. More than she’s ever liked me.”
“Oh, Ivy.” Jenny pressed her fingers against her eyes. “That’s only because I’ve never stood up to her, like you have. She might like me, but she doesn’t respect me. Let alone fear me like she fears you.”
Ivy gave a startled laugh. “Fear me? I’m only one piskey-girl, half her size and with less than half her power. Why would Betony be afraid of me?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “But I know she does, at least a little. If she didn’t think you were a threat to her, she wouldn’t have exiled you from the Delve.”
“So? She exiled my mother, too.” And Marigold had been so timid back then, so uncertain and easily cowed, that she couldn’t convince her own husband to take her seriously until it was too late. “I think Betony just doesn’t like people telling her things she doesn’t want to hear.” Ivy stepped away, glancing at the low-burning fire. “I should go. It’s getting late, and Cicely’s g
oing to wonder where I am. When do you want to meet again?”
“This time tomorrow,” said Jenny. “Nettle’s going to talk to the Joan tonight, so I’ll know by then if she’s approved me or not.” She looked at Mattock. “Will that be all right for you? I know Mica’s expecting you to go to Redruth with him, but—”
“I’ll deal with Mica,” said Mattock firmly. “Tomorrow it is.”
As usual, Ivy waited until Jenny and Mattock had left the adit before willing herself back to the house—or rather, the barn, since that was where Cicely would expect her to be. For weeks her little sister had been begging to help look after Dodger, promising to clean out his stall every morning and make sure he was well groomed and fed. But Ivy preferred to go to the barn alone, glad for the excuse it gave her to slip away without her family wondering where she’d got to.
So when she landed in front of Dodger’s box, Ivy headed for the barn door without a second thought. But then Cicely spoke up behind her:
“Where did you go?”
Ivy spun around. Her sister stood there with flushed cheeks and accusing eyes, the phone clutched in one hand.
“Molly rang a few minutes ago,” she said. “And I came out to bring you the phone, only I couldn’t find you and you didn’t answer when I shouted, so I told her to call again later. But then you just popped out of nowhere, and where have you been?”
“Not far,” replied Ivy, her mind scrambling for an answer that wouldn’t rouse Cicely’s suspicions. The last time her little sister had guessed Ivy was sneaking off without her and decided to investigate, the results had been disastrous. She paused and went on in a kinder, almost pitying tone, “I’m sorry you were frightened. I only meant to be away a little while, and I thought you were old enough not to worry.”
Color flooded back into Cicely’s face. “I wasn’t scared!” she said hotly. “And I am old enough. But you could have told me you’d learned that—that leaping thing.” She folded her arms. “It’s not fair. Mum said I couldn’t try it until I was older. But she lets you do anything you want.”
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