Lysander felt his fists clench involuntarily.
“And now, Lysander,” Magnus concluded silkily, “you're going to put this right.”
***
Magnus was sitting behind a slim metal desk in a small, dark room lit dimly by a few candles. His head was aching.
Since Lysander's return, the Court had been in chaos. His wild claims about the fae had caused a great deal of division and uncertainty. The Court's members were made up of those whose families had long believed the conspiracy theories about the fae – and who had the assets to help research those theories, of course – but they had nonetheless for the most part been reluctant to believe that the fae could actually have returned. Most were inclined to believe that he had been unable to find Madeleine's daughter at all, and that he was now lying to protect his reputation. But others thought that if that was all there was to it, Lysander could have come up with a better lie. It was too easy to disprove what he was claiming for it to provide any lasting defence for the failure of his mission.
Magnus was inclined to agree with them. Lysander was extremely good; if he had intended to lie to the Court, he could have come up with something better. Not to mention that his position within the city meant everything to Lysander; he was unlikely to do anything which would put that at risk.
But if the fae really were waking up...
There was a knock at the door, and Magnus barked his authorisation to enter. A girl with very pale, freckled skin, and thick red hair pulled back into a plait walked slowly into the room and bobbed her head in greeting. Not terribly politely, Magnus noted. He looked appraisingly at her. The girl was useless for many things with such distinctive looks, and some other members of the Court had questioned it when he had taken her on. But her stealth was unparalleled – except by Lysander of course, who outstripped everyone in everything – and so she had soon proved her worth. Magnus hoped that she would now prove her loyalty.
“Moll,” he said pleasantly. “Please, sit down.”
The girl obediently took a seat, but remained silent. Magnus knew that he had immediately caused suspicion by being so courteous, and he kicked himself for not being more careful. Still, she was going to find out what he wanted in a moment anyway. He changed tack.
“You know as well as I do that some members of the Council have questioned your use here, don't you, Moll?” he said ruthlessly. He congratulated himself as a faint flush came to the girl's cheeks; he had clearly struck a nerve.
“I hope that I have never given you reason to doubt my uses, sir,” she replied evenly.
“Not to me, no,” he said. “But I want to give you the opportunity now to show the others what you can do.”
Moll watched him with wide, unblinking eyes. It was unnerving, Magnus thought. Everything about her was unnerving.
“We're worried about Lysander,” Magnus said, keeping a careful eye on her expression. “He's just returned from a mission of the highest importance to the entire city. He failed.”
Although Moll kept a perfectly straight face, Magnus knew this must have surprised her. Lysander had never failed at anything before.
“We sent him to bring back a stone,” Magnus continued, “something of incomparable value to the Court. He returned without it.”
Moll's face remained impassive.
“We need someone to look out for him – and you're his friend, aren't you? I understand he helped train you when you first arrived?”
The girl nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Well, we're sending him back to finish what he started. We don't expect him to return without the hagstone a second time. And we need someone to follow him. He mustn't know.”
Moll was looking doubtful, but Magnus pushed on.
“Are you up to it, Moll? This would mean the start of big things for you. I cannot emphasise enough how important the hagstone is to the city. And how important Lysander is. We need to know whose side he's on.”
Magnus watched her anxiously. He needed her to say yes. He had already arranged for some of the Court's other scouts – the better scouts, if he was honest – to travel to the east, to see if they could establish whether Lysander's report about the fae was correct. And, secondarily, to satisfy Magnus's curiosity regarding what it was about this remote eastern village that had led two of his best thieves astray – first Madeleine, and then Lysander. It wasn't usual.
But while that was going on he needed Moll to follow Lysander, to make sure that he was now doing as he was told, and to make sure that the hagstone came back to the city if Lysander failed. Moll was a good tracker, and she knew Lysander well. She was their best bet. But as he watched her looking back at him, Moll's face was expressionless. This girl had always made him a little uneasy.
Then Moll cocked her head to one side.
“Okay,” she said. “I'll do it.”
13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tabitha continued to make her way slowly westwards across Bretan, still accompanied by the sprites, who were especially eager to please her after the incident with the brook horse and consequently were making a marked effort to be kind and to make her laugh. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of fish the sprites brought back to her when they went fishing, and occasionally they even returned with rabbits. She never asked how they managed to catch the rabbits, but was pleased that they seemed to be repenting for the joke, which she still wasn't altogether sure she had found funny.
Every so often the group of companions would spot other faery creatures as they travelled through the countryside, and although Tabitha was not particularly keen to meet with any of them in case it transpired that they had the same tricky character as the brook horse, she listened eagerly to everything that the sprites told her about them, and she looked each of them up in ACompendium of Faerie to see what that said, too. She was relieved to note that the book and the sprites largely seemed to agree on what they said about the creatures they met, reassuring her that it had been a good choice of book when she had picked it up in the library and that the sprites were being truthful with her. As they continued on their way, they encountered brownies, kappas, a faery dog called a cu sith, and some different types of sprites that lived in the woods and trees.
After reading about them in the Compendium, Tabitha also asked the sprites wistfully whether they thought they might see any faery processions, which looked beautiful in the illustrations in the book. But this had put the sprites in a funny mood, and they had tetchily explained that only fae royalty took part in anything like that. So Tabitha hadn't asked again, but greedily absorbed everything else that she could learn.
They were still heading roughly west, and still following the river just as Ondine had told Tabitha to do. The land had looked much the same for a while now – mostly flat, golden whenever they saw any sunshine, and increasingly striped with long shadows as they approached the darker days. They fell into a sort of easy pattern of walking and eating and reading, each day more or less resembling the last, but at least the routine did begin to reassure Tabitha that she was coping on her own. Maybe she would be able to succeed in finding the Iron City after all.
They were walking along companionably when Tabitha suddenly noticed something on the horizon. She stopped in her tracks, rubbed her eyes and squinted – was she just seeing things? Peering harder at the smudge she had spotted on the skyline, Tabitha gave a cry of delight as it suddenly flared up stronger. Without a doubt, it was definitely smoke, and enough of it to suggest that it might be coming from a village.
“Look!” she cried, pointing it out to the sprites. She could have wept with relief. Finally, another human dwelling; some other people to talk to, who might even be able to help her find the place she was looking for.
But the sprites exchanged nervous glances with one another.
“What does it matter, Tab?” Corida said in a voice that was just a little bit too high pitched. “Aren't we doing okay on our own?”
“Well,
of course we're doing okay,” Tabitha said, surprised, “but don't you see, Corida? This means I can ask whether they know where my mother's home is!”
“And why would they know where it is?” Bellat objected. “No, it's better to stick with us, sister.”
“I have to start somewhere. How else will I find the right place?”
“Stay with us,” Ani cried into her shoulder, pulling at her hair again. “Stay with us, Tab.”
“I'm not leaving you!” Tabitha stumbled out, baffled. “I just have to speak to the people in this village. Then we'll be on our way again. Look, why don't you come with me?”
But Ani just fluttered down from her shoulder, and the three sprites retreated into a small huddle.
“What is it?”
“We won't come into a human village, Tab,” Ani said, sniffing loudly.
“And you shouldn't go there either,” Corida said in an icy voice.
“I have to,” Tabitha said again, frustrated now.
But no matter how she pleaded with them, the sprites would not consent to coming into the village with her. They trooped sullenly along behind Tabitha when she resolutely kept walking towards the smoke, occasionally letting out a wail or a groan or a heavy sigh that told Tabitha that they were still annoyed with her. She felt guilty, as though she was letting down the only friends she had found since leaving her home; but still, she had no choice. She had to ask the villagers if they knew where the Iron City was.
As they grew closer to the source of the smoke, they passed by a wide, glassy lake, and Tabitha was struck by an idea.
“Listen,” she said, crouching down beside the sprites, “why don't the three of you wait for me here by the lake?”
The sprites clung to each other and looked dubiously at her.
“I'll go into the village and make the inquiries that I needed to,” she said, “and you can stay here and have a swim in the lake. You'll enjoy that, won't you?”
The three nodded reluctantly, casting swift glances over to the blue water, which did look tempting. It was a sunny day, and the lake glittered in the soft light. Bellat shuffled closer to the water's edge.
“So the three of you can wait here,” Tab finished, “and as soon as I've found out what I can, I'll come back to meet you. Does that sound okay?”
Although they were still clearly unhappy about this, wringing out their long fingers and exchanging knowing looks with their big, black eyes, eventually Corida stepped forward.
“We will wait here,” he said.
Tabitha gave them a thin smile.
“I'll be back soon,” she promised.
Leaving the sprites and the lake behind her, Tabitha suddenly felt her excitement at finding the village replaced by nerves. She wondered whether it was too late to allow herself to be convinced to just spend the afternoon swimming in the lake with the sprites. It had looked ever so inviting. But knowing that she didn't have any other choice, Tabitha tramped resolutely across the fields towards the village. She had never been to any village other than her own before, and having followed the river for days now without any sign of another soul, Tabitha suspected that that was because there wasn't anywhere close enough.
Even just walking across the fields, Tabitha could see that this place was very different to the village she came from. Much of the land around the cluster of wooden houses she could see in the distance had been taken up for farming, and there was plenty of livestock in the fields. The animals were kept apart by low wooden fences, and Tabitha wandered along the edge of a field of sheep until she found a narrow space between two of the fences that looked as if it led up to the centre of the village. How many people must live in one place to keep the fields in order like this? Tabitha thought of the few cows kept by Brigit and her family, and knew that they were nothing in comparison to the number of cows and sheep and pigs here.
Her face clouded as she thought of Brigit. She wondered whether she had told everyone that Tabitha was to blame for the attack on the village by now. She couldn't believe that Brigit would keep what she had seen Tabitha do at the dance to herself. But would anyone believe her if she did tell them?
Yes, Tabitha thought gloomily. They probably would. Her grandmother would even if no one else did. And it probably did look suspect that she had left just as soon as the strange creatures had appeared. Although she supposed that it would also incriminate Brigit if she tried to tell on Tabitha. She couldn't imagine what Brigit's mother would say if she knew that her daughter had been dancing around a bonfire in the dead of night.
Tabitha slowed as she grew closer to the village. If that was even the right word for it – it was so much bigger than the place she had grown up in. A large, wooden fence had been put up all the way around the edge of the houses, keeping them separate from the surrounding countryside. How did that work, Tabitha wondered? She was sure that a wooden fence would do nothing to prevent land and village from bleeding into one another at home.
She paused again when she reached the entrance gate into the village. Again, the strangeness of it struck her. The houses were all arranged alongside one another so that passages ran in between them. The paths were more or less completely clear of any plants, and aside from a few chickens scratching around in the dust, no animals wandered in and out of the houses. Tabitha felt her palms begin to sweat. What would she even say to the people who lived here? She wished she'd had more time to talk these things through with her grandmother.
But Tabitha made herself step forwards into the village, casting a final nervous look back over her shoulder at the fields outside. She looked around her. The paths between the houses led off in several directions, but the one going straight ahead led up to a well in a clearing where she could see dark figures milling around. She squared her shoulders, and began walking as confidently as she could up the path. This was it.
“Hello!” she called, lifting a hand.
The figures jumped, and turned to stare at her.
Drawing closer, Tabitha smiled as broadly as she could as could. It was a woman and a man at the well. The woman was older, perhaps the age her father might have been now, and the man a few years older than Tabitha. Both looked surprised to see her approaching.
“Hello,” she said again, giving them a stiff nod of the head in greeting and hoping that they understood her.
“Oh – hello,” the woman said, and returned the gesture before slapping the chest of the man beside her, who then followed suit. She cast a wary eye up and down Tabitha. “Forgive me for saying it, but you don't look like one of them travelling types.”
Tabitha had to think for a minute before she realised that the woman must be referring to the wandering folk her grandmother had mentioned.
“Oh! No, I'm not,” she said, flustered. But then she realised – if this woman knew who the wandering folk were, then they must come to this village, and so perhaps they might be able to help her find the place she was looking for after all. Tabitha tried not to look too excited.
“I'm looking for the village where my mother came from,” she offered by way of explanation. “I've been travelling for some weeks now, and spotted smoke in the distance.”
“Well it isn't often we get any visitors at all!” the woman said, giving her a thin smile. “But we always try to treat them right when we do. Will you stay a night with us, lass? We'd be right grateful to hear your stories. It's right exciting when them travelling folk come through – and even if you're not much like them, you must have some stories about where you're from?”
Tabitha was surprised by this generosity. But if they were interested in hearing stories, then she wondered whether they might be willing to help her find the Iron City in exchange for tales of her village at home.
“That's so kind of you,” she said. “I would love to.”
“Right then, er...”
“Tabitha,” she filled in.
“Oh! Unusual name, that. I'm Mica,” the woman said, “and this is my son Frey. Now then, Tabitha,
we can give you a place to sleep and to, er – to clean yourself up a bit.”
She looked pointedly at Tabitha's ragged appearance.
Tabitha looked at herself properly for the first time since she'd left home. Her clothes had never quite recovered after being doused in the river by the brook horse, and she was filthy from having not had any clean water to wash in.
“That would be wonderful,” she said truthfully.
“We'll let everyone else know you're here. They'll be right excited to meet you, they will. Frey, you go and find Michel now, and let him know we've a guest tonight.”
Her son nodded once more to Tabitha, and then strode off down another of the paths between the houses. Mica took Tabitha's arm, and ushered her in the other direction. As they walked, Tabitha did her best to take everything in, still a little overwhelmed by everything around her. There was more brick here than there was at home, and the wooden constructions around these were more substantial, if without the little carved patterns that decorated everything in her own village. These buildings were more practical; they looked more serious, somehow. Tabitha glanced about for any indication that the faeries had arrived here, but to her relief, she could see none.
When they reached Mica's house Tabitha was surprised at how different it was inside, too. It was very clean, devoid of any of the plant life there would have been at home, and in spite of the houses all being so close together outside, it felt as if there was more space.
“You'll have to sleep in our living room,” Mica said to her. “You can leave your things there for now. But come and wash through here, and I'll try and do something about these clothes...” She looked doubtfully at the state of Tabitha's clothes. “Do you have any others with you?
“Some,” Tabitha said, “but to be honest with you, they aren't in a much better state than the ones I'm wearing. I dropped my bag in the river.”
The River Witch Page 10