She looked at her mother, willing her to say something. Anything. She didn't.
She slammed the door on the way out.
Targyn Fae followed the girl up to her room.
That whole conversation could have gone a lot better.
Now she felt responsible.
Let the others argue it out amongst themselves. The girl needed to know the truth, and then she could make up her own mind. She owed the Queen that much, surely? Wasn't that what loyalty came down to in the end? If it wasn't a choice to follow it wasn't loyalty at all.
She knocked on the door and waited for Ashley to tell her she could enter.
The girl was on her bed. She looked so very young. It was important to remember that she was still a child, no matter what else she might be.
"I'm sorry," the Fae said, closing the door behind her. "Sometimes I forget just how different this must all be for you."
"Different? I suppose that's one way of putting it," Ashley said.
"We're not the enemy here, Princess," Targyn said.
"Why do you keep calling me that?"
"Because that's what you are."
"Hardly," Ashley grunted. It wasn't a particularly ladylike sound, never mind a regal one.
The Fae didn't press the point.
"Your painting," she said instead. "It really is remarkably good considering you left the Moonlands on the day you were born. You've captured the seven moons, including their phases, and the major landmarks are correct. Do you know why?"
"No."
"Because it is in your blood, Princess. You aren't from here. This isn't you."
"It's the only me I've ever known," Ashley said, hating the way she was starting to sound like a whiny little brat. She wasn't. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Is it a real place?" She looked towards the mural.
"The Moonlands?" She nodded. "Yes, it's a real place. It's a wonderful magical place, unlike anywhere you've ever been."
"Do you miss it?"
"Every day. But I knew my duty, princess. And given the same set of circumstances and choices, I would do it all again."
"And it has seven moons?"
Targyn nodded. "It does."
"But how does that work, I mean, there's no sun…? I didn't really worry when I was painting it, it just looked cool, but how does anything grow on a world without a sun? Don't the seven moons play havoc with the tides? How does it all work?"
"That is a peculiar question, all things considered. In your place, I think my first question would have been about my mother—"
"My mum's downstairs," Ashley said.
"You know that's not true, princess, but now isn't the time to fight. To answer your question, I could say things grow because they grow, but that's not a satisfying answer is it?" Ashley shook her head. "Each of the moons cast their own light, hence the colours you have painted, each together offering something vital to the environment, nurturing it and causing it to grow. Each has its own radiance. The Warg Moon," she pointed at the red one, "is a dying world. It cannot last forever. When it is high in the sky the influence it exerts over the land is destructive, twisting what is there, but even as it warps it the red moon makes it stronger."
"So it's like a sun?"
"In some ways, yes. The two blue moons, Aerlion and Aetherion, they nurture the Mere, instilling life in the water and revivifying it. The water feeds the land. It is an eternal cycle. The green moons of Mantis and Moraine are the growing moons. The forests and plants flourish under their light just as they would under your sun. It is a mistake to think of the moonlight in a different way from the sunlight here on the Sunside. It serves the same purpose, so though it is never light like it is here, it is never dark like it is here. Does that answer your question?"
"Not really," Ashley said, with a slight smile. "But then, it's a whole new world we're talking about."
"It is indeed. Now, I am going to ask you a question, and I want you to think about your answer before you say anything: haven't you ever felt like you don't belong here?"
Of course she had. Didn't every teen go through that sense of dislocation and disenfranchisement? Wasn't it just a natural part of finding your place in the world? Finding friends to call your own and working out what you liked and thought for yourself instead of just parroting what your parents liked and thought? Or was it more than that, deeper? She had felt like a stranger in her own skin. She'd put it down to being surrounded by money and being able to have whatever she wanted; there was no sense of self because she could be and have whatever she wanted. She'd always just assumed that rich kids had their own set of problems—even if some of those problems involved joy-riding in daddy's Ferrari and turning handbrake turns on the cricket strip because you craved the attention that kind of stunt would bring—that went with a life of privilege.
She looked around her room.
It was only a couple of days ago she'd been calling herself a cuckoo—a baby bird dropped into the wrong nest. Suddenly it was feeling all too real.
"Yes," she said, slowly. "But if you asked half of my friends they'd say the same thing."
"You're a wise child. There is so much of your mother in you, it's hard to look at you," the Fae shook her head. "But there's a difference between not quite knowing who you are yet, and not being who you think you are, isn't there?"
Ashley nodded.
The locket at her throat caught the Fae's eye. "May I?"
Ashley took the locket off and handed it to her. "Aunt Elspeth left it to me in her will."
Targyn opened it, and smiled at the sight of the two portraits inside. "The King Under the Moon and his bride, Tanaquill, the Fae Queen."
"Who?"
"Your parents, princess."
Ashley took the locket off her and stared at the painting of the woman, trying to see herself in the beautiful features of the portrait. "It just doesn't feel real," she said, eventually.
"I'm sure it doesn't. Come here," Targyn Fae said.
Ashley joined her at the window.
Targyn pointed up at the roof of the house across the street. The three black birds were still up there, just watching the house. "See them?" She took the goggles from around her neck and offered them to Ashley. "Now look at them again through these."
She did, even though she knew exactly what she was going to see through the alethioptics.
"They're Coribrae. Spies. The enemy knows you here, Ashley. Be guided by the truth of your own eyes. You know we're right. I know you do. But I know it's all too overwhelming. Sometimes I forget that you are still a child, no matter how remarkable you are. The thing is, even if we kill Blackwater Blaze you are not safe here anymore." Before Ashley could interrupt, the Fae turned away from the glass, and looked at her as though through the truth-lenses of the alethioptics. "You've started to notice things, haven't you? I can tell. You're not surprised by the bird men, and you didn't react when we said Marissa had been killed by the Wolfen… I should have guessed sooner. What else have you noticed?"
Instead of answering, Ashley reached under the bed for the journal. She offered the empty book to the Fae, who ran her fingers across the pages, seeming to feel the soul in there, or whatever it was that communicated with her.
"Perhaps you are not as helpless as I imagined," Targyn said, closing the book and handing it back to Ashley.
"The first thing it told me when I wrote my name in the book was that wasn't who I was."
"So this isn't new to you, then?"
Ashley shook her head. She told the Fae about being the Cuckoo Girl, and in doing so began to remember all of the times she'd felt alone, and like she didn't quite belong, like one of those different things in Sesame Street: one of these things is not like the other ones, one of these things is wrong, one of these things does not belong.
"The thing is you do belong somewhere, Ashkellion. You belong in the Kingdoms Under the Moon, you belong on the Dragon Seat wearing the Fae Queen's Briar Crown
. That is who you are. That is why you feel like a Cuckoo here."
"Ashkellion? Is that who I am?"
"It is, princess."
Ashley said the name again, "Ashkellion," and shook her head. It didn't feel right to her. It didn't seem real.
But then neither did the world she'd painted on her wall, or the Fae standing beside the window or any of the strangers waiting for them downstairs.
"It's all too much, you know?" Ashley said.
"Then don't try and think about it all at once. Just take one bit and focus on that."
"What bit do you suggest?"
"Well how about the fact we need to get you out of here? That hasn't changed. You don't need to believe anything else, but if you're going to believe one single thing you've heard tonight, please let it be that. And if you believe, then you must realise that every minute we delay, we risk attack," Targyn Fae emphasised the point by glancing towards the door as though she expected the Wolfen King's Alpha to come bursting through it. "We need to get you to somewhere that's protected—properly protected."
"Not that it helped Miss Lake," Ashley said. "She said Heron House was protected. That's what you mean isn't it? But she's still dead. He still got to her. What does it matter if we run somewhere that's supposed to be safe? There is no safe place, right? So I might as well stay here and we barricade the doors if that's what it takes."
The Juggler looked at her.
"You're quite right. Heron House was protected. Ephram put them in place. We all thought they'd hold. He blames himself for Marissa's death. They were his protections and they'd failed her, so as far as he is concerned he failed her."
"Quite, Targyn," Ephram Wanderer said. Neither of them had seen him enter the room. "I put those same protections on this place. And if they weren't enough once…"
Ashley understood then. Really understood.
"It wasn't your fault, old man." Targyn said.
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter about fault. Blaze walked through them. They hurt him, but not enough to stop him. So, you are right, my dear, nowhere is safe. But that's why we need to move you. And keep you moving. The one thing we can't do is just sit here and wait to die. I won't allow that to happen. I promised your mother I would protect you."
"He's right," the Fae said. "Get your things together, girl. Take that one thing, believe it, and believe me when I say we need to go. Night is coming, so is the moon. That is when he's at his strongest. We've only got a few hours before he comes into his full strength. We need to make the most of them. I can mimic your scent for a short while, lay down a spore for the Wolfen to follow. Lead him a merry little dance while they spirit you away somewhere safe."
"But you already said that trick won't work twice," Ashley said.
"Let me worry about that, Princess. I can look after myself. But if the worst comes to pass, I ask just one thing of you: make the most of my sacrifice. Too many lives depend on you for you to give up without a fight. Go home, reclaim your birthright, bring down the King Under the Moon."
The two nightsiders left Ashley alone to gather her things together.
FOURTEEN
Rain, Rain, Go Away
In the space of a few minutes Ashley's life had been turned upside down and inside out. It wasn't quite as simple as everything she thought she knew was wrong or that everything she believed wasn't to be trusted. That would have been easier to deal with. She was dizzy with it all, and looking for an anchor to cling on to, kept thinking of Mel. Good old irrepressible, irresponsible, party-girl Mel.
Mel who she had lent the umbrella Aunt Elspeth had left her.
If the journal was Aunt Elspeth's way of teaching her about these incredible things, and the goggles showed the truth that had somehow become blurred across two worlds, while the locked linked her to her real family, then the umbrella had to be more than just an umbrella, didn't it?
She had to get it back.
And it would be good to see Mel, even though she'd only been there a couple of hours ago. If anyone would help give her a good old-fashioned dose of normality it was Mel.
Ashley stuffed the journal into her patchwork bag, grabbed some clean knickers and an extra pair of socks, a new jumper and a pair of stripy tights. Her bag was half-full. Her school uniform lay on the back of a chair. She thought about it for a second, but it wasn't as though she was going to need it wherever she was going, was she? Ashley tried to think what else she might need? Her iPod? Mobile Phone? Something to read? No to all of that stuff apart from the phone. She grabbed it, and the charger even though she didn't know whether she'd be able to charge it or not. The rest of it had an element of permanence about it that she didn't want to contemplate. She wasn't running away.
Realising that the birds would be watching, she went across to the window and drew the curtains. The less they saw, the better.
And no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, she couldn't help but think this was going to be the last time she'd see any of her stuff. It was a good thing the alethioptics couldn't expose the lies you told yourself.
All the talk of the Enemy and assassins and nowhere being safe now had really gotten under her skin.
She needed to calm down.
She needed to think.
Something Targyn Fae had said nagged away at her: Because that's what you are. But she wasn't. She wasn't any kind of princess. They could call her whatever name they wanted, and tell her she was their princess until they were blue in the face, she was an ordinary girl living in an ordinary world of school and not meeting boys and Twitter and Facebook and bands and books and just so much ordinary stuff it made her head want to explode. So what if she didn't feel like she belong anywhere? There was nothing extraordinary about any of it.
Right up until she'd visited the abandoned bank on Clerkenwell Rise.
That had been extraordinary, as had every minute since then.
But that didn't make her a princess.
Wishing she hadn't lent Mel the umbrella now, she slung her bag over her shoulder. Mel's house was on across the Park, in Bayswater. It would only take her twenty minutes to get there and back if she ran. With the others still arguing downstairs there was a chance they'd not even notice she was gone.
Then she remembered what Ephram had said: the only way to stay safe was to move, and keep on moving constantly. She might not want to believe him, but she trusted him. She couldn't say why, but she did. If he said it was the only defence she had, it was the only defence. So maybe that was what she should do? Move? And keep on moving. Go and not look back. At least not for a while. Not if the Wolfen assassin, expected to find her here.
Why make it easy for him?
And why put the others at risk? Aunt Elspeth, Miss Lake, they were both dead because of her. Targyn Fae had talked about her sacrifice… she didn't want any more blood on her hands.
So no, she wasn't running away, she was doing something. Taking control. That was different. She added another tee shirt to the contents of her bag, along with two more pairs of knickers. She had a handful of coins and a few notes saved from pocket money over the last few months. It wasn't a lot of money but it was better than nothing. She scooped them up and dumped them in the bag.
Ashley grabbed her school scarf and duffel coat, putting them on.
When it came right down to it, she realised that she really didn't need very much. She didn't need lipstick or chapstick or eyeliner or eye shadow or any of the expensive moisturisers and rejuvenators her mum had bought for her to fill the bathroom shelves. She didn't need the foundation and powder or the mirror, but she took her hairbrush and the small can of pepper spray her mum had given her for when she went through the park at night. She grabbed her toothbrush though, and toothpaste, and as an afterthought, tampons, which added to the feeling of finality to the whole thing. She wasn't coming back here any time soon. At least not tonight, she thought.
Ashley looked around the room one last time, trying to take it all in at onc
e. This was her room. It might not have felt like it yesterday, but faced with leaving it, she realised it was her space. And that meant this was where she belonged.
She couldn't help but think she was saying goodbye.
It wasn't that she was sentimental. She didn't have much from her childhood here, apart from Comfortable Dog, a stuffed rag doll she'd inherited from her dad on the day she was born. He was on her pillow, looking miserable and lonely and she hadn't even left yet.
Ashley grabbed Comfortable Dog and put him in her bag.
He peeked out over the top, his stuffed head dangling between the straps.
What she didn't have she could live without, at least for the time being.
She couldn't go out the front door, not with them all downstairs, but there was an old iron fire escape around the back of the house. She crept out of her room, across the landing, listening for sounds of movement from down below. It was quiet. She didn't know if that was good or bad given the way they had been arguing before. The landing light was off, giving her shadows to creep through. Back in the old house she'd known every floorboard, which ones creaked, which ones groaned, and which ones she needed to tread on to move silently around the place. The house on Curzon Street was different. It had its own sighs and groans. She didn't know them all yet. The bathroom window rattled when the wind was up if it wasn't closed properly. The floorboard on the first step sank a little too far when you put your weight on it and the sound carried throughout the house. But those were only two things of many. A house like this was full of secret sounds.
Ashley sent a silent prayer out to the god who looked after young girls sneaking out of the house late at night, hoping that the general catch-all 'up to no good' would cover it. She didn't have time to get into specifics. It was a one liner: don't let me get caught. Thanks. Gods were busy, after all. This one must have listened, because Ashley made it to the den without a sound.
She opened the door and crept inside.
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