She shivered.
She clutched the umbrella in her hand. Her patchwork satchel felt heavy on her back. Somewhere in the night a ship's foghorn blared. A surge of relief swept over her—they'd put enough distance in between themselves and the Nightgaunt for that single sound to be heard.
She ran towards it.
Hand-in-hand, they ran past the stunning Battle of Britain memorial statue with its bronze airman scrambling out of the wall. The London Eye on the other shore wasn't turning. By the time they reached the obelisk of Cleopatra's Needle Ashley began to hear other sounds: the gentle lap of water as the river washed up against the walls of the embankment; the wind in the leaves of the trees lining the South Bank; the distant rumble of a train far, far beneath her feet that caused the ground to shiver; and finally, traffic—the low growl of cars and busses on the bridge above them.
She had never been so happy to hear anything in her life.
She had no idea where he was taking her.
He moved fast, with certainty.
He was looking for something.
Finally, she saw it: a small rowing boat bobbing in the water.
It was tied up against a low jetty in the shadow of Temple Pier and Victoria Embankment. The party boats were already out on the Thames and wouldn't be mooring again for a few hours. There was a ticket collector sitting in the booth, but they ignored him, clattering down more smooth stone steps. The boy helped her into the boat, then untied it and hopped in.
Without a word, he took up the oars as she settled down onto the plank-seat, pushing away from the side—and barely soon enough, as the Nightgaunt drifted down the steps to stand helplessly on the embankment staring at the rowing boat as it moved out into the middle of the dark river. A strange ululating howl came from the ragged tear that opened up in the creature's face. It sent a shiver down the ladder of her spine.
Ashley stared at the creature, willing it to stay there on the jetty and dreading the prospect that it wouldn't—that somehow it would follow them out on to the river.
It didn't.
But it didn't give up, either.
The Nightgaunt followed them, gliding along the riverbank. It kept them in its sight all of the way.
"We're safe, for now. It can't reach us," the boy said, finally. He was sweating and breathing hard from the exertion of rowing. "It can do a lot of things, but it can't walk on water."
She understood now why it had been so important for them to reach the river. She'd thought at first it had been about scent, because of the curious words the boy had used, but she knew better now. The Nightgaunt couldn't cross the river.
"I'm Ash," she said. "What's your name?"
He seemed to think about it for a moment, and then told her, "You can call me Al." She laughed. She couldn't help herself. It was as though that one line from an old song released the cork on all of her fear and it all just came bubbling out in the form of slightly manic laughter. She had no way of knowing that it was short for Alpha, not Alan or Alistair or any other Al, or that she'd been saved by the creature that had originally been sent to London to kill her.
It felt like it took forever to round the curve in the river, and by the time they came in sight of the Tower they might have been on the river for half of their natural lives. It didn't matter to Ashley. Every minute on the water was a minute she wasn't scared for her life.
Al wasn't the most talkative rescuer.
She watched him as he put his back into rowing, fixated on getting to wherever it was they were going.
It took her a while to realise they seemed to be drifting back in towards the riverbank. No, not the riverbank: the Tower. And the bricked up archway with the words ENTRY TO THE TRAITOR'S GATE set in stone. Only it wasn't bricked up. A curious blue light burned beneath the arch.
It made no sense.
That arch had been sealed up for longer than Ashley had been alive.
She had stood on the wall, looking at the gate from the inside of the Tower more than a dozen times on school trips. It had always been bricked up. They didn't live in a world of traitors anymore.
The Nightgaunt howled again as they disappeared beneath the arch.
Al stowed the oars and, using a long pole that had been lying on the bottom of the boat, stood.
The Tower above them was locked up for the night; there was no way it could enter.
The water gate was open.
Al stood at the front of the boat, using the pole to push them forward rather than the oars.
Moonlight poured in through the open gate. It bathed the river in glorious light, the moon itself reflected into so many little spots of light it was almost as though pirate treasure had been scattered across the riverbed and glittered now to light her way into the Tower of London.
There were heads on the spikes above her, but they weren't like any heads she had ever seen. There were six of them, one that might have been a walrus, another a wolf, a lizard-octopus half-breed that might have been a man once upon a time, and at the far end of the tunnel, the bald, leathery head of a vulture that was slick with moss and lichen. She thought at first that they were macabre sculptures, like gargoyles carved to ward off the evil spirits—it wasn't unreasonable, given the nature of the river gate, and what happened to the men and women brought into the Tower this way—but they weren't. They were flesh and blood. Heads.
Ashley shivered.
Al didn't seem to notice them—or if he did, he didn't seem the least bit disturbed by them.
She gripped the stern and looked back. Anything was better than looking at the heads up there.
She saw that the small light was still there, bobbing and weaving in the dark as it caught up with the boat, only now it was obviously the glow of the fairy from the park. Rain. She skimmed across the surface of the dark water.
Ashley started to call out in relief, but the little Faelyn raised a finger to her lips to shush Ashley before she could betray her presence, and then they were through the gate and on the other side.
Only they weren't inside the Tower.
They were somewhere else entirely.
Their little rowing boat bobbed in the surf of the Night River. Behind them she heard the rush of a waterfall. Far, far before them she saw the dark imposing mouth of an enormous cavern. A single stone bridge spanned the gorge, the road running from Hollow Hill to Howl's Circle. She could just make out the highest spires of the Moon Castle in the distance. She even knew what it was called: The Shard of the Subluna.
She looked up at the night sky.
Seven moons hung there: a huge silver moon in the middle of the sky, two smaller green tinged moons to the left, over Tuskwood and the Wolfhir Halls, and so far away she could barely see it, a sickly yellow moon. To the right, one moon hung over the great mines of the Black Hills and, over the Troll King's Gate were two large blue moons.
She knew this place without ever having to see over the sides of the deep gorge the Night River flowed through. She had painted it a thousand times. The last time was on her bedroom wall.
She wasn't in London anymore.
He had brought her into the Moonlands.
NINETEEN
Paper Boats
There was something wrong with her saviour.
He lurched to the right, stumbling. The movement was so sudden he barely managed to catch himself before he fell. He staggered on two more steps. This time he tripped and fell.
Ashley was painfully aware of just how far from home she had travelled in the last hour—to the extent that she wasn't even under the same stars, which went beyond the miraculous and into the terrifying when she allowed herself to think about it—and how Al was her only link between where she was and where she was going. If something were to happen to him… well, it didn't bear thinking about.
She rushed forward to help him as he doubled up, groaning in pain.
She felt utterly helpless. Each laboured breath seemed to hurt him more than the last. His groans didn't sound like
groans anymore. Not now she was this close to him. They sounded more like whimpers as he curled in on himself.
This place didn't seem so fantastic now. It didn't seem magical or marvellous or any other kind of wonderful. In a matter of minutes it had become a place to be frightened of being left alone in.
The moonlight streamed down, and behind the seven moons, a million billion stars cast their own glow. Despite the various hues of the different moons, and all the possible shades they might have combined to make, the moonlight was decidedly silvery.
Al crawled deeper into one of the silver moonbeams.
His breathing came in sharp ragged gasps.
He clawed at the dirt with his hands as he slumped forward.
Ashley didn't know what to do.
She hated that.
He threw back his head. This time he howled and there was no mistaking the nature of the sound. He was in agony all right. Ashley saw why: he was in the throes of some hideous change—as though his entire skeleton was trying to climb out through his skin and make a new body for itself—and that transformation was tormenting him beyond anything he could bear.
Gone was the beautiful boy.
In his place was a monster.
His stolen coat could no longer contain his body. It tore at the seams, hanging in tatters off his huge muscular frame in ragged strips.
She backed up a step, every nerve in her body screaming for her to run. But she couldn't. She could barely walk. She clutched the satchel to her chest with one hand and gripped the umbrella handle with the other.
Al collapsed face first onto the dirt.
His bones twisted and stretched and broke and re-set themselves becoming something utterly different to the brooding boy that had found her on the streets and dragged her here. Al—whoever, no not whoever, she thought, whatever he really was—kicked out suddenly, and fought his way back onto his knees. He knelt there, hunched over with his face pressed to the grass as though kissing the ground for what felt like forever but could only have been a minute, if that, and then inclined his head slightly.
He looked Ashley in the eye.
The huge nostrils at the end of his snout flared.
A thrill of fear shivered through Ashley, chasing down through every bone from her jaw to her toes.
Everything she thought she'd known was ripped out from under her in that single look.
Every single thing.
And all she felt was anger. Anger that she'd been an idiot. Anger that she'd let herself be tricked. Anger that she'd trusted him.
She'd seen the monster before. Just once, but she was never likely to forget the creature or Miss Lake yelling, "run!"
But she couldn't run.
Not any more.
It felt like that was all she had been doing since she'd opened that envelope in Smirke's chambers.
It was time to stand still for once. Time to stand and be counted.
She left go of her satchel, letting it hang from the strap on her shoulder, and clenched her fist. As she brought the umbrella's tip up as though it were a sword.
Only an hour ago the Juggler had told the makeshift council of war in the Curzon Street house that she'd fought off a wolf pack led by the Wolf King's Alpha.
Alpha.
Al.
Her saviour was the Alpha Wolfen: Blackwater Blaze.
It had to be.
She was shaking. She could tell because the tip of the umbrella quivered. It was dark and no amount of moons could ever make it light for her again.
Ashley stared at the creature that had been sent to London to tear her throat out.
"I don't understand…" Her thoughts raced like so many blind runners stumbling about. She could only focus on one thing: he'd saved her. If he wanted her dead why didn't he just leave her to the Nightgaunt?
Ashley edged back half a step.
"You saved me." It was more of an accusation than a statement. She jabbed the tip of the umbrella at him, emphasising the point. It was a stupid thing to do, but she wasn't thinking straight. She was angry. She felt cheated. She'd trusted him. He'd said Ephram had sent him. No. He'd said Ephram knew he was here. And she'd let him bring her here. Alone.
His fingers had become claws and dug deep into the ground. There was blood where one of them had torn free during his shift into Wolfen form.
"Why?" Ashley jabbed the tip of the umbrella at him again.
The monster panted hard, obviously struggling to master his most basic instincts.
She could see the hunger in his eyes.
She could see the way he kept looking at the vein in her throat as it pulsed with blood.
"You want to kill me? Why didn't you just kill me back there?"
There was so much power pent up within the Wolfen's body, so much rage, that the ground shivered, tiny tremors seeming to ripple through it.
It frightened her, but not enough to stop her from getting right up into his face and demanding: "Why?" again.
The Wolfen rose easily onto all fours, all trace of any pain gone.
"You are the rightful heir to the Dragon Seat," Blackwater Blaze growled deep in his throat. His voice sounded like stones being ground together, all sharp edges and grating rock.
"You knew that when you came here to kill me, didn't you? What changed your mind? Did you suddenly decide you had a conscience?" Ashley all but shouted when he didn't. "You drag me here, telling me I have to trust you, you're my only hope, and, and, and…" she broke off as Blaze rose to his full intimidating height. He arched his spine. Each and every bone down the curve of his back cracked as it settled into place. Ashley was dwarfed by the huge Wolfen. He cast more than one shadow over her as the seven moons bathed his fur in their light. But she couldn't stop herself. "What do you want from me?"
"Come. We have a long way to go."
"I don't think so," Ashley said. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you start to give me some answers." Ashley said. It was the kind of stupidly stubborn refusal any normal teenager might make, but these were hardly normal circumstances and as she was beginning to learn she was far from a normal teenager. "Tell me. If you are going to kill me I want to know."
"You don't want to know," Blaze grumbled. "No one wants to know. They only think that they do. If you knew that tomorrow you would die you would collapse here and now. You'd deny it, then you'd fight it, then you'd accept it and by then you would have wasted the last day of your life. It is better not to know. Believe me." He turned his gaze on the spire in the distance. Something changed in his eyes then. The Shard of the Subluna, Ashley thought again, not understanding how she could know its name but not doubting for a moment that she was right. There was something about the place, a deep abiding connection with it. It was something that went beyond time and place and memory and rooted itself way down deep in the heart of her soul. She belonged there.
"I was wrong. I allowed myself to be used. The King Under the Moon wanted you dead because of who you are. You threaten his power. The Tribes need to know that you are alive. They need to know that you are Tanaquill's, that the blood of Titania lives on. And then they need to rise up against the king so that you can fulfil your destiny. That is all. It is enough for now that you know that I was wrong and I will die before I let harm befall you, Ashkellion. I am sorry for the pain I have caused you. I am not what you think I am. The Nightgaunt will not be the only creature they have sent to finish kill you. This world is a dangerous place. We must keep moving." The Wolfen said, as though that explained everything.
"No," she said. Just that. No.
That confused him. Blaze wasn't used to being refused.
"It's not as easy that. You don't just get to say sorry. You ripped me out of my life, you killed my Aunt Elspeth, you killed Miss Lake, you don't get to suddenly declare yourself my protector. It doesn't work like that." She was shaking.
"I did not kill Elspeth the Grimm," Blaze said, flatly.
"I don't believe you."
"Why would I
lie to you? You know already that I killed Marissa du Lac, you know that I entered your city to kill you. I have nothing to gain by pretending innocence."
She knew he was right.
"The who did kill her? Another one of your assassins?"
"I do not know. It is possible. The King Under the Moon wants you dead, that much I do know."
"He's the king, why does he care so much about a stupid teenage girl like me?"
"Because you are the Queen's daughter. The Briar Crown is yours, as are the Dragon Seats. With your return he becomes nothing."
For the first time she saw the medallion hanging from Blaze's wrist.
It twisted and turned in the moonlight. The movement was hypnotic and there was something very familiar about the inscription. There was something similar tucked away within the pages of the journal. She was sure it had a similar if not identical inscription. It was all she could do not to reach for it.
The Wolfen saw her looking at the medallion and raised his hand. He retracted his claws allowing Ashley to see the engraving properly now: it was the seven moons with the silver moon ascendant.
"It was a mark of honour," Blaze said. "I led my pack and served my king." He lowered his hand. "Now it serves to remind me that my pack died and I am alone in this world," Blaze didn't try to hide his sadness. There was a curious nobility about the terrifying creature standing in front of her.
As much as he terrified her, she found herself believing him.
The rise and fall of his huge chest slowed as he mastered his breathing. The shift was complete. No trace of the boy remained in the creature before her.
"Their sacrifice has to mean something," Blaze continued. "And it will. I will not allow you to die, Ashkellion. Not while I have a single breath in my lungs. As you say, I saved you from the Nightgaunt. Your life belongs to me now. I will not claim it because I am a creature of honour. That too means something in my world. You are safe with me, you have my word as King Sabras' Alpha. When I say no harm will come to you, I mean it. I will present you to the Tribes of the Moon or to die trying. My pack is gone. All that I have left is my mission. Believe me when I say I will not fail."
Moonlands Page 18