“I have to see you, I can be there in ten minutes.”
“No, Sam. If he comes back and finds you here, it’ll make things worse. I need time to sort myself out. I’ll call you later, all right?”
She ended the call and sat with the phone limp in her hands. Well, it was done. Her safe little world staved in, just like that. She couldn’t leap out of the wreckage and into Sam’s arms; it wasn’t possible. Physically and emotionally, she couldn’t. It had all happened too soon. Perhaps for him, too.
As she reached Oakholme an hour later, she looked past the house to the hill beyond. Sam was up there at Stonegate, desperate to see her. A pang caught in her chest, but she must put her family first. The day was chilly and full of mist. The Gates were up there, open a mere sliver, issuing a faint draft from the underworld . . . Her head swam and the world turned strange; a sudden waking vision that the Otherworld was lost, and where it had been was only the absolute zero of the Abyss leaking slowly into the surface world—she shook off the darkness, but it took a long time to settle inside her and let her go.
She found Matthew, Faith and Heather in the dining room, lingering over a late breakfast, a cameo of family bliss. Matthew looked up from his newspaper. He wore reading glasses and it suddenly struck Rosie that he and Faith wore glasses as if taking on human imperfections, stacking mortal props around themselves to ward off the Aetheric world. They looked like a pair of teachers, perfectly matched.
“Hi,” she said in answer to their surprised greetings. “Have you seen Alastair?”
“Not today,” said Matthew. “Hasn’t he got rugby practice?”
She shook her head. “Mum and Dad not here?”
“Gone to Leicester for the day. Shopping, cinema, dinner.” He tapped his watch. “You missed them by about ten minutes. So, how have you managed to mislay your husband?”
Rosie pulled out a chair and sat down. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. We’ve split up.”
His reaction was an explosive reflex. “Don’t be ridiculous! How? You were perfectly fine yesterday, until you . . .” He slowed down, nodding. “Oh, I get it.”
“Do you?” Rosie tensed, startled.
“I put him straight about Sam, so you’ve had an argument about it. For heaven’s sake, Rosie, it seems to be your mission in life to help the socially challenged, but Sam Wilder? Have you lost your mind? No way on this planet is he suitable to work for us. You must see that. Alastair and I are trying to protect you, that’s all. You don’t split up over one little argument.”
Rosie chewed her lip. She caught Faith’s eye. “It’s a bit worse than that.”
As she explained, Matt’s face was a diagram of disbelief and outrage. He threw his glasses on the table. “You and Sam? That’s impossible.”
“Perfectly possible, as it turns out.”
“Why him? What were you thinking?” To her shock, he turned on Faith. “Did you know about this?”
“Of course she didn’t!” Rosie exclaimed. Faith sat pale and frozen, gathering Heather on her knee as Matthew went predictably ballistic.
His tone was controlled but loaded with disappointment, like an exasperated schoolmaster. Sam was a criminal lunatic. His brother was a junkie, his father insane. Rosie must be possessed by demons. And so on. She listened wearily, wishing herself anywhere but here. What a glorious way to spend the weekend.
“Do you imagine you’re going to discard Alastair for that jerk?” Matt continued, when he’d drawn breath. “Just wait until I catch him!”
“No,” Rosie said firmly. “Don’t you dare. It’s not your problem.”
“Oh, yes it is. That’s my best friend you’ve betrayed. Look, Rosie, you’ve done something unbelievably stupid, but Alastair’s daft enough to forgive you. Grovel. Promise you’ll never see that bastard again.”
“No, Matt,” she said with fierce emphasis. “Why were you so keen to marry me to a human in the first place? When I was with Alastair, I couldn’t touch the Dusklands.” Matthew thinned his lips and looked away. “But when I’m with Sam, it comes rushing back and it’s where I belong. I can’t deny what I am. Especially not to suit you.” She was aware of the weight of Faith’s attention as she spoke.
“That’s childish,” he said.
“Is that your best argument? Because you were happy to talk me up to Alastair as some elven princess.”
Matthew said thinly, “No one forced you to marry him, Ro.”
She paused. “That’s true,” she said. “I don’t expect forgiveness or approval, I’m simply being honest, so . . .” She trailed off. Matthew’s hand, lying on the table, looked weird. Elongated, sheened with slate-grey fur—a paw with thick black claws. She blinked and the hand was normal again. “So that you know the situation.”
Matthew produced a phone from his pocket. “Let’s see what Alastair has to say about it, shall we?”
Sensing the atmosphere, Heather wriggled on Faith’s knee and said, “Mummy, grow your wings. Let’s play water fairies.”
“Not now, dear,” Faith said quickly. “Come on.”
Matthew didn’t look up as she gathered the child and swept her out, didn’t register her pallor and tension. Rosie stood up to follow, glaring at her brother. “Call him, if you must. It won’t make any difference.”
“We’ll see about that,” Matthew said grimly. “Everything I’ve done has been for your own good, Rose. All I wanted was to see you happy and this is how you thank me, just throw it back in my face? I’m not having it.”
“You can’t control me,” she said. “Sam may be everything you’ve said, and worse—but at least he’s truly alive.”
She found Faith in the kitchen, furiously running hot water into the sink. Heather was at the table with crayons and paper, drawing a figure with blue streaks in its hair, green tendrils flowing from its shoulders.
“Are you all right?” Rosie asked, rubbing her friend’s tense, bony shoulder. “Matthew’s too self-absorbed to notice anything a child says.”
“No. He watches like a hawk.” Faith put a hand to her forehead, leaving a blob of bubbles there. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“Fai, he’s all hot air. I’ve just told him the worst thing ever and what can he do, except bluster? You can’t live like this, being scared of him. It’s wrong. Heather will pick it up.”
Faith only sighed. She soaped and rinsed crockery, passing it to Rosie to dry. “You said you’d only been with Sam once.”
“I had, when I told you. Things heated up after that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No idea,” Rosie said. “I don’t know if Sam and I can last five minutes. I’ve tried unrequited infatuation, settling for a safe bet, and lust. I still don’t know what real love is, or how I’d recognize it if I found it.”
“We’re a mess, aren’t we?” Faith said, with a sideways grin.
Matthew appeared in the doorway, holding out his phone to Rosie, grimly triumphant. “I’ve persuaded him to speak to you.”
Drying her hands on a tea towel, she reluctantly took the phone. “Thanks. Hello?”
“Hi, Rosie, how are you doing?” Alastair sounded subdued.
“Okay. You?”
“Bit of a hangover. Bruised ego. I’m all right.”
“Are you coming home?” she asked.
“Have I got a home? Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?”
Rosie paused, heavyhearted. “No,” she said quietly. “There’s no point in pretending, or dragging things out. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Have you seen him?”
“If you mean Sam, no.”
“You’re not seriously going to employ him, are you?” Alastair’s dull tone took an edge. “That’s going to be fun in the office, isn’t it?”
“We’ll sort it out on Monday,” Rosie said wearily.
“Oh, you think it can be sorted, do you? You really hurt me, Rosie.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I d
on’t think you do know,” he replied in the same soft tone. “I don’t think you’ve got the first clue what you’ve done to me.”
Rosie closed her eyes. He sounded wretched. “I know. It’s raw. There’s nothing I can say to make it better. We’re not the first couple who’ve ever split up.”
“Well, you know, I never thought it would happen to us. I should have remembered; the faerie folk have no hearts, no souls and no morals, do they, Rose?”
She exhaled through her teeth, losing the will to argue. “Come home and we’ll talk it over,” she said. She heard him breathe in and out. Then he hung up.
“I’m going home,” she said, handing the phone back. “To wait for Alastair.”
Matthew gave a broad, menacing smile. “Good girl. Sort it out.”
She took her leave, got into her car and began to drive slowly out of Cloudcroft. She looked up through clouds of bare branches in the direction of Stonegate. Perhaps tomorrow she would see Sam, once Alastair was calmer. God, yes, she had to see him. The idea of making a date with Sam sent sensual thrills of anticipation through her, cutting deliciously through the morass of guilt.
She drove slowly around the bend where the Crone Oak stood. As she passed beneath its bare, spreading branches, she saw the Greenlady—coiling and dipping like a green snake through its limbs. The head lunged suddenly at the passenger-side window, causing her to swerve in shock.
“Blood tastes like iron,” the Greenlady’s hiss followed her. “Now I can never get the taste out of my mouth.”
Night was closing in when Lucas went in search of Jon. He headed towards the run-down house of Jon’s drug buddy on the far side of Ashvale, walking along a narrow street with houses on his right and a tall hedge screening a park on his left. Streetlights gave the scene a watery amber glow. As he rounded a bend, he saw Jon in a pool of light, talking to a woman whose dark hair cascaded almost to her hips over an elegant fur coat.
Sapphire. Lucas didn’t know whether to interrupt and rescue Jon, or dive into the hedge. In the event he did neither; Jon saw and acknowledged him with a glance that Sapphire didn’t notice. Feeling awkward, Lucas hovered in the shadows a few yards away.
“Finally I can speak to you without the Rottweiler seeing me off,” she was saying.
“Rottweiler?”
“Rosie. She’s a bit of a diva, that one.”
“She was protecting me,” Jon said. “I didn’t want to see you.”
Sapphire appraised him, her head on one side. She raised her manicured hand to stroke his face. “When are you going to end this sulking marathon and come home?”
Jon jerked his head away from her touch. “I’m not sulking! Father’s disowned me. Any claim you had on me is long over. Find some other stupid boy to use.”
“You think I want you back for that?” Sapphire laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Thank god.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you got nothing out of it.”
“It’s like eating too much cotton candy, isn’t it?” he said flatly. “Eventually it makes you sick to your stomach.”
Lucas saw anger flare beneath her smooth surface. “I don’t want your scrawny body, dear,” she hissed. “Help me as you agreed, and I’ll make things right between you and Lawrence. I know that’s what you want.”
Jon’s shoulders rose. “I didn’t agree to anything.”
As he turned away, she slipped her gloved hands around his arm and stopped him. “Oh yes, you did. You promised that we’d break through the Gates together.”
“Yeah, well, I would say anything to get you off my back,” Jon answered, his eyes narrow with scorn. “The Gates are sacred! They’re none of your business! Why the hell does it matter to you, anyway?”
Sapphire paused, then spoke so quietly that Lucas strained to hear. “Someone I loved vanished. Aetherials took him, I’m sure. Yes, he may be dead, but if there’s the slightest chance he went into the Spiral, I have to know. I need to know if a human can go through, that’s all I’m asking. Jon, it was my father. I have to know what happened to him!”
She was fervent, but Jon pulled out of her grip, unmoved. “Please tell me that’s not why you married Lawrence.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She gave a honeyed smile, belied by the desperate and ruthless gleam of her eyes. “Come on, who was there for you with your mother gone, your father always absent, your brother in prison? Me. Who else has been kind and loved you like I have?”
“Used me.” Jon folded his arms to make a barrier. “I’m sorry about your father, Sapphire. But I can’t open the Gates for you, and if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“You’re as stubborn as Lawrence,” she snapped. “You know what I think you’re both afraid of? That when you take off your masks, I’ll see that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing underneath.”
Jon’s voice became hoarse with pain. “You’ve no idea what it’s done to us, being forbidden to enter the Gates like normal Aetherials. When I was sixteen, I should have been discovering the Spiral—not trapped on your mattress. Years, you’ve been using me to achieve this quest of yours, and you don’t even know what you’re asking. Not the first clue.”
He strode away, coming towards Lucas. Sapphire let him go. She watched him for a moment, her eyes glistening; then her lips tightened and she walked in the other direction, dwindling until she reached a parked car, got in and drove away.
Jon stared after her. “I suppose you heard all that.”
“Keep away from her,” said Lucas, shaken. “She seems . . . demented.”
“She’d have to be, to marry my father,” said Jon. “Forget her. I have.”
They began to walk along the dark street. Presently Lucas asked, “Enjoy yourself last night?”
“Can’t remember. I call that a result.”
Lucas sighed. “Are you coming home?”
“Where’s home?”
“Rosie’s.”
“Not if we have to sit through another round of marital bliss, no thanks.” Jon grinned bleakly. “So, Sam finally got what he wanted. I knew he’d never do it without causing complete mayhem. That’s Sam all over, that is.”
“What he wanted?” Luc frowned. “To get her into bed, you mean?”
Jon shrugged. “He’s had a thing about her for years. Didn’t you know?”
“No. One of these days I’ll write a book called ‘What I didn’t know because no one bothered to tell me.’ I don’t want her to get hurt again. She keeps picking the wrong blokes. No offense.”
“Cheers.”
“Anyway, Alastair’s left. It’s peaceful. I don’t like you hanging about in drug dens, Jon. Please come back.”
Jon’s demeanor softened. “Yeah, okay. Since it’s you.” After a moment he added, “Everyone gets Sam wrong. He’ll fight like a dog to protect you. The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop.”
“That’s not completely reassuring,” said Lucas. “Look, about the Gates . . .”
“I know, I need to stop obsessing and do something with my life. Charity work?” Jon said sardonically. “Helping drug addicts? Forget the Gates. There is no Spiral. We’ll all be fully human in no time and won’t even remember being Aetherial, and my father will be stuck in torment forever, but that’s okay, because mundanes like your brother Matthew will be happy.”
Lucas didn’t know what to say. He bit his lip. He had to confess. “No, Jon, listen . . . About that time at Freya’s Crown, something happened . . .”
A car swished along the road behind them, drowning his voice. Drawing level, it stopped and the window slid down. “Lucas!” called the driver.
It was Alastair.
“Oh—er—hi,” said Luc, startled. “Where are you off to?”
“I’m on my way home. Do you want a lift?”
Jon and Lucas looked at each other. “No, we’re fine, thanks. We’ll walk.”
“No, come on. It’s a good twenty minutes for you and it’s starting to rain. Hop in.”
“No thanks. Don’t want an encore.”
“Rosie and I are fine,” Alastair said emphatically. “No more words, I promise. Come on. She wants you home.” He leaned over to open the passenger door. “Hop in the front, Lucas. You’ll be all right in the back, won’t you, Jon?”
“Whatever,” Jon said, and climbed in.
Lucas settled in the squashy seat and fastened his seat belt. The central locking clunked shut. He felt suddenly claustrophobic. The car moved off and Alastair drove with a ghost smile on his lips, humming to himself as he navigated towards the main road. When he reached it, instead of turning towards the house, he went straight on.
“Where are we going?” Lucas asked. No answer. “Have you seen Rosie today? She was worried.”
“I’ve spoken to her, aye.”
“This is really awkward. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything, Luc. It will all be evened out, don’t worry.”
Alastair swung off the main road, onto the long switchback lane that ultimately led to Cloudcroft. Darkness rushed past and the car bounced, almost taking off over the high curves.
“Where are we going?” Luc asked again, nervous now.
“Rosie’s at Oakholme,” Alastair said in the same light, slightly manic tone. “She’s waiting for you there.”
“Oh,” said Lucas, puzzled. “I didn’t realize. Could you slow down a bit?”
“Yeah, d’you mind?” said Jon.
“You pair of wimps.” He slowed minimally, beefy hands tight on the wheel.
“Why’s she at Oakholme?” asked Luc. Catching a sour scent on Alastair’s breath, he added, “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not enough.” The car hurtled down a tunnel of trees, gathering speed, headlights making an eerie glow. After a minute or so, Alastair began, “I want to explain to her what she’s done to me. But I can’t put it into words. I want to say to her, ‘If I could only make you understand one second of the pain I’m feeling’—but it’s impossible. Words aren’t adequate. She doesn’t care. What would make her care, eh?”
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