Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2)

by Nina Smith

  She got up and did her best to comb her hair into some semblance of neatness using only her fingers before she ended up looking like a Bloomin Fairy herself, then brushed down the Freakin Fairy clothes she’d been living in. She looked ridiculous, but there was no help for it.

  She ducked out of the doorway and squinted at the bright, sunny day outside. At least it was more cheerful than Mudface’s taste in decor. This was the first she’d seen of the village in daylight. The nearby giant pumpkin houses looked vastly more friendly than Mudface’s. The doors and windows were nice, predictable squares decorated with bright orange and pink flowers spilling out of overgrown pots.

  Where the village ended, a sea of broad-leafed green crops started. Here and there a knot of hair bobbed above the leaves. The greenery shifted and trembled, a movement that could be followed by a wave of lighter green as the leaves flipped up and then settled. She followed the progress of the movement all the way to the edge, where a gaggle of Bloomin Fairies tumbled out, yelling at the tops of their voices.

  All the fairies were in their teens or younger, and they were only yelling one word: weirdo. The taunts were directed at a figure walking slowly in their midst; Mudface was like a gloomy little streak of night amidst a pack of jumping fools, paying her persecutors not the least bit of attention. She had a book and a piece of charcoal in her hands and was thoroughly absorbed with both.

  A red-headed fairy knocked the book out of her hands. “Weirdo weirdo weirdo!” he yelled. The rest of the pack renewed their shouts.

  Mudface bent down to pick up the book. The redhead pushed her, sending her tumbling headlong into the grass.

  That was just too much. Flower strode over there, picked up fairies by their knotted hair and lifted them aside until she reached the centre. She folded her arms and glared around. “What do you lot think you’re doing?”

  The Bloomin Fairies stared back at her with wide, astonished eyes.

  “Well?” Flower’s voice rose. “You should be ashamed of yourselves! Is this how you treat each other all the time?”

  A few began to shuffle and sidle away, but the redhead kicked a rock and gave a sullen reply. “No. Only her.”

  “Yeah,” said a dark-haired fairy next to him. “Cos she’s a weirdo! She was dead, just like you!”

  There was a collective indrawn breath to begin the chant all over again.

  “Oh really?” Flower scowled at all of them. “Well I’m also a giant freakin muse and if the lot of you don’t scat, I’m going to take to every single one of you with a comb and a pair of scissors and make you all look respectable!”

  The fairies scattered in every direction.

  Flower crouched down, picked up Mudface’s book and brushed the dirt off the binding, which was covered in thick, ragged patches of soft black fabric. The paper inside the book was thick and textured. She wondered if Mudface had cobbled it together from scraps on her own, like these fairies did with their clothes.

  Mudface picked herself up off the ground. If she was upset, she didn’t show it. At least, her glower was no different this morning than it had been last night.

  Flower held out the book. “Are you alright?”

  Mudface snatched it from her hands and clutched it to her ribs. “I was just getting an idea,” she said. “They made me forget it.”

  “Your writing is very important to you.” The idea puzzled Flower immensely. Humans wrote and drew and sang. Of course fairies did as well, but not with this kind of intensity. They were only fairies.

  The scowl deepened. “So?”

  “So I understand. I am a muse, after all.” Flower brushed some of the dirt from the girl’s forehead and tried to sound practical about it all.

  Mudface’s eyes widened. “I remember!” she burst out. Her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “I’m writing a subversive future of Shadow. One day everyone’s going to read my book and know the truth about everything.” She nodded once, then sat down on the spot, opened the book and scratched in there with her piece of charcoal.

  “The truth? What does a Bloomin Fairy know about the truth?” The words escaped her before she could stop them. Flower pressed a guilty hand to her mouth, but Mudface was oblivious.

  Flower got to her feet at the sound of someone clearing his throat and found Fitz standing watching them. She folded her arms across her chest. “How long have you been there?”

  “Long enough.” He jerked his head in the opposite direction. “Walk with me.”

  Flower had no desire whatsoever to go walking with an enemy of the king, but Mudface was absorbed in her writing and frankly she had nothing else to do. She joined him and they walked slowly away from the village, following the line of the edge of the crops.

  “I saw you stand up for Mudface,” Fitz said.

  “Well of course I did, did you see what the rotten little creatures were doing to her?”

  Fitz gave her a sidelong glance. “Don’t be too hard on them. There’s never been a Bloomin Fairy who wrote before. It’ll take them time to get used to it.”

  “And you propose to allow them to bully her in the meantime?”

  “I’m not here to tell them how to behave.”

  Seeing they’d already walked far enough from the houses to not be overheard, Flower planted herself squarely in front of the man, hands on hips, and adopted her coldest tone, usually reserved for Guild bureaucrats and Moon Troopers. She only had an inch or two of height over him, but she used it to look down nonetheless. “Then why are you here?”

  Fitz studied her. He looked older in the light of day, his face lined and scarred from years of fighting or who knew what kind of lifestyle. Flower had the distinct impression he was preparing himself to take a calculated risk.

  “I’m here to evacuate them.”

  “Evacuate them?” Flower glanced back at the village, where she could just see a fairy or two wandering about pulling up weeds. “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly.” Fitz’s eyes never left her face. “The Guild is closing in on the village of Pumpkin, just like they did with Cauliflower and Daisy villages, where there is nothing left but scorch marks. They’ve cut off all roads in and out of Bloomin Fairy territory. Every day fetches sweep the skies looking for villages and every night Moon Troopers search new areas. It’s only a matter of time before they get here.”

  Flower glanced up, but the sky was blue and empty. “Why? What do they want with them?”

  “If we could answer that question, we’d know why so many fairies and muses are missing.”

  “So what are you saying? You want them to up and leave everything they’ve ever known?” Flower started walking again to give herself time to think about why a self-professed enemy of the king would spend his time helping Bloomin Fairies.

  Fitz followed her. “We’ve evacuated several groups of fairies successfully before the Guild could get to them.”

  “Just fairies?” A spark of hope burned. “What about muses?”

  “I’m sorry. Your arrival here is the first news I’ve had of muses going missing.”

  Well that spark was short-lived. “How in Shadow has every single muse disappeared and nobody even noticed?” Flower clenched her fists and stopped again, causing Fitz to almost run into her.

  “Maybe you should ask your king that, when you find him.”

  “Maybe I will!”

  They glared at each other.

  Fitz broke the deadlock first. He sighed and turned to look at the endless crops spreading away from them. “I didn’t come out here to argue about the king.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because you came to seek my help and because I need yours. I’m going to propose a bargain.”

  “Why would I make a bargain with an enemy of the king?”

  “Because you have little choice. You are in as much peril as these fairies.”

  Flower brushed an imaginary speck from her sleeve. “Nikifor and I can look after ourselves.”

  “R
eally?”

  Flower caught his scepticism. She made an impatient gesture. “Fine, so maybe we haven’t been doing so well. What are you proposing?”

  Fitz tugged on his beard and frowned at the ground. “I need you to help me evacuate Pumpkin. In return, I will take you to someone who will help you rescue the Freakin Fairies.”

  “Who?”

  “A Freakin Fairy from that village. He’s not been there for many years, but if anyone can help you, it’s him.”

  “And where will these fairies go?”

  Fitz looked directly at her. “Dream.”

  Flower blinked. It took a moment for the word to sink in. “Dream!” she yelled. “Are you crazy?”

  Fitz made a pained gesture for her to lower her voice.

  Flower glanced at the still empty sky and did so. “You can’t take a whole tribe of Bloomin Fairies to Dream!”

  “It’s the only safe place,” Fitz said. “The Guild have eyes all over Shadow. Until they are removed from power, the fairies must stay in Dream.”

  “But it’s impossible! You know what humans are like, if they so much as saw a Bloomin Fairy-”

  Fitz shook his head. “Humans believe what they’re told, not what they see. We’ve successfully integrated a whole clan of Feathertip Bloody Fairies as a travelling circus. We have an enclave of Freakin Fairies operating a jewellery corporation. I could go on.”

  “And how do you intend to integrate the Bloomin Fairies?”

  “We have land set aside for them to form an organic farming commune. It’ll be isolated, but they’ll have everything they need to live just like they do here.”

  “And this Freakin Fairy.” Flower studied Fitz closely. “He’s in Dream too? Is he one of your jewellers?”

  “He lives in Dream,” Fitz said. “He helps us to get the fairies out and settled.”

  Flower tried to hide her excitement by walking slowly on with her head down. This could be the same Freakin Fairy she’d seen walking with Krysta. The curiosity was almost too much to bear, but she kept a lid on it. The offer was impossible to resist. “You sound organised,” she said. “Are you the leader of this enterprise?”

  “Hardly.” Fitz chuckled. “But yes, we are organised.”

  “What name do you give yourselves?”

  “I don’t think that matters.”

  Flower turned back to him. “Of course it matters.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “If you don’t tell me I won’t help you.”

  “We are the Invisible Army.”

  Flower closed her eyes in disbelief. She sat on the ground right there and put her head in her hands. “Are you serious?”

  Fitz squatted in front of her. “Yes.”

  “Since when did the Invisible Army stop following around the king and sabotaging his every good work and turn to smuggling fairies?”

  “Since we realised somebody had to help them.”

  Flower was silent for some time, struggling with the idea. The Invisible Army, or the IA as they called themselves, had been a shadowy presence for as long as she could remember. Pierus had never taken them that seriously. But then, the king wasn’t the one who had to clean up the mess they left when they interfered. Come to think of it, they’d been quiet since the Vampire Wars, when–

  She frowned. She could see big frightened eyes looking up at her. A Bloody Fairy. A pregnant Bloody Fairy, and something very, very wrong, but the memory slipped from her grasp as quickly as it had landed there. Damn it, this was getting frustrating.

  She studied Fitz, who still knelt in front of her. “Alright. We’ll do it. We’ll help you, but only with the fairies. Nikifor and I are not getting involved in anything that would harm the king.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Your destiny is to kill the muse king.

  Nikifor had watched Flower and Fitz walk away and been glad of some time to himself. He had so much to think about. The fairy’s words came back to him again and again. He hadn’t told anyone but Fitz. He couldn’t. How could he tell Flower he was a danger to the king? She would never understand.

  By the time they came back he’d figured nothing out. He went out to meet them, but his steps dragged and his attention was on the ground.

  “Nikifor.” Flower tucked her hand into his elbow and drew him a little way ahead of Fitz when they met. She looked unusually serious.

  “Bad news?”

  “Perhaps a little. Fitz has agreed to take us to somebody who can help to free the Freakin Fairies, but first we must help him evacuate these Bloomin Fairies from their village. I know it’s highly irregular for us to work with an enemy of the king and it will take much, much longer for us to find Pierus now, but it seems the only way.”

  Excitement, relief, elation washed over him in dizzying waves. “But that’s magnificent!” he boomed.

  Flower gave him a pained expression and rubbed her ear. “Really? Why?”

  “Sorry,” Nikifor whispered. “I only mean, I think we should help the Bloomin Fairies.” He decided not to volunteer any more opinions. It was true, he did want to help the village, but the delay also meant he had longer to figure out what to do about being a danger to the king.

  If Flower was surprised he’d agreed so readily, she didn’t show it. She only shrugged. “We’re going to see the Lord of the Gourd right now. I’m going to try and convince him to leave before the Guild gets here.”

  “Her,” Nikifor said.

  “What?”

  “The Lord of the Gourd is a lady.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. How can a lord be a lady?”

  Fitz caught up to them. He chuckled. “The Lord of the Gourd is always the Bloomin Fairy who can beat all the other fairies in a fist fight. Apparently this lady trounced every male in the village when the last Lord of the Gourd died about sixty years ago.”

  They stopped at the giant pumpkin in the centre of the village and ducked through the doorway to get inside. Fitz led the way to the centre of the almost empty space, where once more the Lord of the Gourd resembled a pile of snoring blankets.

  Pumpkinhead, who was sitting in the corner mashing something up in a mortar and pestle, jumped up at their entrance, ran over to the pile of blankets and poked at it. “Lord of the Gourd!” he yelled.

  The Lord of the Gourd grunted, wriggled, then sat up in a cocoon of blankets. “What?!”

  “Visitors, oh great Lord of the Gourd!”

  “You don’t have to shout! I may be old but I’m not deaf! Who is it?”

  Nikifor winced. The Lord of the Gourd’s pitch was so loud it hurt his ears, but something else bothered him, too. A cold prickle ran down his spine. He glanced about the shadows in the room, but it wasn’t until he looked back at Flower he saw anything unusual. A tall, shadowy creature he knew only too well hovered at her shoulder.

  “It’s the Great Clip Clop with the Dead Giant Freakin Muse and the Crazy Giant Freakin Muse!” Pumpkinhead shouted the words so loud veins popped out on his face.

  “I can see that for myself!” The Lord of the Gourd rose to her feet and flicked at Pumpkinhead until he returned to his mortar and pestle. Then she turned to her guests. “You’re not dead anymore then,” she said to Flower in a much more normal tone of voice.

  Flower made a graceful bow. The Tormentor ran a hand through her hair and looked at Nikifor. He gave a thin smile.

  “Madam, it is an honour to meet you. I thank you for taking us in, for if you had not I surely would be dead,” Flower said.

  The Tormentor’s eyes never left Nikifor. His shadowy hands closed around her throat. Flower didn’t appear to feel a thing.

  “Yes.” The Lord of the Gourd seemed very satisfied with this speech. “It is an honour to meet me.”

  “Will you allow me to deliver news from Shadow City?” Flower asked.

  “Go on then.” The Lord of the Gourd gave an airy wave of the hand.

  “She’s a traitor,” the Tormentor said in a low voice. “You know she is
boy, she told you so herself. She agreed to work with the enemy of your king. She must die.”

  Nikifor took a single step backward and gave a minute shake of the head. He would not fall apart, not here, not now. He felt Fitz’s eyes on him like coals. He would ignore the Tormentor. The shadow could do nothing.

  Flower moved closer to the Lord of the Gourd. “It is my grave duty to report Shadow City is in the grip of some unknown tyrant,” she said. “Fairies from many tribes are missing. Nikifor and I are the only muses I know of who are not missing.”

  The Lord of the Gourd shrugged as though the muses mattered little to her. “Nobody from our village is missing.”

  “Kill her,” the Tormentor whispered over Flower’s head. His eyes, even in shadow, bored into Nikifor’s mind with a force he could hardly bear.

  “I believe you may nevertheless be in grave danger,” Flower said. “The Guild is searching for your village. They close in every day.”

  “That’s what he said.” The Lord of the Gourd scowled at Fitz and drummed her fingers on her chair.

  “And he was right.” Flower gestured around her. “If they find you, there will be no escape. Please, Madam, take your tribe and flee this place before they get here.”

  The Tormentor ran his hand over Flower’s chest in the most intimate and insulting gesture Nikifor had ever seen. His face burned. His hands began to shake.

  “If we did that, we’d be missing too,” The Lord of the Gourd said. “Then you’d have to find us as well and that’d make your job doubly hard.”

  Flower paused, apparently bamboozled by this reply. Nikifor could almost see her determine to keep pushing to get her way, even as the Tormentor wound a hand into her hair and yanked.

  Flower stumbled. She glanced about, frowned, then righted herself. “Madam, please listen to me and save the lives of all your people. The Guild will be here any day. You must leave. You must let Fitz take you to a safe place!”