13 Secrets (21 page)

Fabian nodded and hushed him. “Is there any other way out apart from going past the stairs?” he asked. “Do any of the rooms below have bay windows that we could climb out onto?”

Jack’s eyes darted over Fabian’s face. “I don’t… no. There’s nothing. The only way is past the kitchen—”

The floorboard outside the room creaked, cutting him off. Fabian felt ill with dread as the door opened wider.

The changeling mother stepped into the room. Her mouth twisted into a snarl at the sight of Fabian and the freed Jack. From his position on the stairs minutes ago, Fabian had not had the advantage—or disadvantage—of seeing her fully. Now that he did, his eyes were drawn to her feet. They were bare, wet, and bloody from walking through the spilled truth spell and broken glass. They were feet that did not look human.

She took a limping step toward them, her maddened eyes sliding over Jack.

“How did you get free? That’s not possible….”

Jack cringed away from her, holding Lucy out of reach. The child began crying again at the sight of the changeling mother. Fabian stood between them, brandishing the scissors as though they were a sword. The changeling eyed them, a spark of something in her eyes that Fabian could not read.

“Anything is possible when you’ve got the right tools,” he said, using all his energy to summon an air of confidence he did not feel. “And unfortunately for you, you’re beaten.” He had a sudden, desperate idea. “These scissors will cut through almost anything. I
imagine
that includes skin and bone, but we’ll all find out for sure if you take one more step toward us.” With his free hand, he reached into his pocket, forcing his mouth into what he hoped was a smug smile. “And if you think the truth spell was bad, you don’t even want to know what’s coming next.”

The changeling’s chin dipped. She viewed him through hooded eyes. Fabian held his ground, his hand still in his pocket. He was certain she had seen through his bluff and was about to spring at him….

But to his amazement, she turned and fled, her footsteps beating a drum on her descent of the stairs.

The changeling whipped past Rowan and Suki, momentarily stunning them both. Her lank hair trailed after her as she ran, barefoot and uncaring, through the beer garden and vanished into the alleyway.

Recovering herself, Suki sprinted after her. Rowan put her eyes up to the wooden slats of the trash area. Through a gap she saw that the few people in the garden were looking toward the alley, wondering what was going on. With their attention elsewhere,
she darted from her hiding place and slipped through the door and up the stairs, unseen.

The smell of blood hit, like a punch to the gut, near to one of the rooms. She nosed through the door, terrified of what she was about to see. Why had she ever agreed to Fabian’s involvement?

Because you had no choice,
a little voice inside her said. Even now, she wondered if that were true.

Something wet and thick dripped from the kitchen tabletop. She skirted around the broken glass and wetness on the floor, coming closer to the table. Terror made the situation surreal. Pushing up, she lifted herself to balance on her hind legs, resting her forepaws on the table. The dead eyes of the mangled fish stared back at her. She slid back down, relieved, but for seconds only.

A noise drew her to the room furthest away: a muffled sob. She followed it, her fox ears twitching. The door was open, but not until she was through it did she see Fabian, Jack, and Lucy, frozen in position.

Fabian sank to his knees when he saw her. Rowan ran to him and he threw his arms around her, pressing his face into her rough fur.

“We thought you were
her
,” he said shakily. “We thought she’d come back….”

“She’s gone,” said Rowan gruffly, her muzzle by Fabian’s ear. His bushy hair brushed against her nose. “Now let me go, Fabian. I’m not a dog, you know.”

“Right.” Fabian dropped his arms, embarrassed. She gave him a quick affectionate nip.

“Now, follow me. I don’t think she’ll be coming back but we can’t take the chance. We need Jack and Lucy away from here until we know where she is.”

“She said she wanted the girl,” Fabian mumbled, clambering to his feet. “She said she only came for the girl.”

Rowan looked at Jack. Though Suki had undoubtedly told him about the fox-skin coat, he was watching her in astonishment. Lucy had burrowed her face into his neck, like a woodland creature hibernating.

“Thank goodness she didn’t take her,” said Rowan. She led the way out of the room, motioning for Fabian and Jack to follow. She considered removing the coat. It would not do to be seen as a fox inside a public building. Yet she dismissed it, for already another thought was brewing in her mind.

They crept downstairs, leaving the horrid, fishy scent behind them to gulp at the fresh air in the garden. Rowan scampered quickly to the trash area, speaking quietly to Fabian through the wooden slats.

“Take Jack and Lucy to the tea shop where Tanya is. Keep them there until I come back. You’ll be safe there.”

“Where are you going?” Fabian asked.

“I’m going after Suki. That thing has just shown how dangerous it is, and Suki could probably use the help.”

“But—”

“Do as I say,” she insisted. “There’s not much time.”

“Fine,” Fabian said reluctantly. “We’ll wait for you there. Just… be careful.”

Rowan watched as they made their way through the leafy arch and left the garden. Once they were out of sight, she set off at a gallop into the deserted alleyway with only her fox senses to guide her.

The alley led straight on at first. Ivy dressed the fences and walls, litter caught in it like flies in a spider’s web. Tall trees lined the gardens on the other sides of these walls, leaving the alley cold and dark, the perfect gathering place—or escape route—for anyone up to no good.

Soon the alley dead-ended into another running horizontally, offering two different directions. Rowan skittered to a halt, just managing to steer clear of a jagged shard of glass from a broken bottle. She nosed the air, trying to get an instinct for which way to go. The iron tang of blood and the smell of fish caught her nose. She saw a smear of something dark and wet on a fence post to the right. She took off, dodging trash, more broken glass, and stinging nettles.

The pathways grew tidier as she trailed away from the town and its shops and into the alleys behind the residential streets of Tickey End. Here the alleys bordered back gardens. In one of them she heard children playing, splashing in paddling pools and shrieking with laughter; in another she smelled the delicious waft of food being cooked on a barbecue.

She kept going, her claws clattering over the ground.

A piercing scream rang out up ahead, one that rose above the childish ones in the garden. This was a different scream, and she thought she recognized the voice.

“Suki,” she murmured, racing toward it.

The alley ended unexpectedly and branched off again. She did not know which way to go, and she was afraid to call out for Suki in case the changeling was near. Rowan tried to scent the air but the barbecue was overriding things.

A slash of blond hair on the pathway to her far left caught her eye. She edged toward it, resisting the urge to run. It could be a trap.

Drawing closer, her caution vanished.

Suki lay sprawled on the dirty ground, eyes closed and one cheek pressed against the gravel. Her lower body was caught in an impossible tangle of ivy that could only be enchanted. Rowan nudged her face gingerly.

“Suki!” she whispered. “Suki, wake up!”

To her immense relief Suki stirred. Grit and dirt peppered her face and some of the gravel was embedded into her skin as she lifted her head.

“Wha—” she began. “My head feels like it’s about to split in two….”

“You’re tangled up,” Rowan whispered. “It’s obviously the changeling’s doing—you must have banged your head when you fell. Why weren’t you protected?”

Suki groaned. “I don’t know—I had an iron nail in my pocket but it must have fallen out as I ran. I
nearly had her….” She rested her cheek back on the ground. “She went… through there….”

Rowan followed Suki’s hand, streaked with blood, to where it pointed, through a broken gap in a fence opposite them.

“What’s through there? Do you know?”

Suki shook her head, grimacing. “No. I was just about to follow when the ivy wound around me and pulled me back. She’s probably gone by now.”

“The trail might still lead to Jack’s mother,” said Rowan. “But I don’t want to leave you like this—”

She was interrupted by a shout from the far end of the alley. Sparrow was hurtling toward them, holding his sides and fighting for breath.

“Suki!” he gasped, falling to his knees at her side. He turned to Rowan. “Is she all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Suki, trying to pull herself into a sitting position. Sparrow pulled a penknife from his back pocket and began to cut at the ivy.

“Where’s Jack’s father?” Rowan asked.

“Lost him,” said Sparrow. “
Finally
. He can really run, but I think he’s gone back to the pub now.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t go upstairs for a while, then,” said Rowan. “Stay with Suki. I’m going after the changeling.” She nodded to the gap in the fence. “Suki saw her go through there.”

“I can go,” Sparrow began.

“No. I’ve got the coat—she won’t immediately know I’m a threat, and even when she does she can’t use magic on me. I’m protected, remember?”

“All right,” he conceded. “Watch yourself.”

The broken wood surrounding the hole in the fence stuck out at jagged angles. Rowan jumped through it, but it was not a clean jump, and her paws gathered splinters from the wood as she brushed against it.

She landed in the large, overgrown garden of an old terraced house. It was prewar, for at the very back of it, past a neglected vegetable patch, squatted an old corrugated steel structure, dug into the ground with its roof curving out. It was an abandoned bomb shelter. She looked past it to the house. It was derelict. Some of the windows had been smashed and no one had bothered to board them up.

A ginger-colored cat wound its way out of the broken glass of a downstairs window, a squirming rat clamped between its jaws. The cat froze and then leapt to safety over the fence when it saw the fox. Rowan eyed the hole the cat had exited from, wondering if she could make it through into the house—but a whimpering sound stopped her.

She pricked up her ears. There it was again… coming from the bomb shelter. Skirting closer to it, she dipped her head to the open space between the rounded roof and the ground and peered past thick gray cobwebs to the inside.

Wooden crates and bundles of old sacking were strewn about. A terrible smell filled the air down there, and objects littered the stone floor. It was dark, and weeds had sprouted between the stones, making
it impossible to see what the objects were, but on the other side Rowan saw a set of tiny steps. She set off down the side of the shelter, squeezing between it and next-door’s fence, trampling weeds and sending a rat scurrying for shelter as she went.

The smell worsened as she descended the steps. At the foot of them, the small body of a goblin lay dead. This must be Jack’s missing guardian, she realized. But she had not mistaken the whimpering, and now that she had reached the bottom, stepping over the goblin, she saw what she had missed from her viewpoint outside. A pale hand was visible from beneath a pile of sacking on a bed up against the wall. The objects she had seen from above crunched beneath her as she moved over them. She looked down, uneasy. Fragments of mirror; broken eggshells; strands of hair. She was uncomfortably familiar with the ingredients. Glamour had been worked here.

Cautiously, Rowan darted forward and pulled the sacking away with her teeth. Jack’s mother lay beneath it, almost motionless, but certainly alive. Shaky little breaths were being emitted through her nostrils. Her mouth was tied with an oily-looking piece of rag. Her eyes widened at the sight of Rowan staring up at her. She shifted on the pile of cloth, maneuvering herself into a different position with one hand.

Her other hand was encircled by a manacle.

Rowan tensed, memories rushing back. She forced
herself to try to clear her head, but the broken items beneath her paws, and now the manacle, were too much….