Arrow (Knife) (30 page)

A middle-aged woman opened the door to them, looking as weary as Rhosmari felt, and showed them upstairs to a bedroom resplendent in gold and black brocade. At that point, Rhosmari had no energy left to care whose house it was, or what the Empress had done to commandeer it. She collapsed onto the mattress, dropped her head against the pillow, and sank into exhausted sleep.

When Rhosmari woke again, it was morning. Her body felt rested, but her mind remained hazy, as though she were trapped in a nightmare. Even the sunlight that filtered through the blinds had a poisonous tinge to it, and the air tasted thick and cloying. And when she rolled onto her back she found a small black and white bird perched on the end of the bedpost, watching her.

She sat up, drawing her knees protectively to her chest, as Martin dropped off the end of the bed and shook himself back into faery shape. ‘The Empress wants us to join her for breakfast,’ he said curtly. ‘Make yourself presentable.’

He was angry now, though she could not guess why. He had worked his way back into the Empress’s favour, and she had promised him an island to rule. What more could he want?

Breakfast was served by the woman who had opened the door to them the night before, with the help of a bearded man who Rhosmari guessed must be her husband. The food was the finest she had seen since Waverley Hall: scrambled eggs cooked to perfect fluffiness, served with thin slices of smoked salmon and flaky rolls rich with butter. The smell of it alone was enough to make her stomach groan with hunger.

But as the humans moved about the table refilling the faeries’ glasses and bringing them fresh plates for each course, the frustrated rage in the man’s eyes and the terror in the woman’s disturbed Rhosmari so much that she could not eat. It seemed like some twisted inversion of the hospitality Paul and Peri had shown her when she first came to the Oakenwyld, these humans’ brittle silence a macabre contrast to the laughter and conversation that had so surprised her that day. And when the woman’s hand trembled and a splash of orange juice fell onto the tablecloth, it was more than Rhosmari could bear. She stammered, ‘Please excuse me,’ and fled up the stairs to her room.

Alone, she wrapped her arms around herself, stifling a sob. She had given Timothy her name, and now she knew – if there had ever been any doubt – that she had given him her heart as well. But love had not saved her, and it would not save him either. As soon as they returned from the Green Isles, the Empress would use the Children of Rhys to force the Oak to surrender. And then she would make good on her promise to kill Timothy, and likely Paul and Peri – if she was not dead already – as well…

A hand clamped over her mouth. Out of nowhere, a harsh voice whispered, ‘Don’t scream. Or I’ll knock you silly.’

Rhosmari’s eyes darted wildly in all directions. Hardly able to breathe, let alone speak, she went stiff as coral.

‘Good choice,’ said her invisible captor. ‘Now you listen. I’m taking you back to the Oak—’ Rhosmari made a strangled protest, and she stopped. ‘What do you mean, no?’

Rhosmari gulped air as the other faery released her.

‘Mallow. I don’t know how you got in here, or what you think you’re doing—’

‘Followed you from the Oakenwyld, of course,’ retorted Mallow. ‘And sneaked in the door with you last night. I’d have nabbed you long before this, if it weren’t for that blighted Martin hanging about.’ She stepped back, feet noiseless on the plush carpet. ‘As for why I’m here, isn’t it obvious? It’s no secret I don’t think much of Valerian, but at least she doesn’t kill her own kind, or suck the magic out of them to make herself stronger. And I’ll be hanged before I let that treacherous little snake Bluebell rule the Oak, so…’ She seized Rhosmari’s wrist. ‘If I rescue you, that’s meat for my soup, and gristle in hers.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Rhosmari tugged vainly against the Chief Cook’s hold. ‘I want to come with you, but truly, I
can’t.
The Empress knows my name, and she’s also got me linked to Martin. The minute you try to take me out of this house, they’ll both know it…and then you’ll be caught as well.’

Mallow swore. ‘Well, that’s a fine old mess, isn’t it? How am I supposed to get them to let me back in the Oak now?’

Rhosmari glanced at the closed door. Martin would be coming up the stairs any minute. ‘Take this,’ she said. Undoing the clasp from her hair, she pressed it into Mallow’s hand. ‘Give it to Timothy, with this message: tell him the Empress is going to attack the Green Isles tonight. Tell him…that our plan didn’t work, and that I’m sorry. And tell him goodbye.’

‘Timothy?’ Mallow’s face was invisible, but Rhosmari could easily imagine the curl of her lip. ‘You want me to give a message to the
human
?’

‘Yes.’ She spoke firmly, in the tone she reserved for her most difficult students. ‘If you want Queen Valerian and the others to believe you’ve changed your mind, Mallow, that’s one good way to prove it. Now go! Quickly!’

Mallow grumbled wordlessly…and then she was gone, with a soft inrush of air that told Rhosmari she had Leaped away. Weak with relief, Rhosmari clutched the bedpost for support.

The door opened. ‘Rhosmari,’ said Martin, ‘it’s time to go.’ Then he frowned. ‘What happened to your hair?’

Rhosmari straightened up and faced him, her gaze holding his until he looked away. Then she walked past him into the corridor, silent but resolute, like a martyr going to her execution.

When Martin led Rhosmari outside, the bearded man was holding the back door of his car open for the Empress, while Veronica and a nervous-looking Bluebell stood by. Jasmine acknowledged them all with a nod as she climbed into the vehicle; then the door closed, hiding her behind its tinted glass.

‘Corbin and Byrne have already gone ahead to gather the others,’ said Martin as he steered Rhosmari towards the side of the house, where a row of tall cedars cast their shadow over the garden. ‘We’re all going to fly to Wales together – but those butterfly wings of yours are too weak for such a long journey. You’ll have to ride on my back.’

‘Me, ride on you? Even at my smallest size I’m bigger than—’

But before she could finish, Martin had transformed into a barn owl, stretching out both grey-white wings to show her just how large he was. Chastened, Rhosmari shrank to Oakenfolk size and climbed onto his back. As soon as she settled herself between his wings he sprang up from the ground, launching them both into the brilliant sky.

The ground spun away beneath them, houses dwindling to rooftops and lawns to mere patches of green. The sunlight dazzled Rhosmari’s eyes, and the wind whipped her hair into a tangle. She clung tight to Martin, knees gripping his feathered sides and arms thrown around his neck as far as they would go.

A river threaded across the countryside, bright as molten silver. Roads sliced the land into black-edged pieces. Fields and woodland flashed past, dotted with farms and villages at first, then yielding to bigger towns and the sprawling outskirts of some great city. Could that be London already? She had lost all sense of where they were.

Then a shadow fell over her face, and when she looked up, the sky was dark with birds.

They moved together in one great flock, weirdly mismatched and just as unnaturally silent. Their wings sliced the air with deliberate strokes: crows and ravens, hawks and owls, ducks, geese and seabirds of every kind. And as Martin angled upwards to join them, Rhosmari saw that many of the others also bore a female faery on their backs.

This was the first time she had seen the Empress’s whole army out in the open. Were there two hundred? Three? It was hard to be certain. But even so, it seemed that the faeries of the Oak had not been so badly outnumbered last night as they had feared. No wonder the Empress had been so willing to grant Rhosmari’s request and withdraw.

After a few hours of steady flight some of the birds began to falter, and by unspoken agreement the leaders glided downwards, to settle along the bank of a slow-moving river. Martin back-winged to a landing upon the grass, and Rhosmari slid off, grateful for the chance to stretch her aching limbs.

Then the owl vanished and Martin stood beside her, small as she was. She had never seen him at Oakenfolk size before, and for a moment she could only stare. But he seized her hand and said, ‘We’re Leaping to Lyn and Toby’s theatre. Right now.’

‘To Cardiff?’ They must have flown a long way, if they were close enough to the city to Leap there. ‘Why?’

‘Because I have to know,’ said Martin. ‘But enough talking.
Go!
’ And with that he vanished, and Rhosmari had to Leap with him. They slipped in and out of emptiness, appearing on the familiar back street in the heart of Cardiff.

Someone in the distance let out a shriek – they must have been spotted – but Martin ignored it. His eyes were fixed on Lyn’s door, his fingers tracing the empty space where the
BARDHOUSE THEATRE COMPANY
sign had once hung. He swore softly and stabbed his thumb against the bell, buzzing once, twice—

The door opened. Lyn stood there with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, looking irritable. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

‘Lyn,’ said Martin. ‘Where’s the sign? What happened to the theatre?’

‘Who cares?’ retorted the human woman. ‘If you came to audition, forget it. The company’s finished.’ She tried to shut the door, but Martin stepped to block it.

‘You can’t be serious,’ he said. ‘This theatre was your life. Toby’s, too. Where is he?’

‘Doing real work for real money, I expect,’ said Lyn. ‘Or at least that was the idea when he left. Listen, whoever you are—’

Rhosmari drew in her breath, a sharp intake of disbelief and pain. Beside her, Martin had gone so still that he might have been carved from ice.

‘—if you want to get up on a stage somewhere and make a fool of yourself, that’s your business. But it’s not mine, not any more. Now get your foot out of my door before I call the police.’

Slowly, Martin stepped back. His face was ashen, and when Rhosmari touched his arm he did not even seem to feel it. He stood there like a living ghost, as Lyn slammed the door and bolted it shut.

So this was what Veronica had meant, when she told Martin there was nothing in Cardiff worth going back to. At the Empress’s command, she had done to Martin’s friends what she had once tried to do to Timothy – stolen away all their creative abilities until nothing was left, and left them indifferent to a passion that had once defined their whole lives. And then, in a final cruel twist, she had erased Lyn and Toby’s memories of Martin as well.

‘What are you going to do?’ Rhosmari asked, and when he remained silent, ‘Martin?’

His fingers closed on her wrist, hard enough to bruise, and the look on his face chilled her all over. ‘Veronica was right,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for me here.’

And with that they disappeared, leaving the closed door and the vacant theatre behind them.

The beach gleamed wetly in the moonlight, and the waves that rolled in from the open sea were frothed with silver. One by one the Empress’s army of birds straggled from the sky and alighted on the nearby slope. No one spoke. They were too exhausted – and too bitterly hungry.

They had flown all day and well into the night, and even with clear skies and favourable winds, the journey had not been easy. The last time the Blackwings had permitted the flock to stop and rest, several fights had broken out as the larger birds squabbled over bits of carrion too small to satisfy anyone, while the smaller ones gulped down every worm and insect they could find. Rhosmari, like the rest of the females, had been forced to make do without any food at all.

Had the Empress lost her mind, to drive them all day like this and then expect them to fight for her as well? Rhosmari had said as much to Martin earlier, as they watched Veronica fire a stinging blast of magic at two hawk-faeries to keep them from tearing each other apart. But he had remained hunched in his barn owl form, the flat dish of his face inscrutable, and she wondered if he had even heard.

Now Corbin Blackwing transformed himself out of raven shape and turned to face them. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes hollow, but his voice had lost none of its harsh authority: ‘The Empress awaits us. All of you, follow me.’

In the car park beside the beach sat an elegant wine-coloured sedan, the same car that the Empress had commandeered that morning. Jasmine climbed gracefully from the back seat, dismissing both car and driver with a negligent wave. She seemed not at all concerned about letting the man go, which made Rhosmari think she must have erased his memory and likely his wife’s as well.

‘You have made excellent time,’ she said to the other faeries, as the sedan roared away and vanished down the narrow road. ‘And you shall all be rewarded for it, when this night is done.’ She turned to Rhosmari, eyes alight with anticipation. ‘Now. Show us the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way.’

It was her last chance to resist, to find the strength to deny the Empress’s command. If she did not save her people, no one would. Rhosmari gathered together every shred of courage and resolve she still possessed, and willed herself not to obey.

It was no use. Her muscles flexed into motion, and though her mind shrieked and railed against her body’s treachery she could not stop herself from carrying out the order. Eyes blurring, Rhosmari led Jasmine and her army across the shingle and onto the smooth, tide-washed sand.

They walked in silence, all of them back in faery shape and at full size; the only sound was the rush and sigh of the long breakers, and a distant clamour of gulls that tore at Rhosmari’s heart. It was agony to be so close to the homeland she had longed for and the people she had tried so hard to protect, and know that she had only come to bring about their doom.

The familiar low cliffs approached, encrusted with lichen and tufted with grass. From here their stony slopes looked impenetrable, and yet Rhosmari knew that the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way was near. If she could have dashed herself from a precipice or drowned herself in the sea rather than open that door, she would have. But she had not even the will for that.