Banished (20 page)

‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘How badly are you hurt?’

‘My arm will have some sexy new scars. I just need to get it cleaned out quickly. My leg . . . it’s not broken, that’s for sure. But it hurts like hell.’

‘And that’s it?’ He frowns at me. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Man, when I got there it looked like Thorn was trying to squash you.’

‘No, he was holding on to me. I almost fell and he just picked me up with one arm.’ Even to my ears it sounds lame.

‘Just picked you up . . . Kit, I know you’re as freaked out as I am. Did you see what he did to those things? He flung that thing around like it was a piece of wood. Then he latches
on to them and turns them to dust. Who does that? How is that even possible? Since when can he do that? Also, holding up that thing with one hand? Man, even I’d struggle to do that and
I’m much stronger than your average muscle-bound human.’

‘Aiden, there’s a lot of crap going on that we don’t know. Thorn’s friend Ioric appeared down there with the trolls. He was actually possessed and it was like some kind
of bad B-movie. Whoever took control of him is super-strong and his magic is . . .’ I gasp as my arm protests at my gesture. ‘Nothing I’ve seen before.’ I cast a quick look
over my shoulder and watch Thorn dawdling behind us, his head down, hood up. ‘He made Thorn’s mate kill himself. By slitting his own throat.’

‘Holy shit.’ Aiden’s breath catches in his throat. ‘Now what?’

‘We get home and we get hold of Olga. Then we go to Scotland.’

‘Scotland? Why there?’

‘Because that’s where Thorn’s parents are.’

Aiden’s quiet for a moment. ‘My dad and the pack went up there.’

‘So did my cousins.’

We share a look as we turn past the tiny church of St Paul, putting Covent Garden behind us at last.

‘We have to get home,’ I say to Aiden. ‘We must clean up and head north as soon as we can.’

We seem to be heading for a young guy leaning against a large black Bentley. If he’s shocked at the state I’m in he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he nods briefly at Aiden, who
gently disengages his arm from my waist so that he can open the door for me.

‘Leo, this is Kit. Kit, Leo and that’s Thorn.’

‘Hey,’ he says, frowning lightly at Thorn, who isn’t looking good, even compared to me – and I look as if I’ve bathed in blood. ‘You guys look rough. I hope
whoever you tangled with looks worse.’

I hesitate by the open door and look at Leo.

‘They do,’ I assure him. ‘And I don’t want to damage your upholstery . . .’

Leo assesses my stained clothing before shrugging. ‘The leather needs replacing anyway. Don’t worry about it.’ He gives me a charming smile and I return it, too exhausted to
read anything into it, just thankful that I can sit down in the relative safety of a rather luxurious interior.

Next Aiden takes Thorn by the arm where he stands swaying by the boot of the car.

‘Get in, mate,’ he says to the Fae prince. ‘You’ll be okay, we’ll get you some tea and you’ll be sorted in no time at all.’

‘I’m not sure tea will fix how I’m feeling,’ Thorn murmurs but ducks his head into the car and clambers in next to me.

‘I’ll call you when you can come and get the car,’ Aiden says to Leo. ‘And thanks for helping out.’

‘No worries, bruv. You know all you have to do is ask.’

They shake hands and Leo lifts his hand to me in a light cheery wave, before setting off in the direction of Charing Cross at a jaunty pace. He moves with an easy grace, long legged and casual,
easily disappearing in the crowd.

‘Who was that?’ I ask Aiden as he settles in behind the wheel.

‘That was Leo. He, uh, he knows about us.’ He looks a bit uncomfortable. ‘We went to school together and he saw my first change happen to me during a cross-country race. He
didn’t run away. He stood his ground and helped.’

‘And this is his car?’ I ask, looking around the leather interior, at the lit dials. ‘A bit fancy for a teenager, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah. Leo is what I’d like to call a guy who sees opportunities and takes them.’ Aiden clicks his seatbelt in place before starting the engine and pulling out. ‘His
dad’s in alternative employment.’

I feel like throwing my hands up in the air in despair, only I ache too much to do it. ‘So we’re in a stolen car?’

‘No, not at all. This is definitely Leo’s dad’s car. Where
he
got it from is another story.’

I nod and close my eyes, putting Leo and his dad out of my mind. I feel ragged and tired and I hurt all over, plus my mind is buzzing with everything that’s happened today. I’m
partly relieved to at least suspect where my family is now. If they’ve all met up with Thorn’s parents, it could explain why they’ve been out of contact. As Fae magic knocks out
electronic equipment, that could’ve stopped them getting or returning my bazillion messages. The same for Aiden’s family and his pack. Chances seem good that they are all together.

I do my best to ignore the throb in my arm and the dull ache in my leg. To be fair, I don’t think there’s a part of me that’s not hurting. I slant a look at Thorn where
he’s slumped with me in the back seat. He looks tense and troubled, but his anger has dissipated.

‘What happened?’ I ask him. I know he’s awake. ‘Who was that guy back there?’ I don’t have to explain to him what I mean. The boy I’ve come to know
these past few days definitely wasn’t the one I saw in that side street a few minutes ago.

‘I don’t know.’ For the longest time he doesn’t look at me but then he does and his eyes are full of self-loathing. ‘I’ve never in my life done anything like that to another living thing. It is not the kind of magic I’ve grown up using.’

‘Is it normal?’ I ask him, genuinely curious. ‘What you did back there?’

‘No,’ he answers firmly. ‘I’ve never displayed any of these abilities before.’

I let that sink in for a few seconds. I’m still a novice to how magic works, mine especially. But seeing what he just did, his eyes turning black and his skin going snake-like, makes me
wonder if being in the Frontier is to blame.

‘Dude, you scared me shitless back there,’ Aiden puts in, looking at us in the rearview mirror. ‘I’ve never seen anyone pull that kind of stunt before.’

‘Neither have I,’ Thorn says, sounding tired. ‘I went looking for Kit when she took so long coming back. When I saw that thing standing over her I just . . .’

‘Went berserk?’ Aiden prompted, his eyebrows raised.

‘I am not a berserker.’ Thorn bit the words out. ‘I am not some uncaged wild animal. That, back there, was not who I am.’

‘I don’t know what a berserker is,’ I point out before they can start bickering.

‘A berserker is someone who goes into battle so full of adrenalin that even if his limbs get lobbed off, he still keeps fighting. He makes no distinction between friends and foes in
battle.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Ah, that’s not someone I’d like to run into.’

‘My dad’s told me that there’s an entire squad of berserkers who fight for Aelfric,’ Aiden says. ‘Is that true?’

‘It is true but they are shunned by the other warriors. The way they fight, giving themselves over to their basest form, is seen as impure.’

I open my mouth to ask more but I spot Aiden’s warning look in the mirror and catch myself. I settle back against the leather seat and watch passers-by huddle beneath umbrellas on the
pavements as we drive along.

Aiden fiddles with the radio and music swells around us, coming from hidden speakers. It’s something classical with lots of violins and a woman’s soothing voice. I sigh, letting it
wrap around me as I watch the rain throw odd patterns against the skin of my hand as it rests in Thorn’s. When did he take my hand? I can’t remember. I watch as his thumb traces an
intricate pattern along the back of my hand and although it’s nice I don’t think he even notices that he’s doing it. I close my eyes again and bite the inside of my cheek. Today
has gone crazy, and more than anything else I want my family around me. I feel genuinely lost and out of my depth with none of my cousins to help me figure this mess out. I check the phone Aiden
slipped me. The cracked screen shows full signal, but no messages, no emails, nothing. It might as well be a paperweight for all the good it’s done me these past two days.

‘Leo’s called Olga for us,’ Aiden says over his shoulder. ‘She should be at the house later.’

‘Can he be trusted?’ Thorn asks him. ‘It seems we’re running out of people we can turn to for help.’

‘Leo is solid. He won’t speak to anyone about what he saw today.’

To my surprise Thorn takes Aiden’s word and settles back down again.

Olga walks into my room as I’m pulling off my shoes.

‘You stink,’ she says with a frown. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Oh, you know, fighting bad things. Getting covered in blood.’

‘Did you beat them?’ She heaves her small suitcase onto the bed and zips it open. ‘Where are you hurt?’ Her gaze rakes me. ‘Your arm? Get your shirt off,
let’s look at your arm.’

‘I beat two of them.’ I pull off my dirty hoodie and look down at my long-sleeved thermal vest; it’s been completely ruined by blood. My arm has stopped throbbing and is now
just a mass of soreness all the time. ‘Then Thorn turned up and went darkside on me.’

‘Can you get your sleeve off?’ Olga tuts under her breath when I shake my head and brings out a sharp knife. She slides it up and under my sleeve and smoothly cuts the fabric away. I
bite my lip to hold back a squeal as she carefully prises the bits of cloth out of the three gashes. It feels as if she’s raking glass over my exposed wounds.

‘Lift your arm.’ She pulls the vest off me and her dark eyes narrow. ‘What is it with you Blackharts trying to stop blows with your body? Ever heard about running?’

I ignore the new bruises that have blossomed everywhere and I stare straight ahead, trying not to shiver in the cooler air, and grimace at her. ‘Funny.’

‘Go have your shower and then come back out here and I’ll do my best to fix up your arm. You can tell me about the fight and what’s made Thorn look like he wants to leap off
the nearest tall building.’

I nod and yank off my wet jeans and squelch in wet socks to the bathroom. The shower feels great and I wash and rinse my hair, scrubbing hard to get rid of all the blood, especially under my
nails. Washing with only one flexible arm isn’t easy. When I’m done, I hobble into some clean underwear, shorts and a strappy thermal cami, and go sit on the bed next to Olga, who has
laid out various medical bits.

‘This is going to hurt,’ she says, completely unnecessarily, I think. ‘So, what happened? Tell me all of it.’

So I do. I tell her about the visit to the trolls, about Ioric Brightwing’s appearance and the immobilizing spell he cast over the trolls and how Thorn questioned him. In telling the story
I become aware of the strangeness of it, how surreal it sounds, like a bad fever dream.

Olga takes great care cleaning my arm; the pain becomes dizzying and my story comes in fits and starts. She has to ask me questions to keep me making sense. However, the retelling, especially
the part involving Ioric cutting his own throat, distracts me from my arm.

‘Thorn took it hard?’ she asks.

I nod. ‘Of course he did. I took it hard and I didn’t even know the guy. Ioric’s death set the trolls free, and they had to lift his friend out of his arms before he let him
go. Olga, the man who did this is a beast. It made no sense what he did.’

‘Showing off.’ Olga looked up from tidying her bandages away. ‘He was showing off for Thorn’s benefit. Like a small child.’

‘It’s exactly what it felt like. But why was he so desperate?’ I ask her. ‘Why does he want Thorn so badly?’

Olga pulls her chair closer to examine my leg. ‘I don’t know. But I do wonder why Eadric went to see Thorn’s dad all those years ago. If we can figure out what they spoke
about, maybe it would be clearer.’

I let out a howl as Olga does something to my leg and it feels as if she’s digging her entire hand into my muscle and pulling at it, hard. I sit up to see what she’s doing but she
pushes me back down with her free hand.

‘You don’t want to see this,’ she tells me and I gasp for breath and squeeze my eyes shut at the terrible pain she’s inflicting on me. ‘I’m listening: what
else? Tell me about Thorn.’

Between groans and shouting at her, I tell her about Thorn, about him rushing in and saving me from being a chimera snack. That he seemed bigger too, and how his eyes went coal black as he took
the life force from the chimeras, turning them to dust.

Olga pauses for a second, a look of surprise on her face. ‘He did that?’

‘He looked so ill afterwards. I thought he was going to pass out,’ I tell the ceiling. ‘What kind of magic does that, Olga?’

‘I can’t even begin to say. My magic is small magics: cantrips, glamours and healing. I’ve been helping your family look after the Manor for years. But the spells used to keep
it safe against magical attack were laid down by far more talented magic users than me. All I ever did was follow the formulae they left behind. Each consecutive layer we added boosted the
house’s defences – but the dragon that demolished those wards is not of this earth. Dragons absorb the energies around them, channelling them to power their own magic. Sounds like Thorn
used the same principle – gathering the energies that exist all around us, and using them against the chimeras. Then he reversed that magic and turned them to dust.’

She’s not precisely said it, but she’s likening Thorn to the dragon that destroyed my home. I take a deep breath and try and concentrate on the warmth of her hands as she manipulates
my leg.

‘Do you remember anything else about Thorn’s change?’ Olga is saying. ‘Anything at all?’