The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden (12 page)

“He was quite like you,” she said, stepping forward. “Or perhaps, you are quite like him? I'm not sure. He was funny, and brave, and kind.”

A tiny spark of warmth flared inside Thomas. Marigold thought
he
was those things as well.

“He didn't always like that he had been born just to save us. What, Deadnettle? It's true. He liked mushrooms and milk.”

So did Thomas. He couldn't think of anything to say. It grated upon him even now, rough and stinging, that he had not been the kept one, but then, it hadn't worked out so well for Thistle, neither. The whole tale was sad.

“Are you ready, Thomas?”

More tears dripped down Marigold's cheeks. He nodded and stood.

It was just a tree. A mere tree. The bark scraped and scratched and caught at his shirt as he wedged himself into the space. Deadnettle's eyes were two points of starlight; Thomas could not see Marigold's. Perhaps they were closed. Charley stood in the shadows, awed into silence, which served only to show how strange everything about this truly was.

He thought of the story Deadnettle had just told him. He was the changeling, the useless one, but there was no argument that he was Wintercress's kin, of the royal line to whom these gateways belonged. Deadnettle neared and passed him a silver knife.

“I cannot harm you,” said Deadnettle. “You must do this yourself.”

One slice. Two. Blood slipped and poured from burning lines across his palms, through the calluses from nights of holding a shovel. Thomas placed his hands against the tree. He concentrated, filling his head with everything Deadnettle and Marigold had told him about the faery realm. He spoke the words, words that could be written only in strange, spiky letters and came off his tongue sounding strange and spiky too.

The world went dark.

Thomas Marsden was twelve years old the first time he tried to open the gateway to the land of the faeries.

He blinked and opened his eyes. The darkness around
him was only a bit lighter than the one now easing in his head, which didn't half ache.

“Where am I?”

Immediately, a face hovered over his own. He knew that face. Large eyes and pointed teeth. A name, a strange name . . .

“Deadnettle,” Thomas said. The face smiled, near enough. A second face joined it, and everything returned to Thomas in a rush. “Did I do it? Did it work?”

The smile fled. “No. But you are alive. That is something. I do not know why, and that is something else.”

“Wait,” said Charley. “You were 'specting him to die?”

“I was.”

“Gracious, and just when I was starting to like you. Tom—”

“So was I, Charley,” said Thomas. “But I'm right as rain, see?” He tried to sit up and fell back to the earth again. “Mostly.”

Long fingers gripped his wrists, turning his hands over for inspection. “I do not . . . Your blood, it is different. . . . Something . . . The spell . . .”

“I can try again,” said Thomas, willing the stars overhead to stop moving quite so much.

“Deadnettle, I need to speak with you,” said Marigold. “It's important.”

The faces disappeared. Slowly, Thomas pushed himself up, his whole body sore as a bruise, hands on fire but no longer bleeding. His hearing was nothing like as good as the faeries', but it didn't need to be.

“Repeat yourself,” said Deadnettle in a cold, flat voice.

“Thistle didn't do it. You said Wintercress told you he'd be ready when he covered the sun with the moon. But he didn't do it, Deadnettle. He couldn't. He tried and tried, but he couldn't do it! And then I read in an almanac that it was going to happen anyway, an eclipse, humans call it, so we told you it was Thistle.”

“But you told me he had. You both did. You . . .
lied
, Marigold. This is why you've been so weak. I have blamed myself for this, needing your assistance these past days, bringing you out amongst the iron and the bells. And Thistle! Thistle, with all his meaningless chatter of honor and duty. Where is the honor in this? Where is the duty to which he felt so bound? Ground into the muck of this stinking city, that's where. Do you not see what you did? If Thistle hadn't been weakened when he tried, perhaps he would have succeeded! We might already be home!”

“I know,” she said, miserable but curiously strong. “But you aren't the only one of us who is desperate to get out of here, and don't
you
see? Even without any magic, Thomas has already managed more than Thistle ever did. He lived.
He spoke the words, and bled, and he lived! He can open the gateway, Deadnettle. I'm sure of it.”

“I am not.” Deadnettle spat on the ground. “I am certain of nothing anymore, except that we shall all die in this forsaken place. And as far as I am concerned, it cannot arrive quickly enough. Come, Marigold. We will go back to the others and discuss the doorways; it's been some time since the last. Perhaps one of them has a new suggestion.”

“But Thomas—”

“Can be of no help or use to us, I'm afraid. He may keep his remaining faery silver, and his silence. Tell anyone about us, Thomas, and I will see to it with my last breath that you regret doing so. For you, too.” He pointed at Charley, looked up at the sky, at the moon. “Farther away,” he muttered. “Always farther away.”

The church bells rang, and Deadnettle stifled a scream. His last breath might not be so very far, it seemed. Each chime appeared to pain him more, each step he took to exhaust him deeply.

“I'm staying here,” said Marigold. She tore two strips of cloth from the hem of her cloak. Bandages.

“As you like. I no longer care. Good-bye, Marigold.”

Thomas sat, agape, as Deadnettle stormed away.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Punishment

D
EADNETTLE SHOOK WITH FURY.

How
dare
she? She and Thistle both! They had ruined
everything
. If Thistle had only waited until he had managed the feat Wintercress had foretold, they would be home now. Home, which would ease his agony, if not heal him entirely.

But no, the foolish fledglings had lied to him, weakened themselves, and caused this tragedy.

He knew that was unfair. But as he had told Marigold, he no longer cared. The gateways were closed. Wintercress and Thistle were both dead. He himself was the only one left who had come from the faery realm. And now someone who was as near a human as made no difference knew
of them. Thomas had been raised by criminals, in a den of thievery and thuggery. What would happen to them when he or his friend decided they must no longer keep his knowledge of the faeries secret? Knowledge that was even more extensive than Mordecai's, because of everything Deadnettle and Marigold had told him.

He stood, and pain rattled through his body as his legs gave way beneath him, every bone bruising against the hard basement floor. Some of the other faeries shifted restlessly on their beds, glowing eyes blinking open for a moment before they closed again.

Panting, Deadnettle crawled into a corner, curled there against the wall. He would have to wait for her to return, and in the meantime he would summon the energy to punish her for disobeying the very rules of their people.

How
dare
they.

By dawn, she had not yet returned. Worry mingled with Deadnettle's rage, a rage that felt as close to strength as he'd had in many months. Soon, a burst of fear joined them, striking deep within him at the sound of the door opening at the top of the stairs.

More quickly than he would have thought possible, Deadnettle jumped to his feet, and he was halfway up the steps when he saw the polished toes of Mordecai's leather shoes.

“Ah, Deadnettle. Good morning. Would you be so kind as to fetch that lovely Marigold for me? I have an early appointment.”

Mordecai did not attempt to pass Deadnettle on the stairs, and this was a very good thing. He did not like to descend fully if he could help it. The conditions in which he kept the faeries were all that much easier to deny to himself if he did not cast eyes on them himself, Deadnettle was sure.

“She is sleeping.”

“So wake her.”

“I will not. You have used her far too often in recent times.”

Mordecai cocked his head; Deadnettle mimicked the movement.

“One of the others, then.”

“Use me,” said Deadnettle. “I am yet strong, Mordecai, and right here.”

“Oh, all right.” Mordecai checked his gleaming pocket watch. “Come, then.”

He shouldn't, but Deadnettle's anger at Marigold would never stop him from protecting her, protecting any of them. This he would do with his last breath, as Wintercress had done, and any faeries before them who had ever been called upon to do so. This was another one of their rules.

In the plush hall above, Mordecai stopped so abruptly Deadnettle came within an inch of running into him and reeled back in disgust. He braced himself against the wall so the sorcerer wouldn't see how he shook, and cleared his face to disguise his horror.

“If I didn't know better, Deadnettle,” said Mordecai slowly, dangerously, “I would think you were keeping the young ones from me. Are you trying to keep them strong? Are you plotting to escape, perchance?”

Deadnettle took a shallow breath, in and out. “Of course not. Where do you think we would go?”

“I have wondered that. You must know the doorway to your land is well and truly closed. My greatest piece of magic, my greatest achievement. Perhaps you think elsewhere in Britain might be more hospitable to you, even if you were to break through my barrier, but I tell you, Deadnettle, there is no corner of this great land not touched by the revolution. Iron is everywhere, and where it is not, the bells of the devout keep your kind at bay. This is, and will always remain, your only home.” His dark eyes burned through Deadnettle's thin skin. “Especially yours.”

Deadnettle could say nothing to this, his greatest fear given voice. That he would die here, away from the faery land, and that Mordecai knew it would happen before too long.

Who would protect the hatchlings and fledglings then?
Or the ones who survived until they were old and weak?

He trembled anew, with sickness and anger. Not only at Marigold and Thistle now.

“We are in the green room,” said Mordecai as he opened a door, his warning delivered. “Get inside.”

Falling to his knees was easy; Deadnettle was far more concerned with how he might get up again once the session was over. He parted the curtains around the table and grimaced at the cage underneath. Big enough for a full-grown faery, long as it had no desire to stretch.

A thin blanket padded the bottom. Deadnettle curled atop it and tried to ignore the click of the lock, but his ears were one of the few faery strengths left to him. He heard the group of ladies—and one gentleman, unusual—talking about the adventure ahead when they were still two streets away, and the opening of the front door was as loud as if it were right beside him.

“Come in, come in,” said Mordecai. Bathed in darkness, Deadnettle could hear the man's false smile, and hear it become real as the guests passed a fold of money. “Are you prepared to communicate with the beyond?”

“Oh, yes,” they chimed together. Footsteps neared. The chairs around the table hissed against the rug as they were pulled out. Mordecai closed the curtains over the windows and lit a candle with a snapping match strike.

“Join hands, please, my honored friends,” said Mordecai. The man could put on a performance, there was no denying. “We must show the spirits this is a warm, safe place for them to visit with us for a spell. Clear your minds of any sad thoughts, banish all that is unwelcome.”

If only that were possible. Deadnettle grimaced. He was still too enraged. He must calm himself too.

Or . . . not.

“Good people of the afterlife, come to us.” Mordecai's voice was a low drone now. “There are several here who wish to commune with you in kindness and light. First, the lovely Clarissa Baker, who seeks her dear, departed father. Father, are you there?”

Deadnettle could see him, the father, in the part of his mind that faeries kept for such things, the window into the realm of the dead. He was smiling, and Deadnettle was quite sure his daughter wished to know this.

Deadnettle clenched his pointed teeth, and his lips over them.

“Aha. Perhaps not just at the moment.” The toe of a polished shoe slid beneath the curtains around the table and nudged the cage.

No. Deadnettle would not surrender. He had had
enough
. Watch what would happen to Mordecai's famed Spiritual Society if every last faery refused to speak.

“We shall try another. Mr. Baker, please visit with us when you are ready. For now, the lovely sister of this fine gentleman, Marcus Parrott, would you please come to us?”

Deadnettle could see her, too. Tearstained and alone in a mass of mingling spirits. She opened her mouth. Deadnettle bit his tongue.

Mordecai tried another and another. His shoe pressed against the cage but could do no more than that without alerting the guests to the presence of something beneath. Fury boiled off him like heat from a stew, and in the darkness, Deadnettle smiled.

“It seems the
spirits
are not talking today,” said Mordecai, attempting to laugh. “This happens, on occasion. I assure you that if you return—”

“Knew you was a fraud,” said the other man at the table. “Never believed in any of this tosh, but my wife insisted I try. She wants the brooch that badly. That was half a month's rent, Mr. Thrup, and I'd ask kindly for it back.”

“Indeed,” chimed in a female voice. “I shall go to one of the other Societies who have had success.”

“No, no, I insist that you return another day!” said Mordecai. “It will be better then. You have my word!”

“The word of a fake? I think not,” scoffed the same woman. “Our money, if you please.”

Paper banknotes whispered against one another as
Mordecai counted them out and returned them to their rightful owners. Moments later, the front door slammed and the sorcerer returned.

A strange calm stole over Deadnettle. When the lock snapped open, he climbed out to face his fate.

•   •   •

He screamed and screamed. So did the others.

Through burning eyes, Deadnettle stared down at the iron chains binding him, twisted about his legs and arms, wrapped like a noose around his neck. There was no lock, but there hardly needed to be. He couldn't shake them off. The rest of the faeries huddled together in the farthest corner, fully awake for once, clothed in pain and horror. They could come no closer, and they would not make it if they tried to escape through the grating.

Deadnettle tried to regret what he had done, but the agony was too great to be generous, even toward himself. The fire raged through his head, blocking his ears and nose, and raced along every bone.

“Deadnettle!” Marigold pushed open the door from the servants' staircase and caught sight of him, closely followed by Thomas. She had brought him back here! Again! “What did you do? Oh, Deadnettle!”

She was beside him, pulling at the chains and stifling her own screams, fingers slipping at the knots as every faery
part of her fought against touching the metal. The scent of her singeing flesh broke through Deadnettle's haze.

“Stop!” he ordered. “Stop it! Get away, all of you!”

“But—”

“Listen to me!”

This would kill him soon. The knowledge was almost a comfort.

“Move!” said a voice. A young voice, a boy's voice, but it sounded so like Wintercress in its clever fierceness that Deadnettle dragged his head up fully straight, the chains shifting against his neck.

Thomas pulled Marigold's scarf from his face and pushed Samphire out of the way. “Don't move,” he commanded Deadnettle. Quick hands, neither faery nor human, tugged at the chains, loosening them and casting them into a clanking pile. It hurt, oh, it hurt, but Deadnettle braced himself and felt cool air touch his charred skin as each link left it.

Finally, finally, he was free. Samphire and Milkweed caught him before he could fall, laid him gently on a mattress. The iron grew more distant, rattling in Thomas's arms as he carried the chains through the door and up to the top of the staircase that led to the alley and dropped them there with a slithering
clank
.

“Shhh, Deadnettle,” whispered Marigold, and from her
mouth came a stream of words in their old, spiky faery tongue, so rarely used here because it made them so homesick. Smoke stopped rising from his wounds. Their edges began to knit together.

And stopped.

“It's all right,” he told her. This was as much as she could do; such magic wasn't simple at the best of times. “Leave it. I'm all right.” He wasn't, but that didn't matter now.

“Deadnettle,
why
?”

He waited until Thomas returned. He had something to say to the boy, but he couldn't yet. “I had a . . . disagreement with Mordecai. It seems”—he looked at her—“that I must quarrel with everyone today.”

“I—”

He reached out to touch her face, the effort near unbearable. “We will find another way. Do not worry. Thomas, thank you.” The searing marks on his skin still felt like chains, as if he couldn't move.

“She had a thought,” Thomas began, and got no further. The door at the top of the main stairs swung open. Polished shoes hit the first step.

“Hide!”

It was either admirable or utterly stupid that the boy stood his ground, Deadnettle's mental scales tipping slightly toward the former as Mordecai appeared.

“Deadnettle, you live.” The sorcerer was clearly disappointed. “I thought perhaps when the screaming stopped . . . Who removed your chains? Which one of you did this?”

“I did.” Marigold stepped forward and held up her injured hands. Deadnettle saw the pain flash in her bright eyes at the lie, but Mordecai did not. “Why did you do that to him?”

Anger seethed on Mordecai's face just for an instant before he controlled it. “A difference of opinion,” he said soothingly to her. Deadnettle wished for the strength to stand and strike him, but it didn't come. “From now on, there will be no leaving this building unless you are with me. I have barred the windows and doors with the iron you so loathe. You may rot here with your dead. I hope this serves as a lesson to you—”

Deadnettle knew. The moment Mordecai fully saw what was right in front him was plain as day on his evil features.

“I knew it,” screamed the sorcerer. “You have been hiding them from me, Deadnettle. The strong ones! Telling me they slept or were spent! You told me this one was dead! You lied! I thought you beasts couldn't do that? Hmmm?”