The Hidden Princess (9 page)

The second I parked the van outside the Reach Connie was off and running down the drive, slamming the passenger door after her.
Thanks a lot, Dad. Cheers, Miriam
. Connie was trouble, pure and simple – I felt like someone had just handed me a live hand grenade with the pin out, ready to blow at any second. Why couldn’t they have got someone else to look after her for a week? From what Dad had told me, that uptight bitch Adam had married refused to have Connie in the house, but was his bloody job really so important that he couldn’t have come down here, or at least kicked Elena out for a few days? Connie was his kid, not mine.

It was obvious that neither of her parents gave that much of a crap about what happened to her. It was all about Lissy, everyone all torn up inside with grief. It was no surprise that Connie had turned out a screw-up. She wasn’t stupid: she must’ve known that after Lissy went, her parents just weren’t that bothered about anyone else. Which was pretty unnatural, really, from where I was standing. Connie was still their kid, after all. But she’d just blamed herself. And all that about dreams and Lissy. A wave of sick fear rolled over me. Everyone had lied to Connie about Lissy, protecting her from the Fontevrault. But wouldn’t it have been better – safer – if she’d known the truth?

I slumped in my seat, watching my liability of a stepsister shove open the huge, arched front door, blonde hair spilling down the back of her navy school jumper. The door swung shut behind her and I was left alone, just sitting in the van on the drive outside the Reach. How long was it since I’d been here? Six years at least. Dad and I never really talked about this unspoken arrangement. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t even mind Miriam. It was just I couldn’t believe they’d stayed here. Not after what happened. I intended to die knowing I could count my visits to Hopesay Reach on one hand. It was a bad place.

And it had changed, the Reach. Not the house – that was the same as always: a great sprawling, rambling mess of a place with a hundred glittering windows tucked away in odd corners, and that tangle of red-brick Tudor chimneys on the rooftop. I let my eyes travel up that way, remembering the day Rafe and me had climbed out of the attic window and hidden among the chimney stacks as the Fontevrault searched every inch of the house below, hunting us down because we knew too much about the Hidden. The gardens had been tidied, though – that overgrown lawn mown into a smooth green carpet, flower-beds jammed full of colour. It was like being at a proper stately home, the kind Mam dragged me to as a kid.

Lissy’s here
. So close, but so far away. Trapped.

I looked away from the gardens and back to the Reach itself, watching the huge old front door – ancient wood bleached almost white by the sun – till I could be sure Connie had gone inside and wasn’t coming back. I climbed out of the van and stood on the driveway, gravel crunching beneath my boots; I knew where I was going, even though it was wrong. Even though it was completely bloody daft. No. Worse than that: stupid. Dangerous and stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. The grass was still wet with dew, staining my boots as I crossed the lawn, closer to the lake with every step. Closer to the Gateway. The reeds and bulrushes had been hacked back and lilies floated on the dark water. It was like some kind of ornamental bloody pond, not the gateway to another world.

What would happen if I just walked right in? Found myself in that white, glittering cave again, just like years ago? Would Lissy be there still or was she lost somewhere in those endless black tunnels? How were the Hidden treating her? Was she kept as a prisoner? I remembered running into the water after her as she went with the Swan King, Rafe and Adam holding me back, the sheer desperation of it. How could they do that? How could they just let her go? None of this was her fault. Lissy in exchange for Connie’s life, that’s what the Swan King had demanded, no doubt convinced that once he’d got Lissy on his side of the Gateway, he’d be able to convince her to open it. He hadn’t so far, but Christ only knew what lengths of persuasion he’d gone to, what she’d been made to suffer. And in exchange for Lissy’s freedom, we’d got Connie and Rafe, for what they were worth. Adam had been forced to choose between his children – to let Connie and Rafe die or Lissy go as a prisoner. I couldn’t help wondering if he ever regretted that choice, given that Connie had turned out pretty much nothing but a royal pain in the arse, and Rafe hadn’t been home in years.

Deep cold travelled up my legs and I shivered, wrapping both arms around myself. My feet were wet. I looked down, and I was ankle-deep, walking into the waters of the Gateway without even thinking straight. Just thinking about Lissy. It would be so easy to cross over, no danger to anyone else but me. I shuddered with sudden cold, and a wind blew up out of nowhere, shaking the branches of the old yew tree. What harm would it do, really, if I carried on going, walking into the water till I found myself in that other world? If I just crossed over into the Halls of the Hidden only to see how Lissy was doing, if she was treated OK? If I knew that she wasn’t being harmed, I might be able to forget her, just a little bit. Find some nice girl, have a normal life instead of hiding up on the fell with Grandad.
If, if, if, bloody if
.

But you don’t want a nice girl, you daft bugger. You want her. You want Lissy
.

I knew that was the real truth of it. I wanted Lissy; I never even knew if she wanted me. Wanting her was enough. For the thousandth time, I asked myself what difference would it make to anyone if I just disappeared into the Halls and was never seen again? I was a pretty crushing disappointment to Mam and Dad as it was. Maybe it’d be better if I just went for good. At least I’d be with her. Otherwise I’d be like bloody Miles Conway the rest of my life, pining after a Hidden girl I’d never, ever be able to forget, just like the way he was when he got old and saggy and Rose lost interest. What’d happened to him down there? He’d followed Lissy and the Swan King through the Gateway, looking for Rose. Not that he’d find her. I’d made sure of that.

The cold intensified and I looked down to see water lapping around my knees. Just a few steps further. That’s all it would take, and then that rushing, rushing of grey water past my eyes, opening them again to find myself in the White Hall, my clothes dry as a bone. I was so close. Within reach—

But there was Connie to think of.

She was just a kid, even if she was bloody annoying, and she had no one else looking out for her, no one except me. I couldn’t leave her alone. It hurt so much to walk away, though; every step took me further from Lissy, and I’d been so close to seeing her again.
So close
. Mud sucked at the heels of my boots, and when I reached the lakeshore I was on my knees in thick, algae-stained muck, unable just for that moment in time to take another step, spent and hollow. I put a hand to my face to push away my hair and the skin was wet with tears.

Lissy was out of reach, just like always, and I couldn’t even see for the tears, crying just like a little kid. Blurry-eyed, I forced myself up onto my feet and walked back across the lawn to the house. It looked so innocent and warm, sprawling on the lawn, June sunshine glancing off the windows, ancient stone glowing gold in the morning light.
Goddamned place should have been burned to the ground years ago and then we wouldn’t be in this mess
. And I could have done it then. I swear I would have struck a kitchen match and laid it against the dusty old curtains, just watching them light up. I would have gone with them, too. Not even looking back, I’d have burned myself to the bone.

In the darkness of the Halls, I run my finger along the edge of the metal object in my hand, feeling a small ridge running almost along its entire length. Miles’s penknife, now forced shut. I tuck it into the wide silk belt of my gown, a rigid little thing digging into my side. A steel blade. Steel is made of iron. I’ll never get another opportunity like this to kill the Swan King – there’d be no more threat of plague, of mass-murder on an unimaginable scale. The Hidden will be free. I’ll see Mum again. Dad. Connie. I’ll breathe fresh air again and see the sky. My family. My old life. But do I really need to be a killer? The Swan King has changed his mind, I’d swear on the lives of all my mortal family. He’s given up the idea of revenge at last – at long, long last.

Don’t honour her memory with blood. Honour it with love
.

I follow Iris along the tunnel, leaving Miles’s bones to their long and lonely eternity in the forgotten reaches of the Halls. Iris is right: I have to kill him. I can’t take the chance that he might use Connie to open the Gateway. I’m going to be a killer whether I like it or not: I have no choice.

The front hallway was cool and dark as ever, a single stream of dusty light pouring in through the tiny window. I could hear a steady pattering as my clothes dripped onto the flagstones. What was Connie going to think when she saw the state I was in? All I could do was hope she’d shut herself in her room, looking at some crap on her phone or writing emo poetry – whatever it was girls like her did when they were pissed off with the universe – although knowing Connie she was probably just smoking a fag out of the nearest window.

It was lighter in the kitchen when I came down in dry clothes. There was something different about it but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Still the same enormous black stove in the fireplace, but the old wooden table was now covered with a bright cloth, there were flowery curtains and boxes of cereal lined up on top of the fridge, a bottle of washing-up liquid stood by the sink and a new radio was plugged in next to the kettle – all signs that normal life had been resumed at the Reach now that Miles had disappeared after living here feral for all those years. I shuddered thinking about him, scavenging the woods for birds like a fox, those dusty half-empty bottles of champagne in the fridge, and the way he’d followed Lissy down into the Halls like that, searching for Rose. He’d be looking a long time. Murderers are supposed to feel guilty but if I had my time again I’d still kill Rose. I didn’t regret it, and I knew that made me a broken man, that there had to be something missing in my head to feel like that after taking a life, but I didn’t care. She deserved it.

I pulled back a chair and slumped at the table, wishing I had the energy to make coffee. A five-hour drive and now this. Even after so many years Lissy still had so much power over me. Just being that close to the possibility of seeing her drained me bloodless, just to nothing.

The Reach was quiet – all I could hear was the faint gurgling of water in the knackered old radiators, the ticking of the kitchen clock. Still no sign of Connie. The door to the back hallway was open, just a crack. Had she gone out that way? Out towards the woods? A faint chill of fear passed through me, and looking down I saw goosebumps rise on my forearms.

Bloody Connie
.

I knew without even thinking about it that I’d have to go after her. I’d learned a long time ago never to question an instinct like that. I got up, shoving back my chair, and that was when I looked up at the kitchen window and realized it wasn’t just the new curtains that made everything look so different. So wrong.

Six years before, on that desperate morning we closed the Gateway, I’d nailed an iron cross to the lintel above the kitchen window. Now it was gone, leaving only a pale silhouette behind to show where it had once been. A cross, taken: someone had opened the Gateway again. And even though I knew it meant that the Swan King’s plague was coming, and the end of everything, all I could think of was Lissy, and whether I would see her one last time before I died.

Just steps away from the entrance to the White Hall I hear a light, metallic clink. The guards have crossed their spears, blocking my path. Behind me, I hear the hurried rhythm of Iris’s breathing. She’s afraid, just as much as I am. The guards smell the iron just as she did. I knew it would come to this. They’re hooded, waiting. I never even knew their names; I hardly ever see their faces. They’re so ancient, older than my father by a long way, young when seas of lava boiled where London is now, before continents broke apart and began their long slow migration across the face of the earth. And they know I am carrying iron.

“Let me by.”

A long, slow hiss of laughter. When one of the guards speaks, her voice is thin and dry like dead grass blown across a desert. “What game are you playing, half-blood child?”

“I’m not playing.”

“You come armed. You carry iron into the Halls of the King. You shall not pass.” They both step away, unable to bear the iron-scent emanating from my clothes, rising from the knife pressing against my body.

I thrust my hand into the folds of my gown and withdraw the knife, tugging it free from my belt, and both guards recoil, hissing, their ancient faces hidden by their hooded cloaks. “Will you lay down your lives for him?” I ask, quietly. “Are you sure? His time has come and gone.”

And the guards, I realize now, have seen Hidden kings and queens come and go before – so many, many times. For a new king to rise up, another must fall. They have done this before, been in this place before. The moment of silence stretches on and on and then, without a single word, they step back, away from me, letting their spears drop, clattering against the ground.

They betray him without hesitation: the choice is made.

“Courage, Lissy,” Iris whispers, but I don’t need her now. My father’s guards have betrayed him. It’s over already. This is between me and my father. Leaving her, I walk alone into the White Hall and thank God he is alone, kneeling at the water’s edge, the cloak of white feathers tumbling out behind him, so pale against his black hair.

All I can hear is the soft hiss of his breathing, so gentle, and my heartbeat hammering away in my ears. I grip the knife’s handle – smooth plastic. He knows I’m here and he can surely sense the iron, but he doesn’t move; he doesn’t even make a sound.
Keep going
. I cross the White Hall and it seems to take for ever, and still he doesn’t look round; he’s completely focused on the Gateway, on the water. I glance up at the cavern wall, and the silver vial is still there, wedged safely into a crack in the rock face. And yet this doesn’t mean much – what did he say to me?
Your blood is not so very hard to come by, daughter
.