“So did I,” said Rob. “Where did you come from, and what brought you here?”
“Rob,” Linden protested, but Ivy waved a hand feebly.
“No, don’t,” she mumbled. “Have to… need to tell.”
Linden sighed. “So much for resting. I’ll get her some water.”
Even freshly healed and lying in bed, Ivy felt weaker than she’d been in her entire life. It took all her concentration to sketch out the basic details of her story: her faery mother had been horribly burned, and there were no magical healers nearby who could save her. “But then someone… told me about the Oak,” she whispered, and took a sip of water. “So I flew here… as fast as I could.”
Her vision was clearing, and now Ivy could see her surroundings: a plain but spacious bedroom on the top floor of Peri’s house, with a window looking out on the garden and the shadowy bulk of the great tree. No wonder the house was called Oakhaven.
“Someone told you?” asked Peri. She sounded as human as her scent, but her face was a bewildering contradiction: angled cheekbones and eyes so dark they were nearly black, framed by a cataract of silky hair even paler than Martin’s. “Who would that be?”
Queasiness twisted Ivy’s stomach. She didn’t want to talk about Martin, not until she was certain there was no way to get help without betraying him. “A faery who knew my mother,” she said. “He told me I could call him Richard.”
Rob frowned. He was lean and long-faced, with hair the same rusty shade as Mattock’s but none of his solidity; he reminded Ivy of a coiled whip, or a rapier poised to strike. “That’s a strange common-name for a faery,” he said. “We don’t usually name ourselves after humans.”
“We don’t usually call ourselves after weapons either,” Linden replied, “but that didn’t keep Peri from naming herself Knife.”
Ivy had thought all the Oakenfolk would be slim and sharp-boned like Rob, or even Peri. But this round-faced girl her own age, with rosy cheeks and brown curls tumbling over her shoulders, could almost have passed for a piskey. “Knife?” she echoed, to cover her surprise.
“It was the name I chose as the Queen’s Hunter,” said Peri. “When I used to be a faery, and lived in the Oak. Even my husband calls me Knife sometimes, when he forgets himself.” Her mouth curved as though she were enjoying some private joke. “But that’s another story.”
She spoke casually, as though faeries turned into humans every day. But Ivy knew better, and it shocked her. “You used to be? You mean you gave up your magic? Why?”
“To be with my husband, of course.” Peri rose and walked around the end of the bed. “And speaking of Paul, the chair lift’s broken again. I’d better tell him what’s going on before he explodes from curiosity.” She took Ivy’s empty water glass and strode out.
“It’s a wonderful story,” Linden said with a smile, when the sound of Peri galloping down the stairs had faded. “You should hear it if you get the chance. But we’ve kept you awake long enough.” She hopped off the edge of the bed. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Dismay pierced Ivy, and she struggled to sit up. But she was still weak, and even that effort left her winded. “I can’t wait that long. My mother…”
“You don’t have a choice,” said Rob. “Queen Valerian will decide what to do about your mother, once she and the Council hear your case. But you’re in no condition to go anywhere tonight.”
“And even if you were,” added Linden, “there’s only one other faery here skilled enough to heal wounds like your mother’s, and he can’t fly in the dark any more than Rob can. So you’d have to wait for daylight anyway.”
It was a fair point. Ivy had been so desperate to get to the Oak, she hadn’t considered how impossible it would be to turn around and fly back to Cornwall the same night. “I… I’m grateful,” she said. “For your help. I’m in your debt.”
“Perhaps,” said Rob, studying her with his dark, foxlike eyes. “Perhaps we can help each other. Time will tell.”
“You needn’t worry about staying here,” Linden assured her. “Peri will take good care…” She trailed off, tilting her head curiously to one side. Then with a tsk of exasperation she plucked something from between the mattress and the bed-frame.
“No wonder Timothy can never find his guitar picks,” she said, handing it to Rob, who looked amused. “He’s probably stuck twenty under there and forgotten.”
Ivy’s eyes slid to a collection of framed photographs on the wall. One showed Peri crouching next to a handsome blond man in a wheelchair—Paul, she guessed, from Peri’s comment about the lift. Then came an older couple that could be Paul’s parents, and finally a lanky boy with a guitar who bore a slight family resemblance as well. The boy’s hair was dark and he looked about Ivy’s age, but the light could be deceiving, or Peri might be older than she’d thought?
“Is Timothy their son?” she asked.
Linden gave a startled laugh. “Oh, no,” she said. “He’s Paul’s cousin, who lives here when he’s not at school.” Her face sobered, and turned wistful. “Peri hasn’t got any children.”
“She has you,” said Rob, with a gentleness that surprised Ivy. “Come. It’s getting late, and we should report to Queen Valerian.” He took Linden’s hand, and the two of them vanished.
Ivy lay back slowly, trying to relax. Linden at least seemed warm-hearted and ready to believe her story, though Rob was more guarded, as she feared the queen and her councilors would be. Still, there was nothing Ivy could do until morning, so perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to rest a while. She’d need all her wits about her to plead her mother’s case tomorrow…
And with that thought, Ivy fell asleep.
“Get down, lad!”
Helm’s hand gripped his shoulder, flattening him against the ledge where the two of them lay hidden. A jutting rock poked the boy’s chest and he winced, but said nothing. A warrior did not complain.
It was just after nightfall on the sixth day of their journey. For the past week they’d been traveling westward, staying small and creeping under cover of hedge and dry bracken, searching for other spriggans who might take them in. But they’d had no luck so far, of any kind: the weather was harsh, their snares empty more often than not, and when they’d grown to human size and stopped in a town to beg, they’d been sent off without even a crust in hand. Now they lay on a outcropping by the seaside, watching as three piskeys sauntered along the beach below.
Judging by the long poles slung over the shoulders of the first two and the dripping basket carried by the third, these young hunters had just got back from their dusk fishing. The thought of cooked fish made the boy’s stomach clench with longing, but he kept still. Helm was as hungry as he was: if the older spriggan could be patient, so could he.
“You have your knife?” Helm spoke low in his ear.
The boy nodded.
“Be ready, then.” He raised himself on his arms, pulling one foot up beneath him as he readied for the spring. Then, fluid as water, Helm changed shape. His head swelled to grotesque size, his limbs to muscular stumps, and his bristling beard flowed nearly to his belt. Then, with a wild howl and his club raised high, Helm launched himself off the ridge and landed in front of the piskeys.
The youngest dropped his basket of fish and stumbled back, gibbering with terror. The older ones paled, but they dropped their fishing poles and reached for their knives. None were fast enough. As Helm swung his club and sent the first hunter sprawling, the boy dropped down behind the second and stabbed him in the back. Then he spun, seized the remaining piskey by the throat, and raised his knife for the final blow.
Helm had warned him not to hesitate. But seeing the other boy’s terrified face, the tears brimming in his wide brown eyes, he couldn’t do it. He’d never been so close to a piskey before—never realized how much like spriggans they were. And this one was even younger than he was, untrained and weaponless. Killing him would be wrong. He gave the piskey a shake and pushed him away.
With a sob the young hunter fled toward the boat, staggering and slipping on the sand. The spriggan boy sheathed his knife and began picking up the fish that had fallen from the basket. Three, four, five—
“That was ill done,” growled Helm, shifting back to his own shape. “Didn’t I tell you, no survivors? He’ll bring the knockers down on us.”
The boy had no answer. He picked up the last fish and put it in the basket, then followed Helm up the ridge, leaving the two dead piskeys behind.
They moved stealthily along the cliffs, keeping to rocky ground so they would leave no footprints. Fishy water dripped from the basket, soaking the boy’s trousers, and he was tempted to pull one out and eat it raw. But they couldn’t stop even for a moment. They had to get away from the beach, and the piskey village nearby.
It was two hours before Helm called a halt to their march, clambering down the rocks to a cave that was little more than a crack in the cliff-side. The boy’s legs felt like jelly and his stomach cramped with hunger, but that was no more than he deserved for his cowardice. He should have killed that last piskey, unarmed or not…
Yet deep down he wasn’t sorry. He’d seen enough death already. At Helm’s curt order the boy emptied the basket and began breaking up the drier parts for fuel, while the older spriggan sharpened a stake to cook the fish on.
“Why do they hate us?” the boy asked. “The piskeys?”
Helm’s knife paused mid-stroke, as though the question surprised him. But then he went back to his whittling.
“It’s an old story,” he said. “Old enough that no one living can swear to it. But they say that once, long ago, the piskeys, the knockers and the spriggans lived together in peace as one tribe.”
The boy found that hard to believe, but he loved stories. He settled back against the wall of the cave, wrapping his cloak around him, and listened as Helm went on.
“The piskeys were a merry folk, with a gift for herb-lore and talking to animals. The knockers were stout, hard-working lads skilled at mining and metalwork. And we spriggans, shape-changers descended from the giants of old, were the proudest warriors and bravest soldiers who ever were. For it was our duty to protect all the others, and keep the humans from stealing our treasure.”
Helm put down the knife, took flint in hand and crouched over their pile of kindling. With a deft strike and a few puffs he set the tinder aglow, then fed it with sticks until the flames began to crackle. “For many years all was well,” he continued, “until Joan the Wad, the queen of the tribe, grew old and died. The new Joan was a piskey-maid, fresh and lovely as dew on a spring morning, and all the young men set to wooing her, for the one she chose would rule with her as the Jack O’Lantern. But there were two boys she favored above all the others, one a knocker and the other a spriggan, and she loved both so well she could not choose between them.
“For weeks these two lads courted the Joan, each striving to best the other and prove himself worthy of her hand. They had once been friends, but now they became jealous rivals, and the whole tribe was divided by their squabbling. At last a wise woman, a seer, came to the young queen and warned that if she did not choose before tomorrow’s sunrise, she would lose her power and her throne. So with tears and sighs the young Joan summoned her knocker and spriggan suitors to her private chamber, that she might tell which one of them she had chosen.
“At dawn all the people gathered before the house, expecting the queen to come out and present their new Jack. But as the minutes passed, they grew restless. They called to the Joan, but she did not appear. So at last they broke the door down—and what a sight! The lovely young maiden lay dead, while her suitors struggled in mortal battle, each shouting that the other had murdered her.
“Now all the knockers swore that their lad must have been the Joan’s choice, for he was true-hearted and honest, while the spriggan boy was a lying shape-changer who could not bear to see her marry another. And the spriggans claimed that she had chosen their brother and that the knocker-lad was false, for he had slain the Joan with his left hand and shouted, ‘This hand did not kill her,’ while holding up his right. Their quarreling grew fierce, and soon a battle broke out in which many knockers and spriggans were killed.
“At first the piskeys were undecided, for some believed the spriggan lad and others the knocker. But they soon swayed to the knockers’ side. For all agreed that the giants had been greedy and cruel, and their children could be no better. They disowned us and cast us out, calling us liars and murderers, and swearing that never again would any of them willingly give his daughter to a spriggan. And our people have been wandering ever since…”
Ivy woke huddled in a cocoon of blankets, with the pillow over her head. She struggled free, still disoriented, and found the bedroom suffused in golden light.
“Oh, no.” Ivy snatched up the clock on the nightstand, but it only confirmed her fears. “No!” She scrambled out of bed and jumped to the floor, looking frantically in all directions. It was unthinkable that she’d slept so long, unbearable that Peri and the others had simply let it happen. They’d taken her jacket, her muddy jeans, her shoes—what had they done with them? She had to get dressed and over to the Oak at once—
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” said a cheerful voice, and a red-haired faery woman even shorter than Ivy came through the doorway, handing her a pile of neatly folded clothing. “There’s no need to worry, everything’s all right. I’m Wink, Queen Valerian’s attendant; she sent me over to get you ready. And you’re feeling much better after that rest, aren’t you?”
Physically, Ivy did feel better: her strength had returned, and she could think clearly again. But when she thought of the hours she’d wasted lying in bed when she could have been pleading her mother’s case, she wanted to vomit.
“I need to talk to the queen straight away,” she said, snatching her jeans from the pile and pulling them on. “There’s no time to waste. Please, could you tell her—”
Wink’s hand closed on her arm, small but firm. “I said everything was all right. Rob and Linden told us all about you last night, and Queen Valerian came to bring you some of her special tea—she’s a healer herself, you see, only with herbs instead of magic. But you were already asleep, and after she’d had a look at you, she said you had the worst case of spell-fatigue she’d ever seen. So she asked Rob to make sure you slept for at least twelve hours, and she told me to make sure you didn’t leave this room until you’d had a proper breakfast.” She whisked a cloth off the bedside table and thrust a steaming tray at Ivy. “There it is. Now eat.”
Ivy sank down on the edge of the bed, clutching the tray. There was a bowl of porridge drizzled with honey and sprinkled with dried berries, a heap of scrambled eggs on a slab of grainy toast, several chunks of apple, and a mug of hot chicory. Before now she’d been too distraught to even think of food, but now she found she was starving. She picked up a spoon and began to eat.
“Peri had to go out this morning,” said Wink, patting her skirts and looking distractedly about the room. “But she gave me something for you, if I can only remember where I put it…”
Ivy barely heard her; she was too busy trying to make up for lost time. But when she put down the bowl of porridge and reached for the plate, she found something tucked in beside it. Wondering, she drew it out. It was a dark grey feather longer than her hand, striped with bands of cream.
“I don’t understand,” she said, turning the feather in her fingers. “Why would Peri give me this?”
“She said it was lying on the lawn, right where she found you last night. She wasn’t sure how your shape-changing worked, so she thought you might need it.” Wink’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “Do you?”
Incredulous joy welled up in Ivy. She set the tray down, and flung herself into bird-shape.
Wink let out a squeak and threw her arms over her head as Ivy flew past her, circled the room and landed atop the bedpost, talons gripping the wood. She turned her head and caught her reflectio
n in the window, all curved beak and hooded eyes.
No wonder her vision had seemed sharper than before, and the weight of her body unfamiliar. No wonder she’d traveled all the way from Cornwall to London without facing a single predator; no wonder the pigeons of the city had scattered when she flew past on her way to the Oak…
She was a peregrine.
Ivy dropped off the bedpost and changed back to her own form, smiling. Now she knew the secret of taking falcon-shape: she’d thrown herself into flight without hesitation, without caring what she became. Like last night when she’d raced away from Molly’s house, so consumed with worry for her mother that she’d had no fear left for herself.
Ivy had thought she had to focus on being a falcon in order to become one. But she’d thought the same when learning swift-shape, and it hadn’t worked then either. It was Cicely’s scream that had startled Ivy into flight the first time, just as it was Marigold’s need that had made her not only fast, but fearless.
All this time, Ivy had been obsessed with what she wanted. But she hadn’t gained the wings she longed for until she stopped fretting about how much they meant to her, and started thinking about what they could mean to somebody else.
Wink straightened up, indignant. “What was all that about?”
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Ivy said. “I just needed to check something.” She picked up the tray from the bed and sat down. “It was kind of Peri to give me back the feather, but I don’t need it. She can keep it if she likes.”
“There are wards around the garden,” Wink told Ivy as they came down the stairs from the bedroom, “so no humans except Paul and Peri—and Timothy, when he’s here—can see us. The wards keep out uninvited faeries too, so it’s a good thing you crashed into Peri’s window; you wouldn’t have got much further without her help anyway.”
It was hard to see breaking her arm as a good thing, but once Ivy thought about it, she had to agree. Her weakness had made her an object of the faeries’ pity, when she might otherwise have seemed a threat. And if she hadn’t lost that wing-feather in Peri’s garden, Ivy still wouldn’t know that she could become a peregrine.
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