She detected a slight softening of the man’s forbidding posture. ‘And what might that be?’
‘I told you before, did I not? I seek Wodebean. And also, now, my sister. And I am more than a little curious as to the nature of this peculiar place.’
‘Yer sister? There’s two of you about?’
‘So I understand. She was handing out unusual flowers.’
‘Ah.’ Winters nodded. ‘Gold-haired wench. Eyes full of sky. And wickedness.’
‘A most apt description. Did you chance to see which way she went?’
‘No.’
Ilsevel sighed. ‘Then pray stand aside.’
Winters did so, and made Ilsevel a tiny, only slightly mocking bow. ‘She is My Lady Gold, I suppose?’ he said.
‘No, that was my other sister.’ Ilsevel gathered her skirts and marched off into the trees, and only belatedly became aware that Winters had fallen into step behind her.
She stopped.
‘I do not quite understand how it is that I continue to attract human followers,’ she said with as much exasperation as asperity.
‘Oh, I am not following you.’
She blinked. ‘You are not?’
He grinned lazily. ‘I’ve long had a fancy to see what’s beyond the glade, and shan’t be sorry to find out tonight.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘And you have chanced to choose this very moment to explore.’
‘Happen you might’ve put me in mind of the idea.’
Ilsevel chose to ignore that, and to ignore him, too. She set off again; let him trail after her if he would.
He did not. She chose a winding path into the shadowy trees, summoning a mote of wisp-light to guide her steps. Winters veered off in quite another direction, and soon disappeared from sight.
Excellent.
The woods beyond the glade were fairly extensive, she soon concluded, and disappointingly featureless. She trod carefully, for the ground was littered with twisting tree roots poking up out of the earth, poised to catch an unwary foot. Patches of moss grew here and there, black and dark, and occasional clusters of mushrooms and ferns. The trees only seemed to grow vaster, darker and older as she progressed, and she felt beset by shadows; they flickered and twisted and loomed out of nowhere, as though taunting her.
She began to regret, just a little, that she had not brought Phineas with her after all.
‘Stout heart,’ she scolded herself, and pressed on. What could do the boy do for her here, save provide company? She needed no company, for she was accustomed to solitude.
There came a twinkle in the night, and then another, and more; and then came into view a tree greater and older than all the rest, set in regal splendour in the midst of a wide clearing. Its boughs were hung all about with wisp-lights, like Ilsevel’s own. Pale and clear, they glittered among the shadows, and Ilsevel could not decide if they were more eerie or welcoming.
Faint strains of music reached her ears. Someone was singing.
Ilsevel rolled her eyes.
A door was carved into the great, craggy trunk of the ancient tree, and it creaked slightly open as she marched up to it, a line of golden light limning its edges.
Ilsevel kicked it open.
‘Really?’ she called. ‘A haunting voice drifting through the night? A dark tree in the depths of the woods? Will you never give up this absurd siren business, sister dear?’
The singing stopped.
A passageway opened out beyond the door, leading off into the darkness. It did not appear to be concerning itself much with the reasonable confines of the tree’s admittedly broad trunk.
Following it, Ilsevel found that it twisted and curled in improbable contortions before opening out into a surprisingly cosy parlour.
Seated in an enormous armchair before a slow-burning fire was the gold-haired wench with the eyes full of sky. Those eyes were turned upon Ilsevel with an expression of stark amazement.
Ilsevel felt an odd flutter somewhere in her heart, a sensation composed half of joy and half of fury.
‘Ilse?’ said the wench.
‘Tylla.’
‘You’re still alive.’
‘So are you.’
The perfect mouth hardened. ‘And where have you been all these years?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘I have time.’
Ilsevel gathered her composure, and fanned the flames of her rage. With Tylla, it was always better to be angry than sentimental, for the latter made one vulnerable. ‘Actually, you don’t,’ she said crisply. ‘Anthelaena’s still transformed, did you know that? I cannot find Wodebean, I thought you were dead — why are you wearing this absurd Glamour? Is your own face not good enough?’
Tyllanthine, My Lady Pearl, fixed her sister with an ugly glower. ‘It is not precisely a matter of choice.’
‘Of course it is. You’re using Glamour.’
‘It’s to do with my other face. If I must be so repellent in the daytime, I reserve the right to be beautiful beyond reason at night. It is only fair.’
‘Repellent?’
‘Yes.’ Tyllanthine looked down her exquisite nose at Ilsevel. ‘I was cursed. I’m a Korrigan, Ilse.’
Ilsevel nodded thoughtfully. ‘We will mend that too, then.’
‘You think I haven’t tried?’
‘Doubtless, but you did not have me. Nor Anthelaena. We will retrieve her, and both of us will fix you.’
‘I have tried to recall Anthela, too.’
‘We need Wodebean.’
‘And you did not do this ten or twenty years ago because…?’ Tyllanthine’s glorious eyes were as cold as winter. ‘Where have you been, little sister?’
‘Keeping company with fish.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘At the bottom of this or that stream, eating insects for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and cold to my bones every moment.’
Tyllanthine’s eyes widened. ‘You were transformed?’
‘Forcibly. A frog, Tylla. Given the choice I had far rather have been a cat. Just imagine the mischief Anthela and I would’ve got up to.’ A chair sat vacant on the other side of the fire. Ilsevel fell into it with a sigh, and regarded her sister with a fraction of a smile. ‘I am quite glad to see you, you know.’
Tylla eyed her with suspicion, but relented enough to roll her eyes, and say with a sigh: ‘It is not wholly unpleasant to see you, either. I thought you… well, I do not know what I thought. Lost? In Torpor? Dead?’ She said the words so coolly, without a trace of apparent distress at so terrible a sequence of prospects, and Ilsevel sighed inside. After so many years, could not Tylla find it somewhere in her glacial heart to care about anything?
‘Thank you,’ she said distantly, letting the rest of her sister’s speech pass. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for Wodebean.’
‘As am I. Do you imagine that this absurd parade will draw him to you?’
‘He seems to be immune to my charms.’ The perfect lips twisted with disgust.
Ilsevel smiled. ‘How reassuring, for somebody ought to be.’
The sky-blue eyes glittered. ‘Things are moving again, Ilse. People are waking up out of the Torpor— dangerous people. And now there is you. By what arts did you escape your frog-curse? No — never mind, there is not time. We need Anthelaena.’
‘She is transformed. A cat.’
‘I know. I have tried everything to return her to her rightful form, but to no avail.’
‘Not quite everything, I presume, or you would have no need of Wodebean.’
Tyllanthine watched her in silence for a moment. ‘The terms of that curse… it will not be easy to reverse it.’
‘Oh?’ Ilsevel studied her sister’s countenance with interest — and suspicion. ‘How do you know what the terms are?’
‘How do you know what they are?’
‘I do not, quite. I received information leading me to Wodebean, that is all. I know he was involved in the business so
mehow.’
Tyllanthine smiled. ‘As did I.’
She was hiding something, Ilsevel could see it in the smug glitter of her eyes. But she knew better than to try to press her younger sister. The more she was asked, the more stubborn she would become — and the more she would enjoy the sense of power.
So Ilsevel said nothing.
Tyllanthine hated silence. It gave her nothing to work with. Her eyes narrowed in irritation, but she spoke. ‘Someone must be restored to the throne-at-Mirramay as soon as possible, Ilse, and I am glad to see you, for you shall help me.’
Ilsevel straightened. ‘Someone?’
‘Anthelaena, by preference, since it’s rightfully hers. If we cannot recall her, then it will have to be Lihyaen, if her spine can be stiffened enough for the purpose. And it had better be, because I’m sure you realise that in the continued absence of Edironal, the only other alternatives would be you or I. And we never did have much of a fancy to play queen, did we?’
‘Lihyaen!’ Ilsevel heard only about half of Tyllanthine’s words, her mind caught and held by that one name.
‘She is not dead.’ Tyllanthine would typically rather die than show the smallest vulnerability, joy included; but even she displayed some small signs of pleasure at this news. A softening of her hard blue eyes, perhaps, and even the faintest hint of a genuine smile.
‘How?’ said Ilsevel faintly. ‘I saw her body.’ She thrust away the unwelcome memory: her beautiful, vibrant niece, a joyous child, turned white and cold and lifeless…
‘Taken. A stock was substituted, a very good one. She is recently found.’
Much had been left out of this narrative; too much. ‘Is she well?’ said Ilsevel in trepidation. Had she suffered some permanent harm? Was she, too, cursed?
‘Perfectly,’ said Tyllanthine, to Ilsevel’s relief. ‘She is with some trusted friends, in Grenlowe.’
Ilsevel sat in silence for a time, her mind reeling. It was too much to take in; she would stupefy herself with the effort, if she did not take care. Grimly, she forced herself to focus on the most urgent points in Tyllanthine’s narrative. ‘A stock. Tylla, you know who’s reputed to be the very best crafter of such things as that?’
‘Wodebean, of course. Hence, I am in something of a hurry to speak to him.’
‘Don’t eviscerate him until I have finished with him,’ said Ilsevel, ice-cold. ‘He let her die, and he will pay for it.’
‘Did he?’ Tyllanthine tilted her beautiful head, her fathomless blue eyes unreadable. ‘Are you so certain of that, sister?’
‘He did not lift a finger to help, though I offered him every incentive to do so.’
‘And yet, you say she is not dead after all.’
‘I saw Anthelaena, Tylla. A great, purple cat, identical in appearance to that doll of hers, the one she always carried about — you will not remember, for she had outgrown it by the time you were born. But I know it was her. It must be. It cannot have been Wodebean’s doing, for he is no witch, no sorcerer — how could he have contrived it? But she is not dead.’ Ilsevel had repeated these words to herself so many times since her return to her own shape, hardly daring to hope. The queen had died; everyone knew that. Some said that heartbreak had killed her, for her husband was gone and her daughter dead. But Ilsevel remembered the truth: the terrible illness which had come upon her, so soon after Lihyaen’s apparent death. She had faded fast; two days, and she had gone from vibrant (if grieving) good health to within a whisper of death. The Court physicians were powerless.
Do something, Ilsevel had begged of Wodebean, for she had feared that Anthelaena’s was no natural illness, and there was no one at Court better versed in curses, enchantments and all manner of dark magic than Wodebean. It was a professional interest of his, for his livelihood consisted in large part of trade — not only of objects of great value and power, but also of the myriad components necessary to work such questionable magics.
I will try, he had said. But he had not tried, and Anthelaena had died…
…unless she had not.
‘It must have been her,’ said Ilsevel desperately. ‘The coincidence is too great, otherwise. It must be her.’
Tyllanthine inclined her head with that faint, annoying smile of hers, and said: ‘You are right: it was our sister, and she is not dead.’ Ilsevel’s heart leapt at this confirmation of her fervent hopes. ‘But I have not been able to lift the enchantment that binds her,’ continued Tyllanthine.
Weak with joy and relief, Ilsevel took a steadying breath. ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Have you not been at liberty all these years of my absence? What has prevented you?’
‘I did not know where she was until a year past, and then I had not the materials,’ said Tyllanthine sourly. ‘They are grown scarce these past years.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘Of course I have,’ snarled Tyllanthine. ‘But not even the Goblin Market could furnish me with everything I have need of, and what then? What would you do, sister?’
‘Consult Wodebean,’ said Ilsevel at once. ‘If there is anyone left who can lay his hands upon such articles as would be needed for powerful magics like that, it would be him.’
An unpleasant fellow, Ilsevel reflected. He had no hand in the laying of curses, typically, but he gladly supplied all the necessary accoutrements to those who did — for a price. Convincing stock-puppets was the least of it.
‘Precisely,’ said Tyllanthine. ‘And that, dear sister, is what I am doing here.’
Ilsevel stood up. ‘What were the results of your gambit with the flowers?’
‘I irritated him excessively.’ Tyllanthine smiled proudly. ‘Enough so that he emerged, and suffered himself to be seen. And I have some one or two clues as to where it was that he subsequently vanished into.’
‘Let us pursue them at once.’
Tyllanthine made no argument, and rose smoothly from her chair. ‘Just one thing, Ilse,’ she said.
Ilsevel, already on her way to the door, turned back. ‘What is it?’
‘Who was it that made a frog of you?’
‘I would like to know the answer to that question myself,’ Ilsevel replied. ‘I was ambushed in the gardens at Mirramay, and I never knew by whom. All I saw was a figure in a white cloak.’
She was out, then, of the odd little house, back into the shadowy woods and the low boughs lit with starlight. ‘Where was Wodebean last seen?’ she said to Tyllanthine, who emerged from the tree behind her.
She did not hear her sister’s response, for there came a sudden grip upon her ankle, as of icy fingers wrapped around her leg. Tightly, so tightly! It hurt, and she cried out with the pain, for her bones must break under the pressure of it—
—she fell, not merely a few feet onto the earthy ground but much, much farther than that. She fell and fell and landed at last in something soft yet icy, and a flurry of white powder flew up around her.
Snow.
She lay, shocked and trembling, her dazed eyes blinking up at a grey, cloud-laden sky. Snow drifted gently across her face and melted on her skin.
‘Tyllanthine?’ she whispered.
No reply came.
Carefully, painfully, she dragged herself to her feet. Her left ankle throbbed still with pain, but it held; it was not broken.
Turning in a slow, disbelieving circle, Ilsevel looked around. She had landed in the middle of a wood, not unlike the one she had left — except that daylight had replaced the night, and everywhere was deep snow. And how was this possible, when she had fallen and fallen through empty space? She certainly had not crashed through those snow-laden boughs now arcing over her head.
No sign could she detect of anything that might explain her sudden presence here. She had been snared like a fox and pulled, but by what?
Whatever it had been, it was gone.
Chapter Eight
‘Father,’ said Phineas some little time later. ‘This is Mr. Balligumph. Mr. Balligumph, my father, Mr. Samuel Drake.’
Balligumph’s request had been simple enough, on the face of it. I want ye t’ help me find a way back into the Hollows. Someone in these parts must know the way in, an’ the way out. Use yer brain, young fellow, an’ help me find it.
Once the troll had explained what he meant by the Hollows, the matter became fractionally clearer to Phineas. What could he mean save the very place where he and Ilsevel had gone only the previous night? Well, he would take Mr. Balligumph there at once.
Only, the road that lay open during the revels would be closed, now. They would need help to get back in. They would need somebody who knew the secret of accessing it; someone, in short, with connections to the city’s thieves.
Phineas did not know where to find Gabriel Winters, and that obliged him to approach his father, whom he had left tending the shop alone — and with a great, hulking denizen of Aylfenhame shambling along in his wake.
It was likely to be an interesting morning.
The troll, affable as always, tipped his hat to Phineas’s father. ‘Mornin’,’ he said agreeably. ‘Pleased t’ meet ye. Fine young chap ye have.’
Father, however, had not got over his surprise at the appearance of such a fellow as Balligumph; or perhaps it was merely the after-effects of the copious quantities of gin he had doubtless consumed the night before. He regarded the troll with a sour lack of cordiality, and grunted something that might have been a greeting.
Balligumph’s gaze transferred to Phineas’s face, asking a silent question.
Not one that Phineas could answer just then.
He cleared his throat. ‘Er, father, Mr. Balligumph has asked my help and in turn I will need yours. Do you know where Gabriel Winters lodges?’
‘He is not there.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Cleared out of his lodges, night before last. No one knows where he’s gone.’
Phineas’s heart sank. He turned uncertainly to Balligumph. ‘I am sorry, sir. I do not know who else might be able to help, if not Gabriel.’
The twinkle returned to the troll’s eyes, and he grinned at Phineas’s father. ‘Unless I miss me guess, praps this gentleman can help me.’
Mr Drake and My Lady Silver Page 6
