“You’re not listening to me,” said Rowan. “I’m not proud of how I behaved. I would change it if I had a second chance.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I feel guilty for what I did every single day. But I have to live with it.”
Tino shrugged. “What’s done is done. Think about this. You’re stronger now. More powerful than we could ever have known! Think, just think, how much more you could do for us now that you’ve no emotional ties clouding your judgment or weighing on you. How much more effective you could be—”
“My emotional ties are what drove me to do the things I did!” Rowan spat, her anger surfacing at last. “Without them I’d never have got involved! Finding James was all that mattered, the only thing that kept me going. And when I did find him nothing turned out the way I thought it would.”
“But you can still help others,” Tino insisted. “There’s no reason why you should stop now.”
“There’s every reason why I should stop! Haven’t you heard what I’ve been trying to tell you? I don’t want to live like that anymore. I’m… I’m happy.”
“Just go,” said Suki, sounding bored. “You can leave the coat, though.” Her eyes lingered on it greedily.
“No, I can’t,” said Rowan. “Because it only works for me. So I’m keeping it.”
“How convenient,” Suki said. “You won’t mind if I put that to the test?”
“Be my guest.” Rowan took the coat from Tino and threw it at Suki.
She caught it, scowling, and tugged it around her shoulders. When she hooked the clasp, nothing happened.
“I don’t understand,” she muttered, looking inside the coat. “There must be something else, something that makes it work.”
“The coat was made to fuse itself to the first person who wore it,” said Rowan. “That person was me. So for anyone else who puts it on, it doesn’t work.” She held out her hand. “So I’ll have it back now.”
Sulkily, Suki took off the coat and returned it.
Tino rubbed a hand over his unshaven face. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
Rowan shook her head. “No. No more deals. I’m finished with all this. I’ll never talk of you to anyone, you have my word. But for me, this is over.”
“There’s still the matter of your friends,” Tino began, but he was interrupted by the door scraping open again.
Two people bolted inside, a man and a woman.
“What kept you?” said Tino, his mood clearly having taken a turn for the worse since Rowan’s outburst. “You’re almost an hour late.”
“Something’s happened,” said the man. He was in his late twenties, with dark looks and a stubborn set to his jaw.
“What?” said Tino. “Where are the others? Aren’t they with you?”
“No. Peg and I just came from the Burrow. We’d arranged to meet Dawn and Cobbler, then come here together.”
Tanya ran through the names in her head. From what she could work out, this man must be the one they’d called Merchant. Peg, the woman, was very old, though still sprightly. She stood to the side, a clawlike hand clutching an old blanket in place around her, and her wrinkled mouth was pursing and puckering like it had a life of its own. She spotted Tanya and Fabian huddled next to Rowan and emitted a strange squawk.
“Who’s them?” she demanded, pointing with her other hand. As she spoke, Tanya saw there was only a single tooth in her mouth, perched above her lower lip like a peg on a gummy washing line. “Who are they? New ’uns?”
“I’ll explain in a minute, Peg,” Tino said. “I just need to hear what’s happened to the others.” He turned back to Merchant. “Carry on.”
“When we arrived at Dawn’s, it was empty. There was no sign of Dawn or Cobbler anywhere. We didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary at first, we just thought there had been a mix-up, and maybe we were meant to meet them at Cobbler’s place. But as we left, Peg noticed that the curtains were open. It was early afternoon.” He paused. “We all know Dawn never has her curtains open during the day.”
“Why not?” Tanya whispered to Rowan.
“Dawn has a rare medical condition,” Rowan whispered back. “She can’t go out in the sunlight. It makes her ill, and exposure to it could kill her.”
“At that point we still weren’t too worried,” Merchant continued. “It could have been that she was somewhere else and would be returning after dark. So we went to Cobbler’s. We thought she’d be with him.”
“And they weren’t there?” Tino interjected.
A crease had appeared in Merchant’s forehead, and a strand of his dark hair was stuck to his skin with sweat. “No.” His voice was tense. “There was no sign of either of them, but… but the place was a mess. Furniture was broken, mirrors and crocks smashed up. I wondered if someone had broken in, looking for something. I checked his caravan out back. It was clean, ready to be used again, and everything was in place. That’s when I started to think whoever had been there was looking for Cobbler. So I began looking closer for clues… and I found… I found…”
“Blood,” Peg finished, in her clacking, toothless voice. Her hand trembled and she tucked it inside her blanket.
Merchant nodded, his dark skin ashen. “On the doorframe on the way out, there was the tiniest smear of blood. Whatever’s happened to them, they’ve come to harm. I don’t know whether someone’s holding them, or whether they’re even still alive… but I think…” He hesitated. “What if someone knows about the thirteen secrets and is hunting us?”
Uneasy whispers broke out among the Coven, only halting when Tino raised his hand for silence.
“Just calm down,” he said. “We’ve no reason to panic. For all we know there’s a perfectly good explanation—Cobbler or Dawn could have had some kind of accident and gone for help. Even if someone did come for them, how do we know the blood belonged to Cobbler or Dawn?” he continued. “It could easily have been the intruder’s.”
“All the same, I don’t like it,” Samson said. “Something’s off.”
Tino began to pace. “I’ll go back to Dawn’s tonight, and to the Burrow tomorrow. See if I can find anything, or if they’ve turned up. Suki, I’ll need you with me. You might be able to pick something up. Victor, you’d better come too.” He paused suddenly and looked at Suki. “You’ve sensed nothing about them so far, nothing amiss?”
Suki shook her head, and a slash of her pale fringe fell forward over her eyes.
“No, nothing.”
“Good. That’s promising, at least. The rest of you continue as normal, but stay in touch, and keep an eye out for anything—or anyone—suspicious.” He stopped pacing and clasped his hands together. “Now. There’s nothing else we can do for them tonight. So let’s get down to business.
“First up. This one’s pretty straightforward—we’ve found a child who went missing two weeks ago. The changeling left in its place is not a fairy child, but an ancient fairy nearing the end of its days. It wants to be looked after. For this reason, the changeling is still with the family, so as not to raise their suspicions, although the mother noticed right away how ugly the baby had suddenly become. A fey woman found the human child abandoned in some woods. Luckily, she suspected it was a switch and the news got through to us. She’s been caring for the child while we were tracking the family down.”
“The fairy left the child to die?” said Nosebag, shaking his tufty head sadly. “What are we going to do with the wicked old cretin?”
“If I had my way I’d return the favor and leave him out in the woods to take his chances, like he left the child,” Tino replied. “But it’s not to be. The fairy woman fostering the child has agreed to nurse the changeling until it passes, which is more than it deserves. Like I said, this should be fairly simple—a two-person job. Crooks, I’m going to need you to gain entry into the family’s house. It shouldn’t be difficult for you. I want you, Fix, to prepare a sleeping draught to give to the changeling so that it won’t create a disturbance during the switch. One of you wil
l need to bring the human child to the house.” He handed Crooks a scrap of paper. “Here’s the address. You don’t need me to explain any more—you two can work out the logistics of your plan together. Now, unless either of you has any updates, you can leave.”
Hurried good-byes were exchanged, then Crooks and Fix left the barn.
“The second case tonight is trickier,” Tino continued. “Suki met with a second-sighted boy who believes his mother has been switched for a changeling.”
Fabian prodded Rowan in the back. “His mother? I thought only children were taken!”
“Quiet,” said Tino coldly, before Rowan could answer. “I’m talking. Now, as we know, adult changelings are far less common than children and babies. And because we’re dealing with an adult fairy, things are more complex and often a lot more dangerous. That’s why we can’t afford to get this wrong. We only get one chance, because if we mess it up, we could endanger this boy and the rest of his family. The boy noticed a change in his mother’s behavior a few weeks ago but put it down to the fact that she’d been ill. But things have been getting stranger, and the woman has been acting increasingly out of character.” He nodded to Suki.
“The time I had with him was brief, but I’ve organized another meeting with him to get more information,” she said. “From what he’s told me already it sounds genuine, and the boy’s guardian—a goblin, from the description—hasn’t been seen since the changeling came into the household. I didn’t say it to the boy, but chances are, the guardian is dead.”
“Has he done the iron test?” Peg asked.
“Touching a person with something iron,” Rowan murmured to Tanya. “If they’re fey, it’ll burn, and they won’t be able to hide their reaction.”
“No,” said Suki. “I didn’t tell him to do anything like that. If she is a changeling and she knows he’s on to her it could accelerate the situation. We need to be sure and we need to know what she wants. I’ve told him to keep monitoring her behavior and to act as normally as he can.”
“How old is the boy?” Samson asked.
“Eleven,” Suki answered. “But it’s not just the boy who could be at risk. There’s his father, who seems oblivious, and the boy’s two-year-old sister.”
“How are they at risk?” Tanya blurted out, forgetting herself. She cringed as Tino stared at her, but to her surprise, Suki responded.
“We don’t know that they are yet. But in cases of adult changelings, they’ve usually developed a fixation with someone in the family. If the changeling is a grieving mother, they can latch on to a child bearing some resemblance to the one they’ve lost, disposing of the real mother to get to it. Sometimes it’s an obsession with the person they’re impersonating; if they’re talented in some way, or beautiful. Until we know more we can’t decide how to act.” She sighed, her sharp features softening. “And this boy is scared. He’s frightened out of his mind, which makes me think he’s sure about what he’s seen. We need to find out more from him, although if he’s right, this is going to be tough.”
“That’s where you come in,” said Tino, turning his gaze on Rowan. “And with that coat…”
“Me? Wait a minute, I’ve just told you, I’m not—”
“Hear me out,” said Tino. “I know what you’ve said, but listen. I still think, no matter what you say, that this is something you have an instinct for. Even after James—this is what you do. Now, if you’ll take this one last job, and you still want out afterward, then I’ll let you go without question.”
“And if I don’t take it?”
“Then you’ll never know if it’s what you really want,” Tino answered softly. “And any ties you have with us are gone for good.”
“That’s sort of the point,” said Rowan sarcastically, but her voice trembled at the same time.
“There’s still time to think about it before you make your decision,” Tino coaxed. “Like I said, Suki’s arranged another meeting with the boy tomorrow. If you want to, you can be there.”
Rowan closed her eyes. “There’s a baby involved?”
Tanya’s head shot up in amazement. “Rowan!” she whispered. “You’re not seriously considering this? What’s got into you?”
Rowan opened her eyes and focused on Tino. “I haven’t agreed to anything,” she said firmly. “But if I were to, then I’d have two conditions.”
Tino cocked his head to one side. “Name them.”
“One, if I decide to meet this boy I’m under no obligation to go through with it after hearing what he has to say. And two, if I get involved, you let my friends leave with me tonight without doing anything to them. I mean it. It’s my fault they’re here, and I’ll take full responsibility if anything should happen to the Coven because of what they know.” She glanced at Tanya and Fabian, then back to Tino. “And that’s the measure of how much I trust them. I trust them with my life.”
Tino studied the three of them in turn. Rowan stood her ground, but behind her she could feel Fabian trembling, and she didn’t know whether it was from cold or fear.
“You know,” Tino said finally, “I believe you. And if these two are to keep their memories of us, then I think that could be put to good use.” A strange light had ignited behind his eyes, one that made Rowan’s skin prickle.
“What are you talking about?”
“We can use them,” said Tino. “This boy we spoke of is eleven.” He trained his eyes on Fabian. “How old are you?”
“Thirteen,” Fabian replied in a small voice.
“And you?” Tino looked to Tanya.
“Fourteen.”
“Perfect. If necessary, they can get into the house under the pretense of being the boy’s school friends. If the mother is an impostor, she won’t know any different.”
“No,” said Rowan, livid. “Absolutely not. You could use me for that, or Sparrow—”
“Wouldn’t work,” said Tino. “One, you’re both too old to pass for the same age as this boy. And two, you both know and have seen too much.” He nodded to Tanya and Fabian. “These two look the part. They look innocent.”
“You know I can’t agree to it,” said Rowan. “Look, just let them go and I’ll come to your meeting. They don’t need to be involved.”
“But I want to be,” said Tanya.
“So do I,” Fabian added.
Rowan turned on them both. “Don’t start. It’s not going to happen.”
“I think we deserve a say in what we do,” said Tanya fiercely. “And if it means helping you, then I’m in.” She glanced at Fabian. “We both are.”
“Tino, a word outside?” Rowan said coldly.
Tino smiled and opened the door. “After you.”
They stepped out into the night, leaving Tanya and Fabian alone with the remaining members of the Coven.
“What time is it?” Tanya whispered to Fabian, after a couple of minutes had elapsed.
Fabian looked at his watch. “Nearly half-past two. What do you think they’re talking about out there?”
Tanya shrugged miserably. “Rowan’s probably trying to convince him to let us walk out of this mess. She’s right. We shouldn’t have come. All along she was trying to do the right thing, and all we’ve done is made it harder for her to leave. We should have trusted her.”
Rowan and Tino returned a few minutes later. “We’re leaving,” Rowan muttered, refusing to look at them. “Now.”
Tino moved aside as they stepped out of the barn into the chilly night.
Without a backward glance, Rowan set off quickly, heading toward the gap in the hedge they’d come through.
“Slow down!” Tanya hissed, running to keep up. She cast a fearful glance back and saw Tino’s outline, perfectly still, outside the barn door, watching them leave. A shudder went through her and she turned back around.
“What have you done, Rowan?” Fabian asked. “What have you agreed to?”
Rowan squeezed through the gap. Tanya and Fabian followed. On the other side, Rowan had put t
he fox-skin coat on and transformed by the time they and Oberon had come through.
“I’ve agreed to do what he wants,” she said flatly. “I’m in.”
At eight o’clock the following morning, after Florence had hollered herself hoarse, Tanya, Fabian, and Rowan each managed to crawl out of their beds and down the stairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
“I don’t know what’s got into you three this morning,” she grumbled, setting plates and cups on the table. “You all appear to be half-asleep.”
“That’s because I am.” Fabian rubbed his eyes, unsuccessfully trying to stifle yet another yawn. This in turn set Tanya off yawning, and then Rowan. After trying to resist, Nell also caught it, much to Fabian’s amusement.
“And what were you doing, that all three of you had such little sleep?” Florence inquired, her gray eyes narrowed as she poured herself some tea.
“Reading,” came the unanimous response, earning a disbelieving sniff from Florence.
Tanya watched through bleary eyes as Fabian picked up his spoon and began to bash at a boiled egg a little harder than was necessary. The hearthfay, who had been devotedly keeping it warm, unbeknownst to him, ducked out of the way with a squeak and fled. Tanya’s eyes darted to Rowan. So far she had hardly said a word to anyone, and sat staring at her plate, chewing halfheartedly on a piece of toast.
Warwick came through to the kitchen with the morning’s mail. After helping himself to the newspaper he tossed the rest into the middle of the old oak table, where it landed with a slap. He passed General Carver’s cage, which was open to form a perch at the top, where the parrot sat, leaning out in earnest for a peck as Warwick went by. Unfortunately for the General, the frequency of the pecks meant that Warwick was well practiced in squeezing past unscathed.
“Tricketty,” the General squawked. “Tricketty, tricketty…”