A bond stronger than magic itself? Rhosmari found that hard to believe. ‘So Jasmine let her go?’
‘Of course not,’ said Paul without taking his eyes off the road. ‘She had her executed.’
Rhosmari sank down in her seat, staring at the back of Paul’s blond head. She had known the Empress could be harsh with faeries she deemed traitors, but she had not realised she was capable of outright murder.
‘And then Philip died of a broken heart,’ said Timothy. ‘Which I didn’t think ever actually happened. But they’d already had two children by that point, one of whom inherited Waverley Hall—’
‘And became Sarah’s great-grandfather,’ Paul added. ‘Or great-great-grandfather. Something of that sort.’
‘And the other,’ Peri finished, ‘is Valerian, the present Queen of the Oak.’
Rhosmari pressed her fingers against her eyelids, her head swimming with all this new information. When she looked up again, the car was speeding between banks of trees and high hedgerows, and Waverley Hall was nowhere in sight.
‘So the Empress really is old,’ she said.
‘She must be well over three hundred by now,’ Peri said. ‘I’m amazed she’s even alive.’
‘She’s stronger than any faery I’ve ever seen,’ Rhosmari murmured. ‘The way she can maintain so many spells at once, and control her followers besides…’ A chill ran through her, and she rubbed her arms. ‘Whatever she did to get back her powers, it must have been terrible. She says she only wants what’s best for her people, but how can she not see all the evil she’s done?’
‘I don’t think she sees anything but her own ambitions,’ said Peri. ‘If she ever had a conscience, it’s long gone by now.’
‘Seared as with a hot iron,’ Timothy said, in a distracted way that made Rhosmari think he must be quoting something.
‘Yes, well,’ said Paul. ‘If we could defeat Jasmine by psychoanalysing her, she’d be dead a hundred times over. But here’s what I’d really like to know, Tim – the next time we go up against her, are you going to dash off and play the hero again, or are you going to follow orders?’
Timothy gave Rhosmari a sidelong glance. Then he said, ‘Follow orders. Probably.’
Paul looked at Peri, and his mouth twitched. Peri sighed. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Believe me, I know.’
Rhosmari had expected the Oak to be a large tree, to hold so many faeries. But as Paul’s car turned the last corner and she saw it looming up against the sky, her eyes grew round. Never had she seen such a mighty breadth of trunk, or guessed that limbs could spread so wide and not crack under their own weight. Surely only magic could have kept a tree of that size alive and undamaged for so long.
‘It’ll be a couple of hours before Garan and the others get back from Waverley Hall,’ said Paul, as he turned into the drive of a tall, peak-roofed house and brought the car to a stop. ‘Would you like to go straight to the Oak, Rhosmari, or will you stay and have some lunch with us?’
Rhosmari hesitated. She had not eaten anything since last night, so she was quite hungry. And though her iron-blocked magic was beginning to come back, she did not feel quite ready to go into the Oak alone. But…
‘Tell you what,’ said Timothy. ‘Come in and eat first, and then I’ll take you over to the Oak. I’ll even come inside with you, if you like.’
‘You can do that?’ asked Rhosmari, but Timothy only looked smug.
‘Timothy’s a bit in love with the Oak, I think,’ said Peri. ‘Any chance to get in there will do. So don’t think you’re putting him to any trouble.’ She opened the door and climbed out, adding over her shoulder, ‘Or us, either.’
Rhosmari looked up at the house, then back at Timothy, who was regarding her hopefully. Why did it seem that every time she thought she knew what to expect from humans, they did something to throw her into confusion?
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll come in.’
twelve
‘Then something wet slapped my leg, so I looked behind me,’ said Timothy, ‘and there’s Lydia in the bottom of the boat, struggling with this… fish.’ He flung his arms so wide he would have knocked over the water jug if Peri hadn’t caught it in time. ‘I’m not even exaggerating, it must have been half as big as she was. How she managed to catch it, I’ll never know. And then there’s me, with this—’
He held his fingertips about a hand’s width apart. Paul grinned, and Peri laughed. But Rhosmari was too distracted even to manage a smile.
Here she sat, eating the plainest meal of bread and meat and cheese, at a table so small that Timothy’s knee bumped hers on one side and the wheel of Paul’s chair boxed her in on the other. She was listening to three humans tell stories about places she had never been, people she had never met, and situations that had nothing to do with her – a kind of conversation that most faeries would find meaningless, if not rude. And now Timothy had just told them about a time when he had been made to look ridiculous by his little sister. How could she laugh without seeming to mock his failure?
But of course human ways were different from those of faeries; she had always known that, and no doubt she would get used to them in time. What troubled Rhosmari more was that in spite of the simple food, humble surroundings, and strange company, she was enjoying herself.
‘So that’s when I gave up fishing and decided to stick to the guitar.’ Timothy pulled the fruit bowl towards him and helped himself to another handful of grapes.
‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘we can’t all be multi-talented.’
Timothy snorted. ‘Says the professional artist with all the trophies for rowing and wheelchair rugby. Thanks a lot – oh, sorry.’ This last was to Rhosmari, who had flinched at the careless use of thanks. ‘For a minute I forgot you were a faery.’
‘I suspect she might not take that as a compliment, Tim,’ said Peri as she got up and began to clear the table. Timothy started to apologise again, but Peri interrupted, ‘And if you keep digging that hole, you’re going to fall into it. Why don’t you take Rhosmari over to the Oak?’
‘Right. Yes. I’d just better get rid of this…’ Timothy shoved his hand into his right pocket, and slapped a tangle of iron and leather onto the table. ‘Coming, Rhosmari?’
Compared to the neglected grounds of Waverley Hall, the back garden at Oakhaven was a work of horticultural art, its lawn edged with neat flowerbeds and hedges squared to perfection. There were a few trees, too, some just beginning to bloom – but still, it was hard for anything to compare with the leafless majesty of the Oak. Seen close at hand, its bulk was even more daunting, and as Rhosmari followed Timothy out the glass door at the back of the house, she was glad that she would not have to enter the great tree alone.
But something still bothered her, and though she tried to put it from her mind her thoughts kept going back to it, like a tongue to a missing tooth.
‘I know the Oakenwyld’s not much like the Green Isles,’ said Timothy. ‘But the Oak itself is amazing, and…’ He stopped, frowning at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Why are you being so kind to me?’ Rhosmari hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud, but it had grown too large to stay inside her. Only when it was out of her mouth did she realise how suspicious and even hostile she sounded.
‘Does that mean you’d rather I wasn’t? Or were you expecting me to be rude to you instead?’
Embarrassment flushed through her. ‘I just wondered.’
Timothy stuck a hand behind his head and ruffled up his dark hair. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I read your letter. And I heard Garan telling the others about you. And I don’t know quite how to say this, except…you reminded me of me.’
‘I did? How?’
‘I came here from Uganda a few months ago,’ said Timothy, his eyes distant. ‘I’d lived there as long as I could remember, and my family and friends were there, and the church I grew up in, and everything was safe and warm and comfortable. Then I flew over here to go to school and it was cold and strange and I w
as all alone, and everybody I’d been counting on let me down, and whenever I tried to fix things it ended up in disaster. And that was before the Empress put a price on my head.’
He scuffed his shoe along the paving stones. ‘Anyway, I was pretty miserable, and I figured that after all you’d been through, you must feel even worse. And I thought maybe I could make things easier for you, at least until Garan and the others got back.’ He slanted a look at her, his grey-green eyes quizzical and a little sheepish. ‘That’s pretty much it.’
Rhosmari did not know what to say. She had never expected that a human would be able to understand how she felt. In fact, it seemed so unlikely that part of her feared Timothy might be another Martin, trying to manipulate her into trusting him.
‘That’s…generous of you,’ she managed at last.
‘I know,’ said Timothy. ‘I’m wonderful that way.’ Then he grinned and she knew he was teasing her, though not unkindly. She gave a tentative smile in return, and together they followed the path to the end of the garden, where the afternoon sunlight faded into the shadow of the Oak.
‘Here.’ Timothy crouched and parted the grass around the base of the great tree, revealing a dark hollow between two roots. ‘That’s what they call the Queen’s Gate. Have you ever made yourself small? Smaller than the Children of Rhys usually are, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Rhosmari. ‘But what about you?’
‘Oh, that’s easy enough,’ said Timothy, in a casual tone that belied his obvious pride. ‘Queen Valerian made me a special charm, so I can visit the Oak whenever I like. Watch this.’
He pulled a wooden medallion out of his back pocket, looped the string around his neck – and shrank to Oakenfolk size, no taller than Rhosmari’s hand was long. Not wanting to be left behind, she hastily cast a spell to do likewise. Her body tingled, wings sprouted from her shoulders, the world blurred and telescoped around her…
It was done. She stood face to face and eye to eye with Timothy, but now the ladybird crawling over her boot was the size of her fist, and the Oak had grown so huge that it blotted out the sky. Grass tangled around her legs, snagging the hem of her skirt; she stooped to brush herself free, and when she straightened up again Timothy had already vanished into the shadowy hole at their feet.
‘Come on,’ he called up to her. ‘It’s not deep.’
It looked deep enough to Rhosmari, who could barely make out his head and shoulders in the darkness. But then she saw a spidery lattice of roots woven into one side of the hole, forming a rough ladder. She turned around and climbed down it until she felt Timothy’s hands at her waist, then let go and landed with a little jump at the bottom.
He released her and backed away, looking dazed. ‘Er,’ he said. ‘Your wings…’
‘Is there something wrong with them?’ Rhosmari twisted her head back over her shoulder, trying to see. She had not actually looked at her wings before, for in Gruffydd’s Way she had been too busy trying to escape from her mother to care. In the half-light they appeared to be partly black and partly blue, and shaped like a butterfly’s, but that was all she could tell.
‘No, not at all. They’re…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Pretty amazing, actually.’ Then he stooped and vanished into the darkness. Curious, Rhosmari followed. Tucked away into an alcove beneath the root stood a stout wooden door, wide enough for two faeries to enter side by side. Timothy hauled it open, and the two of them stepped over the threshold, into the heart of the Oak.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what do you think?’
Rhosmari barely heard him: she was too busy gazing around in awe. There was no obvious reason this place should remind her of the Hall of Judgment, for instead of sandstone and marble it was shaped out of wood, with little decoration or ornament. It also had a huge staircase spiralling up through its centre, and a ceiling too high to see. But certainly the feeling the Oak gave her, of a place not only ancient but solemn and powerful, was the same. Light streamed in from window-slits all around, falling in a golden lattice upon the floor, and the air was rich with the smells of earth and woodsmoke, roasting meat, dried herbs…and faeries.
‘Rob and Linden are around here somewhere,’ said Timothy. ‘They stayed behind with a few of the rebels to guard the Oak, while the rest of us went to—’
‘You again!’ snapped a voice from the passageway to their left, and a powerfully built faery woman shouldered out of a doorway, gripping a cleaver in one hand. ‘Who let you in the door this time, human boy? What’s it going to take to prove to you that you’re not welcome here?’
‘A majority vote might do it,’ said Timothy. ‘But apart from that, Mallow, you’re just going to have to put up with me. Unless you’re actually planning to use that knife you’re holding.’
‘It’d serve you right if I did,’ snapped Mallow. ‘Bad enough having the Oak overrun by hairy strangers, without adding humans to the lot. And who’s this?’ She cast a baleful eye over Rhosmari.
Rhosmari drew herself up, butterfly wings unfurling around her. ‘I am Rhosmari daughter of Celyn of the Children of Rhys,’ she said.
Mallow’s indignant look dwindled into uncertainty. ‘Is that so,’ she said, lowering the cleaver. ‘Well, in that case, you’d better get upstairs and see Valerian – but I’d send him back outside where he belongs, if I were you.’ She jerked her chin at Timothy. ‘I’m not the only one in the Oak who doesn’t care for the stink of humans.’
‘That’s Queen Valerian to you,’ Timothy called, but Mallow strode back through the archway and slammed the door behind her.
‘Was that true, what she said?’ asked Rhosmari as she and Timothy began to climb the spiral staircase. ‘I thought the Oakenfolk had always been friendly with humans.’ In fact, she had hoped they might help her overcome her distrust of them, but that did not seem so likely now.
‘They were, until Jasmine got hold of them,’ he replied. ‘But once she stole their magic and altered their memories, most of them were too terrified to even look at us. It wasn’t until almost two centuries later, when Knife – Peri, I mean – met Paul and fell in love with him, that the truth started to come out. And even then a lot of the Oakenfolk had a hard time accepting it.’
‘What about the rebels?’ Rhosmari asked. ‘Surely they must feel differently, or they wouldn’t have turned against the Empress?’
‘Rob does,’ Timothy said. ‘And Lily – his second-in-command – respects humans as well, so the others follow their lead. But most of them still have mixed feelings about it, and even a few of Garan’s people – your people – start to look uncomfortable when anybody talks about Peri and Paul.’
‘That can’t be right,’ said Rhosmari, stung into defensiveness. ‘My people don’t despise humans; how could they? Many of our ancestors were born human. In past centuries we used to rescue sailors from shipwrecks, and some of them stayed with us—’
‘By giving up their humanity and becoming faeries, yes,’ interrupted Timothy. ‘Nobody objects to that. But the Oakenfolk used to do the opposite – they sent faeries out to live in the human world for years or decades at a time, and some of them even married humans and gave birth to human children. That’s the part nobody likes to talk about.’
He turned to her, his hand tightening on the stair rail. ‘Be honest, Rhosmari. When Linden told your Elders about Knife becoming human to stay with Paul, weren’t you shocked?’
Of course she had been. Until that moment, Rhosmari had never even imagined that faeries could fall in love with humans. After all, with plenty of both male and female faeries on their islands, the Rhysians had no need to look elsewhere for mates. And to Rhosmari, who had never visited the mainland, humans had always seemed as remote and untouchable as angels.
But then Timothy had stepped forward and begun to speak to the Elders, his voice husky with urgency. Her eyes had lingered on the dark feathers of his hair, the hint of golden warmth beneath his winter-paled skin, and she was fascinated; no one in all the Green Isles looked or spoke
like that. Then her heart began to flutter, and warmth had bloomed in Rhosmari’s cheeks as she felt, for the first time in her life, the kindling spark of attraction. At that moment she could no longer be shocked at the choice Peri had made; she was too busy being appalled at herself.
She looked away, her pulse beating in her throat, and said, ‘A little.’
The stair ended at a circular landing, with a window-slit on one side and an archway draped with velvety curtains on the other. Timothy tugged a cord that dangled down the wall, and a chime rang out faintly on the other side. A voice called, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Timothy, Your Majesty. And I’ve brought Rhosmari.’
‘Rhosmari!’ exclaimed the voice, and the curtain was swept aside. Before them stood a tall brown-haired faery with a glow-spell burning in her hand. Her face was a pale oval, her features serene rather than striking, and her dress was so simple that Rhosmari could easily have taken her for a servant, if not for the silver circlet she wore around her brow.
‘You are welcome in the Oak,’ said Queen Valerian. ‘Please, come in.’
They had only taken a few steps into the passage when a door flew open and another faery scrambled out. She dropped a hasty curtsy, trying to smooth her tumbled ringlets and brush the wrinkles from her skirt at the same time. ‘I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,’ she blurted. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep—’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Valerian, ‘but you needed it. There is no need to apologise, Wink. But if you feel well enough to join us, I would be glad to have you come.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Visibly relieved, the red-headed faery fell in behind them. They passed through a doorway into a small audience chamber, generously lit by windows along one side. Three of the walls were lined with benches, while a low-backed chair stood on a dais at the far end. Walking up the crimson-dyed carpet, Queen Valerian sat down, and gestured to Rhosmari and the others to make themselves comfortable as well.