‘You don’t understand.’ Rhosmari tugged vainly against the Chief Cook’s hold. ‘I want to come with you, but truly, I can’t. The Empress knows my name, and she’s also got me linked to Martin. The minute you try to take me out of this house, they’ll both know it…and then you’ll be caught as well.’
Mallow swore. ‘Well, that’s a fine old mess, isn’t it? How am I supposed to get them to let me back in the Oak now?’
Rhosmari glanced at the closed door. Martin would be coming up the stairs any minute. ‘Take this,’ she said. Undoing the clasp from her hair, she pressed it into Mallow’s hand. ‘Give it to Timothy, with this message: tell him the Empress is going to attack the Green Isles tonight. Tell him…that our plan didn’t work, and that I’m sorry. And tell him goodbye.’
‘Timothy?’ Mallow’s face was invisible, but Rhosmari could easily imagine the curl of her lip. ‘You want me to give a message to the human?’
‘Yes.’ She spoke firmly, in the tone she reserved for her most difficult students. ‘If you want Queen Valerian and the others to believe you’ve changed your mind, Mallow, that’s one good way to prove it. Now go! Quickly!’
Mallow grumbled wordlessly…and then she was gone, with a soft inrush of air that told Rhosmari she had Leaped away. Weak with relief, Rhosmari clutched the bedpost for support.
The door opened. ‘Rhosmari,’ said Martin, ‘it’s time to go.’ Then he frowned. ‘What happened to your hair?’
Rhosmari straightened up and faced him, her gaze holding his until he looked away. Then she walked past him into the corridor, silent but resolute, like a martyr going to her execution.
When Martin led Rhosmari outside, the bearded man was holding the back door of his car open for the Empress, while Veronica and a nervous-looking Bluebell stood by. Jasmine acknowledged them all with a nod as she climbed into the vehicle; then the door closed, hiding her behind its tinted glass.
‘Corbin and Byrne have already gone ahead to gather the others,’ said Martin as he steered Rhosmari towards the side of the house, where a row of tall cedars cast their shadow over the garden. ‘We’re all going to fly to Wales together – but those butterfly wings of yours are too weak for such a long journey. You’ll have to ride on my back.’
‘Me, ride on you? Even at my smallest size I’m bigger than—’
But before she could finish, Martin had transformed into a barn owl, stretching out both grey-white wings to show her just how large he was. Chastened, Rhosmari shrank to Oakenfolk size and climbed onto his back. As soon as she settled herself between his wings he sprang up from the ground, launching them both into the brilliant sky.
The ground spun away beneath them, houses dwindling to rooftops and lawns to mere patches of green. The sunlight dazzled Rhosmari’s eyes, and the wind whipped her hair into a tangle. She clung tight to Martin, knees gripping his feathered sides and arms thrown around his neck as far as they would go.
A river threaded across the countryside, bright as molten silver. Roads sliced the land into black-edged pieces. Fields and woodland flashed past, dotted with farms and villages at first, then yielding to bigger towns and the sprawling outskirts of some great city. Could that be London already? She had lost all sense of where they were.
Then a shadow fell over her face, and when she looked up, the sky was dark with birds.
They moved together in one great flock, weirdly mismatched and just as unnaturally silent. Their wings sliced the air with deliberate strokes: crows and ravens, hawks and owls, ducks, geese and seabirds of every kind. And as Martin angled upwards to join them, Rhosmari saw that many of the others also bore a female faery on their backs.
This was the first time she had seen the Empress’s whole army out in the open. Were there two hundred? Three? It was hard to be certain. But even so, it seemed that the faeries of the Oak had not been so badly outnumbered last night as they had feared. No wonder the Empress had been so willing to grant Rhosmari’s request and withdraw.
After a few hours of steady flight some of the birds began to falter, and by unspoken agreement the leaders glided downwards, to settle along the bank of a slow-moving river. Martin back-winged to a landing upon the grass, and Rhosmari slid off, grateful for the chance to stretch her aching limbs.
Then the owl vanished and Martin stood beside her, small as she was. She had never seen him at Oakenfolk size before, and for a moment she could only stare. But he seized her hand and said, ‘We’re Leaping to Lyn and Toby’s theatre. Right now.’
‘To Cardiff?’ They must have flown a long way, if they were close enough to the city to Leap there. ‘Why?’
‘Because I have to know,’ said Martin. ‘But enough talking. Go!’ And with that he vanished, and Rhosmari had to Leap with him. They slipped in and out of emptiness, appearing on the familiar back street in the heart of Cardiff.
Someone in the distance let out a shriek – they must have been spotted – but Martin ignored it. His eyes were fixed on Lyn’s door, his fingers tracing the empty space where the BARDHOUSE THEATRE COMPANY sign had once hung. He swore softly and stabbed his thumb against the bell, buzzing once, twice—
The door opened. Lyn stood there with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, looking irritable. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
‘Lyn,’ said Martin. ‘Where’s the sign? What happened to the theatre?’
‘Who cares?’ retorted the human woman. ‘If you came to audition, forget it. The company’s finished.’ She tried to shut the door, but Martin stepped to block it.
‘You can’t be serious,’ he said. ‘This theatre was your life. Toby’s, too. Where is he?’
‘Doing real work for real money, I expect,’ said Lyn. ‘Or at least that was the idea when he left. Listen, whoever you are—’
Rhosmari drew in her breath, a sharp intake of disbelief and pain. Beside her, Martin had gone so still that he might have been carved from ice.
‘—if you want to get up on a stage somewhere and make a fool of yourself, that’s your business. But it’s not mine, not any more. Now get your foot out of my door before I call the police.’
Slowly, Martin stepped back. His face was ashen, and when Rhosmari touched his arm he did not even seem to feel it. He stood there like a living ghost, as Lyn slammed the door and bolted it shut.
So this was what Veronica had meant, when she told Martin there was nothing in Cardiff worth going back to. At the Empress’s command, she had done to Martin’s friends what she had once tried to do to Timothy – stolen away all their creative abilities until nothing was left, and left them indifferent to a passion that had once defined their whole lives. And then, in a final cruel twist, she had erased Lyn and Toby’s memories of Martin as well.
‘What are you going to do?’ Rhosmari asked, and when he remained silent, ‘Martin?’
His fingers closed on her wrist, hard enough to bruise, and the look on his face chilled her all over. ‘Veronica was right,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for me here.’
And with that they disappeared, leaving the closed door and the vacant theatre behind them.
twenty
The beach gleamed wetly in the moonlight, and the waves that rolled in from the open sea were frothed with silver. One by one the Empress’s army of birds straggled from the sky and alighted on the nearby slope. No one spoke. They were too exhausted – and too bitterly hungry.
They had flown all day and well into the night, and even with clear skies and favourable winds, the journey had not been easy. The last time the Blackwings had permitted the flock to stop and rest, several fights had broken out as the larger birds squabbled over bits of carrion too small to satisfy anyone, while the smaller ones gulped down every worm and insect they could find. Rhosmari, like the rest of the females, had been forced to make do without any food at all.
Had the Empress lost her mind, to drive them all day like this and then expect them to fight for her as well? Rhosmari had said as much to Martin earlier, as they watched Vero
nica fire a stinging blast of magic at two hawk-faeries to keep them from tearing each other apart. But he had remained hunched in his barn owl form, the flat dish of his face inscrutable, and she wondered if he had even heard.
Now Corbin Blackwing transformed himself out of raven shape and turned to face them. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes hollow, but his voice had lost none of its harsh authority: ‘The Empress awaits us. All of you, follow me.’
In the car park beside the beach sat an elegant wine-coloured sedan, the same car that the Empress had commandeered that morning. Jasmine climbed gracefully from the back seat, dismissing both car and driver with a negligent wave. She seemed not at all concerned about letting the man go, which made Rhosmari think she must have erased his memory and likely his wife’s as well.
‘You have made excellent time,’ she said to the other faeries, as the sedan roared away and vanished down the narrow road. ‘And you shall all be rewarded for it, when this night is done.’ She turned to Rhosmari, eyes alight with anticipation. ‘Now. Show us the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way.’
It was her last chance to resist, to find the strength to deny the Empress’s command. If she did not save her people, no one would. Rhosmari gathered together every shred of courage and resolve she still possessed, and willed herself not to obey.
It was no use. Her muscles flexed into motion, and though her mind shrieked and railed against her body’s treachery she could not stop herself from carrying out the order. Eyes blurring, Rhosmari led Jasmine and her army across the shingle and onto the smooth, tide-washed sand.
They walked in silence, all of them back in faery shape and at full size; the only sound was the rush and sigh of the long breakers, and a distant clamour of gulls that tore at Rhosmari’s heart. It was agony to be so close to the homeland she had longed for and the people she had tried so hard to protect, and know that she had only come to bring about their doom.
The familiar low cliffs approached, encrusted with lichen and tufted with grass. From here their stony slopes looked impenetrable, and yet Rhosmari knew that the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way was near. If she could have dashed herself from a precipice or drowned herself in the sea rather than open that door, she would have. But she had not even the will for that.
Her feet dragged to a stop, her body turning to face the cliffside. The wave-and-circle symbol shone out to her from the rock. She raised her hand towards it…
‘Don’t do it, Rhosmari.’
She froze, fingers poised in midair. The command was quietly spoken, but impossible to ignore – and it had not come from the Empress.
‘Why do you hesitate?’ demanded the Empress. ‘Open the door!’
Automatically Rhosmari’s hand lifted for the second time. But once again the urgent whisper told her, ‘Don’t.’
She heard it with her ears, not her mind. Somehow, impossible as it seemed, Timothy was here. He had raced across England and Wales to be with her, and now he was hiding somewhere among the rocks, determined to keep her from opening the secret door.
Jasmine seized Rhosmari’s shoulder. ‘Why do you not obey? Tell me at once!’
The words came out before she could stop them. ‘Because Timothy said not to. And he knows my name, too.’
‘Find him!’ snapped the Empress at her followers. ‘Bring him to me!’
Before she had even finished speaking, Martin changed into his bird form and flew straight up the cliffside. He loosed a spell that lit the whole slope, and all at once a scrabbling noise came from the rocks above them, flakes of shale tinkling down. She heard a small voice cry, ‘Timothy!’ and the answering shout, ‘Don’t worry about me! Go!’
And all at once there he was, pressed against the rock with his feet braced on a narrow ledge, chest heaving with panic. Trapped and helpless, in full view of the Empress and her whole army. Martin swooped towards his eyes, Timothy flung up a hand – and at the same moment his left leg trembled, spasmed and gave way.
He tumbled hard and fast down the cliffside, and landed with a thump on his back. His eyes stared wildly at the sky, mouth gaping open and closed as he fought to get his breath again. Rhosmari started towards him – but then Martin landed between them in faery form, hauled Timothy up against a nearby boulder, and laid a glittering knife against his neck. He hissed a few words in Timothy’s ear, and the young man froze.
‘There will be no more interference from this one,’ Martin announced to the Empress. ‘If he speaks again, I will kill him.’
‘Well done,’ she told him, and turned back to Rhosmari. ‘Now open the door.’
Tears streaked her face, yet she moved without hesitation. Both Timothy and the Empress had an equal power over her, and whichever one of them spoke to her was the one she must obey. She stretched out her hand for the third time…
‘Don’t,’ Timothy croaked. And with that, Martin’s knife flashed across his throat. Eyes wide and staring, a line of blood vivid against his skin, he toppled behind the boulder as Martin pushed him away.
Rhosmari’s heart turned inside out. The wind howled in her ears, echoing the anguish within her, and in that moment everything else – the moon and stars, the sand and waves, the Empress and all her army – ceased to exist.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Timothy. No.’
And then the world rushed in upon her, and she realised that she had dropped to her knees and was clawing at the sand like an animal. Two faeries seized her arms and wrestled her upright; she hung limp between them, her hair a wild tangle across her face, sobbing.
‘Your Majesty,’ said Martin, sheathing his knife and making the Empress a little bow. ‘I apologise for the interruption.’
Jasmine gave a delighted laugh. ‘Martin! I have underestimated you, indeed.’ Then she turned to Rhosmari and said, ‘Enough folly. Show us the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way.’
Even now, with her soul shattered and her mind in chaos, she had to obey. Rhosmari staggered forward, step by step, her eyes on the thin tracery of light that would open the secret door. Her fingers crept across the rock…
‘Rhosmari.’
Timothy was struggling back to his feet, leaning on the boulder for support. Sand caked his hair and the scratch across his throat was still bleeding, but his eyes were clear and alive. ‘I command you not to listen to the Empress, or obey her any more. From now on you must listen only to your own conscience, and do nothing but what you choose of your own free will. Forever.’
The words sang through Rhosmari’s mind and loosened every muscle in her body, plunging her for an instant into a blackness cold as death and then filling her with warmth and light. She whirled away from the Empress, and flung herself into Timothy’s arms.
‘Kill them!’ the Empress raged, and Byrne Blackwing drew his knife and started towards them – only to jerk backwards and crumple with an arrow through his shoulder.
‘Do that,’ said a woman’s crisp voice from the rocks above them, ‘and I’ll kill you.’
They all looked up – and there stood Peri, with her crossbow levelled at the Empress. Her face looked strained and her hands shook a little, but the bandages were gone. ‘This bolt is iron-tipped,’ she said. ‘And so are the arrows that Broch and Thorn are aiming at your soldiers right now. You’re surrounded, Jasmine. It’s over.’
‘Quick!’ Linden’s whisper came out of nowhere, startling Rhosmari and Timothy apart. ‘While she’s distracted.’ Sparkling heat washed over Rhosmari as the faery girl extended her own invisibility glamour to cover the two of them. ‘This way – up the rocks.’
Timothy’s hand closed around Rhosmari’s, warm and reassuring. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
The three of them had picked their way up the cliffside, and were nearly to the top, when Timothy’s foot slipped out from under him again. But this time Linden and Rhosmari were there to catch him and haul him up the rest of the way.
‘Stupid spasms,’ he said bitterly, collapsing onto the grass. ‘I knew they’d be the death
of me one day. It’s just a good thing Martin was smart enough to step in before the Empress could kill me herself.’
‘Is that what happened?’ Linden exclaimed, landing beside them and making herself human size again. ‘I flew as fast as I could to get help, but…for a moment I thought we’d come too late.’
‘He made it pretty convincing,’ said Timothy. ‘At first I thought he’d really cut my throat, but the knife he used on me wasn’t even sharp. I don’t know why he saved my life, but he did.’ He shifted closer to Rhosmari and took her hand. ‘Are you all right?’
Rhosmari nodded, her heart too full to speak. Only a few minutes ago she had believed Timothy dead and all hope gone, and now here they were together, safe and free. It seemed like a dream too wonderful to be real – except for the Empress and her army still standing on the beach below.
By now there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Peri had not been bluffing. The Empress’s people were indeed surrounded, with Llinos and the other Children of Rhys in exile stationed along the promontory in front of them, while Rob and his fellow rebels blocked the lone exit from the beach behind. The Oakenfolk formed part of the larger group as well: Thorn and her archers, Queen Valerian, Campion, even Mallow – the only familiar face Rhosmari did not see among them was Wink. Without making a sound or giving the least hint of their presence, they had been closing in on the Empress and her followers – and now they had revealed themselves at last.
‘You cannot escape, Jasmine,’ said Queen Valerian, in a voice clear enough to carry across the beach. ‘Our numbers may not be as great as yours, but our people are strong and well rested, and, unlike you, we have humans on our side. If you have any compassion for your followers, you will not ask them to fight us again.’
The Empress lifted her chin, defiant. ‘I have nothing to say to a half-breed traitor.’