Briar Queen (14 page)

Greta turned away, her back stiff. Narcissus laughed once and looked out the window.

The pressure in Finn's head vanished. She wondered what, exactly, Jack had been before she'd known him.

When the train stopped again, Narcissus disembarked. There was no station—he walked toward a twisted wooden arch that led into a forest flickering with ghostly blue lights and vanished.

The train continued on, past boarded-up houses, a stone church with windows glowing ivy green, a cemetery behind a spiky fence. Finn glimpsed a hooded figure in scarlet moving among the tombstones and quickly looked away.
Just deal with it,
she told herself.
Because this is real
.

“Our stop is next.” Jack again folded a hand over one of hers.

A few minutes later, the train pulled into a station of shiny black stone that might have come from an old Hollywood set. Lamps of purple glass hung from red, lantern-shaped roofs. The windows were screened with parchment. On the platform stood a girl in a black frock, holding an ebony parasol.

As Jack and Finn passed Greta to exit the car, the Fata woman sweetly called, “Good luck, little girl.”

Jack tightened his grip on Finn's hand as they stepped onto the platform. The girl with the parasol, her eyes dark hollows, watched them. Finn whispered, “What will my sister be like, after being in
this
place for a year?”

“If she's anything like you, she'll be just fine.” They moved toward a forested slope divided by a mammoth stairway of moss-splotched stone.

Finn forgot what she'd wanted to ask next, breathing out, “Are we climbing
that
?”

“The Stair of the Fox Spirits.” A few old-fashioned lamps lit the way, but there were sections banded by darkness. As Finn gazed up, Jack reassured her, “We'll eventually get there. Dusk and night are the only times here. There is no sun. No moon.”

“There are stars.” She gazed up at the night sky and its canopy of constellations that seemed brighter than the ones at home. A shivering anticipation almost made her smile. “Let's go.”

As they climbed, Jack didn't even breathe hard, but Finn eventually felt as if her lungs had been filled with acid. When he offered to carry her, she snarled softly and he smiled. After what seemed like an hour—her feet were dragging by then—she raised her head and saw a metal arch contorted into vines and stylized eyes. Beyond the arch was a town that seemed salvaged from rust-belt America, its street lined with birches, their silver leaves drifting through the air, their roots snarling the blacktop. There were buildings and shops, some with lit windows, but the lighting wasn't electric; it was natural and luminous, as if it came from fireflies or deep sea creatures.

“Like bioluminescence.” Finn couldn't conceal her awe as she studied one streetlamp glowing jellyfish blue. “Like the ones on the train.”

“Don't be fooled by the pretty.” Jack led her down the street, past a shop displaying antique-looking metal arms and legs. In a boutique swirling with live butterflies, a girl surrounded by ball gowns on broken mannequins was pinning the insects into her hair. As they passed a granite bank building pulsing with lights and eerie music, a red-haired Fata boy in a black sailor uniform stepped out and lit up a cigarette. His eyes flashed a savage silver when he saw Finn—Jack looked at him and he glanced away.

As they continued walking, Jack told her, “Darkside was called something else when it was a human place. Before it was abandoned. A whole town—villages, streets, structures, vehicles . . . anything forgotten, lost, the Ghostlands claim. I know a mermaid who rules from the wreckage of a famous ship, and a changeling girl who's made her home in a lost plane. Don't stare.”

Finn quickly skewed her gaze away from an androgynous Fata in a white coat, who was walking a black pig on a leash. After the sharp terror on the train, she
was beginning to feel a dreamy acceptance. “You sure know a lot of girls, Jack.”

“That was the old me.” His voice was sultry. He led her toward a fountain choked with dead leaves, where water gurgled from the mouth of a stone sea serpent. There was a clock tower at the end of the street. The clock, a gigantic thing of intricately carved wood that reminded her of an octopus, had thirteen numbers on its face.

A blue roadster came roaring around a corner, its headlights phantom green. Jack turned, squinting.

The car halted at the fountain, its hood ornament revealed to be a fish-bodied horse—and the driver was Atheno, one of Jack's vagabond friends. Finn smiled as Jack said, “Well.”

Atheno jumped out, looking like a rock star, a necklace of green pearls gleaming against his bare chest. He bowed. “Jack. Miss Sullivan. I'm to be your driver. I was here, visiting, when I learned you'd be arriving. I volunteered.”

“See?” Finn looked at Jack. “We'll be fine.”

“I never said we wouldn't.”

As they eased into the back of the car, Atheno continued, “Rowan Cruithnear's going to be delayed crossing over, so I'm to take you directly to the Blue Lady.”

“I don't like it when plans change, Atheno.”

“It's for your own good, Jack. We'll get you and your girl that elixir right away.”

ATHENO STEERED THE ROADSTER
up the steep curve of a road lined with old warehouses and oak trees cascading with moss and ivy that seemed to have overtaken anything made of concrete or metal. One building, its yard scattered with derelict vehicles, was painted with the words
BOSTON AUTO PARTS
.

Finn, catching her reflection in the rearview mirror, saw an unfamiliar creature with tangled hair, eyes rimmed in shadow, lips of bitten red. She said, “Tell me about the Blue Lady.”

“The Blue Lady”—Atheno met her gaze in the rearview—“deals in the betwixt and between—mortal things for Fata desires. Is that a moth in your hair, Finn Sullivan?”

“It's a moth.”

The roadster curved into a driveway lined with trees blossoming white roses. At the drive's end, on a hill covered with bluebells, was a majestic Queen Anne
house painted oceanic blue. Jack murmured, “Bluebells . . . an exceptionally malevolent flower. Why is Cruithnear delayed?”

As Atheno halted the roadster in front of the house and Finn was reassured by the lights glowing in the first-floor windows, Atheno said, “Just last-minute stuff. Go on, children. I'll wait. The lady and I are having a disagreement at the moment, so I won't be going in.”

Finn and Jack got out of the car and moved up the steps to the veranda, where bits of broken mirrors on ribbons glinted, hanging from the rafters. Remembering shattered glass and her sister lying in it, breathing as if everything inside of her had broken, Finn halted.
That was a lie
.

“Protective charms, of sorts,” Jack told her as he knocked on the Blue Lady's door and it swung open.

“Jack, if she has protective charms all over her porch, why would she leave her door open?”

“Good question.” He warily peered into a hall painted pale blue. There were holes in the walls, a shattered vase on the floor.

Finn whispered, “Here's another question—why does it look as if she's been robbed?”

“Atheno!” Jack turned. “We need—”

The roadster was empty.

“Maybe he went around to check the back?” Finn flinched as the moth flew past her, into the house. “Should we—”

“We're going in. Don't leave my side. We need that elixir. And, yes, Atheno's probably checking the back.” Jack didn't sound convinced. They moved down the wrecked hall toward a parlor of blue and white, where they found more broken and overturned furniture, and water on the floor and watery footprints leading to the fireplace, where a mural of a shirtless boy holding a rooster and a hoop had been painted above the mantelpiece. On the mantelpiece was an ivory box with a white card propped against it. Jack avoided the water on the floor and moved toward the fireplace. He reached for the card propped against the box, read it silently. He looked at the box. As he took it down and carefully raised the lid, Finn said, “Are you going to tell me what's in it?”

“I'd rather not.”

“What does the card say?”

“Someone sent the Blue Lady an invitation.” He tucked the card into a back pocket and surveyed the parlor. “Come on. We've got to get out of here.”

“What about the elixir?”

“We'll have to find Atheno first.”

As she followed him into the hall, she snatched the card from his pocket, saw words scrawled in black ink—
The Mockingbirds invite you to evening tea. Any evening—
before he plucked the card from her hand

“Who are the Mockingbirds?” She halted as he stepped out onto the veranda. “What was in the box, Jack?”

“A piece of the Blue Lady.”

“Oh . . .” She was about to ask him
what
piece when she heard a gurgling sound from within the house and turned her head.

At the end of the hall, Atheno knelt, clutching his throat.

“
Jack!
” Horror and instinct had her running back into the house to help Atheno, who had defended her from the Wolf.

Jack shouted and lunged after her.

The door slammed shut between them.

As Atheno pitched forward and Jack hit the door, yelling, Finn heard a familiar, low laugh that curdled her nerves. She turned.

A figure in a black coat stepped in front of the door. Caliban Ariel'Pan smiled at Finn, silver eyes like death-light behind a veil of platinum hair.

She backed away, slipped in something wet, looked down to see that Atheno's body was gone; only a knot of weeds and ivory wands remained. Nausea spasmed through her.

“He was water tribe. Like the Blue Lady.” Caliban didn't seem concerned by Jack slamming himself against the door. “He's reverted to his element.”

“You.” Finn felt a flickering anger beneath the gut-twisting terror. “You
murdered
him.”

“The lady of the house and the kelpie were going to hand you over to me. Trust me when I say he deserved it—”

A stone garden ornament shattered a window. Caliban spun around.

Finn almost shouted for joy as Jack, feral and dangerous, vaulted over the sill.

Caliban stepped back and glanced at Jack's right hand, which bled from a
glass-edged cut. “Still bleeding, Jack? Mortality isn't so wonderful then?”

The
crom cu
leaped, smashing Jack against the wall. As Jack hit the plaster with a crack, Caliban taunted, “Why'd you bring her here, Jack? Getting tired of being a
real
boy? I see your shadow keeps slipping away. Maybe you don't love her as much as you think.”

Lifting his head, Jack bashed a fist at the
crom cu
's throat. Caliban feinted, caught one of Jack's wrists, and flung him halfway up the stairs.

“
Jack!
” Finn clutched the banister as Caliban whirled and came at her.

She backed away.

He grabbed her and knocked her against the banister. Her head struck the wood. Explosions of light and pain blinding her, she slid to the floor.

“On the other hand”—Caliban's fingers knotted in her hair—“the Wolf won't mind you having a few bruises and broken bones.”

She heard Jack attempting to drag himself up as Caliban hauled her away. When the
crom cu
dropped her on the kitchen floor, she scrambled back against a cabinet and whispered, “I dreamed of Reiko.”

He halted, and an almost human expression of loss crossed his perfect face. He crouched before her like an angel gangster in his black suit and coat. Amiably, he said, “I don't dream. What did she say?”

“Nothing,” Finn hissed. “She just
burned
.”

He bared his teeth and slammed his hands against the cabinet on either side of her head. “
You
should have burned.”

Then the moth glided between them, across Finn's lips, and away.

Caliban blinked. “What—”

Finn pushed back against the cabinet as his malevolent attention returned to her, his eyes narrowing. He didn't see Moth, human again, rising up behind him. Caliban said, “Jack is still mortal. I'm going to break him into pieces.”

“Seth Lot doesn't want you to hurt us.”

“I'm not going to
hurt
you, darling. I'm just—”

Moth smashed a chair over his head.

The
crom cu
twisted around in a hail of wooden splinters and launched himself at Moth.

As they struggled, Jack appeared. He'd lost his weapons, so Finn snatched the wooden dagger Phouka had given her and slid it across the floor. He grabbed
the dagger, lunged, and slammed it into Caliban's shoulder before falling to one knee.

Caliban tore the dagger out and dropped it, staggering. “
Elder wood?
”

As Moth rose, the
crom cu
turned and vanished into the dark.

Finn, crazy with adrenaline, looked at Moth, who had two scratches down one cheek, but seemed otherwise unharmed. She pushed herself up, grabbed the elder wood dagger, limped to Jack, and helped him to stand. She said, to Moth, “How'd you change back?”

“No idea.” He shook his head. “You've got a shadow again, Jack.”

“Of course.” Jack grimaced. “Just when I'd rather
not
be mortal.”

Shaking, Finn touched Jack's bruised jaw, the scratches on his throat. “Are you okay?”

“Aside from a concussion, yes. Are you?”

“Aside from a concussion, yes. You think he's gone?”

Jack was watching Moth. “Something made him leave.”

Moth shrugged. “I think he was afraid of the elder wood.”

Jack turned to Finn. He examined her skull with gentle fingers and peered into her eyes. “You sure you're all right? You'll have a lump on your head.”

“Bruises, that's all.” And a mighty headache, but she didn't want to complain. “I've got Motrin, if you need any.”