Briar Queen (18 page)

Someone blew shimmering pollen into Finn's face. She inhaled, stumbled back, and raised an arm to shield herself.

“JACK.” TEIG LARK SPOKE
the moment they were in the pavilion. “I don't want anything—I owe
you
. That pretty boy with you? He isn't whatever he's pretending to be. He stole the hearts from two Fatas, both of whom came looking for him.”

“Moth?”

Outside, Finn cried out and raised an arm as if shielding herself. Jack started toward her. “Finn!”

“Jack!” Teig Lark tossed an object to him.

Jack caught the tiny bottle and dove out of the pavilion—

Something hit him hard in the face. He fell back, stunned. He heard Teig Lark yell and stumbled up, his vision sparking.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He whirled, striking out.

A pretty Jill in a sundress—and he knew she was a Jill from the glint of death in her eyes—smiled at him.

He avoided the blade in her hand, twisted, kicked out, and caught her in the ribs. She fell, rolled up. He slammed a hand into her head. She collapsed, her dagger spiking into the grass.

When Jack realized Finn and Moth were gone, he stood very still.

He had lost her.

FINN GROGGILY LIFTED HER HEAD
and saw lamps of yellow glass dangling in front of black drapes patterned with gold suns. She was in a pavilion. A human-sized doll made from wax was seated in a chair. A large wooden harp formed into a girl stood in a corner. There was a sentience to the doll and the harp that made her skin crawl—

“Fairy dust,” she said through her teeth, remembering the flung glitter and falling asleep. She struggled to rise.

Someone grabbed her. As she was hauled out of the pavilion, she lashed out. She was released. She staggered back and stared at a golden-haired figure in a white suit. “
Leander?
”

“That”—Leander pointed to the pavilion—“belongs to Lot's lieutenant. She's here with Caliban.”

“Caliban already attacked us.”

“Go back to Jack, Finn. I can't help you.” He began walking.

She strode alongside him. “Did you help Seth Lot steal Lily?
Did you?
”

“You shouldn't have come.”

“I saw you
bleed
. You still love her! What did you expect me to do, Leander? Forget her? Pretend she was really dead? Seth Lot came to me and told me to find him or he'd kill Lily. Seven days, Leander. I have
seven
days.”

Leander stepped back, whispered, “No . . .”

“Just
tell
me how to get Lily out of the Wolf's house. And where it is.”

“I don't know where it is and you can't get her out. I'll find your sister. But I won't give you to the Wolf in exchange.” He leaned close to her and whispered, “They're watching me, Finn. I can't help you. Return to Jack before
they
get him.”

He backed away and vanished among the pavilions. She started after him, realized he might be leading
them,
the enemy, away.

She turned and ran through the fair, terror for Jack causing her to shove past Fatas, to ignore anything that might be following.

A fist slammed into her stomach. She fell to the ground, blood filling her mouth as she bit through her lip and curled around
pain
.

Then she was being dragged through the shadows, away from the fair, into the field. She spat blood and yelled, attempting to clutch at grass, weeds, dandelions, until her hands were streaked with green. When she was finally released, she heard a voice that made her flinch. “Well. That was easy.”

She raised her head to see Caliban walking around her. “Do you know who's going to gut your Jack? David Ryder's Jill. You remember the Stag Knight, don't you? The one who
burned
? His Jill is with the Wolf. And she doesn't like
you
.”

Fighting the pain in her skull, Finn bit her lip against a whimper.
Don't let him know how scared you are
.

A summery breeze drifted through her hair. She smelled flowers. She focused on something not far away, a blur of yellow. Daisies, her mom's namesake. She remembered her mom making daisy chains in the spring.
Protection from the fairies,
she'd say.

Finn scrambled up, reeling, and lunged.

Caliban snarled, “Oh,
no,
you don't.”

She rolled into the circle of daisies, where she lay, staring up at the night sky. She waited breathlessly, her stomach clenched, hands curled at her sides.

AS JACK HUNTED FOR FINN
,
anger and fear tearing him to pieces, he ripped open pavilions and pushed into stalls and wagons.

Then he saw Leander striding toward him.

“
Where is she?
” He stalked toward Leander, who backed away. “I don't know, Jack. She didn't go back to y—”

There was an immense rustling, like the leaves of a thousand trees being struck by the wind. Jack's body iced.

He stared around at the cavernous forest that now surrounded the pavilions and glittering rides. Scarborough Fair, which had not been scheduled to leave until winter's end, had moved and taken him with it.

AS CALIBAN CROUCHED
outside of the daisy circle, Finn sat up and slid as far away from him as the border of flowers would allow.

“Lucky you,” he said. “And clever. Daisies . . . bloody stinking things. But you can't stay in there forever.”

She was exhausted—she'd been running from this psycho all night and it had been a very long night. Her voice scraped out of her. “The Wolf sent you to separate me and Jack, didn't he? It's part of his game . . . a trick . . .”

Caliban shrugged, his predatory gaze fastened on her.

“Calib—”

“
Don't,
” he hissed. “
Don't
say my name.
You took her away from me
.”

The fair looked miles away. Jack didn't know where she was. She had to stall. She said, “Reiko never loved you—she loved
Jack
. That's why she died. And you never loved her—you don't bleed. You really
are
nothing—”

He leaped at her.

He fell back, choking. When he scrambled up, there were cinder marks on his skin—as if the daisy pollen had burned him.

Finn continued with shaky bravado, “Are daisies like napalm to you people?”

“My people”—he rose to prowl the circle and she stood also, teetering a little and pressing one hand against her sore midriff—“are harder to kill. Not fragile, like you lot, with all your bits and pieces that come off so
easily
.”

“You were once one of us,” she whispered.

“I should slap your mouth for saying that.” His voice was ugly.

She stumbled on something, caught herself, glanced down to see Christie's book of poetry spilled from her backpack and open on the grass. A breeze ruffled the pages.

“You can't stay in there forever,
leannan
.”

“You said that already.” Finn waited until the book's pages settled. “Jack and Moth will find me.”

“Is that what he's calling himself?
Moth?
Lot's fancy
aisling
. Let me tell you, darling, some things about Jack and
Moth,
because I knew them, way back when—”

“‘It is bitterness to my heart, to see my father's place forlorn.'”

He took a step back.

She continued reading from the poetry book that had drifted open to that particular poem, “‘
No hounds, no packs of dogs
.'”

He growled. Jack had once told her that Caliban, long ago, had been a Celtic chieftain's son who'd been tricked away by the Fatas and had returned to his home, years later, only to find his loved ones aged to dust and bones. She read on, relentlessly, “‘
No women and no valiant kings
.'”

“
Stop
. Where did you—” His gaze dropped to the book. He snarled, looked up, past her. Then he smiled and said, “You're on your own.”

He vanished into the night.

She stood, turning toward Scarborough Fair.

It was gone.

The lights and noise had been replaced by silence. The empty field with the abandoned factory rising in the middle was dark but for the flickering of those menacing orbs. Jack had said,
It moves,
and so Scarborough Fair had.

Finn stood, cold and alone, in the dark.

The orbs swarmed and came at her.

JACK AND LEANDER FOUND
David Ryder's Jill still unconscious and hauled her into the pavilion with the harp and the wax doll. When her eyes opened, Jack gently asked her where Finn was. She laughed and told him that Caliban had taken her.

Jack didn't kill her. He turned and walked out and Leander followed.

“Jack, he won't hurt her. Lot doesn't want that.”

“No. He wants to play games with the lives of two girls.” If Jack thought about all the things that could happen to Finn in the Ghostlands, he would lose his mind. The presence of David Ryder's former Jill couldn't be a coincidence, either—she'd been lying in wait.

“There's a train station near. We can go back to where Scarborough was—”

“What town is this?” Jack asked.

“King's Highway.”

“The way back is too far. I have a friend who lives near here. Maybe he can help us.”

THE TRAIN THAT JACK AND LEANDER BOARDED
was red as rusted metal and sporting bullet scars. It was blessedly free of any sinister Fatas. As Jack and Leander settled into a car furnished in Old West decor, Leander said, with desperate anger, “Why did you bring her?”

Jack gazed out of the window. “You know Finn. Do you think I could keep her away?”

Leander was silent for a moment. Then: “I didn't betray Lily Rose to Seth Lot—if that's what you think.”

“Lily Rose is in the house of the Wolf and you're his Jack.”

“Not anymore.” Leander drew back his white blazer and Jack saw a holster and a brass flintlock pistol engraved with sea serpents, a weapon made to kill Fatas. “I traded for this at the
Ban Gorm
's—”

“The Blue Lady? You were there? How curious. Her left hand is now missing a body.”

“Jack.
Lot
knew the Blue Lady traded in mortal things, like the elixir. Why did you go
there
?”

Jack rested his head back against the seat. “Our original plans were sidetracked. What are you going to do with that gun?”

“Find the Wolf's house and get Lily. The bullets are coated with a special poison. My friend—”

“Finn told you the ultimatum Lot gave her?”

Leander whispered, “Yes.”

“Why were you in Fair Hollow?”

“To meet a friend who would bring me into the Ghostlands. She gave me the poison for the bullets.”

“Phouka had all the Ways shut, except for the one at Lulu's.”

“There's another.”

As dusk began to streak the sky, signaling a new day, the train halted at a crossroads where old row houses and cottages the colors of Easter eggs were tangled with prehistoric yew trees. A tower with a clock face overlooked a pond blazing red in the twilight—the place resembled a resort town gone to seed. Jack and Leander exited the train and strode quickly to a purple Victorian, where a weathered sign above the door read
ORSINI'S BOOKS
.

Inside the shop, books had overrun the interior, tumbling from tables, towering in piles, stuffed in crates and on shelves crammed with unusual objects collected from the true world . . . an old typewriter, a stone Celtic cross, a stuffed owl. The wooden floor creaked beneath their boots as they searched. Leander murmured, “Jack, the chances of her being here . . .”

“When I want your opinion, I'll be sure and ask for it.”

Leander halted and Jack followed his gaze to the back door, which was open and half off its hinges.

“
Orsini
.” Jack ran out the door.

In the courtyard, he fell to his knees beside a pile of black fur and earth . . . it was all that remained of his old friend. With one shaking hand, he tenderly touched a bear-shaped brooch in the fur. When he swallowed a howl of anguish, it was as if he'd inhaled a ball of thorns. “Tell me, Cyrus”—he didn't look at Leander—“what terrible things have
you
done for the Wolf?”

Leander crouched beside Jack. The Celtic knot and wolf tattoo on the side of his neck was visible as his golden hair fell back. He said, carefully, “Not as many as you have, with Reiko.”

“I'm not the one who caused an innocent girl to be taken from her family.”

“Not yet.”

Jack thought of Finn out there, alone—or, worse, with Caliban—and wanted to rip someone apart.

Leander bowed his head. “I never should have spoken to Lily when I saw her. All of this . . . it's my fault.”

Jack relented. “Reiko has had her claws in that family since Finn was a child. But you might have prevented her sister's fate.”

Leander shouted, “I've tried everything to free Lily! I will do anything for her!”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

Leander's expression was desolate. “I will die for her.” He hesitated. “Jack . . . Caliban and Lot are tracking you by your blood—because of what happened to you on Halloween. The elixir won't work on you. You've been marked from the beginning.”

“Atheno betrayed us.”

“Well, he
was
a kelpie. Are you really surprised? You need to disguise your mortality if you're going to move through the 'lands. You need to be what you once were.”

“And how do you propose I do that?”

“I know a witch.”

“Do you now?” Jack felt a glittering darkness stir within him.

“She can help you.”

“And what about Finn?”