Briar Queen (22 page)

“Caliban took her.”

“Oh
God . . .
”

Jack looked up at the dragonfly and snapped his fingers. “Get down here and do your job. The
crom cu
won't hurt her—the Wolf isn't done playing.”

As the steampunk dragonfly swept onward, Christie stood. Jack said, “What else did you have to tell me?”

Christie breathed out. “Sylv has the sword the Black Scissors gave us to kill the Wolf. It's special iron sheathed in elder wood. Phouka never told you about how to kill Lot?”

Jack was grim. “No. What else?”

Christie hunched his shoulders and whispered, “The Black Scissors said Lily Rose can leave the Wolf's house, but not the Ghostlands. Something bad will happen.”

“If Lily Rose is here, we're not leaving her.” Jack turned away and they followed the dragonfly to a stairway of mossy, root-tangled wood that sloped up into a darker forest.

Christie tentatively asked, “So who suggested visiting this witch?”

“Leander Cyrus.”

“The guy who tricked Finn's sister?”

“Cyrus was a pawn.”

“And what if Caliban's delivered Finn to the Wolf? What are we going to do—”

“The Wolf doesn't have Finn. Finn is clever. She's resourceful.” Jack glanced back at Christie. “And I believe in her.”

JACK HALTED
and watched the tinkered dragonfly glide toward a thicket of elder trees through which very little light entered. He could smell, in that gloom, the tang of baneberry and belladonna, the sharpness of crowfoot and nightshade, the earthy venom of wormwood and Death Angel mushrooms. As the metal dragonfly flickered in that darkness exuding the noxious perfume of earthborn poisons, Jack turned to Christie, who looked wretched and fragile. He sloughed his coat and tossed it to the boy. When Christie caught it, Jack said, “There's a bottle in the left pocket. You need to drink a drop of what's in it before we go near any sort of
ban dorchadas
.”

Christie gratefully tugged on the coat and pulled out the precious bottle of elixir. “What is a ban dork—”

“A witch.” Jack pointed at the bottle. “One drop.”

“What'll it do?”

“It'll disguise the smell of your blood. It was meant for Finn.” Jack's voice broke on her name. He hated himself for having left her for even those few minutes with Moth, and he felt a surge of the ugly violence that had ruled his life for so long.

Christie reluctantly took one drop of the elixir, froze, and appeared stunned. A hint of silver shone in his dark eyes as he gaped at Jack. “This is . . . all these
colors
.” He turned in a circle. “I feel like I just got shot up with adrenaline. Is this what you felt as a Jack?”

“Somewhat. Only hollow and cold and without remorse.”

As Jack began walking, Christie trudged after him, still gazing around in wonder. “So this witch'll find Finn and Sylv?”

“And give me something to keep Seth Lot's pack from tracking me—at the moment, my blood is like the damn aurora borealis and that elixir won't do the trick.”

“Is it because of what happened to you? That whole zombie-corpse-resurrection thing?”

Jack cast him a stern look. “We need to be quiet now.”

They prowled through the twisting trees, which grew so close he and Christie sometimes had to step sideways. When they came to a rusting sign that read
STORYBOOKVILLE
, Christie halted. Draped by kudzu and weeds, the sign was accompanied by a metal statue of a knight on a horse. The paint was peeling from the horse's panoply. The knight's lance was broken, and there was an old bird's nest on his head.

They continued on along a root-entwined path. They passed a decrepit concession stand that creaked in the occasional wind ghosting among the trees. As they drew near a pink, miniature castle stained with dead leaves, one of its towers coiled with an oak, Christie wondered out loud what kind of amusement park Storybookville had been. Jack said, “Evidently not a very popular one.”

They stepped into a clearing surrounded by a garden of wild plants and found a pretty cottage painted black, its door and roof tiles scarlet. Wind chimes shaped like insects hung from crooked apple trees. Roses the same ruby hue as the apples latticed lamp-lit windows. They could hear music crackling from some archaic device within.

In fairy tales and in Jack's world, cottages were often deceptively charming domiciles that housed blood and horror. Jack didn't move as the dragonfly skirled to the door, where it dropped and hit the stone path and became a metal amulet.

As Christie studied the cottage with the appropriate apprehension, Jack moved forward and picked up the dragonfly amulet.

The red door opened.

Sylvie Whitethorn stood on the threshold.

“Sylvie!” Christie ran forward, but he was stopped by Jack's arm as Jack said quietly, “That's not Sylvie.”

They drew back. The girl's gown was a silky gossamer darkness that clung to curves Sylvie Whitethorn didn't have. Her hair, a fall of licorice black, was knotted with tiny braids and talismans. When she tilted her head, her kohl-rimmed eyes were revealed to be ghost silver. The otherworldliness that breathed from her rattled Jack's nerves.

“Who are you?” The replica of Sylvie Whitethorn leaned in the doorway, her smile a shadowy thing, her voice and face so familiar, even Jack felt the deceptive comfort of trust.

“Why don't you tell us
your
name?” Jack smiled like the wicked thing he'd once been.

The Sylvie replica's unsettling gaze fell upon Christie and a dark power purred through her voice. “Why don't
you
tell me
yours
.”

CHRISTIE'S THROAT CLOSED
as the Sylvie look-alike gazed at him. “I'm not supposed to tell you my name. Miss.”

She gestured. “How is it, lovely boy, that you don't have a shadow?”

He twisted around, trying to find his shadow in the dusky light.

“I'll confess I know
you,
Jack Daw,” the witch continued.

“It's Jack Hawthorn now.”

“My garden is a dangerous place for mortals, Jack Hawthorn.”

“Jack.” The alarm was peaking in Christie. “
Why don't I have a shadow?
”

“The elixir changes you, mortal boy.” The witch drifted toward Christie, who took another step back as she reached out to brush short black nails across his neck, one fingertip following a scrawl of ink on his collarbone. Her face was exactly like Sylvie's, her lips red as if she'd just eaten strawberries. A necklace of
green and blue beads glistened across the swell of white skin above her bodice.

“Witch.” Jack's voice knocked Christie's head up. “Stop that. You can sense that he's mortal? Even with the elixir in him?”

The witch smiled sweetly at Christie. She leaned close and whispered, “You're different from most mortal boys. Do you even know what you are?” She twirled and sauntered back to the cottage, her gown's hem drifting around her bare feet. “You may enter if you can guess my true name.”

Christie looked at Jack. “Do we want to—”

“
Tarbh-naith irach,
” Jack said. “Dragonfly.”

She shook her head and paused before her door. “You'll never get what you need from me with
that
lack of imagination. My garden is hungry, so you'd best move quickly.”

Christie gazed around at the statues tangled in vines and shady-looking plants. A marble girl reaching for an apple had lost her arm. A stone man crouched in a cave of briars, his broken hands outstretched. As the leaves rustled, sounding like the voices of lost souls, Christie swallowed. “
Were these peop—
”

“You were meant to be a changeling,” Jack said to the witch, not seeming at all concerned by the growing sentience of the vegetation around them, “to replace a girl named Sylvie Whitethorn. Only something in the true world prevented that, so you survived betwixt and between.”

“She was going to replace Sylvie?” Christie now had his back against an apple tree.

“Do you know her?” The witch's smile vanished. “My original?”

Christie, staring at her, whispered words that came to him like a protective prayer, “
She never walks, but glides. A shadow of blue and green. A lovely flicker to the eye. And, in her heart, a queen
.”

The witch's eyes went from unholy silver to a delighted sapphire blue and she tilted her head to one side and said, “Drat. You
gave
me that poem. I shall have to give you something in return. Come on then. You may call me Sylph.”

She turned and moved into the cottage.

Christie, who hadn't meant the poem as a gift, who barely understood why he'd spoken it, glanced at Jack, who strode toward the cottage. Realizing he'd be left alone in the whispering garden, Christie hurried after him.

THE HOME OF SYLPH DRAGONFLY
wasn't what Christie had expected. A fire crackled in a brick hearth. The two large rooms were cozy and cluttered with fantastically shaped bottles, trinkets, fossils, weird dolls, and plants grown wild on the sills of the latticed windows. There was an old-fashioned Sears sewing machine in one corner and a battered record player of Barbie-pink plastic on a corner table surrounded by vinyl albums. The forest-green walls were covered with photographs of people who didn't look quite human. Christie peered at a sepia-tinted picture of a young man with pale, tangled hair. The youth was smiling, one hand resting on the shoulder of the girl who was now humming softly as she opened cabinets in the kitchen.

Christie turned to Jack, who was examining a bowl of apples. “Is that Moth in this pic—”

An invisible force slammed Christie against the wall.

Jack shouted. Christie shook his head and staggered upright, staring at Sylph Dragonfly, who pointed at the photograph and hissed, “
How do you know him?
”

Jack stepped between Christie and the witch and said, “We call him Moth. Please don't swat the boy again—he's very fragile.”

Shaking and bruised, Christie sank down into a chair near the table. His vision was weirdly vivid, and he was beginning to feel a rush that could have come from a hundred energy drinks.

Sylph frowned at the photograph of her and Moth. In it, she wore a black frock, and Moth was dressed in a ribboned jacket. “He is not a friend. He is a mad bastard and a liar and an agent of the Wolf.”

Jack bit into the apple he'd selected. “Break your heart, did he?”

“I don't have a heart.” Sylph Dragonfly sounded defiant. “That
aisling
boy was charming. He stole things from me.”

“Things?” Jack's look was provocative. He set the apple's core on the table. “So what did he call himself?”

“He called himself Alexander Nightshade. It wasn't his true name.”

“The Black Scissors.” Jack studied the witch. “You know him. What did he promise you for helping us with the Wolf?”

“What do you think, Jack Daw?”

“He promised you Moth. I need to find someone, and I believe your Moth is with her. So, you see, we can help each other.”

She held out a hand. “Give me the amulet.”

Jack handed the dragonfly amulet to her. She frowned at it, then tenderly set it in a tiny golden cage that she locked with a key she tucked into her bodice. “That's what Alexander Nightshade—Moth, you call him—stole from me.”

“Miss Dragonfly.” Jack began with dangerous patience.

She suddenly stabbed him in the hand with a large pin. He flinched.

She grabbed his bleeding hand and gazed down at it. “That's how the Wolf and his
crom cu
are tracking you. That blood is not like any in this land.”

“I need to be changed,” Jack said calmly. “Temporarily.”

Not liking the sound of that, Christie slid to his feet. “Can't you take a potion like I did?”

“None would work.” The witch was watching Jack. “Do you know what needs to be done?”

“It needs to be convincing, the full stitchery.”

“What is stitch—” Christie broke off, his stomach churning. “Jack, is she going to
shapechange
you?”

“You must believe it, Jack Daw.” Sylph Dragonfly's serious expression made Christie wonder exactly what it was Jack wanted. “For it to be real to
them, you
must believe you are a Jack again.”

HUDDLED ON A BENCH IN THE WITCH'S GARDEN,
Christie waited while Sylph Dragonfly worked her dark magic on Jack inside the cottage. The tension in the air was as murky as a threatening thunderstorm.

He cautiously studied the statues, which the Dragonfly had reassured him were only statues and served as scarecrows to keep unwanted visitors out of her garden. His dry clothes were from the witch—a gray T-shirt and jeans, a fur-lined coat with a hood. His boots had dried by the fire.

He put his hands over his face, shivering when he heard Jack yell from within the cottage. He closed his eyes and pretended he was home, that Finn was safe, that Sylvie did not have a terrifying double, that no one was lost in this sinister Wonderland.

When he opened his eyes, Sylph Dragonfly stood before him. Her eyes seemed shadowy, not silvered, as she said, “It is done.”

“I don't want to know what you did.” He actually felt sorry for Jack. “What's so important about the amulet Moth stole from you?”

She sat beside him. Her skin was luminous. He felt a horrifying twist of desire and wrestled with it as she said, “It was my heart. Then Leander Cyrus stole it from the Wolf. You and Jack returned it.”

He frowned at the primitive skin drum she held out to him. Symbols were inked across its surface. She set a small box on the bench between them, opened it. “To find your friends, I need you to strike this drum three times for each girl lost.”