Briar Queen (23 page)

“Shouldn't Jack—”

“He can't, at the moment.” She set a jeweled talisman—a dragonfly—on the drum and handed him an ivory stick. “Three times. For each.”

He reluctantly struck the drum. The dragonfly pointer slid over a symbol. He hit the drum again. Another symbol. And four more times, the talisman jumping to four more symbols, which, he began to realize, formed a map. He looked at Sylph Dragonfly. “Do you know where they are, just from this?”

“I cannot give you that information. Not without receiving something in return.”

He wanted to break the drum. Instead, he gave her his sexiest smile, one that had resulted in phone numbers and naughty texts in the sane world. “What do you want in exchange—and I'm not giving you my soul or my firstborn.”

“Whatever would I do with those?” She traced the ink-scrawled poetry on his hands. When she touched the words on his throat, he realized how very unlike Sylvie she was. She whispered, “Someone placed a protective heka on you.”

“Hek—”

“A spell. Magic. Usually spoken with words. Only the words are written on you. How curious.”

“Even more curious—they're my own words. Miss Dragonfly, where are Sylvie and Finn?”

“Kiss me and I'll tell you.”

Every instinct within him screamed
Don't kiss her
.

He leaned forward and kissed the witch.

I lay at earth in Battle Wood

While Domesday Book was written

Whatever harm he did to man

I owe him pure affection
.

                
—“F
OX
-H
UNTING
,” R
UDYARD
K
IPLING

F
inn hoped Caliban was dead, that the undead Jacks and Jills that had taken him down wouldn't follow. The frustration and dread resulting from the encounter had caused her to throw up the meager bit of food she'd eaten before they reached the train station.

The station was deserted but for a sharp-looking young man in a dark blue suit, who tipped his fedora at them and frowned at Sylvie before returning to the book he'd been reading. The train that arrived was a lovely thing of night-blue steel sculpted into swirling art nouveau women with molten eyes. As they boarded, a female conductor in crimson leather accepted a small velvet bag Moth handed to her. Sylvie asked as they walked to their seats, “What was in that bag?”

Moth said, “Teeth.” He looked at Finn. “I found them in Roland and Ellen's attic. The conductor said we should be at Crossroads by evening's end.”

Finn had decided they would wait at Orsini's Books, as Jack had told her to. Maybe Jack was already there . . .

As they moved down the aisle, past a youth wearing a brown fur coat, the youth lifted his head and sniffed. The gesture made Finn's blood run cold. Moth took a tiny bottle from his backpack and spilled it over Sylvie's coat, a liquid that smelled like grass and toadstools. Sylvie said, “Hey—”

Moth put a finger against his lips.

The boy in brown fur wrinkled his nose and looked out the window.

“What was in the bottle?” Finn kept her voice low as they chose a seat in the back.

Moth said, “I found it in the Blue Lady's house. It's Essence of Earth. It'll disguise Sylvie until we can find more elixir.”

Finn slouched in her seat as the train glided past a boarded-up church in the woods, over a bridge that seemed to be made mostly of trees. She watched the boy—the Fata—in brown fur as he combed leaves from his hair. His nails were short and sharp. He appeared to be grooming himself. Like a cat.

“Freaky,” Sylvie observed, and then she fell into an exhausted stupor against Finn's shoulder.

Finn felt sleep creeping up on her and didn't fight it.

WHEN THE TRAIN
pulled into another antiquated station, a Romanesque building of pale green marble with lion sculptures, Finn was awake and ready. They filed onto the platform and before them the train tracks crossed the main street of a town consisting of cottages and Victorian houses in various stages of pastel-hued deterioration—it could have been any small town in the true world. Finn spotted the sign that read orsini's books hung above the door of a Victorian painted a Gothic purple.

The door to the bookshop opened at Moth's touch. They entered a huge establishment, where shelves of books reached up to the ceiling and more books cluttered tables and towered in piles on the floor. Wooden cubbies were stuffed with crumbling, crackling tomes. The hazy light pouring through the high windows shimmered on dust-powdered furniture bulky enough to have been made for a small giant. Finn called out, but there was no answer.

“Hey, look.” Sylvie peered through an arch into a cathedral-ceilinged parlor. Finn flipped a wall switch and stained-glass lamps glowed. The parlor's atmosphere was scholarly and cozy. More shelves overflowed with books, and the
walls were covered with glass display frames containing pinned insects, folding fans, ammonite fossils, pieces of painted pottery, and bits of parchment scrawled with writing.

“There's an upstairs.” Moth moved toward a staircase draped in shadows and piled with more books. “I'll go up.”

Finn turned. “Moth—”

He was already gone. She listened to his footsteps creak the floorboards above as she began exploring the parlor scattered with furniture that looked as though it had come from a seventeenth-century grandmother's garage sale. She frowned at a painting of a big, bearded man in a fur coat, hung above a black metal fireplace shaped like a dragon's head. “I wonder if that's Orsini.”

“Finn.” Sylvie sounded desolate. “Jack isn't here.”

“We'll wait.” Finn wandered to a desk. She saw a cup of tea with a leather thong draped over the cup's rim. Carefully, she reached in and drew out the phoenix pendant she'd given to Jack. She clutched it to make sure it was real. “He's been here. I gave this pendant to him—no one would know but me . . .”

“So where is he now?” Moth had come back down the stairs. He began moving around the parlor, putting items in his pockets. Finn, fastening Jack's pendant around her neck, scowled. “Are you pillaging again? This is Jack's
friend
.”

“Well, he's not here, is he?” Moth took something down from a shelf and walked back, held it out to Finn. “It's got jackals on it. Maybe he left another clue.”

It was an ebony box decorated with running jackals painted gold. As Finn accepted the box and set it tenderly in her lap, Sylvie sat up straight.

With tender reverence, Finn opened the box. Inside was a girl's embroidered glove, a ring of garnets shaped like hearts, a small leather-bound book of poetry, and other things. She lifted out a chain of dried daisies that crumbled in her fingers. “It's Jack's.”

“A box of mementos?” Sylvie leaned close.

Finn touched a pocket watch with rust on it, the silvered photo of a girl in a gray gown.

“Those aren't mementos.” Moth was expressionless. “Those are trophies.”

Finn opened a locket and gazed at a painting of a young man with a face similar to hers. She knew his name—Ambrose Cassandro, the Jack who'd been her
Jack's friend, and her ancestor, the Jack brutally murdered by Seth Lot. “Some of these
are
mementos. I think this was a safe place for Jack, a way to escape Reiko. I wonder if Seth Lot knew about Orsini . . .”

As Moth strode from the room, he said, “I'm going to finish checking out the upstairs. Don't open those doors to anyone.”

“He must think we're idiots.” Sylvie scowled.

“No, he just thinks we're girls. He's old-fashioned.”

“Jack's old-fashioned and
he's
not a jerk.”

An antique rotary phone on one shelf suddenly rang, startling both girls, who stared at it as if it were a deadly insect, its black carapace glistening as it vibrated. Finn rose and reached for the receiver. Sylvie said, “Finn, don't—”

“What if it's . . .” Finn lifted the receiver and a familiar and dreaded voice came from it.

Caliban
.

“So you've reached Orsini's, pretty girls? If you're wondering, Rose Red and Snow White, where your fox boy is, his belongings were found near a pond where a beast lived.”

Sylvie's voice crumpled, “
Christie . . .”

Finn said, tautly, “Caliban . . .
where is Christie
?”

“Probably in bits and pieces in Ivan Vodyanoi's stomach. You know what a Vodyanoi is, don't you, clever girl?” Laughter prowled beneath Caliban's voice. “I'll have to ride the shadow again and come find you and cut Sylvie and Moth out of your life. Literally. Isn't Orsini dead—”

Finn hung up the phone and stared down at it.

“He's a liar,” Sylvie whispered. “We know he's a liar.
Christie isn't dead
.”

Finn blinked away the sting of tears. She thought,
Not Christie . . .

Then:
It's my fault
.

“What's a Vod . . . Vod—”

“A water monster.” Finn swallowed. “A bad one.”

Sylvie sounded as if she was trying not to cry. “Caliban knows where we are.”

Finn stumbled to her feet as Caliban's last taunt cut through her grief. “He implied that Orsini's dead. If Jack found . . .” She ran through the shop. Sylvie followed. They stopped at the splintered back door leading to a courtyard.

Finn walked out to a pile of upturned earth and the stone laid over it. As she
crouched down and lifted the stone, Sylvie knelt beside her. They stared at what had been left under the stone—a picture of a dragonfly torn from a book.

“What does it mean?” Sylvie sobbed once. “Finn, what if Christie's
dead—
”

The silence was suddenly shattered by a riot of roaring engines from the street. Finn and Sylvie hurried back inside, and Moth came loping down the stairs. He unnecessarily said, “We've got company.”

Sylvie stepped back. “How could Caliban get here so
fast
?”

“Caliban?” Moth turned on her as the shop was suddenly bright with skirling lights from outside. A silhouette appeared in the door's window and, when someone knocked, they all flinched. The dark shadow outside turned its big, animal-shaped head. There were two more polite knocks, then a friendly voice: “Finn Sullivan? Jack sent me.”

Sylvie drew back. “It's a
trick
.”

“Why don't they just break in then? They will eventually.” Almost lunatic with fury and sick with fear for Christie, Finn strode toward the door. She said to the visitor, while trying not to think about Christie, “Prove Jack sent you. What sign did he leave me?”

The voice answered, “A dragonfly—because he's gone to a witch called the Dragonfly. He also told me to tell you: ‘
Thou art mine and I am thine. 'Til the sinking of the world
.'”

Finn opened the door a crack. Blinding light haloed a figure in a brass helmet cast into the form of a fox's head. He was plainly dressed in jeans, a red hoodie with ribbons fluttering on the sleeves, and buckled boots. At the curb were two more figures seated on motorcycles shaped into sleek animals. The fox smiled beneath the muzzle of his helmet. “Hello, Finn Sullivan.”

“Show me your face.”

He was looking past her. Softly, in a voice that was almost familiar, he said, “What fair companions you have, Finn Sullivan. What are their names?”

“Not until I see your face.”

He removed the helmet and Christie smiled at her.

“
Christie!
” Sylvie lunged forward, but Finn stopped her as the Ghostlands night became a breathing, menacing mockery of all that she cared about. Her stomach twisted. She said to the Christie look-alike, “You have
no right
to wear that face.”

“Sorry. I was born with it.” As his gaze slid to Sylvie, it flickered silver. “
You
look familiar.”

Sylvie drew back, her eyes enormous. She whispered, “Not Christie?”

“And you don't remember me.” The replica looked at Moth. Though he had Christie's face and dark russet curls, he wore a gold hoop in each earlobe and he moved like something that slinked in forests. “Never mind. I'm Sionnach Ri. I'm here to escort you to Jack. You're not safe here.”

Moth said, “I don't trust him.”

“Only trust me when I say that relying on
him
”—Sionnach Ri indicated Moth—“is a risk.”

Finn turned to Moth. “He knows you. Why does he know you?”

“I don't remember
him
.” Moth glared at Sionnach Ri.

“Oh, but I remember
you,
Alexander Nightshade, formerly of Stratford-on-the-Avon. He stole my heart and doesn't remember.”

“
Oh
.” Finn glanced questioningly at Moth, who studied Sionnach Ri with grim suspicion.

Sylvie, gazing at Sionnach Ri, whispered again, “You're not Christie.”

“Why didn't Jack come here himself?” Finn didn't bother concealing
her
suspicion.

“He's hurt. I'm sorry.” Sionnach Ri lowered his lashes. “Badly hurt.”

Finn curled a hand against her stomach, as if a bullet had gone through her.

“He'll live.” Sionnach Ri regarded her almost tenderly. “We do need to hurry. Have you eaten? Have your friends? No? And the pretty crow girl—I can smell her blood. She hasn't gotten the elixir?”

“Where can we go to find these things?” As desperate as Finn was to be reunited with Jack, she felt dizzy and knew that human food and elixir were necessary at this point.

“Fortunately for you, there's a place on the way. A dangerous place, but . . .” He shrugged. “So is every environment dealing in contraband.”

Finn made her decision. She grabbed her backpack, shouldered it, and tucked Jack's walking stick into the straps. She jammed the ebony box of Jack's mementos into the backpack. “Let's go.”

“
Finn . . .”
Moth said her name through gritted teeth.

“
Moth
.” She glared at him. “What choice do we have? Caliban knows we're here.”

“How—”

“I don't know, but we need to
go
.”