Briar Queen (28 page)

The Mockingbird queen tucked Finn's hair back from her face in a sisterly gesture. “I had to be sure you weren't easily tricked, little girl. You weren't fooled by my brother. I want you to kill the Wolf. Well, I want your
lover
to kill the Wolf.” Amaranthus stepped back and began sauntering around the room. “Seth Lot took Reiko away from me. He murdered my cousins, who were dear to me. I've made it easy for you, Serafina. I've arranged it with Seth Lot. I'm going to give you to him, a sort of peace offering—only not really. Once in the Wolf's house, you'll get Moth in, in his insect shape. He'll be carrying the weapons. Then you let Jack in. Together, the three of you should be able to do the deed.”

Finn stared at her. “I'm not a killer. And how do you expect me to get Jack into the Wolf's house? I don't know where he is—”

“He's here.”

Finn stopped breathing. Amaranthus resumed speaking, “He's got the poison now. You've got that uncorrupted silver dagger for pinning, and, after those two things strike the Wolf, I suppose that blade hidden in your walking stick will do to cut off the Wolf's head.”

Finn sat down. If she were given to Seth Lot . . . the idea made her blood run cold and her stomach twist up. She made her voice hard. “If you just hand me over to him, won't he be suspicious? Tell him to send Lily Rose in exchange. Say you want to hold her here, to keep us apart, to avenge Reiko.”

Amaranthus seemed to be considering the idea. “Lot certainly wants you. I suppose I could tell him I'd like to keep your sister as a hostage against your Jack harming me. He doesn't know I have Jack. In truth, I'll keep your sister and the pretty crow girl as insurance against you, your lover, and the moth boy returning here to retaliate. Yes. I like your idea, Serafina.”

The Mockingbird swept from the room, leaving Finn to stare at the backpack left on the chair. It was
her
backpack, and set deliberately in front of it was the tiny bottle of elixir Sionnach Ri had gotten at Goblin Market.

This can't work,
Finn thought, her hands curling into fists in her dress.
This can't possibly work
.

JACK SAT IN THE MOCKINGBIRDS' COURTYARD,
on the rim of a well surrounded by pale, night-blooming plants. Albino bees buzzed past him. An ivory lizard scampered over his boots. When he thought of Finn being so close, he smiled.

Amaranthus slid from the shadows to sit beside him. She said, “Do you want to know why I brought you and your girl here? We want the Wolf dead.”

“I believe I told you I know that.”

“I've offered to give your Serafina to the Wolf. He accepted.”

Jack almost went for her throat. He wound his hands into his coat to keep from doing so as she continued, “In exchange, I've asked for her sister as a hostage. Serafina will go to Seth Lot, willingly, so that her sister might be released. You and the moth boy will follow Serafina to the Wolf. The moth boy will have the poison—you did get it from Jill Scarlet, yes?—and the weapons; Lot would sense such things on
you,
but concealed with Moth, a being riding the shadow, they'll be undetectable. Serafina will let you both into the Wolf's house.”

“You're insane.”

She leaned close until her lips were only inches from his. He could smell the blood she and her clan drank from the well on which they sat, a well that led down to the river of blood running beneath the Ghostlands. “You'll do what you must because you are Jack Daw, and Serafina is a queen killer. I have faith in you.”

He looked out over the night garden as despair strangled any hope left within him. “You expect us to Trojan horse into Lot's house and kill him? Then you'll let Lily Rose and our friends free and we'll all live happily ever after?”

“Lot is an old Fata, older than I am, almost a divine thing. There are only three ways that will end him, if done in succession. And you know what they are now.”

One of Jack's hands, knotted in a coat pocket, touched the vial of
Aconitum lycoctotum
Jill Scarlet had given him.

“You have the wolfsbane—I can smell it. Your girl brought a silver dagger that our land hasn't rusted. And there's that elder-wood walking stick with the sword inside that we dare not draw. You'll figure it out, sugar. Once Serafina gets you and Moth into the Wolf's house, you'll figure it all out or you'll die.” Her eyes narrowed. “You
are
a Jack again, aren't you? Returning
has
changed you back?”

He wondered what the hell kind of sword the Black Scissors had given them as he leaned close to the Mockingbird queen and whispered, “What's to keep us from returning to give
you
a trinity death?”

She smiled. “Because I'll have Lily Rose Sullivan and Sylvie Whitethorn. Now, would you like to see your Finn?”

A FATA BOY AND GIRL
in ivory 1920s clothes escorted Finn to a candlelit conservatory, its chessboard floor tangled with morning glories and the roots of pale plants snaking out of stone urns. Mold furred the tiles and cracks spiderwebbed the grimy, glass dome of the ceiling. Nightshade, and briars dripping livid roses, ran riot. Contained within the cavernous mouth of a hearth hewn into a gorgon face were porcelain hands holding lit candles.

Jack stood before the Medusa hearth. As the glass doors shut behind Finn, she stood very still, afraid that if she moved, he'd disappear like the Fata trick he might be. “
Are you
real?
”

“I feel that way.” He was half in shadow.

She walked to him, raised her hands to his face. His skin was cooler than usual, and ancient rings decorated his fingers again—but the lions-and-the-heart ring was among them. He bent his head and kissed her as if she were a succulent thing, drawing her onto her toes as his arms slid around her until she was crushed against him and the burning butterflies coursed up from deep inside of her.

She didn't feel his heartbeat. She stumbled back against the sofa. “Jack?”

He stood still, candlelight threading his eyelashes and tied-back hair, the fur of his coat. He said, “I couldn't be weak anymore, Finn.”

She kept her voice steady. “You are
not
a Jack. Please tell me you're not a—”

“Finn.” He shed his coat and held it out to her. “Aren't you cold in that little dress?”

“I'm not cold, Jack, because I took the elixir.”

His gaze was sharp. “How much?”

“Only enough.”

He tossed the coat over a chair. “You're all soft skin and delicate bones. Aren't you tired of hurting and bleeding? I know
I
don't want to go back to it again.”

Confused and a little defiant, she didn't move as he stepped close and slid those ring-jeweled hands up her bare arms to cup her face. His touch, despite his cool skin, was hot. Gently, he said, “You don't really want a mortal man, Finn, someone weak and prone to dying. You want a dark and perfect elf knight who can never be harmed, who'll always protect you.”

Desire turned to anger and she struck his hands away. “I don't want a dark, cold
thing
. I want someone . . . I want
you . . . What did you do to yourself, you idiot?
”

A muscle twitched in his jaw as if he was repressing a smile. “I don't like how the Mockingbirds have dressed you, like some tarted-up Alice in Wonderland.”

“
You
look like you just joined the Fata mafia.”

“Why do you keep backing away from me?”

“I'm not.” But she was, because there was a dangerous look to him now that she remembered from his Jack days. As calmly as she could, she said, “Why do you smell like roses? Please just tell me
what happened to you
.”

His smile was wild. “Remember those westerns you like? Where any man can be saved by the love of a good woman?”

“That never happens in the westerns I like—stop.” She held up a hand. He stopped. She'd somehow circled back to the doors.

“I did it for you,” he said, his voice rough. “Do you really think I'm going to harm you?”

“I don't know, Jack.” It hurt her to say that.

The silver ghosted his eyes and she saw a true Jack, a spirit twisted into the eternal shape of something made to stalk and harm. She turned and yanked the doors open—

He pushed them closed with her against them, imprisoning her with his arms. He whispered in her ear, “You'll need to do more than kiss me to change me back.”

She flung herself around. “You were afraid to touch me when you were a Jack before.”

He stepped away, and the room's shadows seemed to close over him. He said, “Finn. I need to be like this, to fight Seth Lot.”

She heard the click as the doors opened behind her, and she said, “
I love you,
” before sliding out.

The porcelain-masked Fata girl stood in the hallway. “You're to return to your room.”

As the doors closed between her and Jack, Finn said, “Tell Amaranthus we'll do it. We'll kill Seth Lot.”

FINN DIDN'T KNOW
how much time passed while she waited in her prison. Restless, she used the Leica camera to take pictures of the room and regretted it when one of the flashes caught a shadow with a broken doll face crouched in a corner. Finn kept away from
that
corner and didn't take any more pictures.

She studied the vial of elixir. She took another drop.

Then she was summoned. She was allowed to bring her backpack and was led to the conservatory, where Amaranthus sat in a fan-backed chair of white wicker, her court surrounding her. Jazzy music crackled in the background as a man sang about not wanting to set the world on fire. Sylvie, in a little dress of gray gauze and striped stockings, sat tensely in a chair. Narcissus Mockingbird leaned against it. At his feet was a small cage with the moth fluttering inside.

Amaranthus rose to address her people. “Are you all afraid of this little girl?” She sauntered across the floor, her ring-decorated hands holding up the hem of her gown, revealing her scratched legs and dirty feet. “You should be. She's a queen killer . . . and she's going to pay.”

She gestured to a set of glass doors frosted with images of birds in flight. The doors opened to admit two figures in hooded coats. The one in the lead flung back its cowl to reveal Caliban Ariel'Pan. He smiled at Finn and said, “I had more teeth and claws than the Jacks and Jills did.”

Then his companion drew back her hood and reality crashed to pieces around Finn. “
Lily?
”

The last year had never been. Her sister had never killed herself. The funeral and the numb days afterward, when sleeping had been more of a comfort than living, had been a lie. All of it, all of it, had been a Fata trick. Because Lily Rose, fierce and flushed with life, stood across the room from her, in a black gown beneath a coat shimmering with rain. Finn felt a dazzling rush of relief, joy,
shock—and despair that she and her sister would soon be parted again.

“
Finn!
” Lily dashed forward, but Caliban yanked her back.

Amaranthus wound a cold hand around Finn's wrist and said, “
Crom cu
. When the two sisters cross paths, the bargain is made. The queen killer goes to your Wolf and Lily Rose becomes our hostage.”

“Seth Lot doesn't trust you, Mockingbird. You tried to take his prey before, at the
Ban Gorm
's. And where's the Jack?”

“We haven't found the Jack. It was
you
who separated them, sugar. We've only got the girl.”

Finn met her sister's wide, blue gaze, saw Lily's lips form her name, the questioning slant of her brows, and knew she couldn't allow herself to believe this was Lily until she could touch her and make sure.

“Seth Lot gave you the fox knight's heart to bargain a betrayal.” When Caliban shook Lily Rose, Finn felt snarly. “What I don't understand is why you want
this
girl and not
that
one, the one who killed Reiko. Weren't you and Reiko besties? Or frenemies? Or something similar to that nature?”

“This is the most satisfying revenge,
crom cu
. Seth Lot gets something
he
wants and I get to keep the braveheart's sister from her as long as they both live. They'll never see each other again.” Amaranthus shoved Finn forward. “Go on, sugar. Say farewell.”

Caliban released Lily. Finn walked slowly across the floor. Lily moved just as cautiously. When they were a few steps away from each other, Finn, her voice breaking, whispered a question she'd been asking far too much lately: “Is it you?”

“It's me.” Lily stepped forward and folded Finn into her arms. Her sister smelled the same, of an exotic perfume like fire and flowers. Her skin was cool, her voice angry as she said, “You weren't supposed to come here.”

Finn drew back. She gripped Lily's hands and studied her, worried about how pale her sister was, the shadows beneath her eyes. “I still can't believe . . . you were broken and bleeding . . .” Her voice caught.

Lily hugged her again and said into her ear, “Don't let them take you. Don't let them take you to
him
.”

“Here.” Finn fumbled the bracelet of silver charms from around her wrist and held it out. “Look, it didn't decay.”

Lily gazed warily at it. “Where did you get that?”

“Moth—”

“Ladies,” Caliban called, “it's time.” He dragged Finn back, and the bracelet fell to the floor between them. As Lily's gaze flicked up from the bracelet to Finn, Finn yanked away from Caliban. He held out a hand, his smile so evil it made Finn flinch. He said, “For you, I'll be a gentleman. Would you like my coat? No? Been drinking the elixir, have you? All strong and such?”

He clamped a hand around her wrist, and she had to hurry to keep up with his long strides as he dragged her through the double doors, onto the stairway.