Briar Queen (29 page)

Parked in the hotel's circular driveway was a white Mercedes with tinted windows, its hood ornament a pewter wolf's head. Finn halted, pulling back, and Caliban turned to her. “The brave girl is having an attack of good sense. You've lost,
leannan,
let it go.”

His hand vised around her wrist again—she wouldn't let him drag her to the car, so she walked quickly with him down the stair. Despite the monster at her side, she wanted to jump up and down with joy.
Lily's alive
.

“He's got plans for
you,
darling.” Caliban opened the passenger-side door of the Mercedes, silver-white hair sweeping across his face. “You might even like some of them.”

She almost ran then, but his nails sank into her wrist and he growled, “Don't even think it.”

A roaring and a flare of lights from beyond the trees made him snap straight. As Finn stared into the night, wondering what new horror was about to arrive, the glowing orbs shrank to headlights belonging to fox-shaped brass-and-copper motorcycles.

Caliban grabbed her, and a dagger slid from one of his sleeves.

The motorcycles surrounded the Mercedes and halted. The leader removed his helmet, revealing the familiar Christie face of Sionnach Ri the fox knight. “My apologies, Finn Sullivan. I seem to have misplaced something near and dear to me and came to ask if you've seen it—hullo,
crom cu
.”

Caliban bared his teeth. “Fox. She's the property of the Wolf.”

“Well, we're stealing the property of the Wolf. Do you think you can fight all of us,
crom cu
? Each of us has two knives. There are three of us. That's six knives.”

Finn tore away from Caliban, whirled, and dashed back up the stairs.

Caliban moved, quick and light, and his hand knotted in her hair. She twisted free, wincing as strands of hair ripped from her scalp.

As Sionnach's bike roared up the stairway and halted neatly between them, the other two motorcycles ascended and Caliban spun to fight for his life. Finn stumbled back.

Sionnach, his bike humming, told Finn, “Go on. We'll take care of this.”

Finn whispered, “Thank you,” and lunged past him, toward the entrance of the Mockingbird Hotel.

WHEN JACK NOTICED
the single flickering insect dancing above the Mockingbirds, he smiled.

He stood among them in a hooded coat so Caliban wouldn't recognize him. It had taken every bit of self-possession he had not to launch himself at Caliban as the
crom cu
hauled Finn away.

The dragonfly flitted toward Amaranthus. The Mockingbird queen was circling Lily Rose Sullivan, whose stubborn and defiant posture matched Finn's so closely, Jack had no doubt she was Finn's sister.

Amaranthus snatched out and caught the dragonfly by the wing. It whirred. She looked disdainfully at Jack. “
Really,
Jack . . .”

A clicking noise from above made her and everyone else look up.

The glass ceiling was darkening beneath a mass of tiny, glittering shapes. A jagged crack appeared—and became a hundred fissures.

Amaranthus glanced at Jack, her gaze ferocious with hate. There was a sinister, prolonged creaking sound from above.

Jack flung himself at Lily Rose and pushed her to the floor, shouting, “Sylvie!”

Sylvie dove beneath a chair and snatched the moth cage with her.

A thunderous crash was followed by glass shards cascading downward. The Mockingbirds scattered.

As Jack rolled with Lily Rose beneath a table, a giant spear of glass struck the floor where they'd been and minuscule pieces scattered everywhere. When he lifted his head, he saw the bracelet of silver charms Finn had tried to give back to her sister glinting nearby. He grabbed it and put it in his pocket.

“Who
are
you?” Lily Rose stared at him as they crouched beneath the table, watching the Mockingbird court erupt into chaos as the dragonflies descended.

“I'm Jack.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her up and they ran toward Sylvie, who scrambled to her feet and raced alongside them, through the storm of insects.

As they pushed open the doors, Jack felt Lily Rose's hand yanked from his. He turned to see Narcissus Mockingbird dragging her back as the dragonflies blackened the room behind him.

“Mockingbird,” Jack said carefully. “Let her go.”

Narcissus's eyes were slits, his teeth sharp. He began to speak.

Then the dragonflies swarmed over him in a dark, glimmering fog and Lily Rose tore free.

“Go!” Jack told her, backing away with Sylvie, his gaze fixed on Narcissus as the Mockingbird vanished in the storm of dragonflies.

Lily ran. Narcissus lunged. Jack kicked him backward and the Mockingbird reeled toward the roaring fire in the hearth—

The doors slammed shut on the conservatory, revealing the witch runes scratched across them.

Christie stepped out of the shadows, shoving back the hood of his coat. He grinned, but his eyes were dark. “I carved the Dragonfly's spell onto the doors—they would've sensed her getting in. They didn't sense
me
—was that Lily Rose who just ran past?” His eyes widened as he saw Sylvie. “Is that really y—”

He was nearly knocked over by an armful of Sylvie, who, still clutching Moth's cage, threw herself on Christie, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “You're alive!” She pulled back, puzzled. “Why are you covered with words?”

Jack told them, “Time to leave.”

AS FINN RACED BACK
toward the entrance of the Mockingbird Hotel, the doors burst open, revealing a figure in a black gown racing toward her.

“
Finn!
” Lily flung herself forward, into Finn's arms. Finn held her tightly and closed her eyes.

Then Lily cried out.

Finn felt something sharp against her abdomen. She opened her eyes—

—and met the silvery gaze of Amaranthus Mockingbird as the Fata queen, standing behind Lily, drew back, a blade of blood-streaked bone in one hand.

Horrified, Finn clutched at her sister, who had folded her hands across
her midriff. Dark blood was trickling over her fingers. She slowly looked up. “Damn . . .”

Finn caught her as she collapsed.

Amaranthus vanished in a small cyclone of tattered wings, bones, and eyes.

Then Sylvie and Christie—the real Christie,
her
Christie,
alive
—came running down the hall. He and Sylvie helped her haul Lily up and they staggered down the stairs, toward the Mercedes. Sionnach and his two companions were still fighting Caliban.

A Mockingbird with spiky white hair lunged at Finn, a curved dagger in one hand.

A reindeer motorcycle ridden by a black-haired girl in a dark gown knocked the Mockingbird over. Still holding Lily up, Christie met Finn's gaze and said, “That's Sylph Dragonfly. She's a witch. It's quite a story.”

“Finn,” Sylvie said as they hauled Lily Rose toward the Mercedes, “Jack's still in there.”

The Mockingbird Hotel was beginning to flicker with orange flames in the lower windows.

Christie yanked open the Mercedes's rear door. As Sylvie set the moth cage on the floor and helped Lily into the back, he said, “Finn, he'd want you to be safe.”

“I'm not leaving him.” Finn snatched up the dagger the Mockingbird had dropped and turned toward the hotel now billowing with smoke. “And we need a Fata to drive the damn car—”

A hooded figure strode toward them from the smoke and ashes clouding the stair. The figure pushed the hood away and it was Jack who smiled at her. “Is that the only reason you were coming back for me?”

She rushed to him and flung her arms around him, whispered, “Lily's hurt. How did the fire start?”

“One of the Mockingbirds fell into the fireplace.”

The fox knights were circling on their motorcycles, preparing to leave—Caliban was gone. Flame-light cast wild shadows on Sionnach's helmet and bike as he curved to Sylvie's side. As he removed his helmet, Christie whispered, “Holy f—”

“Hullo, Christie.” Sionnach winked at him. To Sylvie, he said, “You stole my heart.”

Everyone stared at him, then at Sylvie.

Sylvie clarified, “I saw these things for sale at Goblin Market—Fata hearts, I was told. I didn't know they were
real
hearts. Some were glass, some metal, some like keys or jewelry.” She took a shiny black stone shaped like a Valentine's Day heart from her pocket. “So when I saw Sionnach with this—I lifted it from his jacket and put another stone in its place. I figured he'd want it back.”

“You never trusted me.” Sionnach held out a hand, and Sylvie dropped the heart into his palm. He nodded. “My fault, for being so careless with my heart near a crow girl. I should have checked it.”

He put his helmet back on and spun away on his bike.

Christie said, “Sylvie, I am mightily impressed. Jack, can we get out of here now?”

As Jack slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes, Sylvie got into the passenger seat while Finn and Christie clambered into the back. Finn gathered her sister against her, glancing over one shoulder.

A hurricane of giant, skeletal wings, eyes, and howling fury swept down the hotel's stairs, toward them.

Finn met Jack's gaze in the rearview mirror. She knew that, here, only Fatas and Fata creatures could give energy to things—if Jack started the Mercedes, he truly was reverting back to what he had been.

He turned the key in the ignition and slammed his foot down on the pedal. The engine roared. The Mercedes shot forward onto the broken road.

Finn pressed her face into Lily's hair and closed her eyes against the inferno reflected in the rearview mirror.

The two sisters loved each other so dearly that they always walked about hand in hand whenever they went out together, and when Snow White said: “We will never desert each other,” Rose Red answered: “No, not as long as we live.”

                
—“S
NOW
W
HITE AND
R
OSE
R
ED
,” T
HE
B
ROTHERS
G
RIMM

A
s the Mercedes sped down the forested road, Finn cradled her sister, who slept now, red-streaked hands cradling her midriff. The smell of blood was sickening. Finn said, as calmly as she could, “Jack . . .”

Jack kept his gaze on the road. “We need to get her back to the true world.”

The road seemed to curve forever, the Mercedes's headlights passing over eroding barns, forest walls, a clock tower on a rusting bridge. There was no traffic. There were no lights.

The sound of an escalating siren was almost unrecognizable at first. As lights flashed red and blue in the mirrors, Christie, looking back, said, “Is that a
cop
car?”

Sylvie turned in her seat, eyes wide.

“He shouldn't see us,” Jack said tensely. “We're not in the true world.”

“That's a real cop?”

Jack squinted into the rearview. “Hell . . . he
is
following us.”

“Stop,” Finn said calmly. “Pull over—Phouka said there were parts of the true world that crossed into the Ghostlands—well, this is it. We won't need to find the train station to get back—this is the open door.
Pull over
.”

Jack veered the car onto the grass. They waited as the sirens and flashing lights drew closer.

“I never thought I'd be so glad to see a cop in my li . . .” Christie's words faded as the cop car, modern sleek and blazoned with a sheriff's star, flashed past and faded into the night.

No one spoke as Jack steered the car back onto the road.

Lily suddenly raised her head. Her eyes were black. “Finn . . .”

“It's okay. Lily, we're almost home.” Finn held her tight and Lily's head dropped onto her shoulder.

Jack swerved the Mercedes beneath an arch formed by two giant oaks with knotted-together branches and continued down a smaller road winding through the forest.

“This is it,” Jack said. “This is where we caught our first train.”

The Mercedes's power beams blazed past a screen of holly trees and brambles and lit up the quaint train station. He sped down the road, toward it—

—and slammed on the brakes as a nightmare barrier of black metal thorns suddenly materialized from the darkness before them.

The Mercedes screeched and hit the barrier with a metal-shrieking violence that sent everyone inside tumbling. The car shook once, spluttered. A grinding sound emerged from the engine as it died.

Jack looked back at them. “Is everyone all right?”

“Okay.” Sylvie's voice was faint.

Finn kicked her door open and helped Lily out with Christie's assistance. Jack bashed the driver's door loose and slid free, reaching back in for Sylvie, who clutched the moth cage as she clambered after him. They stared at the barrier of black metal thorns surrounding the train station.

Jack said softly, “Sylvie, get Moth out of that cage and into his true form. We may need him, and the Mockingbirds armed him for our visit to the Wolf's house.”

Sylvie unlatched the wicker cage. The moth drifted up, attempted to pass through the barrier, glided back, and brushed against Finn's lips.

“Everyone. Look away,” Jack advised. But Finn watched as the insect lengthened into a spear of white light before becoming a shadow that fell away in tatters from the crouched figure of Moth. The transformation should have hurt her brain—maybe the elixir helped her adjust.

Christie and Sylvie hadn't watched, and Sylvie stepped back as Moth rose, drawing back the hood of his jacket. He had the sword/walking stick slung on a strap over one shoulder. His brows knit when he saw Lily leaning against Jack. “Lily Rose? Is that you?”

Lily didn't respond, her head bowed.

Christie moved toward the barrier. “There's got to be a way inside.”

“I just remembered”—Sylvie looked at Jack in panic and dismay—“Christie and I need to return the way we came, or time will have passed in the real world and we might not end up in Fair Hollow.”

“We'll have to take that chance. Anywhere in the true world is better than here, at the moment. And you'll end up at one of the Fata gates, which are all near civilization.” Jack gently guided Lily to a place beneath a tree.

Finn crouched beside her. “Lily?”

Lily didn't respond, her head down, her breathing faint. Jack settled his coat around her and glanced at Finn. He handed her the bracelet of silver charms. “I don't know why this silver hasn't rotted. It must have something to do with . . . you.”

He rose and walked toward the cage of metal thorns around the train station.

As Finn pulled the coat closer around her sister, something clinked from the coat's pocket . . . two tiny vials, one capped with a pewter dog: the other a crystalline bird labeled
ELIXIR
. She slid both bottles into her coat before Jack could see. She stood up—

The darkness of the forest came to life as big, black shadows materialized to surround them. The shadows—dogs shaped from night—had no features, only jagged muzzles, as if their mouths were filled with piranha teeth. An otherworldly cold followed them. The air crackled with an electrical charge, creating an overwhelming sense of dread.

“Black dogs,” Moth whispered.

Jack drew both knives and shouted. “Dead Bird!”

Another silhouette separated itself from the murk beneath the trees and languidly came forward. The Mercedes's headlights illuminated an arch-nosed face and a mane of dark hair spikily knotted with totems. Over stitched, black suede, a coat of raven feathers rustled as if threatening to transform into real birds.

“Mortals and Fatas.” Dead Bird looked them over. “You've confused my hounds.”

Jack said, “Finn and her sister belong in the true world.”

“No, Jack Hawthorn.” Dead Bird's voice lacked any warmth. “The
scail amhasge
determine who may return to the true world.”

Finn wanted to scream.
No. You will not keep us here
.

Jack took a step toward Dead Bird. “
Marbh ean . . .”

One of the hounds growled. Then the black dogs paced forward, sniffing, first Sylvie and Christie, moving on to Moth and Finn. Finn kept very still as the creatures came to her, brushing against her legs, snuffling at her hands. Their fur was as prickly as needles of black ice. There were no features in their faces, only solid darkness. They began to circle Jack. Three others slid past Finn, toward Lily Rose.

“No!” Finn turned as one of the dogs began to snarl at her sister. Lily Rose didn't move, her hair veiling her face. Two other hounds made similar noises low in their throats. Finn shouted, “
Get away from her!
”

The rest of the dogs began to slink toward Lily Rose as Dead Bird gently said, “Serafina Sullivan. Come away from there.”

Finn stepped between the black dogs and her sister. She drew the silver dagger and slashed out. The hounds bridled, skidding back, barking. One of them began to howl.

Christie and Moth were tensed to fight. Sylvie tried to edge around the dogs, toward Finn. As Jack moved forward, two of the black dogs skirled around and snapped at him, blocking his way.

“Jack! Don't.” Dead Bird almost sounded human. “They won't hurt her or any of you.”

“
Finn,
” Jack said in a voice that carried across the chaos.

Finn met his gaze and realized it had been too easy.

Lot would never give up his queen this early in the game. Amaranthus's stabbing would have killed a
mortal
girl. Finn remembered the silver bracelet falling between her and Lily. Her sister had not wanted to touch it. The silver.

Her ears filled with a buzzing noise as the thing that had been disguised as her sister unfolded itself, crackling and groaning behind her like a giant, windswept tree. There was a hideous sound, as if someone was choking—
kh . . . kh . . . kh . . .
—and a grotesque, looming shape was reflected in Jack's eyes, in the horror of her friends' gazes.

Jack lunged for Finn with a ragged cry as the black dogs leaped forward.

Finn whispered, “I'm sorry,” and closed her eyes and stepped back into the embrace of the thing that would take her to the Wolf and her real sister.

JACK FELL TO HIS KNEES,
staring at the place where Finn had vanished in the arms of the white, monstrous treelike thing that had shed her sister's skin like a caul and dragged Finn into the night.

Someone was speaking his name. He looked up, making an effort to focus, and saw Dead Bird standing before him, cold and angry. The black hounds had gone. Stone-faced, Dead Bird said, “Not now. Do not break now.”

Christie was swearing brokenly. Sylvie was mute, stunned. Moth strode past Dead Bird and extended a hand to Jack. “We'll get her back.”

Jack grasped the
aisling
's hand and was hauled to his feet. He turned to Dead Bird, who wondered, “Why did I not sense that thing at once?”

“Yes.” Jack felt silken menace threading his voice. “Why
didn't
you?”

“It was well hidden behind that girl's form. It was a trickier glamour than I am used to. Are you going to stand here and threaten me or fetch Serafina Sullivan back from the Wolf?”

Moth was snatching up their backpacks and weapons. “Why do you care?”

“Because I am responsible for this Way, and the Wolf has become a menace with that house he stole from the prince of dreams. I'm taking Serafina Sullivan's friends, by train, back to their original entry point and the true world, because, at the moment, that is the least I can do for her without risking my neutrality with the light and the dark.” He gestured toward the barrier, which ceased to exist. “Find your brave girl, Jack—but do not take her sister from the Ghostlands.
They
won't allow it.”

“Jack.” Christie's voice broke. “We need to come with you.”

“You can't.” Dead Bird spoke gently. “You're not prepared. You and Sylvie Whitethorn would only be detrimental.”

Sylvie pleaded, “We can
help
.”

Jack accepted the jackal-headed walking stick Moth handed to him and said, to Sylvie and Christie, “If you love her, go back. Tell Phouka and Absalom what has happened.”

“Isn't there any way we can—” The hope faded from Sylvie's face as Dead Bird
indicated the path to the train station and Moth and Jack stepped away.

“Wait.” Christie walked to Moth and held out the wooden knife Jack had given him. Moth took it. Sylvie whispered, “Please,
please
save her.”

Christie returned to her and they trudged after Dead Bird, their arms around each other.

Moth said, “I've still got the Grindylow's heart—we can use it to find the Wolf's house.”

“Lot
wants
us to find him. He'll make it easy.” Jack stalked forward, with Moth, into the night.

LILY SAT ON THE LOWEST BRANCH
of the big myrtle tree in their San Francisco yard. She still wore the filmy lavender gown she'd chosen for the Spring Fling, and her feet, in purple Keds, dangled above Finn, who lay beneath the tree, listening to her sister delete all evidence of Leander Cyrus from her phone
.

“Lily. I
like
Leander. You better not ditch him for
that
guy.”

Lily stopped playing with her phone. Her gown, like a sugarplum fairy's wings, trailed in the breeze. “What guy?”

“The one who looks like a prince and has blue eyes
. That
guy.”

Lily tilted her head and smiled dreamily. “You mean the Wolf?”

Finn inhaled and opened her eyes as her body convulsed with the shock of waking.

She lay on a black road shimmering with mist and lined with a stark wood. The night sky was without stars. A birch tree loomed nearby, the hollows in its trunk resembling eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Curling up on the ice, her arms over her head, Finn ached to cry, but that hateful elixir was turning her into a Snow Queen. She didn't even feel exhausted, only lonely and angry and distantly afraid. They had tricked her and she'd naively let them.

Lily!
she screamed silently and slammed a hand against the blacktop.

The sudden glare of headlights moved her into a crouch. She fumbled in her pocket and drew out the bottle of elixir from Goblin Market, drank most of what was left, and tucked the second vial labeled
ELIXIR
into her right boot, the
Tamasgi'po
into her other. She left Jack's mysterious potion in one pocket, along with the bottle containing what remained of the Goblin Market elixir.