Briar Queen (38 page)

“His name was Sionnach Ri, your other. But he was treacherous and not really into girls.”

“Exactly what do you mean by ‘treacherous'?”

“Remember? He betrayed me and Sylvie to a family of psychopaths called Mockingbirds? Then changed his mind because Sylvie pickpocketed the heart he grew for Moth—”

“Got it. My replica and Moth.
That's
a door I'll happily keep closed.” He became quiet as they continued walking, Finn absorbing every beautiful, ordinary thing around her, from the slush in the roads, to the mailboxes like sentries on the sidewalk, to the colonial houses decked out with wreaths and tacky holiday decorations. When Christie started talking again, she was almost annoyed. “Sylph Dragonfly, Sylvie's twin . . . she wasn't much like Sylvie.”

Given Christie's reputation, Finn did
not
like where this was going. She turned to him and gravely said, “You
didn't
.”

“I had no
choice
.” He pressed his hands against his chest. “Jack and I needed her help and she wanted more than a kiss.”

“So Sylph Dragonfly
ravished
you.” She folded her arms.

“Not really.” Ruefully, he continued, “Did I tell you I'm a witch?”

“A wit—”

“The Dragonfly showed me.”

“Can you do . . . tricks?” Finn's eyes widened.

“I'm not a Las Vegas magician, Finn. This is different. It's dark. And slithery.” He took a deep breath. “I don't want it.”

“Okay.” She had a bad feeling he'd have no choice in the matter. She said, “Sylvie's some kind of warrior soul called a heart widow. Did she tell you? I probably should have let her tell you. Don't tell her I told you.”

“I won't. I'm not surprised she's a knight in shining armor.” He clenched his knit hat, pulled it down in anguish. “Do you know how hard—I mean,
difficult—it is to look at Sylvie now? And now I know she can kick my ass . . .”

“You absolute idiot.”

“What do I do? She's my best friend—”

“You made your bed with the Dragonfly . . . you know how the rest of
that
goes.” She stalked away from him, toward the retro building that was Max's Diner. He caught up to her and said, “I just need a little advice.”

“What do you want me to say? ‘You should inform Sylvie you slept with her double'? I wouldn't do that if I were you.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear and smiled. “Oh, look—Sylvie's here already. Should I tell her how cool Sylph Dragonfly was?”

“You've got a sadistic streak in you, Finn Sullivan. I
don't
like it.”

“FINN, I CAN'T SPEAK TO YOU
while you're wearing those sunglasses.” Sylvie looked up from her waffles. “I mean, we're inside now.”

“There are lots of windows and I told you why the sun was bothering me.” Finn primly adjusted the sunglasses that had gone askew when Sylvie had hugged her again. She wished Lily could be here. But Lily was in a safe place now, a location known only to Finn and Jack.

“So where's the prince of darkness?” Christie glanced around. Sylvie, pouring syrup over her waffles, scowled at him and said, “Stop calling him that. Jack saved your life.”

“And I saved his. The way I see it, we're even.”

Sylvie told Finn: “Christie killed some kind of skull-headed screaming woman.”

“It was a
siren,
a very dangerous creature.”

“Really?” Finn was startled. “You never told me.”

“There wasn't time.”

There were a lot of things he hadn't told her about his journey with Jack. When Finn thought of Jack and the Ghostlands, she felt a breathless yearning that shocked her. With the elixir sizzling though her and the alchemy of roses blossoming within
him,
they had, for once, been a match.

She told Christie and Sylvie about her and Jack's harrowing escape from Lot's house, leaving out the bits about Reiko's and Jack's phantom replicas and Hester's death. They didn't need to know about that terrible thing yet.

Sylvie had little silver clovers pinned in her dark hair, which was knotted spikily on top of her head. “What if
Professor Avaline
's the traitor Cruithnear suspects among the professors?”

“I don't know.” Finn knotted her hands on the table as she studied her friends from behind the shield of the sunglasses. Their unexpected journey to the Ghostlands may have strengthened unsettling, innate qualities within them, but all Finn saw was their fragility and the precarious disruption of their lives. For a mad moment, she actually thought of asking Phouka to cast a forgetfulness spell over the two of them. But that would only leave them more vulnerable. And if it wore off, they'd never forgive her. She watched Christie nibble around a piece of omelet and Sylvie check her phone, her tongue between her teeth. If they were killed . . .

Finn said, in a very faint voice, “Please . . . leave me.”

Christie looked up. Sylvie blinked at her distractedly. “Did you say something, Finn? I'm checking when the sun sets.”

The moment was past. They wouldn't leave her anyway. Finn sighed. “Reiko killed Sophia Avaline's sister, but I think Avaline blames Jack.”

“Avaline didn't like the idea of an eighteen-year-old girl being sent into a world of monsters. She didn't want you to go, Finn. Jane Emory did,” Christie pointed out.

“Christie, Jane gave me the Ghostlands key with Rowan Cruithnear's permission. She knew I'd get there somehow—and she cared that Lily was a captive of Seth Lot. I trust her. Unless she's an award-winning actress, she's for real. How was your trip home?”

“Marvin—Dead Bird—took us onto the train and informed the three Fatas in the car that he would turn them inside out if we didn't reach our destination. He told us what botched Sylvie's and my entrance into the Spooklands—there was interference, he said, from the dead. He didn't say the Black Scissors was an asshole, but I think we all silently reached that conclusion. Then Sylvie asked him if he was really a . . . Tengu?—and he got an attitude. With his help, we found our way back to StarDust Studios. We stepped through the door—and here we are.”

Sylvie's eyes were shadowy. “Are the Fatas going to slay the Wolf?”

“They tried, once.” Jack sat down in the booth next to Finn. “It didn't work. I believe Lot recruited some of the Fatas to his side and ate the rest.”

Finn finally set aside her sunglasses to look at Jack. He was all in black, the
fake fur that lined his coat making his skin even paler. In the sunlight, his eyes ghosting silver, he scarcely looked human.

“Finn.” Christie's voice sounded shaky and Sylvie was staring at her, a glass of milk halfway to her mouth. Jack somberly said, “Your eyes, Finn.”

Finn fumbled in her small backpack, pulled out the compact mirror Sylvie had given her, and opened it. Her brown eyes were sheened with silver.

Jack was calm. “It's just more obvious in the daylight. It'll fade.”

“If you say so.” Finn closed the compact and put the sunglasses back on. There was a slight tremor in her hands. “Where's Moth?”

“At the counter, there—he seems to have developed an addiction to coffee.”

“Is that the walking stick strapped over his shoulder?” Christie tilted his head. “The sword the Black Scissors gave us? Who's going to cut off the Wolf's head—”

Crack!
Something hit the window with such force it made all of them, except Jack, jump.

“A bird?” Sylvie rose to peer out.

“That's not a bird.” Jack slid to his feet. “That's a bat.”

When Finn saw the dark cloud of flying creatures descending from the sky, she whispered, “
What—
”

The bats began smashing into the window. Christie scrambled up as the glass cobwebbed beneath spatters of jellied blood. Someone screamed.

Jack and Finn ran out the door with Sylvie and Christie following. Moth strode after.

Outside, Finn looked away from the dead and dying bats in the snow. Sylvie knelt and whispered, “Poor things.”

Jack crouched down and, from the blood-speckled snow, lifted a ring of green metal set with rubies. “This was
Ialtag Amhran
.”

“BatSong?” Her heart slamming, Finn gazed around at the snowy street, expecting more horrors. Other people were coming out of the diner.

Jack rose. “Lot's back. We need to get to Tirnagoth before the sun sets.”

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON
,
Tirnagoth was a menacing silhouette rising from a wilderness of neglected landscaping. Even though she was now acquainted with what lived there, the sight of the boarded-up hotel still made Finn's skin crawl.

Sylvie and Christie followed Jack, Moth, and Finn, as they approached the gates to the inner courtyard. The gates opened and Jack loped up the stairs to the entrance. He took a key—a regular, old-fashioned one—from his pocket.

“Lily Rose is mortal.” Sylvie spoke in a hushed voice as Tirnagoth's doors swung inward and they stepped into the mildewed lobby. “How is she here, among the Fatas?”

“Lily Rose isn't here.” Jack strode across the lobby to a wall of dusty shelves, where he twisted something. The wall slid open to reveal a hall and a stairway.

Christie walked forward. “A secret passage—so awesome, yet so cliché. Isn't this the first place the Wolf is going to visit?”

“It's the safest place for us to be.” Jack led them up the secret stairs to a mahogany door carved into the shapes of peacocks. “This is where we kept guests.”

“Guests?” Finn was wary.

“Guests.” Jack shoved open the door to reveal a long, windowed gallery stark with winter sunlight. At the far end was a chamber scattered with old furniture. There was a wall of books, a fireplace stacked with logs, and a wine rack filled with dusty bottles. Despite the rich hues of the drapes and oriental rugs, the room was dreary and artificial, as if someone unfamiliar with creature comforts had attempted to imitate them.

As Sylvie and Christie wandered around, and Moth stood vigilant near a window, Finn said to Jack, “He'll still find us.”

“Most likely. But we have allies here.”

Finn peered out at the wintery grounds and wondered what stolen or enchanted boys and girls had been in this deceptively harmless-looking room, awaiting their fates. “It's so cold in here.”

“That it is, beloved.” He walked to the hearth. Squatting down, he stuffed paper from a basket beneath the logs and took a butane wand from the mantelpiece.

Finn ducked back into the hall and halfway shut the door. She took out Lily's recharged phone and pushed the number. When her sister answered, Finn said, “Lily . . . the Wolf's back.”

Lily's voice was clipped. “Where are you?”

“In a Fata place, a safe place.”

“Anna was telling me some things. She's kinda mature for a kid—”

Finn heard Anna Weaver's voice in the background. “I'm not a kid!”

“Tell Anna I'm sorry I had to drag her into this.” A cold draft brushed the back of Finn's neck.

Lily continued, “We're in her attic. She's made quite the little hideaway up here. Lots of books and a mini fridge. Her mom and dad are down in the shop and don't know I'm here. I feel like a stowaway—how is Dad?”

“I haven't told him.”

“Good. Don't. Finn . . . I think it's
you
Seth Lot wants. Be careful.”

“Lily . . . I love you.”

“I can do this alone. Finn, you don't need to—”

Finn ended the call and slumped against a pillar. She looked down the dark hallway with its mahogany nymphs and flower lamps and thought how the Fatas reminded her of these art nouveau objects that mimicked nature in such a poisonously beautiful fashion. She straightened and walked to a pair of glass doors and shoved them open.

A second later, Jack was leaning against the door frame. “Finn . . .”

Finn gazed out at the winter landscape barred with pink and said softly, “When we were running from the Wolf's house, I saw you. The you from before we met.”

He didn't seem surprised. “You saw my past self.”

“You saw Reiko too, didn't you?”

There was pain in his voice. “She was only a memory.”

“Lily was in that house . . .”

“That is your
sister,
Finn. That is Lily. She won't fade away or become a monster.”

Finn sank down because the world had begun to spin. Jack squatted before her, the phoenix medallion flashing between his collarbones. “She's
more
than a memory. She's flesh and blood.”

She could believe him, or let doubt cripple her.
Lily
. She breathed out, “Lily's alive and here.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet. Snow began to drift past the glass doors she'd opened.

When a girl screamed in the woods below, he walked swiftly to the stone railing and peered down. He said, “Stay here.”

“Jack—”

There was another scream.

“I can't ignore it, Finn.” He leaped over the railing to the snow below and vanished into the trees. She wanted to shout at him to not be so gallant, but she heard the scream again and her heart smashed into a hectic panic when she thought it was someone calling
her
name. She thought of Anna, of Claudette Tredescant, of any girl who might be encountering something that prowled Tirnagoth's grounds. “Jack!”

The Fatas don't exist right now,
she thought.
It's still daylight
.

But there were the Grindylow.

When she looked out over the snowy landscape again, she gasped. Nathan Clare stood at the border of trees. He was bleeding from the chest. Incredulous, she whispered, “
Nathan . . .”

She had the silver dagger in her coat. She jumped down and hurried toward him, but he ran into the woods.