Briar Queen (8 page)

No one spoke. No one moved.

She pulled out her cell phone, tapped it to a picture, and raised it before Moth. “Is this her?”

His face changed. Light dawned behind his eyes. He whispered, “Lily Rose.”

AS MOTH SPRAWLED BACK ON THE SOFA,
his gaze opaque, Finn gazed down at her sister's picture. Sylvie was sitting at the edge of her chair, nibbling on a thumbnail and watching Finn. Christie turned a battered Rubik's Cube he'd found on a shelf over and over in his hands, but his attention was also on Finn. Jack was leaning forward in his chair, feet apart, hands clasped between his knees, his face sober.

“I don't remember things in order anymore.” Moth spoke as if the memories restored by Lily's photo hurt him. “Sometimes, I remember the Wolf's house . . . sometimes, it was a ruin, other times, like the home of a lord. I ran away, once, and stone wolves chased me, brought me down.” He continued softly, “I came to
that house a long time ago. Before that, I traveled with a company in England. Actors. We were actors. Someone—a red-haired girl—I made her angry. Then I was . . . not me. The wing tattoos on my back . . . they're a curse.” He looked up at Finn. “When I was me again, I was in that house, the one with the stone wolves. And so was the dark-haired girl. Lily Rose.”

“But”—Sylvie frowned at Finn—“you saw your sister fall. She was in the
hospital
.”

“It wasn't her.” Finn didn't take her gaze from Moth. “It wasn't Lily who fell or Lily in that hospital bed. It was one of their tricks. Moth, is she alive? Lily Rose?”

“Finn,” Jack said urgently.

“I think we were friends.” Moth seemed to not have heard her question. “All the others in that house were cold things, cruel. But Lily Rose spoke to me. She was kind.” He lifted his head. “I don't remember when I left, or how. I think she helped me escape, sent me to protect you. Then a sharp, dark man caught me. He made me sleep, and I woke up in the attic of the house you found me in.”

“
Moth
.” Finn leaned forward. “
Where is Lily Rose?
”

Moth slid his gaze to Jack, his body suddenly taut. “She wanted me to protect you from dangerous things.”

“Jack isn't dangerous to me.” Finn wanted to shake him. “Where is my sister?”

“I'm to protect you. I remember what
he
used to be.” He pointed at Jack. “I saw him, in the house of the Wolf.”

“I don't recall meeting you.” Jack narrowed his eyes.

“Please.” Finn's composure cracked. “
Tell me where my sister is
.”

Moth lowered his head. “I dare not. I'm to keep you safe.” He shivered as if shaking something from himself and said, “Fifteen ninety-five. Lily Rose would tell me that whenever I began to forget. It was the year I was stolen away. He'd taken my name. Fifteen ninety-five, she would say, and I would almost be myself again.”

“Finn.” Jack stood. “Let's go outside for a minute.”

As Finn climbed out onto the fire escape, Jack came after. She gazed out over the snowy parking lot as that terrible night replayed in her head . . . her sister, shattered in blood and glass. She felt the poisonous sleepiness return, fought it with clenched teeth. “I thought she was dead. Seth Lot took her.”

Jack gently said, “I'll have Moth tell me where she is. Then I'll go search for her.”

“I'm coming with you.”

“Where Lot has taken your sister—if what Moth has said is true—it isn't a safe place. And . . . this concerns me—that bracelet is made of silver. Where Moth has come from . . . silver and iron decay or transform.”

Her stomach twisted. Where
was
Lily Rose? “You'll take me with you or I'll find a way to go alone. I'll find Leander. And if any of your Fata friends even
attempt
to make me or
my
friends forget you, my sister, or anything else, I've got things written and hidden, files on several computers, and little reminders scrawled on some of my everyday stuff.”

He stared at her, his brows knit. Then he bent his head and kissed her.

She hadn't expected such a tactic and knew that he was trying to distract her. She got a little angry, so the kiss wasn't delicate, but heated and fierce. She stood on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pushed her hands through his hair. She dragged his lean-muscled body close as her blood became fiery butterflies . . .

She pulled away and steeled herself from winding her arms around him again as he leaned back against the railing, one boot heel pressed against it, his hair in his eyes as he watched her. They were both breathing quickly.

She pointed at him. “I mean it, Jack. Do you think Moth's telling the truth? He doesn't even know his real name.”

“Lot”—Jack was studying her from beneath his lashes, which meant he was scheming—“will have taken that from him. Moth is a changeling, a stolen-away. From Elizabethan England. He's probably lost his mind more than a few times. As for Leander, he seems like a fugitive as well.” Jack settled against the railing beside her and she could feel him sheltering her from the cold. “Leander called himself ‘Cyrus' when I met him in San Francisco, when Reiko was visiting Lot, who'd made a temporary den in Muir Woods. Cyrus went to Seth Lot because he'd lost whoever had made him a Jack. He was rootless, as I once was.”

Finn hated to think of Jack as he'd been, someone who'd caught the attention of a creature who had murdered him and brought him back to life stitched full of magical roses that kept him immortal. In the beginning, Jack had lured Finn to him like the elf knight in an old ballad, with no good intentions. And, dull with
grief, she'd fallen for him. Was that how it had been with her sister and Leander? She carefully set her hands on the railing. “It wasn't just Norn, the Fata my sister met when she was little. It was Leander, too, who told Lily some of those things in her journal. Leander loves her. He bleeds for her.
My sister is still alive
.”

“We need to remember that Leander and Moth once belonged to the Wolf. Go home, Finn. I'll take Moth to a safe place after I've talked to him.”

“Remember our deal, Jack. Find out where my sister is and
take me with you
. And don't try to trick me.”

His mouth curved, but his eyes were troubled. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

AS FINN ENTERED THE LAMP-LIT HALL
of her house in a jangling of keys and elation, her father called from the parlor. “Finn.”

She ducked her head around the corner.

“Come. Sit.” He patted the sofa next to him. She sauntered in and dropped beside him, glad Jane Emory wasn't there. As he handed her a cold cherry Coke, she squinted at him. “How did you know I'd be exactly on time?”

“After Halloween, I didn't think you'd want to terrify me again.”

She'd vowed to never tell him what had actually happened that night. Now, she had another secret, one she
wanted
to tell him, but didn't dare, not until she knew Lily was really alive. It didn't feel real, that remote possibility, but she would keep it in a death grip until she found out.

As her father handed her a plate stacked with nachos, melted cheese, salsa, and his famous guacamole, her mouth watered. He said casually, “How's Jack?”

She bit into a nacho and noticed a book on gardening laid facedown on the table. It was winter. Her da didn't have any indoor plants. She sighed and looked at her da, saw how the shadows had left his eyes and he was smiling more. “Fine. So are Sylvie and Christie. How is Jane Emory?”

“She's the one who suggested I invite Jack for Christmas.” He switched on the TV. “Want to watch a movie? Something scary, or an action movie, seeing as you don't like romance or comedy.”

“You know what? Let's watch something funny.”

It is true we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world: but on that account we shall be more attached to one another
.

                
—
F
RANKENSTEIN
,
M
ARY
S
HELLEY

S
ylvie and Christie had signed up for phys ed activities that complemented HallowHeart's posh, old-fashioned, and eccentric vibe. Sylvie took archery and Christie had fencing class, which he'd convinced Finn to try, but she wasn't very good at it. Still, it beat soccer.

As they'd walked toward McKinley Hall, with its Doric columns and the face of the sun god Apollo carved in granite over its doors, Christie had quietly asked Finn if she knew for certain if her sister was alive. She'd told him she wasn't sure, but she needed find out. And Jack would help her. Christie hadn't said anything else to her since. Now, in the fencing studio, he was pretending to be busy with his gear, ignoring her, and she was tempted to poke him with her foil.

When Jack arrived after class had ended, Christie scowled and began slamming his equipment onto a bench.

“Finn.” Jack leaned in the doorway. “Christopher.”

“Christopher isn't talking to me, so he won't be engaging you in conversation either.”

“Have you ever used one of these, Jack?” Christie straightened and twirled his foil. “I mean, in your abnormally long life, you must have.”

“I've done so.”

Christie tossed Jack a foil. Jack caught it with one hand and stepped forward. With a flick of the wrist, he neatly disarmed Christie, caught Christie's foil, and tapped Christie three times—“Tierce, quarte, septime—”

—before sliding both foils into their holders. “I won't fight you, Christopher.”

“
You can't take her
.” Christie's voice startled them both—it was in pieces. “You can't take her, Jack, to find her sister. Finn, you don't even know if she's alive or where the hell she
is
. What if it's a trap?”

Jack said, “Do you think I haven't thought of that?” He reached out a hand to Finn, who clasped it. “I can't change her mind.”

Finn looked at Christie. “What if it was one of your brothers?”

Christie grabbed his backpack. “He's going to get you killed,” he said, before he stalked out of the room.

When he'd gone, Finn turned to Jack. His eyes, one of which was always darker than the other, now seemed inky with secrets. “Did Moth tell you? Where Lily is?”

He said softly, “She's in the betwixt and between. Neither here nor there, second star to the right and straight on till morning. Down the rabbit hole. She's in the Ghostlands, Finn.”

She whispered, “I was afraid you'd say something like that.”

“CHRISTIE'S A VERY PASSIONATE PERSON.”
Sylvie wandered around Finn's room after Finn told her about the incident in fencing class. Sylvie grinned. “I feel fiendish, tricking Christie and Jack like that. What do you think they'll do when we don't show up for dinner?”

Finn looked up from her laptop. “Christie wanted to poke Jack with a sharp stick today. Maybe putting them at a table with pointy utensils wasn't such a good idea. But they
will
be in public.”

Sylvie's impish mood faded. “Finn . . . where
is
Jack taking you?”

“I don't know what that . . . place is, Sylv. There are a lot of different names for it, in every myth I've read. Only it's real. And I'm going. Because that's where Lily is . . . the birthplace of Seth Lot and Reiko Fata.”

Sylvie frowned down at her stockinged feet. “Do you ever think of Reiko? Like, wonder what she was before she became the queen of hell?”

On Halloween night, Reiko Fata had followed her consort David Ryder into
the sacrificial fire, not only because he carried the heart she'd grown for love of Jack, but because that heart—even cut out of her—that heart had made her
human
. And David Ryder, a cold and soulless elf knight, had loved her, had bled for her. At the last moment of their long lives, two terrifying rulers of faery had become human and died for each other. And Finn
did
feel guilt, and angrily thought that she shouldn't—Reiko Fata had no right to get that from her. “Sometimes,” Finn said, “I wonder if Reiko was ever a real girl, like us.”

“She murdered Jack to keep him. And she was going to
kill
you. Burning to death was too easy an end for her. So don't you feel bad about it.”

“I don't,” Finn lied, and she thought again of the words Reiko had spoken on Halloween night:
I can bring back your sister
. “Sylv, I think Reiko knew Lily was still alive.”

“Of course she knew. Let us go with you, me and Christie.”

“
No
. Jack said he'll have a hard enough time keeping
me
safe, let alone two others.”

“Is that gorgeous train wreck you call Moth going with you?”

“I don't know.”

“How will you get your sister away? You told us Seth Lot's a killer, and I've got the feeling you left out some of his story. He's a real monster, isn't he?” Sylvie's voice was small. “Aren't you scared?”

“I'm scared . . . beyond scared. But if he took Lily, I'm going to get her back.” Her hands curled into fists against her rib cage.
No matter what
.

Sylvie gazed at a framed photograph on one wall. “Your sister was so pretty. Is that Leander—”

The photograph flew from the wall and struck the floor. Glass shattered.

Sylvie's mouth fell open.

Finn jumped up and strode to the photo in its mosaic of broken glass. Shot in stylish black-and-white, Lily and Leander smiled up at her. She murmured, “I meant to tell you. I have a ghost. I thought it was Lily.”

Sylvie's voice dropped to a whisper. “You think your sister is haunting you?”

Finn picked up the black-and-white photograph and the pieces of glass. “I don't think it's Lily anymore. I don't know
what's
doing this.”

Sylvie stood up. “Do you have a Ouija board?”

Finn stared at her. Then she walked to the closet, opened the door, and stood
on tiptoe to reach the shelf stacked with board games. She pulled down a rectangular box, turned, and offered it to Sylvie. “I've got this.”

Sylvie came over and looked doubtfully at the box. “I didn't even know they made ‘Hello Kitty' Ouija boards.”

“It was a gift,” Finn said defensively.

“Well.” Sylvie accepted the box, opened it, and unfolded the board on Finn's bed. “It's a very
Gothic
‘Hello Kitty,' so I suppose it'll work.”

Finn hesitated, watching Sylvie place the pink planchette on the board decorated with pink and black letters.

“She's your sister, Finn.” Sylvie patted the bed. “Come on. Let's talk to her. She might be communicating from wherever
they've
taken her.”

Finn pictured Lily lying broken and bleeding in glass shards on a night street sluiced with rain, saw Lily in the hospital, connected to plastic breathing tubes. She felt the poisonous sleepiness begin to return—

She sat on the bed, placed her hand on the planchette. Sylvie laid one hand over hers and whispered, “Okay. Ask the name first.”

“How do you know about this?”

“My gran is Shinto. And her gran was a
yamabushi,
someone who speaks to spirits. I learned some stuff.”

“What about your mom—”

Sylvie shrugged. “My mom is an actress, nothing else.”

Finn sidestepped that one. “I just ask a name? All right . . .
who is here?
”

The planchette jerked. Sylvie breathed out. Finn watched the piece of plastic slide to the letter
D,
not what she'd expected. The planchette circled, pushing toward the
E,
before veering sharply to the
A
.

“Finn.” Sylvie's voice shook a little. “Maybe it
isn't
your sis—”

The planchette shot across the board, became airborne, and hit one of the photos on Finn's desk. Finn scrambled back as the plastic thing ricocheted against another photograph on the wall, before dropping to the floor.

Finn grabbed the framed photo the planchette had knocked over on her desk. In the photo, Lily Rose and Leander grinned into the camera he was holding. Turning, Finn studied the photograph on the wall, its glass cracked by the planchette: Lily and Leander, elegantly dressed and seated on a divan of red velvet. She felt a horrible ache in her throat, for Leander, who'd once been human and
who had been transformed into a stitched-together creature that couldn't endure the sun. She whispered, “Whoever it is, Sylv, this ghost . . . whoever it is knows what Leander is. Help me take these photos down, would you?”

WHEN CHRISTIE ARRIVED
at the Antlered Moon Pub and was shown to the booth where he expected Finn and Sylvie, he instead found only the prince of darkness hunched over a cup of coffee. Jack looked up at him and said, “The ladies aren't coming. We've been set up. You might as well sit down.”

“I'm not going to.”

“They've already ordered and paid, Christopher. Dinner's on its way.” Jack pushed a coffeepot across the table. “Coffee?”

Christie slouched opposite him. “I already had my five cups. Is there any liquor on the bill?”

“I wish.”

Christie leaned forward, squinting. “Are you ever gonna age?”

“It's inevitable, isn't it?” Jack sat back as their plates arrived. Sylvie knew Christie well; she'd ordered a giant venison burger and sweet potato fries. The same for Jack.

“Is it inevitable, Jack?” Christie poured ketchup on his burger. “Because it doesn't seem inevitable, around you, that Finn will ever turn nineteen.”

“Christopher. This world holds as many bad things as the world of the Fatas.”

“I'd say
your
bad things are worse. Take Caliban, for example. And that . . . kelpie that was in our well. And the Rooks, threatening Finn. And there's even worse on its way, isn't there?”

“Phouka and Absalom will deal with what's coming. As for the Rooks, their allegiance has idiotically switched to someone else.”

“You sure those three scavengers haven't switched to the winning team?”

“Don't underestimate Phouka and Absalom.”

“I don't trust them and I don't trust you, because you're two hundred years old and there's no way you're not messed up in the head.”

“What happened to the poetry, Christopher?”

“You think her sister's really alive?”

“I think the evidence is distressingly clear. And Lily Rose fits the profile of what Seth Lot prefers.”

“Shit,” Christie said raggedly. “Where are you taking Finn?”

“It's a place—places—hidden from the true world.”

“Another dimension?”

“Another
perception
. And if I don't take her, she'll find a way on her own. You
know
her, Christopher, how stubborn she is . . . reckless, headstrong . . .”

“I know she would die for her sister. And I've read enough mythology to know she can't bring Lily Rose back from wherever she is without a sacrifice. A
sacrifice,
Jack.”

“She won't be making any sacrifices,” Jack said evenly.

“How do you—” Christie broke off as he met Jack's gaze. Suddenly, grudgingly, he felt admiration, and hated it.

JACK CAME FOR FINN IN THE LATE AFTERNOON.
She couldn't help but smile when she saw him. With his dark hair tucked behind his ears and his hands in the pockets of a parka lined with fake fur, he looked so beautifully ordinary. He said in that voice that made her skin warm, “Are you and Sylvie proud of your little trick?”

At first, she thought he meant the Ouija board, then realized he was talking about the peace dinner she and Sylvie had set up. “Did it go well? Christie's still alive?”

“We're going to run away together. Let's walk to LeafStruck.”

As they began strolling down the street, Finn considered Jack: valiant, self-possessed, mysterious. “You know, you'd be a pretty sexy old guy.”

He glanced at her with amusement. “Your trains of thought completely escape me sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?”

The sun began to set. She watched her boots kick up dirty snow. Jack had delivered Moth to Colleen Olive, the Fata girl who haunted the neglected Leaf Struck Mansion like the spooky old bride in Dickens's
Great Expectations
. If Moth went off the rails, Colleen Olive could take care of herself. Jack said, “I've been dreaming about Nathan.”

Finn's stomach dropped when she thought of Nathan Clare, the innocent boy who'd once shared LeafStruck with Jack and Colleen Olive. “Okay.”