Hidden Among Us (25 page)

I’ll do anything to save you, Connie, anything—

The pain drew back like a wave on a beach.

I won’t let them hurt you any more—

And the pain came rushing back with the force of a tsunami; but this time I was riding it, I was in control. The air thickened, swirling with green leaves and white feathers.

I flew.

I looked down, glimpsing frozen shocked faces looking up at me as the Hidden watched. For once they weren’t calm. Now they cared. Now they were afraid.

Of me.

The Swan King’s cry of rage filled the White Hall.

Higher. Higher. I could see the bowl, dull grey silver, standing out against the white quartz. The entire world, wiped out with my blood. I had to reach it. There was no choice.

I flew at the bowl, knocking it from the ledge with the outstretched tip of a wing, just had time to see a glossy red smear in the bottom before the silver bowl fell, and fell, and fell.

Time stopped.

The bowl spun.

The Swan King turned away from Larkspur as the bowl tumbled, his face bright with rage.

Closer to the water.

Closer. Milliseconds dripped past like centuries.

“Stop.”
The Swan King held out his hand and just before the bowl hit the water it hung in the air, suspended.

He was too late. One last drop of blood slid out and slipped into the pool, lost for ever.

We had done it.

The Swan King’s voice filled my mind:
I will empty your body of every last drop—

I heard Larkspur again –
NOW, LISSY, NOW
– and that burning agony tore through my body again; I hit the ground running in the body I’d grown up in. He reached back and grabbed my hand.

“Run!”

We tore through the tunnel, twisting, turning, ducking stalactites, slipping on the wet rock beneath our feet.

“This is it,” Larkspur said, breathing hard. It was the first time I’d seen anything cost him physical effort. I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs; I buckled down on the floor, half choking. “Come on, I know it’s hard but there’s no time, we must go—”

He pulled me upright and I forced myself to run. I could smell fresh air. New rain. Wet earth. The darkness had lifted a little. Moonlight puddled in. Real moonlight.

“Lissy!” I heard Joe calling. “Lissy,
quick
!”

Larkspur and I ran towards the moonlight, a tunnel leading up and out. It was so quiet; all I could hear was our breathing and wind rustling through the branches of trees in the world above.

Joe and Tippy were waiting at the tunnel’s end, crouching on the ground, breathing hard; they must have got here just seconds before us. Clean woodland air filled my lungs and tears of relief stung my face.

Joe stood up. “We thought we’d better wait.”

“We did it!” I said. “I spilled my blood into the water. He can’t use it any more.”

“Then let’s get out of here before he decides to come after you and take the rest.”

Tippy was staring out at the moon, just visible between tangled branches.

Larkspur crouched down beside her and for a moment they held each other, her head buried in his shoulder, his hand in her hair.

“Come on!” Joe hissed at me. “What are they doing? We haven’t got time—”

“Go no further.”

I turned, my whole body alive with panic.

Rose.

She stepped closer, so ancient and beautiful. A killer.

She ignored Larkspur and Tippy, who still clung to one another. She ignored Joe.

She came to me.

“Don’t you remember your bargain with my brother, Melisende? It is most unwise to break a pact with the Hidden, you know.” Rose ran one finger down the side of my face. “You gave your blood for a life, Lissy.”

I’d failed. Connie was going to die after all.

Rose smiled. “Now you have taken your blood away, and my brother cannot brew his plague. He can’t take the revenge he deserves. The life is forfeit.”

Larkspur stood up, holding Tippy’s hand.

“You forget, Rose,” Larkspur said, “there was a caveat to my agreement with Miriam. She agreed to pay for Lissy’s life with another as dear. Or the life of a Hidden willingly given. As you well know.”

Rose just shrugged and smiled. “Indeed. Well, it is a great shame about that pretty little girl, but we always knew Miriam would not hold to her word unless we forced her hand. She is a mortal, after all, and they do cheat. Miriam tried to cheat, and now you have cheated, Lissy. The child’s life is forfeit, but you will stay with us for all time. My brother will teach you how to pay for your dishonesty. You shall be with us, Lissy, and watch them all die, every last man, woman and child.” Rose laughed. “Oh, please don’t tell me you were hoping one of the Hidden would give up eternity to save your sweet little sister?”

“Connie’s life is not forfeit,” Tippy said, “blood for blood, a life for a life. I have been with the Hidden more years than I know how to count and I am still a girl. Your magic is in my blood. I am like you, Rose. I was Hidden.” She turned to Larkspur. “Come with me.” She looked at me. “Hold my hand, Lissy.”

And I knew. I knew what she was doing.

“No,” hissed Rose. “You would not. My child. My little child.”

“She was never yours!” I said. “You stole her. You never looked after her properly. She’s lived in agony – you didn’t even try to comfort her.”

“You will crumble to dust, Philippa de Conway!” Rose shouted. “Your flesh will melt from your bones the moment your feet touch the earth.”

She started towards us, one hand raised, a flat white palm, and in a moment that stretched on and on, Joe snatched something out of his pocket and threw it at her.

A knife.

It spun in the air for ever.

The knife hit Rose in the face, right between her eyes, breaking the skin. A shriek rang out as she fell that I knew I would hear till my last day on earth, ringing in my dreams no matter if I lived a million years.

Her body slumped forwards.

“What have I done?” Joe looked down at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. “All I did was throw it, I didn’t—”

I could hardly breathe. “You killed her. She’s dead.”

“You saved us,” Larkspur said, grim. “But he will avenge her. He will make you pay. He will make us all pay.”

“Come with me!” Tippy shouted, and started running. We couldn’t let her do it alone.

I took Tippy’s left hand, Larkspur grabbed her right, shoving Joe out of the tunnel before us and we ran out into the moonlight, out into the night, the echo of Rose’s dying scream fading behind us.

And as we ran Tippy’s face was wet with tears and she laughed. “Mammy!” she called.

She’d known all along she could never go home.

I squeezed her warm hand, unable to stop myself crying because she was so brave.

My fingers closed tight around nothing.

Tippy didn’t crumble to dust. She didn’t become some nightmarish rotten corpse.

It was only that where Tippy had been, she was there no longer, only a thousand white feathers tumbling in the darkness. When the feathers landed on the dead leaves at our feet, pearl-white flowers opened, unfurling from their buds as we watched, petals spreading as cold stars hung in the blackness above.

42

Larkspur dropped to his knees in the flowers that sprang open where Tippy had been.

She had given herself to save Connie and Rafe. I was free. No longer the Swan King’s weapon. For now.

I stood with tears pouring down my face, unable to move, to comprehend the enormity of what Tippy had done.

Joe turned to me. “We’ve come out in the woods above the Reach. I can see the lights from here – look, just through those trees.”

“How can you say that?” I gasped, sobbing. “Tippy just, she just—”

“I know!” Joe shouted. His hands were shaking, he was stammering. “But if we don’t get out of here she’ll have done it for nothing. Do you really think that
thing
is just going to let us go? I killed one of them. I
killed
her. Come on, Lissy! He’ll be after you, the Swan King. He’ll want more of your blood. He’s not just going to give up because we’ve managed to get out.”

Further down the hill, half hidden by trees, the kitchen window glowed yellow, bright in the darkness.

“Look,” Joe went on, “if Larkspur can help your sister then you’ve got to get to the hospital
now
. You can do it – how you did before, in the cave.” He half laughed. “Fly, Lissy. You and him. I’ll be all right here, don’t worry about me.”

I turned to Larkspur, but he was still kneeling. He turned, his face wet with tears. “I must go alone. You won’t have the strength to fly again so soon, Lissy. Not after what you did in the cave.”

“Alone?” I said. “But Connie— She’s my little sister. I need to go. In case the Swan King gets there first.”

If my father got there first, before Larkspur had the chance to heal Connie, what would I do? I was shaking with panic. If I went with the Swan King to save Connie’s life, he’d have my blood.
Every last drop
.

And then everyone would die.

Joe just shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a set of car keys.

Rafe’s keys.

“Rafe’s not at the hospital?” I asked. I didn’t like the look on Joe’s face. Guilty. As if there was something else he didn’t want to tell me. “Joe, where’s Rafe? Why have you got his car keys?”

Joe just stood there. “Lissy, he’s gone. The Fontevrault have got him.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

But Larkspur just grabbed my arm. “Hurry, if you want to save her.”

We had no time, but we had to try.

43

Joe slammed on the brakes and swerved into a bus stop opposite the entry to the Accident and Emergency department.

I screamed.

“I’m sorry, all right?” Joe yelled at me. “It’s not like I’ve had lessons, is it?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

The Fontevrault. Rafe? I didn’t understand. All I knew was that my brother had gone.

We tumbled out of the car, just leaving the doors hanging wide open, running towards the entrance.

“Why’s it dark?” I asked, panicking. “There aren’t any lights on inside—”

“He’s here,” Larkspur said, quietly.

“Where is she?” Joe demanded, turning the torch on his phone at a colour coded map of the hospital. “Which ward?”

I thought back to Mum’s text. “C3 or D3, I can’t remember—”

Rafe. My brother.
He’s gone—

“Lissy—” Larkspur hissed.
“The Swan King is here.”

Tears streamed down my face. “I know, I know!” I stood at Joe’s side, trying to make sense of the map key, a block of bright colours. The letters jumbled before my eyes, making no sense.

“D3 is Geriatric,” Joe said, quickly. “That’s old people. It must be C3 – here it is, Intensive Care. We’ve got to go left after Reception.”

We ran.

44

We ran past bodies: doctors and nurses just lying flat out on the floor, a patient in a tartan dressing gown crumpled by a drinks machine. They were still breathing, or looked like it anyway. It was as if everyone had just fallen completely asleep where they stood, like all the people in Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

“He’s done this,” Larkspur said, looking back at us. He was the faster runner. “My father. So no one can help us or hinder him.”

Great. Just great.

I was hard pushed to keep up with Lissy and Larkspur but I did, driven on by sheer panic, chest tearing, legs burning. Bodies lay everywhere, littering the hospital corridors: a nurse with a clipboard, a patient slumped in a wheelchair by the lift. Everyone was – what – asleep? Half dead? In some kind of coma?

We had no back-up. Nothing. It was just going to be us and the Swan King.

And Connie.

“It’s here!” Lissy shouted.“She’s in here!”

Connie had been put in a private room. Not a good sign even if your life wasn’t in the hands of a freakish monster king.

We ran and stopped, all except for Larkspur, who just walked over to the bed where Connie lay, a small heap beneath the blankets.

My dad was lying on the floor, collapsed beside Miriam’s chair. She’d slumped over Connie’s bed, still holding her hand. Two shattered mugs lay on the floor beside Dad in a puddle of still-steaming tea.

I knelt down at his side. “Dad!” I hissed, shaking him. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

He just lay there, in some deep dark sleep.

“What’s going on?” Lissy said to Larkspur. “What’s wrong with them?”

I watched Dad’s chest rise and fall. His eyelids shivered, like he was dreaming. “They’re still breathing,” I said.

“My father did this to them,” Larkspur said again. “A sleeping song.”

“To make sure we’ve no help,” I said, and Larkspur just nodded, like this was the most ordinary thing in the world, not a hospital full of people in an enchanted stupor like Sleeping bloody Beauty.

He turned back to Connie. “She looks so innocent. I didn’t think of that when I cursed her.”

You might have that on your conscience,
I thought,
but I’m a murderer
. I’d killed Rose, put an end to a life that had lasted more than a thousand years. It was my fault Connie had come to hospital in the first place. I’d stood in the yard and
watched
her with Rose. I should have done something.

Larkspur gently lifted the oxygen mask from Connie’s face.

“No!” Lissy shrieked.

I stood, completely frozen and shocked.

He wasn’t going to heal her after all—

He was still loyal to the Swan King. Larkspur had betrayed us.

Lissy ran to his side, but Larkspur just held out his hands, letting a white flower fall onto the pillow.

“Larkspur,
don’t
!” Lissy cried.

“Hush,” he said.

And Connie stirred. Turned one way, then the other. She sat up, looking around the dark room, not at all afraid.

“Lissy?” she said, looking down at Miriam slumped next to her. “Lissy? Where are we? What’s wrong with Mum? Why’s Nick lying on the floor?” She stared at Larkspur, then at Lissy. “Who’s
that
? Lissy, he looks just like
you
—”