The Sweet Far Thing (65 page)

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disappointment.

I do sleep. It is fretful, with dreams of running over both black sand and fresh grass. No matter where I run, what I want is just out of reach. I wake to Felicity’s and Ann’s faces hovering mere inches from mine. It gives me a start.

“It’s time for the realms,” Felicity says. Anticipation burns in her eyes. “It’s been ages, hasn’t it, Ann?”

“Feels as if it has,” Ann agrees.

“Very well. Give me a moment.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Ann asks.

“I don’t recall. Why?”

“You’re crying,” she says.

I put my fingers to my damp cheeks.

Felicity throws my cloak to me. “If we don’t leave soon, I shall lose my mind.”

I secure my cloak and place my finger and my tears deep into my pocket, where it’s as if they do not exist at all.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE MOMENT WE STEP INTO THEBORDERLANDS, IT FEELSdifferent. Everything seems to have fallen into disarray. The vines are ankle-deep. Crows have settled into the highest parts of the fir trees like inkblots. As we travel to the castle, they follow us, hopping from branch to branch.

“It’s as if they’re watching us,” Ann whispers.

The factory girls do not greet us with their familiar cry.

“Where are they? Where’s Pip?” Felicity says, quickening her steps.

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The castle is deserted. And just like the grounds outside, it is overgrown and ill tended. The flowers have gone brittle, and worms slither along their purple husks. I step in a mealy patch and pull up my boot in disgust.

We wander through the vine-covered rooms, calling the girls’ names, but no one responds. I hear a faint rustling from behind a tapestry. I pull it aside, and there’s Wendy, her face dirty and tear-streaked. Her fingers are blue.

“Wendy? What has happened? Why are you hiding?”

“It’s that screamin’, miss.” She sniffles. “Used to be a lit’le. I ’ear it all the time these days.”

Felicity checks behind the other tapestries in the room on the chance it’s all a game of hide-and-seek.

“Allee-allee-all free! Pip? Pippa Cross!” She drops into the throne with a pout. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s as if they’ve vanished.” Ann opens a door but there’s nothing but vines inside.

Wendy shivers. “Sometimes I wake up and it feels like I’m the only soul ’ere.”

She flutters her blue-stained fingers to a basket of the berries Pip has gathered, the berries that have cursed our friend to her existence here. I note the blue stains on her mouth as well.

“Wendy, have you been eating the berries?” I ask.

Her face shows fear. “It’s all there was, miss, and I was so hungry.”

“Don’t fret,” I say, because there is nothing else that can be done.

“I’m going to the tower for a lookout,” Fee says, and I hear her feet making quick work of those crumbling stairs.

“I’m afraid, miss,” Wendy says, fresh tears falling.

“Now, now.” I pat her shoulder. “We’re here. It will be all right. And what of Mr. Darcy? Where is your twitchy friend?”

Wendy’s lips quiver. “Bessie said ’e gnawed through his cage and got out. Been callin’ for ’im but ’e won’t come.”

“Don’t cry. Let’s see if we can scare him up. Mr. Darcy,” I call. “You’ve been a very naughty bunny.”

I search anywhere a mischievous rabbit might hide—in the berry baskets, under the moldy carpets, behind doors. I spy the cage sitting upon the altar in the chapel. There’s no sign of the twigs having been nibbled through; they’re right as rain. But the cage door is open.

“Looking for your friends?” The fairy glows brightly in the gloom of a corner. “Perhaps they have gone back to the Winterlands.”

Felicity bounds into the room at precisely that moment. “Pippa wouldn’t go without me.”

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“Do you know for certain?” the winged thing asks.

“Yes, I do,” Fee says, but her face darkens, and she glances quickly toward the Winterlands.

“Someone comes,” the fairy says. Quick as a snap, she flits out of the castle. Felicity, Ann, and I chase after her into the forest. On the other side of the bramble wall, a cloud of dust moves toward us. It is the centaurs riding fast. They pull up short, not daring to cross into the Borderlands.

One of the centaurs shouts to me through the thorns. “Philon has called for you, Priestess.”

“Why? What has happened?”

“It’s Creostus. He’s been murdered.”

Beneath the olive trees in the grotto where the Runes of the Order once stood, Creostus’s body lies sprawled, his arms stretched out on either side. His eyes are open but unseeing. In one hand he clutches a perfect poppy. It mirrors the bloody wound in his chest. Creostus and I were not friends—his temper was far too great—but he was so very alive. It is hard to see him dead.

“What do you know of this, Priestess?” Philon asks.

I can scarcely look away from Creostus’s blank eyes. “I knew nothing of it until a few moments ago.”

“Liar.” Neela hops onto a rock. “You know who is responsible.” She transforms herself into Asha—the orange sari, the blistered legs, the dark eyes.

“You think it is the Hajin,” I say.

“You know it is! Creostus had ridden to bargain for poppies. The foul tribe had cheated him of a full bushel. Now we find him here with a poppy in his hand. Who else could be responsible? The filthy Hajin, helped by the Order!”

Neela’s voice chokes with emotion. She strokes Creostus’s face lovingly. Crying, she lowers herself to his chest, stretching out across his lifeless form.

Gorgon speaks from the river. “The Order can be hard, but they have never killed. And you forget that they have no entry into the realms at present. They have no power here.”

Neela glares at me. “And yet I saw the priestess on her way to the Temple, alone.”

“Neela speaks the truth, for we were with her. We saw the priestess, too,” a centaur adds.

“You’re lying!” Felicity shouts, coming to my defense, but my cheeks redden, and it does not go unnoticed by Philon.

“Is this true, Priestess?”

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I’m done for. If I tell them what I know, they will accuse me of disloyalty. If I lie and they discover it for themselves later, it will be much worse.

“I did go to the Temple alone,” I say. “But it was not to see the Hajin. I saw another. Circe.”

“Gemma…,” Ann whispers.

Philon’s eyes widen. “The deceiver? She is dead. Killed by your hand.”

“No,” I say. “She is still alive. Imprisoned in the well of eternity. I needed to see her, to ask her about the Winterlands and—”

A ripple moves through the crowd. They press closer. Felicity stares at me in horror.

Neela is up, her voice slicked with fury, her mouth twisted in a deranged smile. “I told you, Philon! I told you she could not be trusted! That she would betray us as the others did. But you would not listen. And now, now Creostus is dead. He is dead….” She buries her face in her hands.

“So this one of the Order is housed in the Temple. With the Hajin,” Philon says.

“No. That’s not quite how it is. And she isn’t of the Order. They would have nothing to do with her—”

“But you would?” a centaur growls.

Neela addresses the crowd. There are no tears in her eyes. “Would you take the word of one who has lied? You see that even her own friends did not know of her deception. The Order priestess and the deceiver have conspired with the Hajin to take the power! Perhaps Creostus knew too much, and this is why he was murdered! Philon! Will you not demand justice?”

The centaurs, the forest folk, the Gorgon—all turn their faces toward Philon, who closes those catlike eyes and breathes deeply. When the eyes open again, there is something hard and determined in them, and I am afraid.

“I have given you the benefit of the doubt, Priestess. I have defended you to my people. And in return, you have given us nothing. Now I will side with my people, and we will do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves.
Nyim nyatt e volaret.
”

The centaurs lift their fallen brother above their heads, then carry his dead body on their shoulders.

“Philon, please…,” I start.

The creature turns its back to me. One by one, like doors slamming, the forest folk turn as well, shunning me. Only Neela acknowledges my presence. As she follows her people from the grotto, she turns back and spits in my face.

Felicity takes me roughly aside. “You’ve been talking to Circe?”

“I needed answers. I needed to know about the Winterlands,” I say. “She was the only one who could tell me what I—what we—needed to know.”

“We?” Felicity looks daggers at me. Ann takes her hand. “Circe doesn’t offer anything without a price.

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What did you give her?” Felicity demands.

When I do not answer, Ann does. “Magic.”

Felicity’s laugh is brutal. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t, Gemma.”

“I needed answers! She got us safely through the Winterlands, didn’t she?” I say, only then realizing how paltry a defense it is.

“She likely killed Wilhelmina Wyatt herself! Did you consider that?” Fee barks, and a terrible coldness snakes through me. I told Circe about Eugenia, about the tree. What if…

“It wasn’t like that,” I say, less sure.

“You’re a fool,” Felicity scoffs.

I give her a shove. “You know so very much about how to run things; maybe you should be the one to hold all the magic!”

“I wish I were the one,” she growls through gritted teeth. “I’d make an alliance with Pip and my friends, not consort with the enemy.”

“Certain of Pip, are you? Where is she, then?”

Felicity’s slap is hard and sudden. I feel the sting to my toes. She’s cut my lip. I taste the blood with my tongue, and I’m flooded with magic. At once, Felicity’s hand is on her sword, and I fling it away like a toy.

“I’m not the enemy,” she says quietly.

My body trembles. It takes every bit of strength I have to push the magic down. It leaves me with a sick, shaking sensation, as if I haven’t slept for days. Fee and I stand facing each other, neither of us willing to apologize. My stomach lurches. I turn and vomit into a bush. Felicity marches ahead on the path to the Borderlands.

“You shouldn’t have said that about Pip,” Ann chides, offering me her handkerchief.

I push it away. “You shouldn’t tell me what to do.”

Ann’s wounded expression is only momentary. Her well-trained mask settles over her true feelings. I’ve won the round, but I hate myself for it.

“I believe I shall walk with Fee,” she says. Head down, she runs to Felicity, leaving me behind.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

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PIPPA AND THE GIRLS ARE IN THE CASTLE’S OLD CHAPELwhen we return. They’ve a basket of plump berries, which Pippa sorts through, dropping the fruit into a chalice she’s found. The girls seem more worn than usual. Their hair is terribly matted, and if I catch them in a certain slant of light, their complexions are a mottled yellow, like fruit gone bad.

Pippa hums a merry tune. Seeing our long faces, she stops. “What is the matter? What has happened?”

Felicity gives me a hard look but neither she nor Ann confesses what I’ve done. My head aches now, and I have to keep my hands tucked under my armpits to quiet the shaking.

“Creostus has been killed,” I say tersely.

“Oh, is that all?” she says. She returns to her berry picking. Mae and Bessie don’t even look up. Their indifference is enraging.

“The forest folk have shunned me.”

Pippa shrugs. “They don’t matter. Not really.”

“I might have thought that once, but I was wrong. I do need them.”

“Those horrid creatures? You said they used to come into our world and take playthings. Horrid!” Pippa removes a mealy berry with her fingertips and drops it onto a cloth with the other discarded fruit.

“Yes, it’s wrong. And I might not like it. I might tell them I don’t. But Philon has never lied to me. When I needed help, the creature was an ally. All they asked was to have a voice, to share in their own governance, and I have failed them.” I take a steadying breath, and the magic settles a bit.

“Well,” Pippa says, dusting off her skirts, “I still don’t see why you need them when you have us. Bessie, darling, will you put these aside?”

Bessie takes the basket of fruit. She looks longingly at it. “How come them folk turned their backs on you, eh?”

The room feels close. Felicity and Ann avoid my eyes.