13 Curses (30 page)

With the exception of Stitch’s iron knife, their belongings were picked up one by one and placed on a fat cushion, then presented by the goblin to the two throned figures. The horned man’s fingers glided from one object to the next.

Not the book
, Red thought silently.
Not my book.

His fingers lingered over it for rather longer than the rest of the items, and she bristled with anger as he carelessly lifted the cover.

“
Fairy Tales
,” he said mockingly. “Something I’ve never understood about humans. Why call them ‘
fairy
tales’ when there are so few, if
any
, fairies in them?” He let the book fall closed and gave a petulant sigh that suggested that so far the selection of items did not excite him at all. Then the peacock woman reached out and lifted the bracelet to the light. She held it there, examining each of the charms with a critical eye, and then she and the horned man exchanged a long look.

“Where is the thirteenth?” Red heard her say softly, and she knew that they had recognized what the brace
let replicated. The horned man scanned the cushion and plucked the Cauldron charm from it. Red glanced at Gredin and Raven and saw that they were looking uneasy.

“I think we’ve made our selection, haven’t we?” the horned man murmured, and the peacock woman nodded her approval, almost amiably.

“An object has been chosen,” she announced, raising the bracelet. “One that is more fitting than any of us could have predicted! A piece of human jewelry modeled on the Thirteen Treasures of the great court!”

“Wait!” said Stitch. “There’s been a mistake. The bracelet doesn’t belong to either of us—I picked it up to fix the broken charm for someone else!”

Already, Red knew that his plea was wasted. The fairies’ excitement was too tangible. The bracelet’s link to Avalon clearly delighted them beyond words.

“The rules of the quest are these: The object,” the fairy woman said, “will be cast out into your own world. Your mission is to retrieve it.”

“Retrieve it from
where
?” Stitch burst out.

“That is part of the challenge,” the horned man cut in. “The object will decide that. And as the nature of this object is so
delicate
”—he lifted the broken Cauldron charm to a sea of sniggering—“there will be several components to the task.” He took the bracelet with its remaining charms and snapped another off easily. “
Thirteen
components, in fact!”

“No,” Stitch whispered, before the hall roared its
applause and drowned him out. Red could not bring herself to look at him.

The horned man removed the charms, one by one, with increasing relish. When the bracelet was stripped bare, he tossed it back at their feet. Then he threw the handful of charms high into the air. As they came down, Red expected them to ping as they hit the floor—but on the moment of impact each one vanished from sight.

“You, girl,” he addressed Red. “When you are ready to return, simply put the bracelet on. You will be brought back here and, if you have found all thirteen charms, we will remain true to our part of the bargain. If you fail, the two of you will become our prisoners. And you will never see your brother again.”

“What about me?” Stitch asked.

The Seelie woman’s lips curved beneath the peacock mask.

“Your part in the task is to remain here,” she said.

“What? Why?” Stitch stammered.

“Let’s just call it insurance,” said the horned man. “We want to make sure the girl comes back.”

“Why wouldn’t I come back?” Red asked. “You think I’d leave my brother here?”

The fairy man shrugged.

“Just in case you… change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Red said firmly. “I’m coming back for him—and for you, Stitch.”

The horned man laughed.

“So be it. The task is set and no other will be given. If you do not accept, you fail. If you attempt to employ the help of any fairy, you fail. Do you accept?”

Red knelt and picked up the bracelet.

“I accept.”

The Unseelie man smiled.

“Now leave us.” He turned and lifted a goblet to his side of the court. “The time of the Unseelie is almost upon us! Let us feast!”

It was a swift dismissal that left them scrabbling to collect their belongings. Red had barely shoved the last of her items in her bag and closed it when a guard’s hand clamped around her arm, pulling her roughly to the stairs and escorting her to the top in a relentless march. She twisted around in the guard’s grip to see Stitch being led away by two more guards, his face a mask of disbelief.

“I’ll come back for you!” she yelled. “I’ll do it! I’ll find them all!”

Cool air rushed in as the grass above the hill rolled back to reveal the gateway, and then a hard push sent her sprawling to the damp ground outside. By the time she had gotten to her feet, the entrance had hidden itself once more, leaving no sign of what was concealed beneath.

She stood there, her breath clouding the air. It tasted different: metallic and dirty. An ancient building loomed above, the ruin of a church that had not been there when they had climbed the Tor earlier that night. She walked to the edge of the hill, joining Raven
and Gredin, who were standing there quietly. Together they stared down in silence at the well-lit towns surrounding it. In the distance, the headlights of tiny cars traveled along the streets, confirming to them all that they were no longer in the fairy realm.

They had come out on the other side—in the human world.

The house on Chalice Road had been derelict for some time. It was a three-story townhouse in a part of London where people kept their heads down and turned a blind eye to the comings and goings of the neighborhood.

Rowan wasn’t the first to get in through one of the boarded-up windows. Other people stayed there at night as well as her, mainly teenagers but occasionally older homeless people too. None of the twelve rooms was exclusive; nightly accommodation was generally on a first-come, first-served basis among the comers of a similar age. When the older, or meaner, ones came, however, all that went out the window. If trouble looked likely, those younger or newer to street life soon learned to make themselves scarce or put up a good fight for their corner.

The best room was the only one with furniture, an old sofa bed with broken springs and a cracked mirror on the
built-in cupboard door. Generally, Rowan didn’t stay there long after waking up. Today she’d remained until there was enough light streaming through the missing board at the window to see clearly, for the electricity had been cut long ago. Standing in front of the mirror, she tied her hair back and peered over her shoulder to look at her back.

Ten weeks had passed since the night James had disappeared. She had told no one of the burn between her shoulder blades during the time between James’s abduction and running away, the same day her plaster cast was removed. At first, the choice was simply because she could not think of a way to explain the winged brand that was seared into her skin. As time went on, she thought of another good reason for keeping it to herself: the mark was something that could easily identify her. And now that Rowan had made up her mind to disappear, being identified was the last thing she wanted.

The burn had blistered and wept during the first couple of weeks following the attack. Now it had healed to a red outline detailing the winged pattern of Snatcher’s ring. Rowan traced it with her fingers, then rearranged her clothing to cover it. She was realistic enough to know that the scarring would never fade completely. She was marked for life.

Collecting her bag, she squeezed out the window and left the house without a second glance. She wouldn’t be going back. Places to stay were only good for a short while before word got out and too many people came. It was time to move on.

Breakfast was the usual: a couple of pieces of fruit
swiped from a market vendor on her way to the library, washed down with water from a public fountain. She had become thinner at first, but now that her thieving skills had improved, the weight was gradually going back on.

In the library, she headed for the folklore section and pulled a few books off the shelf. Once settled in a corner, she flicked to the pages she had marked out the day before and continued to read from where she had left off, absorbing the information from the pages. Over the past two months, Rowan had crammed a vast amount of knowledge into her mind: things about the fairy courts, changelings, and methods of protection.
Never give them your name,
she read
, not if you can avoid it, for they’ll be sure never to give you theirs. Names are powerful.

Everything she filed in her mind had a bitter edge, for she knew it was too little, too late. The truth was, she had no idea how to get her brother back or where to start looking.

She had the first inkling that she was being watched about an hour later. Looking up, she saw a scruffy boy of about the same age sitting across from her on another chair. He was reading a local paper, and one of his knees was bouncing up and down as he read, making the paper crackle. Every now and then he glanced her way, then went back to reading the paper.

On the third occasion that their eyes met, Rowan held his gaze. She had already guessed that, like her, he was a runaway, for the look of the streets was all about him. His fingernails were rotten and his hair greasy. Under his seat he had tucked a huge backpack and a rolled-up sleeping bag.

The boy nodded amiably at her, then to Rowan’s annoyance, got up and came over to the table and pulled up a seat.

“What you reading?” he said, nodding to the stack of books in front of her. He had a northern accent, and one of his front teeth was chipped.

“Mind your own business,” Rowan snapped, gathering the books and preparing to leave. “Just because I looked at you, it wasn’t an invitation.”

The boy leaned back and held his hands up, his eyebrows disappearing into his shaggy hair.

“Steady. I didn’t mean nothing, just thought I’d come and say hello. You don’t have to go. I was just being friendly, like. Being as we’re both tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.”

Rowan planted herself back down on the chair, glaring. “What are you talking about?”

The boy looked around before putting his newspaper on the table and turning to one of the pages in the end section. Twenty or so black-and-white faces stared out of the page, all under a heading of “MISSING—CAN YOU HELP?”

“There’s me,” the lad said, pointing to one of the photos in the middle section. Rowan stared at the picture, taking in the boy’s distinctive chipped tooth. He covered his name with a cheeky smile before she had a chance to read it, and then pointed to the bottom of the page.

“And there’s you, if I’m not mistaken.”

Rowan stared at her picture, blood rushing to her cheeks. Self-consciously, she ducked her head. The boy smiled and flipped the paper shut.

“You’re pretty new to it then,” he said in a low voice. “Being on the streets, I mean. Says you disappeared back in March, and it’s what… May, now.”

Rowan shrugged. “I’m getting used to it,” she muttered. “How about you?”

“Six months.” The boy scratched his scalp through his dirty blond hair and gestured to their surroundings. “Good places, if you can get into them, libraries. Warm and quiet, and you can usually get away with staying for a few hours so long as you don’t nod off or smell too bad.” He chuckled. “Both a bit of a challenge.”

Rowan said nothing.

“So,” he persisted, craning his neck to look at her books once more. “Fairies, is it?”

She scowled at him. “So what if it is?”

“There you go again, all defensive, like,” he said. “I’m just curious.”

“Well, don’t be. It’s nothing to do with you.”

The boy leaned back, a knowing look in his eyes. “Maybe it is.”

Rowan had had enough.

“Just say what you came to say and go. I’m busy.”

“All right,” said the boy. “I see them too.”

Rowan stared at him. “Is this some kind of a joke?”