13 Secrets (16 page)

He took her hand and pressed it over his heart. He let it stay there, just for a moment. Long enough to show her.

“You cut your hair,” she said, relaxing.

“Yeah. Tino told me to neaten up, remember? Suki did it for me, just after you left.”

Rowan frowned. For some reason, the thought of Suki cutting Sparrow’s hair irritated her.

“You scrub up all right,” she said eventually. “So are you going to tell me what’s up, or not? And watch what you say. The walls have ears in this place, if you know what I mean.” She pointed toward the tea caddy where the brownie lived. Though she could not be sure, she thought she saw the lid twitching and lifting slightly.

He nodded. “I wasn’t going to say nothing, not until I saw you tomorrow,” he said. “Didn’t want to worry you, not tonight.”

“I’m already worried. Any number of things could go wrong tomorrow—”

“It’s not about tomorrow.”

“What then?”

“It’s about what happened tonight. After you’d gone.” He lifted his hands to his face and placed them over it, leaving only his eyes visible. “Me and Suki went to see Fix, like Tino told us to.” His voice was muffled a little from behind his hands, and she noticed his fingernails were short, and also clean.

“So you could get something from her to dispel the changeling’s glamour tomorrow,” said Rowan. “Did you get it?”

Sparrow shook his head and dropped his hands on the table. For a heartbeat it looked as though they were trembling.

“No. We got to her place but there was no answer when we knocked.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. “We
need
that potion, it’s crucial to the plan. What if you went
in the morning, first thing? Fix will probably be back from wherever she is tonight, and you can—”

“It weren’t that she was out,” he said. “That’s what we thought at first. We knocked a few times, but everyone knows Fix don’t really go out late at night. Not unless she has to. We was going to leave but then Suki remembered that she had a bunch of keys on her from the last job she’d done with Crooks. We decided to give it a go… we knew Fix wouldn’t mind if we let ourselves in if there was a chance we could find something, a potion for what we needed. But when we got inside… she was there. She’s… she’s dead.”

“
Dead?
” Rowan whispered. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “We checked her pulse. But even before, we knew. The color of her face…” He blinked hard. “The place was full of potions, but without Fix, we’d no way of telling what they were.”

“How… how did she die?”

Sparrow looked sick now. Rowan got up and filled a glass with some water. She set it before him and he gulped at it shakily.

“There was a bottle on the floor, near to her body,” he said, wiping his hand across his mouth. “It must have been poison. One of her own. It was empty.”

“I don’t understand,” Rowan said slowly. “If it was her own, then… are you saying that you think… you think she drank it on purpose ?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. Suki seems to think
that was what happened. I mean, we all knew Fix’s life wasn’t easy. She was in a lot of pain. But it could also have been an accident—the wrong ingredient in the wrong bottle. Everyone’s capable of mistakes, but Fix was always so… responsible. And so careful.”

“So if she didn’t do it to herself, that means someone else did,” said Rowan.

“I couldn’t see no signs of a struggle,” he said. “That’s what’s so odd.”

“She must have let them in,” said Rowan. The thought sickened her. “If someone killed her, she must have known them. Trusted them, even. Could they have slipped the poison in her food or drink?”

“Possibly,” said Sparrow. “Some poisons are tasteless and have no smell, in which case she wouldn’t have known until it was too late. The other possibility is that someone forced her to drink it.”

“You mean, actually poured it down her throat?” Rowan asked him in horror.

Sparrow shrugged. “She wouldn’t have been difficult to overpower, would she?”

Rowan swallowed. “Does Tino know about this?”

“Not yet, but he will soon. Suki’s on her way back there now.”

“Alone?”

He nodded, and Rowan’s heartbeat quickened as she realized they were both thinking the same thing. “And what about Cobbler and Dawn?” she said weakly. “Any news on them?”

“Still nothing.” He got up, uncomfortable. “I’d
better go and catch up with Suki. I told her we should really be sticking together but she insisted she’d be all right. We’re both watching our backs now, at any rate. But I had to check that you were safe.”

“Who’s going to check on you?” she asked softly.

He gave a small, sad smile. “I can look after myself.”

They went to the door, and Rowan opened it. She shivered as cool fingers of a breeze snaked around her ankles.

“What are we going to do about the potion?” she asked. “Are we still going ahead with the plan tomorrow?”

“We’ll have to see what Tino says. For now, we have to assume it’s going to happen.”

“It’s at two thirty that we’re meeting, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah. Although Suki will be there way earlier, for the delivery.”

“Unless we have some kind of potion it’s going to fail though, isn’t it?” she said desperately. “We have to think… is there anyone else who—”

And then it hit her.

“What?” said Sparrow, his blue eyes searching hers.

“I think I know someone who might be able to help. Leave it to me.”

A glimmer of hope lit Sparrow’s eyes. He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Stay safe.”

“You too,” she whispered as he started to walk away. “Sparrow?”

“Yes?”

She hesitated. “What Merchant said the other night. Do you think it could be true, about someone knowing about us?”

Sparrow was quiet for a long moment. “Until we find out what’s happened to Dawn and Cobbler, we can’t be sure what’s going on… but…” He broke off, biting his lip.

“But what?”

“I don’t know. Just… something doesn’t feel right. We don’t know exactly what’s happened to Fix or the other two. It could just be coincidence—”

“But you don’t think so,” she finished for him.

“No, I don’t. I think something’s going on and I got a bad feeling about this one, Red. A really bad feeling.”

His words echoed in Rowan’s head long after he had gone.

Tanya found herself unable to look Warwick and Rose in the eye at breakfast the next morning. She felt a grain of satisfaction at the mounting evidence that neither of them had slept well: Warwick gulped down mug after mug of strong coffee, while Rose’s hair stood out from her head in an untamed auburn cloud.

Serves them right
, Tanya thought tetchily. Her own sleep had come in fits and starts, and she rubbed at her gritty eyes in resentment.

Opposite her, Rowan watched the hearthfay flitting hopefully across Fabian’s line of vision. Fabian, however, was oblivious as always to the fairy’s demands for his attention and was muttering to himself as he wiped at egg yolk on his pajamas.

“You’re a gloomy bunch this morning,” said Nell, squinting around the table.

“How rude,” the General agreed, nibbling a toast crust lodged between his scaly toes.

“We’ve got more animals arriving today,” said Rose, evidently deciding to make an effort at conversation. “A litter of orphaned fox cubs and a hedgehog who had a lucky escape with a car.” She looked hopefully at Rowan and Fabian, but skimmed over Tanya’s eyes quickly. “Perhaps you’d like to give me a hand getting them settled in.”

Fabian’s head shot up, and he glanced at Tanya and Rowan. They all knew that they could not afford to get held up at the manor if they were going to help Jack at the Spiral Staircase.

“What time are they getting here?” Rowan asked, her voice calm. She did not look up from her breakfast, but despite her unruffled exterior, Tanya knew that her mind would be calculating exactly how to handle this.

“Warwick’s going to collect the fox cubs after breakfast, and the hedgehog is being brought to us around midday.”

Rowan glanced at Tanya and Fabian. “We can help, can’t we?”

They both nodded their agreement, following her lead.

After breakfast, Tanya called to Oberon and took his leash off the back door. As she passed through the overgrown garden and went to the gate leading to the fields, she kept an eye out for Brunswick, the goblin who lived in the garden, but there was no sign
of him. Heading toward the brook on the outskirts of the forest, she followed it along, watching Oberon as he snuffled in the long grass, his tail in the air.

She heard the thud of running feet on the ground behind her and turned. Rowan and Fabian had come to join her. She continued along toward the little church, waiting for them to get their breath back.

The scaffolding at the back of the church was still visible. Repairs to the crumbling building had been taking place for some months now, but the entire back wall had been reduced to rubble after they’d discovered the church was one of the locations for the missing charms in Rowan’s quest to find James. They had been lucky to escape alive.

“Listen,” said Rowan. “We’ve got a problem. Well, two problems, in fact.”

“We’ve always got problems,” said Fabian. “What now?”

Rowan flicked a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Last night, when everyone was in bed, Sparrow came to the house. He’d been to see Fix with Suki to get the potion we need for today. Fix was dead when they got there.”

“Fix… she was the one with all the tattoos, and the walking stick, wasn’t she?” Tanya asked, stunned. “What happened to her?”

“We don’t know for sure,” said Rowan. “But it looks like she was poisoned.”

“Someone
killed
her?” Fabian blurted out.

“Again, we don’t know,” said Rowan. “She could
just as easily have taken the poison herself. But Sparrow doesn’t believe that.”

Tanya felt a cold dread engulf her. “You have to break ties with these people,” she said. “After today, you have to stop seeing them. It’s
dangerous
.”

Rowan stared back at the house, her pointed features sharpened with worry. “I know.”

“What’s the other problem?” Fabian asked. He chewed his thumbnail nervously. “You said there were two.”

“We don’t have the potion to dispel the glamour,” said Rowan. “Without it, I don’t see how our plan can work, and from what Jack said last night I don’t think we can wait much longer before doing anything.”

The tale of Suki’s past hung between them, almost tangible even though it was unspoken.

“Wait a minute,” said Fabian. He pulled his brown leather book out of his pocket and thumbed through the pages. “There’s something in here about getting changelings to leave… I wrote it down from that book of yours—”

“I don’t think—” Rowan began with a snort, but Fabian continued.

“No, listen. Here it is: ‘A changeling can be made to reveal its true nature by holding it above a hot poker, or throwing it on the fire. The fairy will fly up the chimney and send the real human back.’ ”

“That’s a bit vicious, isn’t it?” Tanya asked.

“Not to mention stupid, in this case,” Rowan
said cuttingly. “This is a fully grown adult fairy we’re dealing with, not an ancient one pretending to be a baby. The thing posing as Jack’s mother isn’t going to let anyone get near it, let alone grab hold of it and throw it on a fire.”

“Then what about this,” said Fabian obstinately. “ ‘Another method is to take twenty-four halves of eggshells and go about brewing beer in them—’ ”

He broke off, pushing his glasses up his nose, and pondered. “I don’t suppose we have enough time to find out how to brew beer, but we could try something else… brewing tea, perhaps.

“ ‘When the changeling sees this it will announce its astonishment, saying:
The acorn comes before the oak, and the egg before the hen. But never before have I seen brewing done in eggshells!
’ ” He closed the book.

“Fabian, that story is as old as time,” Rowan said. “I think the fairies have grown wise to it by now.”

Fabian scowled. “Have you got another idea, then?”