Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2) (4 page)

“He will be tomorrow. Promise.”

“Alright.” Tick Tick and Tock Tock unbolted the doors and swung them open.

Tick Tick leaned up toward Nikifor when he passed. “I’ll be watching you,” she hissed.

Then they were past and in a cavern so huge Nikifor could not see the roof or the other end. He stared around, eyes wide. In the centre of the floor a ghostly glow rippled above a vast lake of liquid silver.

A massive waterwheel weighed down with eight huge silver barrels spanned the lake from edge to edge. Each barrel dipped into the quicksilver, travelled underneath and emerged full to the brim before spilling into a waiting chute, then continuing on to submerge again. The chute networks wound intricate patterns across both sides of the lake, criss-crossing and overlapping until they spilled their quicksilver into wagons lined up underneath. Teams of Freakin Fairies, eight to a wagon, dragged them away when they were full.

“That’s the silver wheel,” Strike Pin said. “Isn’t she a beauty? Of course our reservoir’s not nearly as big as the one our cousins the Silvers run in the next village, but everyone knows our operation is more efficient. Come on, you can start over here with the silver draggers, since you’ve got no other skills. Don’t worry, everyone starts as a dragger, and I’m sure they’ll be glad to have a big strapping thing like you help out.”

By the time Strike Pin had finished talking, they’d walked around the reservoir. The chute network hummed and groaned over their heads.

Strike Pin raised a hand and waved at the leader of the next team waiting for a wagon to fill. “Nickel Barrel! This here’s Nikifor, he’s to work with you for a while.” He moved away, dropped his voice and gave rapid-fire directions Nikifor couldn’t hear.

When they’d finished Nickel Barrel looked Nikifor up and down and jerked his head at the wagon traces, where eight fairies were lined up, waiting. “Fall in,” he said. “Give me any trouble and I’ll dip you in silver and use you for a statue.”

The fairies snickered.

Nikifor, wondering what kind of trouble they thought he’d give, took his place on the traces. Strike Pin hurried away.

Silver gushed from the pipes and into the wagon. The acrid stench of it almost knocked him flat, but the fairies didn’t appear to notice at all. When Nickel Barrel raised an arm the team lifted the traces and step by step, inch by inch, dragged the impossibly heavy load away from the chutes and towards the fire-lit tunnel ahead of them.

CHAPTER FOUR

Flower started awake at the sound of footsteps near her bed. She curled her fists around the corners of the ragged pillow, held her breath. She’d been waiting for the thump of Moon Trooper fists on her door. She would not flee. She had a job to do. At least, she’d
had
a job to do right up until she found Nikifor half-dead in a dingy basement under a hat shop. If she’d been waiting for the right moment to run, that had seemed like it.

She slid a hand under the pillow in search of the knife she always kept handy, but it wasn’t there. Her empty fist curled. She’d wait until they got close. One right hook in the eye would give her a chance. Even better if she could break a nose.

A new sound joined the footsteps. Humming. Some tune she didn’t recognise. She opened her eyes and wasn’t sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or scream at the sight of a Freakin Fairy wandering about the room.

She sat up.

“Hello.” The woman looked her up and down, eyes bright with curiosity. She trimmed the oil lamp and brought the flame up high. The light bounced off silver dots painted in circles over her cheeks.

“Who are you?” Flower rubbed her head. She felt like she’d been sleeping for a week. She slowly breathed out her tension when she remembered they had indeed found the Freakin Fairies before she went to sleep.

“I’m Hairspring.” The woman picked up a bundle of clothes off the table. “They said your name was Flower. Why’d you get called that?”

“I don’t know. How long have I been sleeping?”

“Oh, just two days.”

“Two days!” Flower nearly fell off the bed.

“You must have needed it.” Hairspring dumped the clothes in her arms. “Here, put these on. It’s almost time for dinner.”

Flower shook out the black leather tunic and pants and studied them in bemusement. They were covered with swirling silver patterns, just like the ones Hairspring herself wore. “You want me to dress like a Freakin Fairy?”

“Well of course. You don’t want to upset people. Besides, you look like you fell off a barn roof in those old things. And we made you new ones especially, since you’re so unnaturally tall.”

Flower glanced down at herself. Her long skirt was so ragged it barely covered her legs, and her shirt was full of tears from the bramble patch Nikifor had blundered them into a week ago. “Well,” she said, at a loss, “thanks.”

“Here.” Hairspring handed her a comb. “Get dressed. I’ll be back for you soon.” She left the room.

Flower eyed the clothes and sighed. She stripped, only to find her skirt falling apart in her hands. Fairy clothes would have to do. The pants were only a little bit short and the tunic fit well. She attacked her hair with the comb and tugged out the knots and leaves stuck in it before any well-meaning fairies could come in and offer to finish the job with a few dreadlocks. When she was happy with it she bound it into a single long plait and tied off the end with a rag from her skirt. Hairspring returned just as she slid her feet into her boots.

“That’s much better,” Hairspring said. “From a distance you could pass as a giant Freakin Fairy. Come on now, I’ll take you down to the fire.”

Flower closed her eyes and counted to ten under her breath to keep from replying. Then she stooped to get through the doorway.

It was late evening. The fading sunset turned the huts they passed a dark purple. Bats fluttered overhead and settled in the nearby trees. The leather proved to be a better insulation against the cold than her cotton shirt had, but she shivered anyway. The stone path they walked on was slick and wet from recent rain.

Eyes peered from every window they passed. Fairy children, so tiny she could have picked up two in each arm, stared at her with big dark eyes. A little girl with a shock of tiny black dreadlocks ran over to Hairspring and tugged at her hand. “Aunty, aunty, is that a giant?”

Hairspring scowled and swatted the air over her head. “Hush child! It’s not nice to make fun of tall people. Be off with you.”

Flower couldn’t suppress her grin. Fairy adults might be deadlier than a swarm of bearflies, but the children could be unbearably cute.

In the centre of the village the fairies all clustered around five small fires, eating soup from wooden bowls. She was glad to spot Nikifor alive and well in one of those groups, quietly bent toward the flames, the frenetic conversation of his companions passing right over his head. Even though he was hunched over in his usual antisocial way, his long hair was tidy and he didn’t look as sickly as he had two days ago. 

“This way.” Hairspring led her toward a larger fire over which a huge cauldron was suspended. She took a bowl from a pile underneath and ladled a thick, chunky stew into it.

“Thank you.” Flower eyed the mixture doubtfully. She didn’t eat a great deal of meat, but her growling stomach apparently didn’t have a problem with it.

“Come on.” Armed with her own bowl, Hairspring headed for a fire surrounded by a knot of women.

Flower hurried after her. “I had hoped to see my friend.” “What’s your hurry? You’ll both be here for weeks. Besides, you can’t eat with the men.”

“Why not?”

“They have belching contests. It’s disgusting.” Hairspring pushed her way into the circle of women and dragged Flower down to sit next to her.

Flower sat cross-legged on the cold ground and tasted the soup. It was so salty it almost made her hair stand on end, but she ate anyway.

“This is Flower,” Hairspring announced between mouthfuls. “Flower these are my good friends, Skeleton Key, Tick Tick, Tock Tock, Bone Pin and Blood Knot.”

Flower nodded to each woman, but was relieved when they didn’t show much interest in her. She wasn’t in the mood to talk with fairies right now. She kept her head down, finished her food and enjoyed the warmth of the flames while conversations about silver and old fights and tomorrow’s hunt drifted around her. Her eyes half-closed. The words dulled to a muted buzz when she put her bowl down and wrapped both hands around the key. Something was going on out there, somewhere beyond Quicksilver Forest, the cliffs, the ocean, maybe even beyond the borders of Shadow. The very world groaned, cracked, tore at itself.

She let her awareness drop away. The key burned her fingers. Following the source of the sound took her straight to that girl.

The girl sat cross-legged in the shade of an overloaded orange tree in a sunny, unkempt garden, her face screwed up in a scowl, her pen poised over a blank notebook.

Flower sat next to her. She laid her hand on the girl’s forehead and spoke in a calm voice. “What’s holding you back, sweetie?”

Energy pulsed and bubbled under her fingers. The girl had an idea for a story alright. It was so strong it was bursting to get out. Inspiration wasn’t the problem at all.

  The girl tapped the pen against her notebook. Several times she took a deep breath and touched it to the paper.

“You can do it,” Flower urged. “Just start. Just write what’s in your head.”

The girl abruptly hurled both pen and notebook to the ground. “This is freaking stupid!” She stormed to her feet and up three stairs to an enclosed veranda.

Flower followed, her own frustration boiling over. “Hey! Hey you!” She knew perfectly well the girl couldn’t hear or feel her on any conscious level, but she grabbed her shoulder anyway.

The girl spun around. “What the hell?”

Flower let go of her. Her heart beat double time. “Can you hear me?”

The girl looked right through her. She shook her head. “Fantastic. Now I’m going as nuts as my mother.”

“You know what you want to write!” Flower burst out. “It’s dangerous to block it all off like you’re doing, you’re going to cause problems!”

The girl turned on her heel and slammed through a bent and rusted screen door.

“Stupid ignorant humans!” Flower backed away. No human had ever sensed her that strongly. No human could sense her that strongly. And she couldn’t find out who the girl was until she put her pen to paper.

She sighed, opened her eyes and found it was full dark and all the women were gone. Coalfire sat across the flames, regarding her with that peculiarly intense stare of his.

Flower shook herself. “I’m sorry, did you say something? Where’d Hairspring go?”

Coalfire shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t pry into what the women get up to.”

“Oh.” Flower moved closer to the fire and reached her hands out to the warmth.

“She tried to rouse you for at least an hour before she fetched me,” he added. “I’ve sat here an hour since.”

Flower’s cheeks grew warm. “Oh dear. I didn’t realise. I can’t always control it-”

“You go to Dream to inspire writers.” Coalfire leaned forward on his staff. The goat skull reflected the firelight.

She nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Dangerous business that.” Coalfire gave a dry cough. “Lot of damage you muses have done.”

“It would be a lot more dangerous and a lot more damaging should we not do our job.” Flower tried to hide her flush of anger. Always this same argument, from all the fairies, just because the king had made one mistake three thousand years ago and inspired the vampires that had plagued Shadow ever since.

Well, two mistakes, if you took millions of human lives lost to a bomb he’d inspired into account, but he’d said sorry enough times for that. “Just imagine what would happen if humans found no outlet for their dreams and ideas. Imagine what that would do to the two worlds!”

“So you say.” Coalfire made an impatient gesture. “Why are you really here, Muse?”

“I told you. Nikifor needed your help.”

“Yes, yes, and your office was locked and people are missing and you want to find the muse king. Now tell me why you’re really here.”

Flower blinked, utterly mystified.

“Fine.” Coalfire poked at the fire with his staff. “If you won’t tell me that, tell me what’s been happening in Shadow City.”

She stared moodily into the flames. “Why do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought everything was fine. I mean, there were rumours, but there are always rumours, and we’ve had peace since the king drove out the vampires and set up the Guild to govern.”

“Your king drove out the vamps? That’s not what I heard.”

Flower glared. “What did you hear?”

“I heard he took a Bloody Fairy from her tribe and used her to steal a weapon. They drove out the vamps together, and she killed the vamp king. Now I’m not saying I think Bloody Fairies are anything more than a ditsy waste of good oxygen, but it’s far more likely a fairy did the driving than that other streak of misery.”