Wormwood Gate (14 page)

Molly Red let go of the reins and stood so that she was in between the count and his horse, with Aisling on her right side.

‘And what kind of assistance did she tell you to offer me?'

The count's eyes flickered anxiously between Molly Red and Aisling. ‘You are she, then?'

‘That I am, though it may not profit you to have found me.'

He closed his eyes and sighed in relief, then opened them again. ‘The precise words Her Majesty used were “whatever assistance she will accept”,' he said, and Aisling thought she could see him leaning slightly towards Molly Red.

‘
Really?
' said Molly Red, drawing the word out and tilting her head to one side, a speculative look in her eyes.

Aisling tasted bitterness in her mouth, and she swallowed, willing her stomach to stop doing somersaults and going crazy with the acid production. The last thing she needed was to get reflux on top of everything else that was happening.

‘Yes,' said the Count. ‘You must know that, as a Fae, I cannot tell a lie.'

‘
You
must know,' Molly Red countered, ‘that not everyone in the Fae kingdoms is a Fae. And that we're not in the kingdoms now.'

The count dipped his head, conceding the point. ‘Nevertheless, we are in the Realms Between, and the Realms Between are under the protection of the seven kingdoms, however nominal the authority of the kings and queens may be in practice. I could not have been dispatched otherwise.'

‘You could have been dispatched on the whim of the Queen of Crows. She's not the type to care about jurisdiction when it doesn't suit her.'

The count shuffled his feet, his hand curling into a fist on the horse's flank. ‘I cannot deny that. Yet I had it from her own mouth that I was to be sent on the basis of my authority – my supposed authority – as Count Palatine.'

‘And she told you – what? “Go to the City of the Three Castles, find Molly Red, and offer her whatever assistance she will accept”?'

‘Not in those words.'

‘In what words, then?'

The count's eyes grew distant, and he spoke as if reciting from memory: ‘“I am sending you to a city that was once part of the Kingdom of Crows and is now in the Realms Between, under your authority. It is called the City of the Three Castles, and it has been thrown into turmoil. Go there and find the one known as Molly Red – that is her make-name, not her true name – and offer her whatever assistance she will accept.'”

‘I see,' said Molly Red. ‘And you didn't ask her why? You didn't ask her who I was that she was so eager to help me?'

The count looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Question the Queen of Crows? The Queen of the Lands of Death? Her power is great, and her temper is legend. I would be a fool to think of such a thing.'

‘Would you, now?' A corner of Molly Red's mouth quirked upwards in a lopsided smile.

The count raised his hands in surrender. ‘This is all very well, but I was not sent to speak to you. I was sent to assist you. What assistance can I offer you that you will accept? Whatever it is, I am bound by my oath to the Queen of Crows to give it to you.'

‘I'll have your horse, for starters.'

‘Then she is yours.'

Molly Red nodded. ‘Mount the horse,' she said with a jerk of her head, speaking to Aisling without looking at her.

Aisling obeyed, shifting the multitool from hand to hand as she did, not wanting to put it away; it was a comfort to have it ready. Once she had her feet in the stirrups and a good seat in the saddle, she pulled the longest blade out and held the tool ready with her left hand while her right held the reins.
Just in case
, she thought.
Probably nothing will happen
.

‘Is there anything else I can offer you?' asked the count.

‘If I asked you to break your oath to the Queen of Crows and swear an oath to me instead – I suppose you couldn't do that?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Hmm.' Molly Red stepped in close to him and spoke so softly that Aisling had to lean over a little to hear what she said.

‘I can tell you haven't heard what they say about me. Why the one-eyed queen is afraid of me. Did you know there's a rumour I swore an oath of fealty to the Queen of Crows and broke it when she gave me an order I didn't like?'

The count's eyes widened. ‘Is that true?' he said in a shocked whisper.

Molly Red stepped back, smiling. ‘It's true,' she said. ‘They call me the Oathbreaker. They speak of me in whispers. They say I could tear down all seven of the Kingdoms if I wished it. Now tell me, O Count Palatine of the Realms Between, why would the Queen of Crows send you to help a person like me?'

‘No doubt –' The count's voice croaked; he cleared his throat and started again. ‘No doubt she has her reasons.'

‘No doubt. Unless she doesn't know. Unless she believes I'm still loyal to her.'

The count's mouth opened and closed a few times. ‘I don't know what you think you're doing,' he said, ‘but I entreat you to stop and deal with me plainly.'

‘I'm just pointing out that there are things I know that your mistress hasn't told you. She didn't tell you I was her servant, did she?'

‘No, Her Majesty never –'

‘And I know things about you too. I'd wager she never told you that she stole you away from mortal lands as a child so that you could walk freely through all the kingdoms and the Realms Between to do her bidding. That your blood is not Fae, not even a little bit.'

The count shook his head slowly. He didn't seem to know how to react. Aisling squeezed the reins in her fist, distressed on his behalf.

Molly Red took another step back, until she was within reach of Aisling and the horse.

‘I know more than I've told you,' Molly Red said to the count, ‘and I'll tell you all of it one day, if you like. But today, I'll only tell you one more thing.'

With a movement so swift that Aisling could barely see it, she grabbed the multitool from Aisling's hand and lunged forward, thrusting the blade into the count's chest before he could react. He staggered backwards, clutching at the wound she had made, and fell onto the cobblestones, his mouth gaping.

‘No, two more things,' said Molly Red calmly, wiping the blade on her sleeve. ‘The first thing is: you are not as firmly bound to the Queen of Crows as you think. And the second thing is: if you bind yourself any more firmly, you'll lose your last ties to the mortal world, and then you'll never learn any more of the secrets she's been keeping from you.'

She folded the blade back into the multitool and swung herself up into the saddle behind Aisling, giving the horse's flanks a mighty kick. The horse whinnied and broke into a gallop before Aisling could react, carrying them over cobbles and tarmac and concrete, rushing and rushing through streets that flew by so fast Aisling could barely see them. Her mouth tasted of acid and her eyes were watering; Molly Red had grabbed onto her waist so tightly she felt bruised, and the horse was galloping so fast and so wildly that a sort of giddy panic set in, and then, to her surprise, faded away, leaving her feeling quite calm and strangely distant from what was going on.

I'm not seated securely,
Aisling thought,
and I have no helmet, so the longer we keep up this speed the more likely it is that I'll fall, and if I do fall, there's a high chance I'll suffer a serious head injury. But I can't just yank the reins because this mare is a wild one and she'll rear, and then I'll fall for sure
.

Molly Red let go of her waist and put her hands over Aisling's, interrupting her thoughts. ‘What are you doing?' Aisling cried, her words whipped away by the wind of their passage. ‘Your feet aren't in the stirrups, you'll –'

‘Beg your pardon,' Molly Red whispered into her ear, ‘but I need the reins.'

She grabbed the reins just below where Aisling had a hold of them and pulled gently on the left one. The horse reared a little – enough to make Aisling's heart leap into her throat, but not enough to throw her to the ground – and veered off to the left, at a slightly slower gallop than before.

‘Where are we going?' Aisling called out, biting her lip when she heard the tremor in her voice. ‘Why did you do that?'

‘Now's not the time for talk,' Molly Red whispered, again directly into Aisling's ear, and Aisling shivered without quite knowing why. She pulled on the reins – gently – and the horse slowed down to a very uncomfortable trot, until Molly Red gave the horse's flanks another kick, and she broke into a canter. That, at least, was a pace Aisling knew how to handle.

‘Let go of the reins,' Aisling said. ‘I'll steer her any way you want us to go, but you need to let me have the reins.'

‘Very well,' said Molly Red, and she withdrew her hands from the reins and wrapped her arms around Aisling's waist again, which was not much more comfortable. Aisling slowed the horse to a trot, and when Molly Red didn't complain, slowed down further to a walk. Now that they weren't speeding along as fast and furious as a hurricane, she could untangle which feelings were coming from her and which from the way the horse was moving; her heart was taking much longer to slow down than the horse's hooves, and her breathing was coming out in shallow, laboured pants.

‘Here,' said Molly Red at last, after a few minutes of increasingly slow walking. Aisling tugged on the reins one last time, and the horse stopped obediently. There was a stone horse-trough against the wall of a nearby building, and unlike the horse-troughs on Stephen's Green, this one was actually full of water. When they had both dismounted, Aisling led the horse to the trough, where it dunked its head in the water and drank greedily.

‘Well,' said Aisling, leaning against the wall to spare her shaky legs, ‘is
now
the time for talk?'

‘Perhaps,' said Molly Red. ‘Oh, by the way –' She took something out of the pocket of her hoodie and handed it to Aisling. Aisling stared at it, feeling number and blanker than she had ever felt.

It was the multitool, the little
no-not-a-Swiss-Army-knife-that's-a-different-brand
that she'd bought from Petersen's with her birthday money and carried around for six months without ever using it for more than cutting off a loose thread from a skirt. It was folded up now, and if she pulled out the longest of the blades, she was sure it would not have a trace of a stain on it. Molly Red had wiped it pretty carefully after she'd used it. Aisling could see the dark stain on her white sleeve.

‘I feel sick,' she said faintly, and only now that she had said it out loud did she realise it was true.

‘Well, don't vomit into the trough,' said Molly Red, ‘the horse is still drinking.'

‘What is
wrong
with you?' Aisling blurted out, the words exploding from her like juice from an overripe tomato. ‘You just killed a man!'

‘He might not be dead,' said Molly Red. ‘I didn't check.'

‘But you want him to be dead! You stabbed him in the chest! I mean, I mean – even if you somehow miraculously managed to miss all the vital organs, it's pretty obvious that you had criminal intentions coming out your ears!'

Molly Red raised one eyebrow. ‘You must know by now that death doesn't mean the same thing here as it does in mortal lands.'

‘You told him
he
was a mortal!'

‘I told him he had mortal blood, which is not the same thing. He's like me, you see. A Betweener. Born mortal, but … He's been in the Fae kingdoms so long, they've soaked into him. He'll pay the Ferryman's fee and come back with a new shape to shift into, the same way I do when I die.'

Aisling stared at her. She was perfectly relaxed and calm, even nonchalant, her hands in her pockets and her mouth quirked into a half-smile.

‘Why did you kill him?' she said.

Molly Red glanced up at the sky, then looked down again and said, ‘Because he was a spy. Not that he knew it. But he was going to report back to the Queen of Crows because he was still loyal to her. He didn't know how she'd been lying to him. I had to send him to the Ferryman to prove to him that he – the Count – is more like me than than like the Queen of Crows.'

‘But why –'

‘He knows I have a tongue that can lie. I could tell him the truth until the sun fell from the sky, and he'd still not believe me. But there are three different ways across the River: one for mortals, one for the Fae, and one for those that are in between.'

‘Like you?'

‘Like me. And Morgan de Meath.'

Aisling closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she was still there, with the horse and the trough and Molly Red with her hands in her pockets.

She walked over to the trough and dipped her hand in the water; it was cool, and she patted her face with it, then wiped the water off with her other hand.

‘When you said it was your fault,' she said, ‘what did you mean?'

Molly Red took her hands out of her pockets and walked over, leaning on the side of the trough and speaking quietly. ‘I set the Queen-that-is and the Queen-that-was to quarrelling,' she said. ‘Let slip a rumour here and a half-truth there, and let them think the Queen of Crows was planning to invade, but gave them different ideas about what to do.'

‘And then they fought …?'

Molly Red nodded. ‘And the mad one won the battle. That much I expected. The business with the cage, now – I didn't see that coming. She was a little madder than I had thought, you see. She wanted to change things, and she had a strong enough will to bend the rules, to take the throne before her time. That was enough to wake the Queen-that-was and bring her back from the lands of the dead. To keep the City from tearing itself apart from having three living queens in it, I had to take her away to mortal lands, let her cross the River and linger in the Ferryman's domain until it was safe for her to return.'