Wormwood Gate (15 page)

‘And that's where Julie and I came in,' said Aisling. ‘Literally, in fact. You were taking the Queen-that-was away when you knocked us over, right?'

‘That I was. She should be by the banks of the River by now, if she hasn't crossed already.'

‘Why did you do it? Make them fight, I mean. What's in it for you?'

Molly Red gave her a considering look. ‘There are things I can't safely tell you,' she said at last, ‘and that's one of them. I can tell you this much, and you can believe me or not, as it pleases you: my will is free and unbound and, in my heart, I am servant to no one. But in the eyes of the Queen of Crows, I am loyal to her and to the Kingdom of Crows. I'd like her to keep on thinking that. So when she gave me an order to rid the City of the Three Castles of its queens, I had to either make it look like I'd tried and failed or obey the order – in my own fashion.'

‘Then the Queen of Crows really is invading the City?'

Molly Red laughed softly. ‘The Queen of Crows doesn't give
that
' (she snapped her fingers) ‘for the City – at least, not for its own sake. She just wants the queens gone because the queens have a treaty with the Lord of Shadows to let him move freely through the City, and her one desire in all the realms is to stop the Lord of Shadows from getting what he wants.' She shook her head sadly. ‘It was a very messy divorce.'

‘You mean the Lord of Shadows and the Queen of Crows were married?'

‘For centuries, until it all went wrong. The years since their rupture have been … troubled, to say the least.'

‘I can imagine,' said Aisling. Her parents were both lawyers, and they often dealt with divorce cases. ‘This is … collateral damage?'

‘That's one way of putting it. Though, mind you, there's more to it than that. They had plans, those two, to rule and conquer the Fae kingdoms and beyond, and now they're not together any more, they're each trying to outdo the other. They don't much care who they crush in the attempt. But the Lord of Shadows is more subtle, so I don't know what his plan is.'

‘Yet?'

Molly Red grinned, and Aisling felt a strange surge of pleasure. ‘Yet,' Molly Red said, nodding.

An alarming thought occurred to Aisling. ‘You said the count got to be a … a Betweener because he stayed too long in Fae realms and … something about cutting ties with mortal lands?'

‘Yes. The Fae realms, the Realms Between … they get under your skin, after a while. Become a part of you. That's how I got to be this way.'

‘Then Julie and I shouldn't stay here too long.'

‘Indeed you shouldn't. You've been here, what, a day? Less? That's safe enough, though there's no way of knowing how long is too long. Time doesn't always work here the way it seems to.'

Aisling felt her eyes widen. ‘Oh,' she said. ‘W-well. In that case, what's our next move?'

‘Your friend has been looking for me,' said Molly Red. ‘I think it's time I found her.'

8

Julie looked up as the door of the cottage opened and a woman walked in, her head bent at first to avoid hitting the lintel; she was dressed in white and her hair was a vivid scarlet.

The queen rose to her feet. ‘So you have come, Molly Red!'

The red-haired woman nodded and stepped aside to make room for her companion. Julie stood up, stumbling slightly on a leg that had fallen asleep.

‘Aisling!' Julie said and slapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Um, I mean –'

‘I know her name. As I know your name, Julie,' said the red-haired woman, looking at her in an assessing, calculating way that made Julie feel uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to look away or fidget, holding Molly Red's gaze until she nodded and said, ‘I see you found the shoes.'

‘Do you want them back?' said Julie, lifting her right foot and grabbing the shoe by the heel. She felt she would be glad to be rid of the shoes now, comfortable as they were. She had a vague memory of fairytales where accepting gifts was a dangerous thing to do. (Probably not as dangerous as making an oath without knowing what it would mean or killing a seagull who was working as a royal spy. Still, no need to make a bad situation worse.)

‘No,' said Molly Red. ‘I give them to you freely and without obligation. I hope they suit your needs.'

‘They're fine,' said Julie absently, looking at Aisling. Aisling looked a bit spooked. Julie had seen her in her normal sardonic above-it-all mood, and she had seen her scared out of her wits; this was not either of those, but something in between the two and a little closer to ‘scared' than ‘normal'. She wanted to ask what had happened to put that look on her face but not in front of Molly Red and the queen.

Her hands twitched and she realised she had been on the verge of reaching out, as if to grab at Aisling's hands and draw her nearer.
That would be – no, that would be bad
, she thought, in a muddled sort of way. She wasn't sure why, and she wasn't sure she wanted to examine the impulse at all – only, she was glad to see Aisling again, fiercely glad, and even gladder that Aisling was safe and well; and that wasn't something she was ready to let anyone know, least of all Aisling herself.

Aisling side-stepped away from Molly Red, in Julie's general direction, and bowed slightly to the queen. ‘I take it you are the Queen-that-will-be?'

The queen folded her arms across her chest, the deerhide somehow managing to stay draped around her shoulders. ‘I cannot tell a lie,' she said. ‘Now tell me, Molly Red: what is your plan, your purpose?'

‘My plan is to make a plan,' said Molly Red. ‘My purpose is to oust the mad queen before she can destroy the City, and the Realms Between with it.'

‘Indeed,' said the queen, touching Julie's shoulder. ‘Then you will be helping this girl here to fulfill her oath?'

Julie took a step back and away from the queen, getting out of reach of her hands and moving closer to Aisling at the same time. Aisling followed suit a moment later, so that they were standing side by side.

‘Of course,' said Molly Red, not batting an eyelid. Julie wondered whether Aisling had told her about the oath or Molly Red just had a really good poker face.

‘You shouldn't be here,' said Aisling quietly. ‘There are only supposed to be two queens in the City at one time.'

The queen shot an acidic look in Aisling's direction. ‘I understand the ways of death far better than you, child,' she said, then added, looking at Molly Red, who was frowning as if she'd just noticed something amiss, ‘But this much is true: the queen on the throne cannot remain on the throne if the City of the Three Castles is to live.'

‘Good, we're all on the same page, then,' said Julie. ‘So what do we do? We have to get rid of her, but how?'

‘We have to get to the Tower first,' said Molly Red, still frowning at the queen. ‘And the best way to do that is with a prisoner.'

There was a pause. The glare the queen was directing at Molly Red began to feel like a palpable thing.

Molly Red shrugged. ‘I volunteer, since no one else will. The queen on the throne would like to take me in.'

‘Good,' said Aisling, ‘that's settled. And when we get there, what comes next?'

‘I have an idea,' said Julie. She gestured towards the queen in the deerhide. ‘You're the Queen-that-will-be. The queen on the throne is the Queen-that-is. The queen in the …' She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut for the length of a heartbeat before going on. ‘The queen in the cage is the Queen-that-was. If we kill the Queen-that-was, that'll trigger the cycle, right? The Queen-that-will-be will become the Queen-that-is, and the current Queen-that-is will become the new Queen-that-was.'

‘So we'll have to get to the cage or get her out of it,' said Aisling. ‘How are we going to do that?'

‘I'll take care of that,' said Molly Red.

‘Great!' said Julie. ‘We go to the Tower with you in tow as a prisoner, then when we're there we … we …'

‘Put the Queen-that-was out of her misery,' said Aisling.

‘Right,' said Julie, nodding. ‘And then we've fulfilled our oaths, and you can open the gates and we can go home.'

The queen glared at Molly Red. ‘The gates? I said nothing about opening the gates! It is not my wish that the gates be opened!'

‘Oh,
what
?' said Aisling. ‘We just offered to put you in charge, and you're not even going to help us get home? What the hell kind of ungrateful –'

‘Bite your tongue, child!' snapped the queen. ‘I owe you no gratitude.'

Molly Red shot a warning glance at Aisling and said, ‘Watch what you say. Only the ruler of the City can open or close the gates.'

‘The Wormwood Gate's still open, though, isn't it?' said Julie. ‘We could go home through that one right this minute and leave you here to stew.'

Molly Red nodded to the queen, who was silently fuming. ‘They could, you know,' she said. ‘Of course, they'd have to find it first.'

‘You have an oath on your head – on both your heads,' said the queen. ‘You cannot simply leave.'

‘Watch me!' said Julie, and she turned on her heel and made for the door. Aisling followed her, a beat behind. Before she could leave the cottage, the queen cried, ‘Wait!'

Julie turned and spread out her hands. ‘Well?'

The queen's face was dour. ‘What is your desire?'

Julie glanced at Aisling. ‘Well. Apart from wanting to go home, it's … this place, it's … The streets are empty. The City feels dead. It's creepy, and I don't like it. It doesn't feel like a real place.'

‘In a way, it isn't,' said the queen.

‘It is!' said Molly Red.

‘Well, you can't both be right,' said Aisling, rolling her eyes. ‘And I'm not from around here, so maybe I'm wrong, but I'm on Julie's side. This whole place is more like a theme park than a city.'

Julie glanced sharply at Aisling, startled to hear her echo a thought she'd had herself not so long ago. ‘Yeah, that's right,' she said. ‘It's all fuzzy round the edges.'

‘Because the gates are closed. Take these two,' said Molly Red, jerking a thumb in the direction of the two girls.

Julie shrank back, which brought her closer to Aisling so that their arms were almost touching; it was comforting to be next to someone familiar, and she wished she could tuck her arm into Aisling's without feeling horribly self-conscious and awkward.

‘They're more real than anything the City can produce,' Molly Red was saying, ‘and they make everything they touch more real.'

‘We do?' said Julie.

‘That doesn't make any sense,' said Aisling.

‘Nothing about this place makes sense,' said Julie.

‘True,' said Aisling. ‘You'd think I'd be used to it by now.'

‘They are the first to come to the City for too long, Your Majesty. The Wormwood Gate moves; it doesn't always lead to or from the City. The other gates are closed, even the tiniest ones that never let in anything bigger than a mouse. The City is dying because of it. The people are not allowed out onto the streets – by the Queen's law? Well, truth be told, there are precious few people left to go out and break that law. The mortals are not crossing the boundary, and so the City is not being fed. Those who are still here are fading day by day. They'll fade, or they'll leave for the other realms, and when the last of them is gone you'll have no City to rule over. Only stones.'

‘Brick upon grey brick,' Julie murmured, and Aisling gave her a startled look.

‘You like Louis MacNeice?' she said.

‘Just that one poem,' said Julie. ‘I like poems about places.'

Aisling grinned lopsidedly. ‘Why does that not surprise me?'

Julie scowled. ‘Why do you have a picture of me on your phone?'

She was expecting Aisling to roll her eyes and say something sarcastic and condescending, and then they could have a fight and be back to normal; but instead Aisling blinked and blushed and opened and closed her mouth a few times and finally looked at the floor and muttered, ‘No reason.'

Julie felt another shiver in her stomach, this time a nice one, of a kind that she understood all too well.
I know exactly what the reason is
.

She let herself bask in that thought for a few happy seconds before realising that it was about her as well as Aisling, and soon she'd have to decide what to do with this new thing she'd figured out. That turned the shivering feeling into a strange swooping and plunging, more like writhing snakes than butterflies.

Molly Red went on, ‘The City will wither slowly with only the Wormwood Gate to connect it to the lands of mortals, but the City will only be the first of the Realms Between to suffer; it will not be the last, and it will not suffer the most.'

‘You speak as if you expect me to care,' said the queen.

‘Why don't you?' said Julie. ‘Isn't this your domain? Your kingdom?'

‘Wait,' said Aisling. ‘What was that you said about the Wormwood Gate?'

‘It moves of its own accord,' said Molly Red. ‘It won't always be in the City.'

‘Then we'd better get a move on,' said Aisling, ‘before it moves away and we get trapped. We can hash this out later, right?'

‘Yeah,' said Julie, stepping in between Molly Red and the queen. ‘Enough standing around and talking. We have a plan, don't we? So let's do what needs to be done. The queen on the throne sent me to catch Molly Red; let her think that I caught her.'

The queen snorted. ‘And what shall I do while you are engaged in this plan? The streets are not safe for me.'

‘We can guard you,' said Aisling, moving forward to stand beside Julie once more.

‘Yes, and I think the pigeons will help,' said Julie. ‘They hate the queen's seagulls enough that they'd be delighted for an excuse to fight them.'

‘Pigeons and street-urchins for an honour guard,' said the queen. ‘How far one can fall. Very well. You may guard me. You, and the pigeons, and whatever other allies you can find. Molly Red, do you consent to this plan?'

‘It's the only one we've got,' said Molly Red, shrugging. ‘I don't think I can come up with a better one.'

‘Let's go, then,' said Julie, marching to the door and through it, not looking back to see if the others were following her.

‘The horse,' said Aisling, and Julie turned back to see Aisling plucking at Molly Red's elbow. Seeing them side-by-side was a little disorienting, because Molly Red always seemed to be taller than she was. Aisling wasn't all that tall herself (though the boots must have added at least three inches), but next to Molly Red she looked like an Amazon.

‘It's this way,' she said, walking past Julie and down a narrow dirt lane that Julie hadn't noticed the last time she'd been there. Sure enough, when they emerged from the lane into a broad paved street, there was a horse-trough and a horse tied up to it. Aisling patted the horse's nose and checked its saddle and bridle in a knowledgeable-looking way. ‘There, now,' she murmured. ‘Feel better now you've had a rest and a drink, don't you?'

‘I will ride,' said the queen, staring at the horse in a strange way. ‘That way, if danger comes, I can escape the easier.'

‘Wouldn't it be best if you walked?' said Aisling, still petting the horse and not looking at the queen or even turning to face her. ‘There aren't any horses on the street thanks to the queen's curfew. Not many pedestrians either, but it'd be easier to hide if you were on foot. Besides, the crucial part of this plan is Julie and Molly Red getting to the Tower. You and I are spectators until they're finished.' At that, she looked up and gave the queen a bright, cheerful smile.

The queen frowned at Aisling, seeming to think this over. Julie wasn't sure whether she wanted her to acquiesce meekly, because Aisling was talking sense and she wanted to get to the Tower and get the job over with as soon as possible, or to demand the horse in a fit of pique, so that she and Aisling would have a chance to talk without the other two overhearing.

‘Very well,' said the queen reluctantly. ‘Mortal girl,' she said, addressing Julie, ‘take the horse. Molly Red, walk behind with me. We have much to discuss, where the ears of these mortals cannot hear us.'

Julie approached the horse nervously. She'd ridden ponies before, when she was a kid – Shetland ponies, not much bigger than St Bernard dogs. This creature was as tall as she was at the shoulder, and it looked at her with shrewd eyes that could probably tell at a glance how little riding experience she'd had and how scared she was of falling off and breaking her neck.

‘It's OK,' said Aisling in a low voice. ‘I go riding all the time. It's easy. I'll show you how.'

‘If you're such an expert jockey,' said Julie, ‘why don't you ride?'