twelve

“Then something wet slapped my leg, so I looked behind me,” said Timothy, “and there’s Lydia in the bottom of the boat, struggling with this . . . fish.” He flung his arms so wide he would have knocked over the water jug if Peri hadn’t caught it in time. “I’m not even exaggerating, it must have been half as big as she was. How she managed to catch it, I’ll never know. And then there’s me, with this—”

He held his fingertips about a hand’s width apart. Paul grinned, and Peri laughed. But Rhosmari was too distracted even to manage a smile.

Here she sat, eating the plainest meal of bread and meat and cheese, at a table so small that Timothy’s knee bumped hers on one side and the wheel of Paul’s chair boxed her in on the other. She was listening to three humans tell stories about places she had never been, people she had never met, and situations that had nothing to do with her–a kind of conversation that most faeries would find meaningless, if not rude. And now Timothy had just told them about a time when he had been made to look ridiculous by his little sister. How could she laugh without seeming to mock his failure?

But of course human ways were different from those of faeries; she had always known that, and no doubt she would get used to them in time. What troubled Rhosmari more was that in spite of the simple food, humble surroundings, and strange company, she was enjoying herself.

“So that’s when I gave up fishing and decided to stick to the guitar.” Timothy pulled the fruit bowl toward him and helped himself to another handful of grapes.

“Well,” said Paul, “we can’t all be multi-talented.”

Timothy snorted. “Says the professional artist with all the trophies for rowing and wheelchair rugby. Thanks a lot–oh, sorry.” This last was to Rhosmari, who had flinched at the careless use of thanks. “For a minute I forgot you were a faery.”

“I suspect she might not take that as a compliment, Tim,” said Peri as she got up and began to clear the table. Timothy started to apologize again, but Peri interrupted, “And if you keep digging that hole, you’re going to fall into it. Why don’t you take Rhosmari over to the Oak?”

“Right. Yes. I’d just better get rid of this . . .” Timothy shoved his hand into his right pocket, and slapped a tangle of iron and leather onto the table. “Coming, Rhosmari?”

•••

Compared to the neglected grounds of Waverley Hall, the back garden at Oakhaven was a work of horticultural art, its lawn edged with neat flowerbeds and hedges squared to perfection. There were a few trees, too, some just beginning to bloom–but still, it was hard for anything to compare with the leafless majesty of the Oak. Seen close at hand, its bulk was even more daunting, and as Rhosmari followed Timothy out the glass door at the back of the house, she was glad that she would not have to enter the great tree alone.

But something still bothered her, and though she tried to put it from her mind her thoughts kept going back to it, like a tongue to a missing tooth.

“I know the Oakenwyld’s not much like the Green Isles,” said Timothy. “But the Oak itself is amazing, and . . .” He stopped, frowning at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Why are you being so kind to me?” Rhosmari hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud, but it had grown too large to stay inside her. Only when it was out of her mouth did she realize how suspicious and even hostile she sounded.

“Does that mean you’d rather I wasn’t? Or were you expecting me to be rude to you instead?”

Embarrassment flushed through her. “I just wondered.”

Timothy stuck a hand behind his head and ruffled up his dark hair. “Well,” he said. “I read your letter. And I heard Garan telling the others about you. And I don’t know quite how to say this, except . . . you reminded me of me.”

“I did? How?”

“I came here from Uganda a few months ago,” said Timothy, his eyes distant. “I’d lived there as long as I could remember, and my family and friends were there, and the church I grew up in, and everything was safe and warm and comfortable. Then I flew over here to go to school and it was cold and strange and I was all alone, and everybody I’d been counting on let me down, and whenever I tried to fix things it ended up in disaster. And that was before the Empress put a price on my head.”

He scuffed his shoe along the paving stones. “Anyway, I was pretty miserable, and I figured that after all you’d been through, you must feel even worse. And I thought maybe I could make things easier for you, at least until Garan and the others got back.” He slanted a look at her, his grey-green eyes quizzical and a little sheepish. “That’s pretty much it.”

Rhosmari did not know what to say. She had never expected that a human would be able to understand how she felt. In fact, it seemed so unlikely that part of her feared Timothy might be another Martin, trying to manipulate her into trusting him.

“That’s . . . generous of you,” she managed at last.

“I know,” said Timothy. “I’m wonderful that way.” Then he grinned and she knew he was teasing her, though not unkindly. She gave a tentative smile in return, and together they followed the path to the end of the garden, where the afternoon sunlight faded into the shadow of the Oak.

“Here.” Timothy crouched and parted the grass around the base of the great tree, revealing a dark hollow between two roots. “That’s what they call the Queen’s Gate. Have you ever made yourself small? Smaller than the Children of Rhys usually are, I mean.”

“Yes,” said Rhosmari. “But what about you?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough,” said Timothy, in a casual tone that belied his obvious pride. “Queen Valerian made me a special charm, so I can visit the Oak whenever I like. Watch this.”

He pulled a wooden medallion out of his back pocket, looped the string around his neck–and shrank to Oakenfolk size, no taller than Rhosmari’s hand was long. Not wanting to be left behind, she hastily cast a spell to do likewise. Her body tingled, wings sprouted from her shoulders, the world blurred and telescoped around her . . .

It was done. She stood face to face and eye to eye with Timothy, but now the ladybug crawling over her boot was the size of her fist, and the Oak had grown so huge that it blotted out the sky. Grass tangled around her legs, snagging the hem of her skirt; she stooped to brush herself free, and when she straightened up again Timothy had already vanished into the shadowy hole at their feet.

“Come on,” he called up to her. “It’s not deep.”

It looked deep enough to Rhosmari, who could barely make out his head and shoulders in the darkness. But then she saw a spidery lattice of roots woven into one side of the hole, forming a rough ladder. She turned around and climbed down it until she felt Timothy’s hands at her waist, then let go and landed with a little jump at the bottom.

He released her and backed away, looking dazed. “Er,” he said. “Your wings . . .”

“Is there something wrong with them?” Rhosmari twisted her head back over her shoulder, trying to see. She had not actually looked at her wings before, for in Gruffydd’s Way she had been too busy trying to escape from her mother to care. In the half-light they appeared to be partly black and partly blue, and shaped like a butterfly’s, but that was all she could tell.

“No, not at all. They’re . . .” He cleared his throat. “Pretty amazing, actually.” Then he stooped and vanished into the darkness. Curious, Rhosmari followed. Tucked away into an alcove beneath the root stood a stout wooden door, wide enough for two faeries to enter side by side. Timothy hauled it open, and the two of them stepped over the threshold, into the heart of the Oak.

“So,” he said, “what do you think?”

Rhosmari barely heard him: she was too busy gazing around in awe. There was no obvious reason this place should remind her of the Hall of Judgment, for instead of sandstone and marble it was shaped out of wood, with little decoration or ornament. It also had a huge staircase spiraling up through its center, and a ceiling too high to see. But certainly the feeling the Oak gave her, of a place not only ancient but solemn and powerful, was the same. Light streamed in from window-slits all around, falling in a golden lattice upon the floor, and the air was rich with the smells of earth and woodsmoke, roasting meat, dried herbs . . . and faeries.

“Rob and Linden are around here somewhere,” said Timothy. “They stayed behind with a few of the rebels to guard the Oak, while the rest of us went to—”

“You again!” snapped a voice from the passageway to their left, and a powerfully built faery woman shouldered out of a doorway, gripping a cleaver in one hand. “Who let you in the door this time, human boy? What’s it going to take to prove to you that you’re not welcome here?”

“A majority vote might do it,” said Timothy. “But apart from that, Mallow, you’re just going to have to put up with me. Unless you’re actually planning to use that knife you’re holding.”

“It’d serve you right if I did,” snapped Mallow. “Bad enough having the Oak overrun by hairy strangers, without adding humans to the lot. And who’s this?” She cast a baleful eye over Rhosmari.

Rhosmari drew herself up, butterfly wings unfurling around her. “I am Rhosmari, daughter of Celyn of the Children of Rhys,” she said.

Mallow’s indignant look dwindled into uncertainty. “Is that so,” she said, lowering the cleaver. “Well, in that case, you’d better get upstairs and see Valerian–but I’d send him back outside where he belongs, if I were you.” She jerked her chin at Timothy. “I’m not the only one in the Oak who doesn’t care for the stink of humans.”

“That’s Queen Valerian to you,” Timothy called, but Mallow strode back through the archway and slammed the door behind her.

“Was that true, what she said?” asked Rhosmari as she and Timothy began to climb the spiral staircase. “I thought the Oakenfolk had always been friendly with humans.” In fact, she had hoped they might help her overcome her distrust of them, but that did not seem so likely now.

“They were, until Jasmine got hold of them,” he replied. “Once she stole their magic and altered their memories, most of them were too terrified to even look at us. It wasn’t until almost two centuries later, when Knife–Peri, I mean–met Paul and fell in love with him, that the truth started to come out. And even then a lot of the Oakenfolk had a hard time accepting it.”

“What about the rebels?” Rhosmari asked. “Surely they must feel differently, or they wouldn’t have turned against the Empress?”

“Rob does,” Timothy said. “And Lily–his second-in-command–respects humans as well, so the others follow their lead. But most of them still have mixed feelings about it, and even a few of Garan’s people–your people–start to look uncomfortable when anybody talks about Peri and Paul.”

“That can’t be right,” said Rhosmari, stung into defensiveness. “My people don’t despise humans; how could they? Many of our ancestors were born human. In past centuries we used to rescue sailors from shipwrecks, and some of them stayed with us—”

“By giving up their humanity and becoming faeries, yes,” interrupted Timothy. “Nobody objects to that. But the Oakenfolk used to do the opposite–they sent faeries out to live in the human world for years or decades at a time, and some of them even married humans and gave birth to human children. That’s the part nobody likes to talk about.”

He turned to her, his hand tightening on the stair rail. “Be honest, Rhosmari. When Linden told your Elders about Knife becoming human to stay with Paul, weren’t you shocked?”

Of course she had been. Until that moment, Rhosmari had never even imagined that faeries could fall in love with humans. After all, with plenty of both male and female faeries on their islands, the Rhysians had no need to look elsewhere for mates. And to Rhosmari, who had never visited the mainland, humans had always seemed as remote and untouchable as angels.

But then Timothy had stepped forward and begun to speak to the Elders, his voice husky with urgency. Her eyes had lingered on the dark feathers of his hair, the hint of golden warmth beneath his winter-paled skin, and she was fascinated; no one in all the Green Isles looked or spoke like that. Then her heart began to flutter, and warmth had bloomed in Rhosmari’s cheeks as she felt, for the first time in her life, the kindling spark of attraction. At that moment she could no longer be shocked at the choice Peri had made; she was too busy being appalled at herself.

She looked away, her pulse beating in her throat, and said, “A little.”

•••

The stair ended at a circular landing, with a window-slit on one side and an archway draped with velvety curtains on the other. Timothy tugged a cord that dangled down the wall, and a chime rang out faintly on the other side. A voice called, “Who is it?”

“It’s Timothy, Your Majesty. And I’ve brought Rhosmari.”

“Rhosmari!” exclaimed the voice, and the curtain was swept aside. Before them stood a tall brown-haired faery with a glow-spell burning in her hand. Her face was a pale oval, her features serene rather than striking, and her dress was so simple that Rhosmari could easily have taken her for a servant, if not for the silver circlet she wore around her brow.

“You are welcome in the Oak,” said Queen Valerian. “Please, come in.”

They had only taken a few steps into the passage when a door flew open and another faery scrambled out. She dropped a hasty curtsy, trying to smooth her tumbled ringlets and brush the wrinkles from her skirt at the same time. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” she blurted. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep—”

“Perhaps not,” said Valerian, “but you needed it. There is no need to apologize, Wink. But if you feel well enough to join us, I would be glad to have you come.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Visibly relieved, the red-headed faery fell in behind them. They passed through a doorway into a small audience chamber, generously lit by windows along one side. Three of the walls were lined with benches, while a low-backed chair stood on a dais at the far end. Walking up the crimson-dyed carpet, Queen Valerian sat down, and gestured to Rhosmari and the others to make themselves comfortable as well.

“I have just heard from Garan,” she said, “and he and the others will be with us shortly. Then we can all hear what you have to tell us, Rhosmari—”

Just then Garan Leaped into the middle of the chamber, startling all of them. Rhosmari knew immediately that something must be wrong: it was considered rude among most faeries to appear suddenly in a room where others were present, unless it was an emergency.

“I beg pardon, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing to the Queen. “But Mallow accosted me when I came in, and she insists on being present at our council. Do you wish us to refuse her entrance?”

The Queen lowered her eyes, as though the news troubled her. But when she looked up again, her expression was resolute. “No. Let her come.”

“As you wish, my Queen,” said Garan, and took his place along the wall by her side.

“Oh, Mallow,” sighed Wink. “It never ends with her. Why can’t she be more like Bluebell, and just accept it?”

Clearly there was more going on here than just a dispute over whether humans should be allowed in the Oak. But by now the other faeries had already begun to arrive, and there was no time to ask for an explanation.

They came in by ones and twos, rebels and Oakenfolk and Children of Rhys in turn, and made their bows or curtseys to the Queen before taking a seat. Together they made a strange company–especially when Linden in her homespun Oakenfolk garb arrived with a copper-haired rebel wearing a very human-looking sweatshirt and jeans, and Rhosmari’s fellow scholar Broch sidled in between Lily and the stony-faced Thorn.

Mallow was one of the last to arrive, and she hardly bent her knee to Valerian at all; she only gave a grudging nod and then stood at the back of the room with arms folded and a sour expression on her face. The Empress would have punished her for such insolence; Lady Celyn would have had her thrown out. Queen Valerian, however, gave no sign of even noticing it. She waited until everyone was seated, and spread out her hands in a gesture of welcome.

“We have much to discuss today,” she said, “especially now that we have a visitor from the Green Isles among us. Will you please come to the front of the room, Rhosmari, and tell us how you came to be here?”

`She had not been looking forward to this. But she must face it with dignity, all the same. “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Rhosmari, and walked up the carpet to the dais.

•••

Over the next few minutes Rhosmari related her story as briefly as she could without leaving out any important details. She told the assembled faeries why she had left the Green Isles, and what she had hoped to achieve by finding Garan and the Stone. She explained how Martin had deceived her into trusting him, only to betray her to the Empress; and finally she shared with them the things she had learned about the Empress while under her control–including her plan to invade the Green Isles and conquer the Children of Rhys.

“If you had not rescued me from Waverley Hall,” Rhosmari concluded, “I might even now be leading the Empress’s army into the Gwerdonnau Llion. I owe you all my deepest gratitude. So when I return home, I promise to do everything I can to convince the Elders that you should keep the Stone of Naming, and that we must not hinder your struggle against the Empress in any way.”

She spoke the last words firmly, sure that the faeries of the Oak would be glad to hear of her change of heart. But there was only an awkward silence. Several of the faeries traded apprehensive glances, while Timothy studied the toes of his shoes and would not meet her gaze.

“So you are the only faery outside the Green Isles who knows how to open this underground passage?” asked the male rebel sitting beside Linden, who she now realized must be Rob. “And the Empress cannot enter it without your help, is that correct?”

Only the Children of Rhys, Lord Gwylan had told her, and those we have deemed worthy of our trust. And even Garan and his men did not know about the symbol that marked the entrance to Gruffydd’s Way. “Yes,” said Rhosmari, hoping that would reassure him. But still none of the faeries looked happy.

“Well, at least now we know why the Empress hasn’t attacked us yet,” said Thorn. “She’s trying to put together an army we can’t possibly defeat.”

“She might yet do so,” said Lily in her musical voice. “Surely she has far more slaves than we have allies, even now.”

“Yet she was ready to invade the Green Isles and conquer its people before she turned her attention to us,” said Rob. “Does that not suggest anything to you?”

“No, but apparently it does to you,” Thorn said dryly. “Go on.”

“We have been sitting here all this while, waiting for the Empress to attack,” Rob said. “And yet today when our forces confronted her, she fled from us almost at once. Clearly she is not ready to face us in open battle–so why wait for her any longer?” He rose from the bench, eyes gleaming with feral light. “Why not muster our forces and strike against her instead?”

“Have you cracked your nut?” demanded Thorn. “Catching Jasmine by surprise at Waverley Hall, when we knew she could only call a few of her followers into the house before we took over–that was one thing. But taking on her whole army? We’d be squashed like so many beetles.”

“Once, I would have agreed with you,” Rob said. “But consider this. Nearly two hundred faeries broke away from the Empress’s control at Sanctuary, and with the help of the Stone we have freed still more of her followers since. True, some preferred to flee rather than join us, and that made it possible for the Empress to hunt them down and bring them back under her control. But even so, it takes time to rebuild an army.”

He began to pace around the chamber, his voice quickening with urgency. “Why was she so eager to conquer the Children of Rhys? Because her own forces were still too weak and scattered for her to be sure of defeating us without them. She has not forgotten her pledge to destroy the Oak; she simply cannot do it.” He stopped and looked around at them all. “And that means that attacking her now may be our best chance of defeating her.”

Rhosmari sat motionless, scarcely daring to draw breath. Surely it was wrong to provoke a battle, no matter how evil the enemy. But the way Rob spoke . . . it almost made her want to believe that he was right.

Thorn, however, seemed unmoved. “That’s a pretty slim hook to catch a minnow on,” she said. “I’d like a bit more proof of the Empress being weak before I go charging off to fight her, if it’s all the same to you.”

Beside her, Broch’s mouth twitched as though he were repressing a smile, and the others in the room relaxed, Rob’s spell over them broken. “I agree,” said Garan. “It would be rash to attack the Empress without being sure of her reasons for wanting to invade the Green Isles. Clearly she believed that conquering the Children of Rhys would be easy, and that adding so many faeries to her army would make her invincible. But that does not prove she had no hope of defeating us without them.”

“So what do you think we should do, then?” spoke up Mallow from the back of the room. “Sit here in the pot and wait for the water to boil? That doesn’t seem like much of a plan to me.”

“We should continue doing just as we have been,” Garan replied. “Training our people to defend themselves, and strengthening the Oak against attack. But most of all we need to continue searching for other faeries who wish to be free of the Empress, and offering them the Stone. The greater our numbers, the longer the Empress will hesitate to attack us, and every faery we set free is one less soldier for her to command.”

“And where do you plan to put all these faeries?” Mallow demanded. “The Oak’s nearly full up as it is.”

“True,” said Garan. “But our scouting parties have found the remnants of an old Wyld not far away, which could be resettled if need be. However, since you seem to have little faith in our suggestions about how to deal with the Empress, I can only suppose that you have an idea you think better. Why not share it with us?”

“All right,” said Mallow. “How’s this? I say we surrender.”