Eight

Linden felt frozen all over, numb with shock and grief. She had pinned all her hopes on this meeting with the Queen, trusting that once Amaryllis heard their story, all would be well. She would forgive Linden for running off to the city, she would welcome Timothy to the Oak, and they could all sit down and discuss what to do next. But instead Amaryllis had died, never knowing where Linden had gone and why, or even whether she was still alive.

Bluebell pushed past her and stumbled into the chamber, sobbing. “Oh, My Lady,” she wept as she dropped to her knees beside the empty bed. “What will we do without you?”

“We will mourn her, and honor her memory,” said Valerian. “And then we will go on, as she would have wished us to do. Linden?”

The low pulse in her temples reminded her that Timothy was still by her side, invisible, uncertain, waiting. There was a stone in her throat and a bruising ache deep in her chest, but Linden knew her duty. She pulled herself up, brushing at her wet cheeks, and said, “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“What?” Bluebell whirled on them, eyes hollow with rage. “You speak treason, girl! I am the Queen now – I, by right of seventy years’ service!”

“Indeed, you served Amaryllis faithfully,” said Valerian, “and you will be well rewarded for it. But as this testament written and signed by the Queen’s own hand will prove”–she reached into the dressing table and drew out a sealed parchment–“she did not choose you as her successor. She chose me.”

“Lies!” sputtered Bluebell. “The notion is absurd! Who are you to rule over the rest of us? You know nothing about matters of state!”

“Nor do you,” Valerian reminded her gently. “For all the fine clothes she gave you, Bluebell, you were Amaryllis’s servant, not her councilor.”

Bluebell’s lips pinched together. “I knew nothing good could come of you being here,” she said. “Whispering in Her Majesty’s ear, poisoning her against me. Conspiring with your human-loving friends–” She spat out the phrase as though it were a blasphemy– “to put yourself on the throne. But we’ll see about that!” She flounced out of the door again, adding over her shoulder, “You’re not Queen yet!”

Valerian remained silent until they heard the distant sound of Bluebell’s door slamming shut. Then she said, “Well. That was unfortunate.”

“You were right.” Linden bit her lip in distress. “What you told me before, about not being able to trust her . . . but she never used to be like that. What’s got into her?”

“This is Mallow’s work, I fear,” said Valerian. “Bluebell is vain, and easily flattered – and just as easily controlled. But let that be, for now.” She took Linden by the shoulders. “Where have you been? Knife came to us yesterday, half-mad with worry for you, and then we heard that the boy had disappeared as well—”

Timothy gave a little cough at that, and Linden colored. She shut the door, then turned back to Valerian and said apologetically, “I know. Because I went with him, and now . . .”

She concentrated, and the ache in her head eased a little as the invisibility glamour dissolved. Timothy stood awkwardly on the carpet in his muddy shoes, his hands in his pockets and the rucksack sagging off one shoulder.

“Er, hello,” he said.

Valerian stared at him a moment, then turned on Linden. “What in the name of the Great Gardener possessed you?” she demanded. “To reveal our secrets to—” Then she stopped and took a deep breath, as though collecting herself. “But no, I speak too soon. You came to tell the Queen something of great importance, and it would be folly to judge you before hearing what you have to say. Very well, go on.”

Relief spread through Linden. She would miss Queen Amaryllis terribly, but with someone as wise as Valerian taking her place, perhaps things wouldn’t be so bad. “It’s a long story,” she said. “Perhaps we should call some of the others to hear it, too?”

•••

“I don’t want to be rude,” whispered Timothy in Linden’s ear, “but is there anything to eat around here? I’m starving.”

They were sitting at the table in the late Queen’s study, waiting for Valerian to return from summoning three other faeries–the Council, she’d called them–to hear their story.

“I’m hungry, too,” murmured Linden, and then in a louder voice as Valerian came back in, “Val— I mean, Your Majesty, do you think we might have something to eat?”

“Periwinkle is bringing refreshments, I believe,” said Valerian, sitting down at the end of the table. And sure enough, it was only a short time before the door opened again and a little red-haired faery bustled in with a tray almost as big as herself.

“Thorn and Campion are on their way,” she said breathlessly as she set it down. Then her eyes fell on Linden and Timothy, and she clapped both hands to her mouth with a little squeak. “Oh! But you’re— I mean he’s—”

Quickly Linden rose and embraced the other faery, who burst into tears and clung to her. “How could you go off like that and just disappear and not tell me or Knife or anyone, don’t you know we thought you were dead!”

“I’m so sorry, Wink,” Linden said. “Please forgive me.”

“Of course she will,” said a gruff voice from the doorway, and Timothy recognized Thorn, the faery who had passed him and Linden on the Stair. “Though if you ask me, she shouldn’t. Of all the fly-witted things to do—” Her eyes fell on Timothy. “Great Gardener! Who or what is that?”

“I apologize for the shock, Thorn,” said Valerian’s calm voice from the back of the room, “but I thought it best to summon you here first and explain later. Ah, Campion, there you are. Would you mind shutting the door behind you?”

Timothy had been through some bizarre experiences in the last couple of days, but this had to be one of the oddest: sitting at a table with five faeries–all of whom had noticeably pointed ears and long translucent wings–while they took turns looking at him as though he were the strange one.

“I am grateful to you all for coming here at such short notice,” said Valerian. “The news of Her Majesty’s passing will soon spread throughout the Oak, and this may be our last opportunity to meet together for some time. Linden has brought us a human visitor, as I am sure you could not help but notice: I realize that this act is unprecedented, but there was reason for it, as you will soon hear. Linden?”

As Linden stood up and began telling their story, Timothy took a sip of his drink and nearly choked, it was so bitter. The cakes Wink had brought were dry and heavy, with hardly any sweetness to them, and only a generous dollop of honey helped them go down. He would have done anything for a plate of starchy matoke with some fish or beef sauce to flavor it, as he used to eat back in Uganda . . .

“WHAT?” yelled Thorn, and Timothy jumped, spilling his cup down the table. Wink grabbed a napkin and began mopping up the puddle, and Timothy was stammering an apology when he saw that Wink was smiling.

“I knew it!” she told him in hushed tones, as though they shared some wonderful secret. “I knew they were real, no matter what anyone said! I even thought you might be a faery yourself at first, only you don’t have wings . . .”

Oh. Now Timothy understood why Thorn had shouted – Linden had just told the Council that male faeries existed. He’d been so focused on filling the emptiness in his stomach, he’d stopped paying attention to anything else.

He forced himself to concentrate as Linden explained what she’d learned from her conversation with Rob – how the Oakenfolk were considered Forsaken by the other faeries, that neither Rob nor any others under the faery Empress’s command would help them, and last of all that the Empress would execute any faeries or humans who defied her. She finished by telling how she and Timothy had fled the city for fear of the Empress, then dropped back into her chair, rubbing her forehead and looking spent.

“So all the other faeries hate us because they think we’re too friendly with humans?” said Wink in bewildered tones, and Thorn remarked acidly, “Now there’s an irony.”

“This Empress . . .” Campion toyed with her pencil, frowning. “She must be clever as well as powerful, to have so many faeries under her control. I wonder how she managed it? Especially if she’s been avoiding humans all this time, and they’re where our cleverest ideas come from.”

“Well, she hasn’t been avoiding them, obviously,” said Thorn. “Seems to me that she and her people find humans useful enough, or they wouldn’t be living right in the midst of them.”

Linden nodded. “But human beings are just cattle, as far as the Empress and her people are concerned. They’ve become so selfish and proud, they won’t even consider that it’s wrong to deceive humans and take their creativity by force.”

“Yes, but doesn’t it sound as though this Rob you met knew better?” Wink said. “If he went to the trouble of saving you and Timothy . . .”

“I thought so too, at first,” Linden replied sadly, “but it turned out he was just hoping I was one of these Children of Rhys he’s been looking for. I don’t think we can count on him to help us again.”

The Council faeries all looked sober at this, and the room fell silent. Timothy waited for someone to come up with another idea or at least a question, but no one did. At last, frustrated, he spoke.

“Don’t tell me you’re all giving up already? All right, so you can’t count on the Empress and her people. But they can’t be the only faeries in the world. What about trying to find the Children of Rhys yourselves?”

“Timothy, I already told you—” began Linden, but Valerian held up her hand.

“No, let him speak; I can see by his face that he has more to say, and I would not dismiss his words without hearing them.” She turned to Timothy. “Please, go on.”

“You’re assuming that if Rob couldn’t find the Children, you can’t either,” Timothy said. “But I’m not sure that’s true. You’ve been cut off from the other faeries for hundreds of years, so obviously they know a lot of things about the world that you don’t. But your people seem to know some things that the Empress and her faeries have forgotten, too. Don’t you have any legends, or history books, or something that might tell you about the Children of Rhys?”

Campion pushed back her chair and rose. “There’s nothing about them in the archives downstairs, I know that much. But perhaps there’s something here . . .” She began inspecting the bookshelves that lined the room, her head cocked to one side.

“Well thought,” said Valerian, inclining her head to Timothy. “If I had any doubt of Linden’s wisdom in bringing you to us, I have none now. Yet if we can find nothing in the Oak’s records to tell us of the Children, what then?”

There was no mockery in her tone, no condescension; she really seemed to believe he might have an answer, and after a moment’s thought Timothy found that he did.

“Then I’ll sneak back into town,” he said, “and look them up in the library.”

Linden looked at Timothy with surprise: she hadn’t expected him to volunteer his services – especially at such risk to himself. Had he decided to join her on her quest to find more faeries after all?

Thorn made a skeptical noise. “How’s that going to help? You can’t think some human writer is going to know more about our own people than we do?”

Timothy opened his mouth, but Campion spoke first. “Why not?” she said to Thorn. “You’ve never read the human legends about faeries, but I have, and you’d be surprised how often they were right about things we Oakenfolk had muddled up or forgotten. And,” she added with a touch of smugness, “there were male faeries in some of those stories, too.”

“All right, fair enough,” Thorn replied. “But Rob didn’t know how to find these Children either, and he’s been living in the middle of a big human city for years. So if he couldn’t find out anything—”

“Unless,” said Timothy, “he made the same mistake you’re making.”

“Oh, really. And what’s that?”

“Underestimating humans.” Timothy leaned forward across the table, his grey-green eyes intent. “If the Empress and her faeries believe they’re so superior to my people, of course they wouldn’t expect us to have any information that they don’t. And there’s another thing I noticed, though I didn’t think much about it at the time: Rob’s place didn’t have a television or a radio or even a telephone, let alone a computer. He’s probably consulted every faery-written book he could find, but I’ll bet you anything he’s never searched the internet.”

Thorn looked blank, and Linden was wondering how to explain when Campion broke in excitedly: “That’s a special sort of library in a box, isn’t it, where you can get information from all over the world. Don’t Knife and Paul have it?”

Timothy looked discomfited, and Linden could guess why: he’d been counting on the faeries not knowing that particular detail. How could he explain to them that he’d rather walk all the way to the village and risk being caught by the Empress than go back to the House even for a few minutes?

“Yes, but Timothy can’t go back to their place right now,” she said. “It would be too easy for the Empress and her people to find him there.”

Wink nodded, but Thorn looked unimpressed. “And you think he’ll be any safer here?” she retorted. “If the Empress’s lot can find Timothy in the House, there’s no reason they can’t find him in the Oak just as easily. Especially with our wards in such a sorry mess.”

Linden gave Timothy an apologetic look. “They’re right, you know.”

“I’m not going back to Oakhaven,” he muttered back. “If your people don’t want me here then I’ll leave – but I’ll just end up buying a ticket to Dover instead.”

Linden could think of nothing to say to that, and there was an awkward silence. At last Valerian rose and addressed Timothy in her calm, measured voice.

“Today you have given us both insight and hope, and for that we are in your debt. You have proven yourself a true friend of the Oak, and if we can do you any service, we will be glad to know of it. Nevertheless, we cannot allow you to remain here.”

Linden began to protest, but Valerian held up a hand.

“You meant well, I know. But think, child. You are exhausted, and the effort of casting so many spells has drained you even further. The moment you fall asleep, the glamour that has made Timothy our size will stop working. And what will become of us all then?”

The blood drained from Linden’s face, and her stomach flopped like a landed minnow. How could she have been so stupid? She’d been prepared to ignore the pain of her headache and keep casting whatever spells might be necessary to keep Timothy safe, but she couldn’t stay awake forever . . .

“Indeed,” said Valerian gently. “So please, would you escort our guest to the door?”

“I’ve a better idea,” said Thorn, shoving her own chair back from the table as Linden struggled to rise. “The way she looks, she’ll probably faint halfway down the Spiral Stair, and then just think what a fine mess of owl pellets we’ll be in.” She stalked around the table and kicked the leg of Timothy’s chair. “Get up, human. You’re coming with me.”

Timothy shot Linden a desperate glance. “I can’t go back to Paul and Peri’s.”

“Then don’t,” said Thorn with a shrug. “East or west or down a foxhole, it’s all the same to me. Just as long as it’s out.” She turned to Linden. “I’ll whistle when he’s safely on his way, and you can take the glamour off him. All right?”

“All right,” said Linden dubiously. How Thorn intended to get Timothy out of the Oak without anyone seeing, she couldn’t imagine. But if Queen Valerian thought it would be all right–and by her silence it seemed she did–then who was Linden to argue?

Reluctantly Timothy got up from his chair. He followed Thorn towards the door, then stopped and turned back. “Er . . . there’s just one thing.”

All the faeries looked at him.

“What you said before, about being in my debt . . . Would you mind not telling Peri . . . I mean, Knife . . . that I’ve been here?”

The Oakenfolk exchanged surprised glances, and Wink positively glared at him. “What sort of bargain is that?” she demanded, but Thorn interrupted her.

“It’s not like he’s asking for the moon on a platter, is he? Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not a fair bargain. Go on, promise.”

Wink folded her arms and said petulantly, “Oh, all right.” “Campion?”

“You have my word,” said the other faery, and Valerian gave Thorn an unfathomable look before adding, “And mine. Although it seems a poor way to repay Knife for all her service to us.”

“There,” said Thorn to Timothy. “Satisfied?”

Timothy nodded. He gave Linden a tight farewell smile, and followed Thorn out.

Linden’s shoulders slumped, and she stared down at her crumb-littered plate. She had so hoped that Timothy would stay, that he might even come with her to find the Children of Rhys. But now he was going away, and who knew when–or whether–she’d ever see him again?

•••

“I don’t have magic, remember,” Thorn muttered to Timothy as he shuffled along at her side, barely able to see past the hood of the cloak she’d thrown over him. “So if we bump into anybody on the way, you let me do the talking, and if I tell you to run, you run.”

“Run where?” objected Timothy. “We’re nine floors up. And I don’t have wings, remember?”

“Cheeky one, aren’t you?” said Thorn. “Just pick the nearest landing, up or down. If you can find a door that isn’t locked, go through it and don’t come out until I tell you. There’s so few of us left now, odds are there won’t be anyone on the other side.” She made a derisive noise. “A human in the Oak. Don’t know what Linden was thinking.”

“Speaking of Linden—” Timothy began, but Thorn hissed him silent. He grimaced and fell into step behind her as they trudged towards the Oak’s ground floor.

When they reached the bottom of the Stair, Thorn marched straight for the exit, but Timothy lingered, gazing up into the great tree’s vast, hollow heart. This would probably be the last chance he had to look at this incredible place, and he didn’t want to forget any of it.

“Come on,” Thorn whispered at him, tugging open the same door that Timothy and Linden had used to get in. Reluctantly he obeyed – only to have her grab him by the scruff of the neck and practically toss him outside.

“Up the ladder! Go!” she ordered, and Timothy scrambled upwards, tripping on the topmost rung and tumbling onto the wet grass.

Thorn climbed up after him, then put two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Well,” she said with satisfaction, “that’s taken care of you – and none too soon, either.” She spread her wings and flashed away across the lawn.

Distractedly Timothy wondered where she was going – and then, to his horror, he realized. He leaped to his feet, shouting, “Wait! Don’t! You promised!”

But she had already given the signal, and his protest came too late. Panicked, Timothy tried to flee, but he had only taken a couple of steps when the glamour Linden had put on him dissolved, and he shot up to his usual size. Dazed, he reeled back against the Oak as the glass doors at the back of the house burst open and Peri rushed out, shouting, “Timothy!”

Thorn flew past him with a chortle, and disappeared among the roots of the Oak. “I know,” said Timothy resignedly, as Peri shook him and then seized him in a furious embrace. “I’m in a lot of trouble.”