TIM STARED, TRYING to grasp the implications of what he was seeing.
Titania stood there, clear as day, on the sidewalk in a run-down section of London. She looked wildly out of place—her pale green skin was only one of the attributes that made her stand out.
For another thing, she was spectacularly beautiful. Even her weird green skin didn’t detract from her beauty. Tim could not have said exactly what it was that made her more beautiful than anyone he’d ever seen. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was filled with magic.
Her long hair was dark green, and today it was woven through with tiny flowers. She wore a flowing silver gown that shimmered whenever she moved. Her long sleeves were pale, transparent blue—the color of twilight. She had large, almond-shaped eyes that changed color with her mood. They were a deep purple now, and Tim felt their furious glare as if she were actually touching him. He took several steps backward.
“How dare you?” she shrieked. “You terrible, foolish child.”
Tim clenched his jaw. “How dare I what? Risk my life to save your world? I suppose a thank-you is too much to ask for.”
Titania took a step toward him and Tim forced himself to stay put. He felt a cold draft emanating from her and he shivered.
“You are insolent,” she growled. “No one speaks to me in that manner.”
Tim’s brown eyes never wavered from hers. After all, what he had said was true: He had saved Faerie and it had cost him plenty. She ought to be thanking him, not shouting at him. But he had discovered that adults didn’t always behave in any normal or rational way.
Titania made a slow circle around Tim, as if she were studying a specimen. Tim took the opportunity to glance around. No one on the street seemed to have noticed her. Do they think I’m speaking to myself? he wondered. Or has she cloaked us both in some invisibility spell? She could probably do something like that easily enough.
Titania stopped in front of him again. “It was not only love he spurned for your sake but life as well. You have been the death of your father.”
Tim’s head snapped back as if she had struck him. The words stung. “Don’t you think I know that?” he shouted. “I live with that every minute of the day.”
A nasty smile spread across Titania’s face. “Well, at least you suffer,” she said.
“Did you ever think maybe he sacrificed himself so he wouldn’t have to be trapped in a world with you any longer?” Tim retorted.
Now Titania looked wounded, as if Tim’s words had the prick of truth in them. She quickly recovered. “You do your father no honor, changeling,” she spat at him. “Had you an ounce of skill, you would not have needed such a sacrifice from him. You walked blindly into that lair. You know nothing, and your ignorance is your curse. You are not just a fool, you are dangerous.”
Tim was not going to let this horrid woman get the best of him. “Are you quite finished yelling at me? I really have to be going now.”
“Go where you will, Timothy Hunter,” Titania said, her voice nearly a growl. “Prowl these gray and dingy streets or sink all the way to Hell. But go knowing what you are: a cursed fool.”
Fury and pain made Timothy brave—or at least bold. “Oh, I know what I am all right, your royal bitchiness,” he declared. He jerked a thumb toward himself. “I’m the fool that saved you and your world—and lost a father for my troubles. You would be dead without me. You owe me. Live with that!”
Without a backward glance, Tim spun around and left the Queen of Faerie standing on the London sidewalk. He forced himself not to look back, to keep moving forward, to move as if he had some idea of where he might be going. He didn’t even care if she followed him, or sent gremlins on his trail or whatever the Queen of Faerie might do when raving. He didn’t care about anything at all. She was right about one thing: His father was dead—and it was all his fault.
He found himself in a familiar location—the cemetery.
Everything had gotten so confusing after his mother died; everything had changed. He missed his mum so much, but he never felt like he had anyplace to express it. He was always worried about his dad’s—Mr. Hunter’s—feelings. Mr. Hunter already blamed himself for Tim’s mother’s death, for not being the one to die. He was completely adrift without her. How could Tim add his own loss to that? So Tim had hidden his hurt and kept things to himself.
Tim took the familiar winding path until he came to his mother’s grave. He sank down beside the gravestone and leaned his head against it, feeling its hard coolness.
Tim noticed scrawny little weeds poking skinny shoots up out of the dirt covering his mum’s grave. “What are these?” he muttered. He reached to pluck the pathetic-looking things. Then his hand froze as he remembered.
When Tim had been dying in Faerie, he had been whisked out of his body by a pretty young woman who just happened to be the incarnation of Death. They had a long talk, and when Tim woke up back inside his body, he had found a packet of seeds in his pocket. A packet he had seen Death find in her messy apartment. When Tim returned to his own world, he had visited his mum’s grave and planted the seeds.
The infant plants didn’t look like much, but Tim knew that appearances could be deceiving. Besides, he figured seeds given to him by Death herself must be pretty important. She’d gone through a lot of trouble to find them. It would probably be a bad idea to pull them up. Better to wait and see what they turned out to be.
Tim stood up stiffly. Sometimes he felt better after visiting his mum’s grave. Not today, though. Today, he felt weighed down by Titania’s words. He had tried to drown them out, but they hit too close to home. He had caused Tamlin’s death, and there was no way he could argue himself out of that one. And she was right about his ignorance—it made him dangerous. But then why didn’t anyone teach him anything? It made no sense that the Trenchcoat Brigade would dump this ability into his lap without an instruction manual.
No, nothing made sense to Tim. Least of all the adults who seemed to be bent on ripping his reality to shreds.