The boy clung to the rock pile, too shocked to move. Terror seized him as the hand groped his leg, and he bit his lip to stifle a scream. Then a groan floated up from below him: “Help… me.”

He’d seen the fogou collapse, dust billowing from the wreckage. Surely no spriggan born, no matter how strong or cunning or even lucky, could have survived such devastation. Yet as he wavered those fingers clutched at him again, weak but undeniably real.

Swallowing his fear, the boy dropped to the floor and began digging at the pile with both hands, pulling out rocks and tossing them aside. Before long his fingers were bleeding and his back ached, but he kept working doggedly until he’d cleared a space large enough for the trapped warrior to crawl out.

Something inside him had hoped, against all reason, that his father had survived. But as the man’s head and shoulders emerged and he saw that blunt-featured face with its bristling black beard, he knew better. It was Helm, the Grey Man’s oldest and most trusted companion.

“So, lad,” Helm wheezed, heaving the rest of his body free. “You got away. Anyone else?”

The boy shook his head.

“Ayes, well.” Helm coughed again. “We can’t all be lucky at once.” He dropped his forehead against his blood-streaked arm and lay panting a moment. Then he gripped the stones with one big hand and staggered to his feet.

His hair was grey with rock-dust, and an ugly gash crossed his brow. His sleeves and trousers were ripped in several places, showing bloody scrapes beneath. But his stout leather jerkin was intact, and his limbs looked whole.

“The Grey Man’s dead. Shaper rest him.” Helm fell back against the wall of the tunnel, gazing up at the light filtering through the rocks above. Grime had settled into the lines of his face, making him look craggier than ever.

“He shoved me away, when the roof cracked,” he said. “Then he used the last of his power to shield me, so I wouldn’t be crushed with the rest. The greatest spriggan chief in all Kernow, giving up his life for an old soldier with barely a coin to his name. And do you know why?”

The boy shook his head.

“I asked him—begged him—to let go.” Helm’s eyes were dark beneath his bushy brows. “It was my place to die with my chief, and I thought the knockers would finish me off anyway. But he told me I had to live, and look after his son.”

Heat pricked the boy’s eyes, though he’d thought all his tears long spent. He’d failed in nearly every way a son could fail his father, but the Grey Man had died thinking of him.

“That would be you, lad,” said Helm gruffly, clapping him on the back. “A sorry little mouse as ever ate crumbs, but we’ll make a man of you yet.” He jerked his head toward the shifting heap of rubble. “We’ll give our folk a proper farewell, and then be on our way.”

“Ivy.”

The whisper was so soft she would never have heard it, if it hadn’t been a hand’s breadth from her ear. Ivy’s eyes flew open to find Martin stooping over her in the darkness, holding a finger to his lips.

“We need to talk,” he said, glancing at Cicely’s blanket-huddled shape on the far side of the bed. “Get dressed and meet me outside.” Then he vanished.

Ivy slid out of bed, her heart hammering, and pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and slim trousers. The house was dark and utterly still, the sky outside so thick with cloud that not a single star shone through. She combed her curls with her fingers, shook off the last foggy remnants of sleep, and willed herself out into the night.

Martin stood by the corner of the barn, waiting for her. He straightened as she approached, and it struck her that he seemed ill at ease—almost, if she hadn’t known him better, shy.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said.

His smile was half grimace. “So did I, at first. But then I thought… it was only fair to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I may have found the other spriggans. Or at least one of them.”

“What? Where?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Martin admitted. “It may be a trick, or even a trap. That’s why I didn’t say anything before. I hadn’t decided whether it was worth the risk.” He leaned against the stone wall, gazing across the field to the dark line of trees beyond. “But this time when I went to see Thom Pendennis, he asked me straight out if I was human. And when I asked what sort of question that was, he told me I wouldn’t be the first spriggan who’d come into his shop to sell treasure.”

Ivy drew a sharp breath. So Thom had known, or at least suspected, all along. “Go on.”

“He told me there’s an older spriggan named Walker who’s been bringing him bits of his family trove for years. He wondered if I knew him, and when I said no, he looked surprised. ‘I’d thought he must be an uncle of yours, or some sort of relative at least,’ he said. ‘You look so much alike—’”

Martin’s voice cracked on the last word, and he turned his head away. He had to clear his throat before he spoke again. “He offered to arrange a meeting, but I said I’d think about it. Thom’s a shifty little man, and I had a feeling I might be better off trying to find this Walker on my own.”

No wonder he’d been gone so long. “But you haven’t?” Ivy asked.

“No. So I’ve decided to take my chances with Thom after all,” he said. “No doubt he’ll want a bribe of some sort, or at least a reward if all goes well. But if Walker can tell me what happened to the other spriggans, or lead me to them… it’ll be worth it.”

The leaves stirred, and an apple fell with a thump from the tree at the corner of the barn. The clouds thinned and frayed apart, revealing the flashing lights of an airplane gliding west toward the sea. Ivy watched until it vanished, then said, “Well, I’m glad. I hope you find them.”

“Come with me.”

She looked at him, startled. He sounded serious, but surely he couldn’t mean it?

“What I said this afternoon—it was something splenitive and rash, as Hamlet would say.” His mouth bent wryly. “It would be foolhardy to attack your aunt, and you’d have little chance of surviving if you did. But if you’ve already warned your friends in the Delve about the poison, and they’re doing all that they can…” He spread his hands. “Do they need you any more? And now that Molly’s gone and your mother and sister are settled, do they really need you either?”

He did mean it. “But I can’t go to London,” Ivy stammered. “I’m supposed to meet Jenny and Matt again in two days, and Molly’s promised to ring and tell me… something important. And anyway, I can’t fly.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Ivy said in frustration. “I’ve tried everything. It’s no use.”

“Then ride on my back, like you did before.” He took her hand. “But I need your eyes, Ivy. I need your dreams. I need someone to help me know the truth when I find it. I don’t want to do this alone.”

Ivy felt as though the Great Shaft had opened beneath her, and she was falling into it stomach-first. “Martin, I can’t.”

He released her abruptly and stepped back, his jacket rasping the stones. “What you really mean,” he said, “is that you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that—I have responsibilities! There are people counting on me, and it wouldn’t be right to—” She broke off, then added heavily, “I’m not like you, Martin. I can’t drop everything on a whim and run away.”

His expression turned icy. “My apologies,” he said. “I shouldn’t have troubled you with my whim.”

Oh, no. Had she really put it that way? “I didn’t mean,” she began, but Martin cut her off with a gesture.

“It doesn’t matter; I understand. Your loyalties are with your own people, as they should be. Steady and constant as the earth itself.” He clapped a hand to his heart and bent in a cool mockery of a bow. “Farewell, fair cruelty.”

“Martin, wait!” cried Ivy. “I haven’t told you—”

But he was already gone.

When Ivy woke the next morning she felt hollow, as though a cold wind were whistling through her bones. She’d never had the chance to tell Martin about her latest dream, and now he was gone—perhaps only for a few days, but it could also be weeks, or forever. After all, what reason had she given him to come back?

She could only hope that in finding Walker and perhaps the rest of his fellow spriggans, Martin would also find rest from his wandering. Because if he knew what it felt like to have a home and a people, maybe he’d understand why Ivy had made the choice she had.

Resolved not to brood over it, Ivy threw herself into unpacking, organizing and putting away her family’s belongings with such determination that Marigold and Cicely soon retreated and left her to it. She worked hard all day and slept that night without dreaming, and when Molly rang the following night with a triumphant report of her first day at school, she listened with as much interest as a friend should.

“So everything’s all right, then?” Ivy asked, when Molly had run out of stories to tell her. “You haven’t had any more feelings of being watched?”

“Not a one,” Molly said. “They went away as soon as I left Cornwall—maybe even sooner. I’ll let you know if they come back, but I really don’t think they will.”

Ivy was relieved to know the other girl was doing well, and when their conversation ended she felt better than she had in a long time. Surely she’d done the right thing by staying here, and there was no need to wonder what might have been.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to stop wearing the copper bracelet. It had turned cool, but not uncomfortably so, and Ivy had grown so accustomed to having it around her wrist that she felt naked without it. But late that night as she lay listening to her sister’s gentle snore, the metal suddenly flared hot enough to make her gasp, then icy cold. And when Ivy snatched off the bracelet to examine her wrist, there was a red mark all around it.

“What do you think it means?” she asked, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed as Marigold examined the burn. She didn’t expect her to heal it: only male faeries could do that particular kind of spell. But Marigold knew more about magic in general than she did.

“I’m not sure,” said Marigold. She picked up the bracelet and turned it over in her fingers. “But if you hadn’t told me Martin had put a spell on this, I’d never have guessed it was magical at all. Where did it come from?”

Ivy hesitated. She hadn’t told Marigold that she and Martin had found the treasure together, much less that he’d given her a half share. “I think it belonged to his family,” she said, as truthfully as she could.

Marigold went still. Then she set the bracelet down on the nightstand, out of Ivy’s reach. “I didn’t realize you’d become so close.”

Ivy sighed. “Mum, it’s not… whatever you think it is. But Martin’s done a lot to help me. All of us. If he’s in trouble—”

“I doubt that,” Marigold said. “I think it more likely that he broke the spell himself, so that no one could use your bracelet to find him.”

Or because he no longer trusted Ivy to watch his back. “Maybe, but what if we’re wrong, and he needs our help?”

“Martin can look after himself. He always has. But there are things I need to ask you, Ivy.” She smoothed the blankets over her knees, an oddly self-conscious gesture. “You never told me how Martin escaped the Claybane. Was it your blood that freed him?”

“Yes,” said Ivy, “though I—” She was about to say I don’t know why it worked, but Marigold cut her off.

“And that week you spent away, before you came to offer us Molly’s house. Were you with Martin then?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t like—”

“Oh, Ivy.” She sighed. “I know what it’s like. You believe he cares for you, that he would never willingly hurt you. But you wouldn’t be the first to believe that. Or the first to be wrong.”

“What are you saying?”

Marigold put a hand over her eyes, as though the light of Ivy’s skin-glow was too much for her. “He’s an actor, Ivy,” she said. “He can be anything he wishes, or thinks you want him to be. And I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but… he can lie.”

“I know that,” Ivy said. “He told me himself.”

Her mother looked startled, but she was quick to recover. “Yes, but don’t you see? If Martin can lie to others, he can lie to you. You can never trust him, because you can’t know who he really is.”

Which was the same thing she’d said about spriggans. “But you trusted him once,” Ivy said impatiently. “You must have, or you wouldn’t have sent him to the Delve to find me.”

“Only because I was desperate,” Marigold said. “And I knew he would do as I asked, because he owed me a great debt. I risked my own safety to hide him from his enemies, even though he’d once betrayed me—”

“Betrayed you?” Ivy’s resentment dissolved into shock. “Why?”

“To save his own skin, of course.” Her lips thinned bitterly. “We were both fleeing from the Empress at the time—me to Cornwall, he to Wales. When our paths crossed on the way out of London, he made me believe I could trust him, and that we would be safer traveling together. But once the Empress’s hunters caught up to us, he led them onto my trail so he could escape.”

Martin had confessed to being a liar, a spy and even a murderer, but he’d never told Ivy that. Probably because he knew how angry she would be if she found out. All the years Ivy had thought her mother dead, Marigold had been fighting to escape the Empress’s power and get back to her family. And when she finally got her chance, Martin had stolen it from her.

“And I wasn’t the only one he betrayed,” Marigold said sadly. “There was a faery girl named Rhosmari, not much older than you, who Martin promised to guide to safety—but instead he handed her over to the Empress. And one of the first things he did as the Empress’s servant was to kill a helpless old man, a human, who didn’t even know he had offended her.”

Ivy swallowed the sickness that had risen in her throat. Even though she had no doubt her mother was telling the truth, part of her wanted to protest that Martin had only acted in ignorance, or because he had no other choice. She knew him too well to believe him entirely selfish, or that he felt no remorse for the wicked things he’d done.

But what if she’d only ever seen what Martin wanted her to see? What if all his actions toward her, even the most seemingly noble and self-sacrificial, had been part of some cunning deception?

Marigold brushed a stray curl back from Ivy’s face. “I don’t blame you for taking pity on him,” she said. “You have a caring heart, and he knows all too well how to turn that to his advantage. He can make himself seem honest, sincere—even vulnerable, if need be. But he has no loyalty to anyone but himself, and his own freedom, his own desires, will always be more important to him than yours.” She cupped Ivy’s chin in her hand. “I know it’s hard for you to believe right now, but you’re better off without him. Let him go.”

Ivy closed her eyes, wrestling with her conscience. She’d misjudged Martin once, to her own shame, and she didn’t want to make that mistake again. Yet even if she could be sure he hadn’t meant to sever the link between them, what could she do? Without the finding-spell on the bracelet, she had no way to track him. And he’d warned her, however teasingly, that if the bracelet went cold he was probably dead.

“You’re right,” she said at last, though the words made her feel heavy inside. “I have work to do here, and people who need me. Martin can take care of himself.”