Chapter 17

M and B

MADAME Q caught Oisín looking at her and her eyes returned to their usual colour.

‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.

Oisín looked up at the skylight. He had been sure a raven had been there but now there was an uninterrupted view of the moon. Had he imagined it?

‘I’m just tired,’ Oisín said. ‘I should get to bed.’ Or get out of here as fast as possible, he thought. He stepped back to leave but Madame Q’s voice stopped him.

‘Come now,’ she purred. ‘No true adventurer could go to bed this early. And you know that magical items are at their most powerful in moonlight.’

‘Like a book?’ Oisín said innocently.

‘Exactly,’ Madame Q said.

‘I should probably get it back to the library,’ Oisín said. ‘The Keeper of Books will be worried.’

Madame Q gave an indulgent smile. ‘Absolutely right. Although sometimes rules must be bent a little. I haven’t had one Quint who hasn’t been in trouble with Mrs Fitzfeather at some stage. Genius can’t be boxed in.’

‘Does Mrs Fitzfeather know I’m here? She was worried about the forest.’

‘You don’t know the half of it about Mrs Fitzfeather,’ Madame Q said irritably, before controlling herself. She smoothed out her dress, even though there wasn’t a hint of a wrinkle.

‘Let me be clear,’ she said after a moment. ‘I want to check on the Book of Magic. Make sure it’s ready as we approach Lughnasa.’

Madame Q still hadn’t told him about her plans for Lughnasa. Oisín wondered if she had told anybody.

‘Couldn’t you do that in the library?’

‘I wanted to see the Book without outside interference. I could have just taken it, you know.’

‘But you need me here,’ Oisín said shrewdly. ‘You need to see what hold I still have over it.’

Madame Q pressed her lips together so tightly that they almost disappeared.

‘Here,’ Oisín said, handing the Book to her. ‘Have a look.’

He felt a tug as Madame Q took it from him. He could sense her restraint, could sense that she had wanted to snatch it. Oisín looked at her carefully. She seemed to have forgotten about him and was opening the pages very gently.

‘It’s changing, getting stronger,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m not sure that you should –’

‘It’s mine,’ Oisín said firmly.

The Book sailed back into his hands. It was the same movement it had made on the first day he’d found it, the same movement as when Stephen had tried to take it from him on the DART. But the Book of Magic felt different now, definitely his. Oisín was no longer sure he wanted it.

‘What is all this commotion?’

Oisín turned to find Mrs Fitzfeather bustling in, with Brad Washington behind her.

‘I knew that thing was trouble, sending you into the Forest, and on your first trip! If only I’d stopped you from boarding Eachtra.’

‘And if only Quints knew how to follow orders and Captains knew how to knock on doors,’ Madame Q said icily.

‘I thought Mrs Fitzfeather should know what was happening,’ Brad said.

‘I wasn’t aware that thinking was your speciality,’ Madame Q retorted.

‘Brad, take Oisín to the library immediately,’ Mrs Fitzfeather said.

Oisín left before Madame Q could say anything. He couldn’t wait to leave the Book in its drawer and flop into his hammock.

When they left the study, though, Brad stayed by the door and pressed his ear to the keyhole. Oisín stayed too, torn between tiredness and curiosity. The passion with which Madame Q and Mrs Fitzfeather were speaking meant that it wasn’t too hard to hear snatches of their conversation.

‘You agreed to stay away from the Book,’ Mrs Fitzfeather flared.

‘You haven’t seen what’s happening to it. Or have you?’

‘How dare you! You know I want what’s best for the Book and for the boy. B, we have to –’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Madame Q hissed.

‘You can hide behind all the Qs you want,’ Mrs Fitzfeather responded. ‘But you can’t hide from who you are.’

‘Oh, really? Taken off your shawls lately, M?’

The boys heard Mrs Fitzfeather’s angry footsteps and they fled, only moments before she came storming out. Brad practically rolled Oisín down the stairs, pushing him through a side door and leading him through the winding corridors to the library without saying a word.

The Keeper of Books was so worried about all the other people who had touched the Book and the black lines that were creeping across it that she forgot to offer Oisín bramble-briar tea, which was some sort of silver lining.

Oisín was very glad to reach his hammock and be away from the Book. Tom was still awake. They spoke in Forest, so they wouldn’t wake the others. This also made it easier for Oisín to apologise.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tom signed quickly. ‘You didn’t know what you were saying. It’s that book.’

Yes, Oisín thought, feeling the weight of the day catch up with him. It was always the Book. He wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and forget all about it.

Tom, however, was very interested to learn that the Quints had been in the Forest of Shadows.

‘Antimony’s right,’ he signed. ‘One of them has to be helping the Morrígan. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Quicksilvers was the Morrígan.’

‘I was pretty sure Madame Q was the Morrígan,’ Oisín signed, telling Tom about what had happened with the raven and her eyes.

‘I knew she was suspicious,’ Tom shouted, forgetting they were supposed to be quiet.

‘Ssssh!’ Oisín signed. He was pretty sure that Dimitri and Pádraig were not a threat – unless their snores were fatal – but he thought it was wise to keep the noise down.

‘Do you know why Madame Q and Mrs Fitzfeather would call each other B and M?’ Oisín signed.

Tom shook his head.

Oisín lay back in his hammock and tried to get some sleep. His brain hurt from all the mysteries. It was like trying to solve a jigsaw made of mist. Every time he thought he understood something, another piece of the puzzle drifted away. There was Cassandra and her prophecy; Lysander taking the Book of Magic; Brad Washington, whom all the other Quints bullied; the strange names Madame Q and Mrs Fitzfeather called each other; the elk’s warning … Before he knew it, the dawn was creeping through the porthole.

‘Whoa, look at that!’ Dimitri said, leaping up from his hammock.

Oisín followed his gaze, looking through the sliver of clear glass in the porthole. They had arrived at the fire-fields, a grey landscape of craggy rocks that led towards a huge bubbling volcano. It wasn’t the volcano that captivated Oisín though, but the hill on the other side, deathly pale in the morning sun.

‘Cnoc na gCnámh,’ he whispered to himself, surprised at the beauty of a hill made entirely out of bone.

Whoever the Morrígan was disguised as, they didn’t have long to figure it out.

Across the other side of the volcano, many miles away, another child was having trouble sleeping. Sorcha stirred in her sleep on her comfortable bed and thought that Oisín and Stephen would be very jealous if they knew how much chocolate she had been having. And eating it in bed and everything! Sorcha turned over into the pillow.

‘It won’t be long now, dear,’ the nice lady said in her honeyed voice. She’d cast off the shape she shifted to on board Eachtra and was her true self. She stroked Sorcha’s hair with her long fingernails as Sorcha drifted back to sleep.

‘Lughnasa’s only one week away, sweetie. And then it will all be over.’

Asleep in her bed, Sorcha couldn’t see the gleam in the lady’s eyes or the cruel smile that crept across her face.