‘. . . what?’ I say faintly.

‘The Riders are coming,’ he repeats. ‘When the moon is at its zenith on the longest day, they will ride. And they’re going to kill the Valentine.’

I feel like the temperature in the room has dropped thirty degrees. ‘What are you talking about?’

He’s still smiling, but it’s not him. Cardy’s not in there. Cardy’s gone. It’s his face, but it’s a horrible smile, a rictus smile, a smile like a grinning skull. ‘You know exactly what I mean, ironheart,’ he says, reaching over and running a finger – one of Cardy’s fingers – down the side of my face. ‘You did not think we would forget about you, did you?’

I jerk away. ‘We’ve done this before,’ I say tightly. ‘And you lost.’

‘Did you really think,’ he says, leaning forward on his elbows and folding his fingers under his chin in a way that I have never seen Cardy do, ever, ‘we would really send only Jenny Greenteeth and her kelpie to find a prince?’

No. No, I did not think that. I have lain awake at nights, and the parts of my brain not consumed with the stupid song have been thinking about this, turning it over and over in my brain.

I knew they would come back.

‘We walk among you,’ he says, and he is still smiling, smiling like a skull. ‘At any moment, ironheart, we can reach out and take you. We can take anyone.’

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. I know the Seelie and Unseelie are, like, eternally at war or whatever the hell their deal is, but they one hundred per cent have the same speechwriters.

‘Why are you calling me that?’ I ask. ‘Ironheart?’

He laughs.

‘What does it mean?’ I demand, reaching over the table and grabbing his arm.

‘Ow!’ Cardy says, pulling away from me and rubbing his forearm.

‘Oh, come off it, I didn’t grab you –’ I stop, seeing the black scorch mark on his skin.

Iron.

‘Have you had your ring in the sun or something?’ he says, rubbing at it. ‘That burned.’

‘Here, show me,’ I say, standing and leaning over the table. I nearly knock over both our coffees, but I don’t care. I lean close to his arm, examining it, poking at it with my fingers, and making sure to rub the iron from both my rings all over his skin.

Nothing.

‘It’s all right, Pearl, it doesn’t even hurt any more,’ he says, pulling away. ‘You must have given me, like, an electric shock or something. Anyway, what were we talking about?’

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here – when am I ever entirely sure of what’s going on anymore? – but I have a pretty good idea. Julian and Holly aren’t the only human fairy slaves walking around. Whatever Jenny and Kel did to Cardy’s mind, the . . . link – bond? Vulcan mind-meld? – is still going strong. The Unseelie can reach out and take control of him at any moment and make him do whatever they want.

Iron. Iron helps. Iron snapped him out of it.

I have to get him to wear iron.

I can do that. That won’t be too hard. I basically have iron on tap now, and I’m confident I can talk Cardy into doing what I want him to do.

But he’s not the only person I need to protect.

No, Finn messages back when I send him my plan later that night. No fkn way Linford. Terrible plan.

It’s our only option! I send back. If she’s wearing jewellery that burns her boyfriend when she touches him, she’ll stop wearing it. And she has to wear it.

He’s human. It won’t burn him.

It will if he’s zombified!

You hate when I do this.

I’m asking you to do this.

Linford.

Please.

There’s a long pause before he writes back.

Fine. But you asked for this.

Add ‘Cardy is possessed by the Unseelie, and they want to kill you’ to the list of things I haven’t told Finn about.

I mean, if I can fix this problem on my own, why worry him, right? Imagine how much more he’d like to hear, ‘Oh hey, Finn, there were a bunch of Unseelie fairies after you. Called Riders. One hundred per cent murder-y. But luckily, because I am clever, resourceful and brilliant, I have come up with a plan to defeat them. And actually, it was such a good plan I defeated them on the way here real quick, all on my own.’

Not that I have any idea how to deal with these Unseelie Riders who are – what did Cardy say? – walking among us like aliens or whatever. After I finished that coffee chat with him, I resisted the siren song of the Seelie music and spent a lot of time googling every possible permutation of ‘riders fairy unseelie weaknesses how to defeat’ I could think of. I came up with nothing. Not even one little thing. I have no idea what these Riders are or their easily exploitable flaws. I have no plan.

But I will have one. I will.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Finn says, as we lean against the wall outside the science classroom at the beginning of lunch. My knee is brushing against his, and the silence in my mind is blissful. ‘You hated it last time I did this to her.’

The image of Phil sitting in the Saffron Room talking to a Pearl who wasn’t there floats through my mind, and anxiety and uncertainty bubble up through me.

I cling tight to the determination, shove the other uncomfortable feelings into a box deep in my mind. ‘I’m sure.’

I’ve planned my ambush perfectly. I know Phil has maths the period before lunch on Mondays. And I know that to get from maths to the place where she and her friends (or, as they were known until recently, my friends) sit at lunch, she has to walk this way. A lot of the other classrooms have meetings in them at lunchtimes – clubs, societies, sisterhoods of the travelling pants, et cetera – but the science labs are basically always empty.

‘Oh hey, I have something for you,’ Finn says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what looks like a black ribbon.

I take it from him, being careful not to touch him with my iron rings. ‘Is it a bracelet?’

‘Sure, you could wear it as a bracelet. Or around your ankle, or . . . anywhere, really.’

‘Thanks,’ I say uncertainly.

‘It’s my hair. You said – you told me, that it’s . . . loud in your head. Except when – does it work?’

I step away from him, bracing myself for the song to come crashing back in, but it doesn’t. ‘It works,’ I say.

This sounds ridiculous, it really does, but it honestly feels like the sun is shining in my heart. I hate that he had to do this. I hate it so much.

But he did it. For me.

‘Tie it?’ I ask, moving the iron ring from my left hand to the second finger on my right and offering him my left wrist.

He takes the bracelet from my hand, and there’s a second, just a second where we’re not touching, a second that feels like that moment at a gig where they turn the sound on and it’s up way too loud and everyone winces and yells. But then his fingers touch my skin and I might explode if I don’t climb him like a tree this very second.

This is out of control. Out. Of. Control. I am so gone on this boy it’s ridiculous.

‘Phil’s coming,’ he says.

It takes me a second to realise what he said, because he was so close to me I could feel his breath against my ear and I think I might have had an out-of-body experience, but I pull myself together. ‘Phil,’ I say.

She doesn’t even look at me. She just keeps walking.

‘Phil,’ Finn says.

He, apparently, merits a look, but not a stoppage.

‘Phil,’ he says again, and this time his voice is laced with something extra.

She stops.

‘Come here.’

And, obediently, like a puppet on a string, she follows him into the classroom.

Nausea bubbles up in my stomach. I force it back down and close the door behind us.

‘Phil, Pearl has something for you,’ Finn says. ‘You’re going to take it. You’re going to wear it. And you’ll never take it off.’

‘I’ll never take it off,’ she repeats.

I try not to look at her eyes, but I can’t really avoid it. They’re flat and blank, the nothing eyes of a fairy zombie.

This is for her own good, I tell myself fiercely.

I pull one of the iron rings off my right hand. ‘This ring is for you, Phil,’ I say. ‘It’ll keep you safe.’

She holds out her hand. I place the ring into her palm, fold her fingers over it. ‘Don’t take it off.’

Then it’s like someone’s switched the lights back on. What the hell is this?’ Phil exclaims.

I look over, horrified, at Finn, but this is one mess he can’t save me from. ‘Phil,’ I begin, ‘we were just trying to –’

‘Were you in my head? Finn Blacklin, were you just in my mind?’

He opens his mouth to speak, then just nods.

Phil shoves me in the shoulders, and I fall back against one of the lab desks, startled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know you were behind this.’

‘Yes, I was,’ I say, trying to regain my balance. ‘But Phil, you won’t talk to me. You won’t listen to me. So –’

‘So you thought you’d get your boyfriend to invade my mind?’

‘Phil, you’re not safe! It was the only way I could think of to make you –’

‘To make me do what you say? To listen to your orders?’

She throws the iron ring down on the ground. ‘At the risk of sounding very childish,’ she says from between her teeth, ‘you are not the boss of me, Pearl.’

‘That ring is iron,’ I say desperately. ‘One touch and you can pretty much burn a fairy to bits with it. I was just trying to protect you!’

‘I don’t want or need your protection.’

‘But you do! Without it, they can reach out and take control of you whenever they want. But –’

‘And so reaching out and taking control of me was your answer? You’re no better than they are.’

She turns and storms away. ‘Stay out of my head, Finn,’ she says over her shoulder, and then she’s gone.

I bury my face in my hands and swear. I can feel tears burning hot against the corner of my eyes, but I blink them back. I don’t want them. I don’t deserve to cry.

Finn’s hand comes down heavy on my shoulder. ‘She’s wrong, you know.’

‘No, she’s not,’ I say. ‘What the hell was I thinking? How didn’t I realise this wouldn’t work? Of course she’d snap out of it the second the iron was in her hand. And I didn’t even tell her about Julian! Stupid. Stupid, Pearl.’

‘You’re not stupid. You know that. And you are better than they are.’

He’s so warm, so close, so comforting, and I want to lean into him and let him wrap me up and take me away. That would be so easy.

But I don’t deserve comfort, and I don’t deserve easy. I don’t think I am,’ I say. ‘And maybe I’m a lot worse.’

‘Oh, come off it, Linford, that’s ridiculous.’

‘No, it’s not. Screwing with people’s heads? That’s what fairies do. It’s their nature. They don’t know any better. I do.’

He stays silent for a long while. ‘I shouldn’t have let you do this,’ he says at last.

I move away from him, away from that comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘What do you mean, “let”?’

‘Messing with people’s heads is in fairies’ nature. But I know better. You made sure I know better.’

‘So, what, now I have to come to you for permission to do things?’

‘Pearl, remember why we broke up. You found out I was in your dreams. In your head. I’ve never seen anyone so angry as you were that day, and – and it made me feel like a monster.’

I fold my arms over my chest.

‘And I don’t want that for you,’ he says. ‘I never want you to feel that way.’

I’m so angry I can almost hear it. There’s a new tune in my mind, and it’s this one, beating like a drum in my head. ‘Finn,’ I say, ‘I make my own choices. I do my own wanting. And if I ever hear you talk about “letting” me do something again, I will grab you with both hands and not let go.’

I bend down and pick up the iron ring that Phil threw away, sliding it back on my left index finger. ‘Both hands,’ I repeat.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘They’re my powers, Pearl. You don’t get to drive me around like a meat puppet doing whatever you want.’

‘Oh, I’m well aware of that. You certainly didn’t consult me when you started having all those cosy meetings with Emily.’

‘Is that what this is about? Are you jealous?’

‘Oh, screw you, Finn. My entire life does not revolve around you. I don’t sit around at home writing “ooooh, but does he liiiiike me?” in my diary. I have bigger things to deal with.’

‘Like coming up with plans to brainwash your best friend?’

‘Like trying to save your life,’ I retort. ‘Did you know that the Unseelie are back and they’re trying to kill you? Did you?’

He stops short. ‘What?’

‘Am I allowed to try and work out a way to keep you safe? Is that permitted?’

‘People are coming to kill me and you didn’t tell me?’

His nostrils flare. He is really angry now.

And I don’t care.

‘I’m telling you now,’ I say, but just as I’m about to turn on my heel and make my grand exit, he beats me to it.

The door swings shut behind him, leaving me alone in the big, dark, empty classroom.

I think I’ve been playing for about two hours when Mr Hunter finds me in the music room. Maybe more. I don’t know, really. I came here straight after . . . whatever that was with Finn, and then the bell went, and going to my afternoon classes just didn’t seem as important as sitting here at this piano. And then the bell went again because school was over, but leaving and going home didn’t seem like a productive use of time.

‘That’s new,’ Hunter remarks.

I wipe sweat off my forehead. ‘You told me not to come back unless I showed imagination.’

‘It’s new, but that doesn’t mean it’s good music.’

Classic Hunter. ‘But it’s new,’ I say, making sure not to look away, to hold his gaze, not to show fear. ‘And it’s mine.’

And he’s the one that cracks first.

He kicks a stool out from behind a drum kit, drags it over to sit near me. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Practise. Refine. Practise again. Refine more. Turn it into something worth listening to.’

‘Do you know what the problem was with the piece you kept bringing me? The piece you couldn’t play? The piece you couldn’t finish?’

I do know the problem – obviously I know the problem – but somehow I suspect ‘this piece of music is literally magic and I, a mere mortal, cannot match it’ is not the answer Hunter is looking for.

‘It was insipid,’ he says. ‘There was nothing in it. Every variation you brought me was pretty, but it was insubstantial. And it reminded me of your mother.’

Um, hello, left field, you have come out of it, Hunter. ‘My mother?’

‘I heard her play,’ he says. ‘I heard her play many times. She was a beautiful musician, a wonderful performer, but not someone whose music you ever remembered afterwards. That is why she never found the success that she was craving.’

‘Well, that and the industry. And the children she was raising. And –’

He stops me before I can really launch into the list of my mother’s faults. ‘You can be a better musician than her, Pearl, if you focus on what gives your music substance. Do you know what that is?’

I shake my head.

‘Emotion,’ he says. ‘Even those twee love songs you used to bring me: they were always full of feeling. They were saccharine, but more times than not, they were memorable.’

Oh God. Hunter has probably been able to track every crush I’ve ever had. He probably has a diagram of my Cardy Years. He must have laughed himself sick during the incident that was my awkward three-week relationship with Dave. And let’s not even talk about the system he must have for notating whenever I was worst at repressing my intense attraction to Finn. Gross.

‘You’ve been through a trauma recently. A big one. But that has been nowhere in your music. I haven’t seen one hint of it. All that you gave me was that same pretty little ditty, over and over again.’

‘I won’t do that again,’ I promise.

‘How do you feel, Pearl?’

On the list of Uncomfortable Conversations I Would Rather Not Be Having, talking about my feelings with Mr Hunter is . . . well, probably not number one, but it’s definitely in the top ten somewhere.

But at least this is a question I know the answer to. ‘Angry,’ I say, shaking out the sore fingers I’ve just spent hours smashing into the piano keys, not, for once, because I had to, but because I wanted to. ‘Really, really angry.’

He nods at the piano. ‘Then give me anger.’

‘What, now?’

‘Now.’

‘I don’t have anything prepared. I’ve just kind of been jamming for a bit, trying some things out.’

‘This isn’t about good, Pearl. This is about feeling. This is about taking your art back.’

I see his eyes glide across the iron rings on my fingers. He doesn’t like me to play wearing jewellery – it clinks against the keys – but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just looks at me expectantly.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and think back to that night at the creek.

I think of Jenny, the seaweed green hair tumbling down her back. I think of Kel, with his needle-sharp teeth. I think of Cardy, of the monster they made of him, lifeless behind the eyes. I think of Phil, screaming in a hospital bed.

I think of teeth in my skin. I think of a dark ocean closing over my head. I think of Finn waking me with a kiss like some goddamn damsel in distress.

Disappointment, I hear them whisper.

I want to scream, but instead, I sing. And I start to play.

I do eventually make it home. Disey and Shad are both out, so I make myself a gourmet dinner of toast, which I wolf down at the speed of light.

There’s a letter for me, my name scrawled on it in spidery handwriting I don’t recognise.

I know exactly what it is. While most of the Killer Girl Pearl stuff is on the internet, this isn’t the first hate mail I’ve received. I know I shouldn’t open it – the first few times I got letters like this, Disey and Shad made me go to the police, who were like, ‘yeah, don’t open those, people are nuts’ – but I do anyway, because screw people who think they can scream at me about something they know nothing about.

But it’s not another screed about how I’m a horrible cannibal murderer who should be in jail for the rest of my life.

All that’s on it are four words, made from letters cut out from newspapers, because apparently we’re in a 1990s serial killer movie now.

StAY awAy FRom fiNn.

As far as threats go, that’s a new one, but I’m not exactly surprised. Some of the conspiracy internet thinks that Finn and I were in on the murdering together like a teen cannibal version of Bonnie and Clyde (and then got thwarted by . . . something? I’ve never quite been able to work out how their theory holds together). But most of the Killer Girl Pearl crew seem to think that I was the captain of the murder team and Finn was the mighty hero-saviour and I somehow convinced him that I was a victim too and the real murderers had vanished into thin air. Of course fans of the Finn = Mighty Hero-Saviour theory would want me to stay away from their precious darling boy.

I should ask Cardy if he’s been getting any weird mail. Quite a few of the Finn = Mighty Hero-Saviour people think that Cardy was my accomplice. And then there’s the ones that think Cardy was the murderer all on his own, and that Finn and I were the angels that swooped in and saved Phil from his evil cannibal ways. (These almost always start with ‘I’m not racist, but . . .’)

But if I ask Cardy if he’s been getting weird mail, then I have to talk to Cardy, and I honestly can’t do that until I can save him from the thing in his head.

I tear the letter in half, and half, and half, and half, and put it in the bin: the rubbish bin, because this kind of ridiculousness doesn’t deserve to be recycled. I make myself tea, and the wet splat of the teabag against the shreds – the f the i the N the n – is somehow incredibly satisfying.

I take the tea to my room and close the door. I shake three iron tablets into my hand and swallow them, then sit on my bed so I can study the bracelet tied around my left wrist.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been tethered to reality by Finn’s hair, ridiculous as that sounds. When they were rampaging around town, Jenny and Kel shot me – elf-shot, the technical term is – with some magic rock that put me into a coma. I didn’t wake until Finn touched me, and then the only reason I stayed awake was because he moulted on me. All that I had was one single hair, wound around my little finger, keeping me alive.

This is the same, but it’s different.

I untie the bracelet and put it down. The music crashes in on me immediately.

I pick it back up. The quiet is as relieving as diving into cold water on a hot, hot, hot summer’s day. Except more relieving, because water is terrible now.

I tie the bracelet around my ankle. This is different to the last time. This isn’t an accident, like the one lone hair Finn shed on my pillow that time. This is deliberate. This feels . . . this seems . . . I don’t know how to put it in words that don’t sound ridiculous or melodramatic, but this bracelet feels like a declaration. A statement. A claim. Mine.

I can’t decide if I like it or hate it.

His nightly message to me is short, which I guess is all I deserve.

Hey Linford – it reads. Dash, not comma. We need to talk about today.

He’s had a lot of practice at saying things that could mean anything in his never-have-I-ever-told-a-lie life, but I know exactly what this means. You should have told me that Unseelie fairies were after me, so I could worry about it instead of you.

If I could save him – if I could make this problem go away – then . . . that would be like getting him to wear my bracelet. My mark. A declaration that says ‘I am Pearl’s, because she saved me’.

God, it would be nice if I could achieve anything, anything at all, without the help of magical jewellery.

It’s so quiet in my mind it’s hard to sleep, but when I do, I dream, for the first time in ages.

Finn’s there, of course. He’s always there in my dreams, although it’s dream Finn now, not real Finn. The sun is rising, and we’re at the beach. There are some surfers out already, black figures that look like seals in the early morning light, but we’re alone on the sand, just him and me together.

There’s a breeze blowing. His hair is blowing into his eyes, so I reach up and tuck it back behind his ear. He does the same for me, because my hair is long here, long and blonde like it was before the coma, before the creek, before everything.

He takes my hand. No one gets burned. There’s no sudden, blissful silence in my mind. All there is is him and me.

‘Race you,’ he says, and we run into the water together, and I am not afraid.

And then, of course, just as Finn and I are getting up to some really good stuff in the water that I don’t think you’re allowed to do on a public beach, I wake up, because I can’t breathe.

Waking up when someone is trying to suffocate you is like waking up because someone’s scraped razorblades along your brain. My eyes snap open. I struggle, flail, try to scream, but the hand over my mouth is firm, and a knee holds me down, winding me.

‘I know, bitch,’ he hisses. ‘I know about you.’

Julian.

I manage to work my right hand free and I go straight for his eyes. I miss, but he stumbles backwards, clutching at his face, and this time I don’t waste precious seconds lying around trying to catch my breath. I launch myself at him, grab onto his arm with both hands, press my iron rings into his skin as hard as I can.

And nothing happens, except that he flings me back across the room. The corner of my bedside table hits me right in the small of the back but I don’t have time to double over before he’s on me. ‘I know you’re the killer!’ he says, his voice harsh and hoarse. ‘And I won’t let you kill Phil!’

This time, I do manage to scream, but I know it won’t do any good, because there’s no one to come and save me. After everything, after I survived Kel and Jenny and Miller’s Creek, I’m going to die here in my own bedroom, die for no reason, die pointlessly, uselessly, without having done anything, made anything, without –

Suddenly, his weight is off me. ‘Are you all right?’ Tam asks me, twisting Julian’s arm up behind his back.

Tam. Oh God. Tam. I forgot about Tam.

I have never, ever been so glad to see someone I’m pretty sure is working for the dark side before.

‘Yeah,’ I manage to say, breathing hard. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Tam says, shaking Julian hard.

‘You’re going to break my arm!’

‘I’m fine with you breaking it,’ I tell Tam. ‘But you know what, Julian? Maybe he won’t. And maybe I won’t call the police and tell them you tried to kill me if you tell me why.’

‘Not trying to kill you – easy, man!’

‘So, what, you were just trying to suffocate me for fun?’

‘Trying to scare you,’ Julian says, glaring at me. ‘Bitch.’

That’s when Tam lets him go, turns him around, and punches him so hard he breaks his nose.