Chapter EIGHTEEN

Silver

Alona is seething as we ready ourselves to fly back to Loch Ness. I’m in agreement with her. I was ready to force the answer to the riddle out of Marley and go after Murrey and the Druid there and then, but Freddy told us that plan would surely get us all captured and then he herded us out of the market. Fae were showing up with bells, letting everyone know that curfew would soon be in place. We had to return to Blue, but I wasn’t going to waste a moment.

“We rest tomorrow. Then we plan. And then we go.”

Alona looks settled by my words. Marley says nothing.

“Freddy,” I lean down as Blue is about to take off. My Siren friend looks up at the three of us. “Come with us. Who knows if it’s safe for you here.”

He hesitates. “Doesn’t really sound like a Siren is welcome at Loch Ness.”

“They’re not,” mutters Alona.

“You are,” I tell him emphatically. “You’re my friend. You’re welcome.”

For a moment, it looks as if he might say yes. “I have work to do here. I need to be there to help Erica and the Hidden Folk. They need supplies, the ones who
are hiding.”

I nod in understanding. “Okay. But we’ll be back. Soon.”

He reaches up to squeeze my wrist. “You’re not wearing your beret.”

“Oh,” I’m jarred by his words. “I forgot to put it on. I’ve been… busy.”

Blue chooses that moment to fly. She takes off and I’m still looking down at Freddy, until he is out of sight.

I hadn’t even realised that my beret was gone.

I can feel both Alona and Marley peering at me throughout the flight, but I say nothing. I suddenly realise how tired I am. Days of irregular sleep because of our sneaking out now creeping up on me. As Blue begins her descent into Loch Ness, I can picture my bed in the tower, and I can’t wait to crawl inside of it and pretend that none of this is really happening.

“Look!” shrieks Alona, jolting me out of my reverie. She’s pointing to the bank of the loch as Blue begins to land upon the water. “It’s him!”

Marley and I instantly grab hold of the Dryad before she can splash through the cold water, towards what looks like her maker upon the dry land.

“It’s not him,” I tell her, hugging her from behind. “Look. Watch.”

I can feel her desperation to run to the doppelganger, but she obeys me. She stills and we all watch the man on the bank. He looks back for a moment and then transforms. Into Aunt Opal, then Aunt Leanna, then me. I grimace and let go of Alona.

“See. It’s a weird shapeshifter.”

“And this is what Portia wants?” she whispers, staring at it. “This is the ghost everyone has been seeing. That’s what she wants?”

“She’s collecting powerful Hidden Folk for her personal guard,” I sigh.

“It looked just like him,” Alona breathes. “Now it looks just like you.”

I stare into my own eyes and then the creature shifts once more. As if it has somehow scanned my brain, my memory, it turns into Mum. I clench my fists.

Then it turns into Grandpa.

The snarl that comes out of my mouth feels animalistic. No one is strong enough to hold me back as I reach down for a stone and hurl it.

“Don’t you dare wear his face!” I scream, throwing another. It does not even flinch. Instead, it throws them back. It misses me, but the retaliation makes me even more furious. I blast some magic towards it. A spell hits it directly in the face and it staggers backwards a little.

“Ramya, stop,” Marley says.

I reach down to pick up another stone, but my weak ankles lose their footing and I collapse onto the ground. I swear and can feel spluttering, angry sobs threatening to break loose.

So, I let them out. The creature vanishes at the sound and Blue, still standing in the water behind us, lets out a low moan.

“I hate this,” I choke out. “I hate feeling useless.”

“You’re not useless,” Alona says gently. “Your magic is the reason the Fae and Portia are afraid to seize you. You’re lucky.”

“I don’t feel lucky. They’ve locked up my friend to get to me. They know that every minute I’m not trying to break him out, I’m feeling guilty. Knowing that he’s in there because they’re trying to lure me out.”

I punch the stones and dirt beneath my tightly closed fists. I punch until it hurts.

“You’ll injure yourself,” Alona says, kneeling next to me. She holds one of my hands and steadies it. I can’t look at her; I feel like an electric wire that has sparked too brightly.

“We need to plan a rescue. Now.” I look up at Marley. “What did that fortune teller mean? The king’s throne. What is that?”

Marley casts a glance at where the creature stood and then considers the question. “I was thinking about that as we were flying back. Maybe Arthur’s Seat?”

Arthur’s Seat, the dormant volcano overlooking the city. Now a popular sight for tourists, hillwalkers, and school geology trips. I frown.

“Arthur’s Seat got its name because people believe that to be where Camelot stood. It makes sense with the riddle.”

“Agreed,” I concede, “but it’s outdoors. Why would her hideout be on top of a hill?”

“She said something about a secret door and a narrow path,” Marley reminds me.

“She did,” I murmur. I look at him. “You really think—”

“I do,” he says soundly. “But the door will be Glamoured.”

“Yes. So, when do we—”

“Daylight,” Marley says, and I’m surprised by how resolute he sounds. “Tomorrow, we have to just go. If Mum or Aunt Opal try to stop us—”

“They won’t if we slip out before dinner,” I point out. “We’ll be on Blue and gone before they notice.”

“Aunt Opal knows we’ve been—”

“She doesn’t know everything, and she doesn’t know about Blue.”

“I’ll be in our cottage,” Alona tells us. “I have to… I have to tidy it up, for when he gets back. Knock on the door. I’ll come with you. I want to help.”

“You don’t want to stay by our house?” I ask.

“Oh, no,” she says hurriedly. “It’s all right. I want to be home.”

We watch her scamper away and, when she is almost out of sight, she transforms into a leaf and floats across the breeze. We sit in silence for a moment, my cheeks damp with frustrated tears.

“I want to go home, too,” I say, and he knows I mean Edinburgh.

“I know.”

“Marley?”

“Yes?”

“I,” I feel another sob lodged in my throat and I have to squeeze my eyes closed to hold back more tears. “I really do try, you know. I’m really trying.”

I feel his hand on my shoulder. “I know you are.”

When I flew for the first time, so long ago now, with Aunt Opal and the Kelpies and the river beneath me, I thought I was finally a natural at something. I thought a talent had finally come easy to me, that I would finally be able to do something without
constant practice.

The more I’ve allowed doubt to set in, the harder it has been to fly. I’ve told myself that my wings have just been clipped but, in reality, I’m just too afraid to use them.

*

“Aunt Opal?”

It’s noon the next day and she’s in Grandpa’s study. I knock on the door and poke my head in. She’s sitting cross-legged on top of his old writing desk, reading something. She glances up when I enter and smiles lightly. “Hey.”

“What’s that?” I ask, nodding at the book in her hands.

She looks down at it once more and her eyes soften. “One of Dad’s first attempts at a book on the
Hidden Folk.”

I move a little closer. “He always wished he could
see them.”

“Yeah, well,” she turns a page. “They mostly grew to like him so much that they would let down their Glamour on occasion. Not all of them, but some.”

“He was the best.”

“Yeah. But he could push. When he wanted results, when he had a vision in his head, he could overwork himself. And other people.”

I blink, unsure of how to respond. “He did?”

“Yes. Why do you think your Mum works so hard? Why do you think Aunt Leanna is so worried about Marley? And me. I’m… well. Me.”

“You push me hard,” I point out, not unkindly.

“I do. Because I know you can do better.”

I don’t know how to tell her that a compliment would make me work fifty times harder. I can’t express in this moment how much I need to feel like I’m doing well, in order for me to do better. I’m tired of playing the underdog, I’m tired of feeling like I have to fight my way out of every room and every situation. “Okay.”

We sit together in the dusty, bookish room without making a sound. I look at the photographs on his wall. I spot one that looks like me. One year old, sat on the kitchen floor with a plastic toy telephone. My pudgy little hand is holding the phone up to Aunt Opal and she is pretending to listen in to an imaginary caller on the other end. I’m looking up at her and laughing. Gran and Grandpa are in the background, smiling
as well.

I stare at it. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you were there. In the beginning.”

She looks at the photograph and a flicker of emotion streaks through her eyes then vanishes. “Of course I was.”

I look at another photograph. This one only of her. She’s wearing faded jeans and a crop top, smiling knowingly at the camera.

“My best friend took that one,” she says quietly. “Funny to look at it now.”

I’m about to ask who she’s referring to, when she sniffs and points out of the study window.

“That Dryad. She’s your friend?”

“Yes,” I say firmly. “She’s sweet. You’d like her if you met her on a normal day. You know, one where her maker hasn’t been kidnapped by a Siren.”

Opal laughs, bitterly. “I’m sure I would.”

“She’s never had friends before us.”

“And she’s who you’ve been sneaking out to see?”

I feel colour rush to my neck, and I blush furiously. “Yes.”

I say nothing of Blue, the dragon.

“Okay. As long as you’re keeping to the house and are safe.”

“We are,” I lie.

“Good friends are… more precious than anything,” she adds, looking back to the single photograph of her when she was younger. “Don’t let them become living ghosts in your life. Or faces you can’t really remember.”

I look at how tired she seems. “Why are you conserving your magic?”

She touches the satin teal fabric around her wrist, the one the Stranger gifted her. “I’m working on one very big spell.”

“A curse?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I know?”

“No.”

I want to object but don’t let my temper loose. “That shapeshifting thing looked like Grandpa. I hate it.”

“Leave that thing be.”

“Why should I? It’s provoking us.”

“Ramya.”

“What does Portia want with it? Will it do what
she says?”

“Remember when I told you to lay low in Edinburgh?” Opal suddenly says. “I told you what you were doing was dangerous. Not to do it.”

“You didn’t know about Ren.”

“No, I didn’t. I knew a Siren was in town, but I didn’t know it was him, you’re right. I didn’t know Ren. He was ambitious, he was cruel. He wanted power.”

“Same as Portia.”

“No,” Opal breathes, so quietly. “She wants something else. And the best thing you can do is stay here. Not let her get it.”

“Me?”

She looks up at me. “Not exactly.”

“She wants me because I’m sort of like the chosen one. You know? I have lots of potential and power.”

Something is stirring in Opal’s face. “You do. But that’s not—”

“Dinnertime in twenty minutes!” Aunt Leanna’s voice booms from the kitchen, across the hall from the study. I turn back to Opal.

“What were you going to say?”

She shakes her head slightly and smiles. “Nothing.”

I wait to see if she will say anything more, but she returns her attention to the book in her lap, only after casting one last look at the photo on the wall. I am dismissed, once again. I creep out of the room, shutting the door behind me. I spot Marley on the staircase. He nods at me, a questioning look in his eye. I nod back.

This is it. We’re leaving. To save Murrey, reunite Alona and her maker and take on the Siren.

Marley looks to the kitchen door, I look to the study. Then we quietly sneak out of the front door together.

*

We are both panting as we sprint to the cottage. I whistle as softly as I can, a warning for Blue. We reach the door and I don’t bother to knock, flinging it open.

“Now or never, Alona,” I say as I enter with a flourish. “We’re leaving now, are you…”

My words fade away. The cottage is spick and span once again, but completely silent. I check each room, calling her name, but there is no sign of her.

“Ramya?”

I return to the hearth at the sound of Marley calling my name. “She’s not here.”

“Look,” he says, holding up a piece of parchment. It’s as white as his face.

A little dryad and a vampire, sharing a cell. He hasn't had any blood in weeks. Hope she is feeling brave. See you shortly little witch.

My hands shake as I read the words. The swirling, vain penmanship screams Fae. Or Portia. I don’t even care. I’m enraged and my skin is hot. I crumple up the piece of paper and hurl it at the stone wall.

“They’ve got her,” Marley says dolefully. “They
must have come last night, or this morning—”

“Doesn’t matter,” I snarl, kicking the door open and heading for the loch, knowing Marley will follow. “We’re rescuing three people now instead of two,
so what. Plan is the same. We haven’t got time to
spare anymore.”

“They’ve been starving Murrey,” Marley points out as we rush to the water’s edge. “That’s not only cruel, it’s dangerous. He’s a Vampire, he might—”

“I know, Marley,” I snap. “I know.”

The evening light is dim as we reach the edge of the loch. I whistle again and I can see a dark shape coming closer, beneath the water. Blue rises up and I am momentarily distracted from rage and fear as I marvel at how glorious she really is.

“Up for one more Edinburgh journey, girl?” I ask, touching her snout gently.

She chuffs and Marley mounts up. I hesitate, looking back over at the cottage, now shrouded in darkness.

Something is not right. Amongst everything else in this moment, where all seems out of place and impossible to fix, something in the shadows sets off a shiver in me.

“Hello?”

A shape materialises out of the gloom.

Alona.

Something is badly wrong. I whisper for Blue to stay away, then turn to address Marely. “I’ll go alone. You stay here, with Blue.”

“Are you mad?”

“Always. But just do it, okay?”

Before he can protest, I move. I walk slowly towards what looks exactly like my friend, with green eyelashes and a kind, open face. I try to appear unassuming.

“Alona?”

The creature that looks like my Dryad friend silently looks back.

“You’re not her, are you?” I say wearily, edging a little closer. “You’re that thing.”

She says nothing. Then she transforms. Marley is suddenly stood before me.

I seethe. “What do you do then? Do you steal
our memories? Push your way into our minds?
You’re disgusting.”

“Oh, Ramya, that’s so mean.”

I don’t look, I just react. Blasting a flash of magic in the direction of the voice. The shape in the dark corner by the cottage wall deflects the spell, and I gape in horror as Alona’s Druid moves into the low light.

“You. You’re with Portia.”

I’m not even surprised. I never liked him, he was strange from the beginning, but my mind is too focused on my friends to care about this clown right at this moment. A small voice whispers about how Opal clearly suspected this. That was why she felt no urgency to rescue the Druid.

“You’ve been working for her,” I say. My aunt knew it. I should’ve known it.

“Not in the beginning,” he says, shrugging. “But I’m old and worn out. I want to be on the winning side, whatever that is. And a Siren who has taken over a whole city while the coven of witches cower up north? That’s the side I must be on, I’m afraid.”

“Alona trusted you.”

“She’s too emotional,” he sighs. “She’ll learn.”

I blast another spell and this one hits him. He stumbles but remains standing, glaring at me.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say sullenly. “Even now. You’re just in my way.”

“Portia wants to wait for you to come to her, but I’d rather bring you in myself. This creature, too. That’s what I came for. You’re a nice little added bonus.
Then she’ll—”

“Then she’ll respect you for the creepy, brown-nosing minion that you are? Good luck with that. You’re not taking me anywhere.”

I turn around, prepared to return to Marley and Blue. My gait is clumsy and jerky.

I hear the Druid tell the strange creature, “Stop her.”

I feel and hear it chase me, before my waist is seized and I’m jerked backwards.