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  He unbuttoned his doublet, ignoring Bran’s weapon as best he could. Evie helped, taking the black garment and throwing it over the back of the sofa. Auran pulled his torn shirt over his head, the shredded arm stuck to the still bleeding wound, peeling away what was left of the bandages as it came off. There was another circular wound on his shoulder, where Bran had struck him with the poker.

  His slimly muscled chest was covered in faded white scars. One ran slanted over his stomach. The wound must have been dangerous. “What happened?” she asked, motioning to it.

  Auran scratched the scar with blood-encrusted nails. “The Court has been attacked many times since the King and Queen disappeared. It is my lot to fight for it. The Unseelie Court of Eire even crossed the water to bring us trouble last year, and them from the Northern Lands above also.”

  He was more in control. Colour was returning to his cheeks, his breathing becoming slower and calmer in the iron-free air. “Have you any bandages?” He didn’t look at Bran when he asked.

  Bran sighed and lowered the gun completely, sliding it into his belt. “I do. You can take them and leave. Both of you. I think there has been enough excitement for today.”

  Auran shook his head. “Tomorrow is the solstice. We have left this too late as it is. We must have the others by tomorrow midnight.”

  Bran folded his arms. “I said there has been enough for today. You are in no state to protect her.” He stalked into his kitchen, and came out with a small wooden box. He handed it to Evie. He also brought a clean red tunic, which he threw to Auran. “Go to the old mortal at the end of the alley, she lives across the way, in an antique shop. She is a skilled healer, and knowledgeable of all things Fey.”

  Evie opened the box and took out a piece of gauze and a roll of white bandage. She led Auran to sit on the sofa. “I’ll just cover it up to stop the bleeding, until we get to the woman.”

  She placed the gauze over the oozing wound, the blood stained her fingers dark purple, leaking out in a continuous stream from his torn flesh. She wrapped the bandage as tight as she could manage, though it wasn’t at all professional and neat.

  “How come your blood is purple?” She didn’t mention the green blood of the dead faerie woman.

  Auran put the tunic on. It was shorter than it might have been on Bran, and a little baggier, for Auran was taller and slighter. He stood up slowly, testing how far he could push himself. “Why shouldn’t it be purple? “ Auran asked. “It does not carry the things that mortal blood does, we don’t need it like you do. We survive on energy. A sort of stream of it running down underneath our blood. If you cut us deep enough, it leaks out.”

  “And you can live on mortal energy when that happens, is that not correct?” Bran’s voice was cold and angry.

  Auran ignored Bran’s question. He stretched his arm out, flexing his fingers. The wound on his broken wrist was bleeding too. Evie reached up to fix it with another bandage but he drew back. “It will be okay until we get to the antique shop.”

  She shrugged, placing the roll into the box and fastening the lid. “Wait a second, I need to get my bag.”

  She set down the box and went into the hall, not sure if leaving them alone together was a good idea. Her bag still lay beside the bed in Bran’s room. She zipped it up and went back down to the living room. The two men were standing in silence.

  Evie rolled her eyes. “Come on Auran. Better go before the old woman closes her shop. Trix is still out there with the mirror piece.” She injected disapproval into her voice when she said her friend’s name, but Auran didn’t notice it.

  “The glass,” he said. “I’ll take it with me. I have the other piece safe. I will bring it with me tomorrow and you can put them together. Then Envy will be gone for good.”

  Evie nodded. “Sounds fine.” She offered him her arm but he ignored it, walking out of the room himself.

  She turned to Bran, her mouth drying up as she thought about what to say.

  He nodded toward the door, indicating that she go. “Bran, I had a nice time here, before… well, before all that happened.”

  His anger faded a little, just a very little. He nodded. “Yes, it was agreeably quiet before he came. Still, I suppose I am now somewhat less complicated.”

  Evie smiled, disagreeing entirely. She didn’t say any more, just stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, quite without expecting to. She hurried from the room, her heart beating as furiously as faerie wings, and just as fragile.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Evie and Trix rode the train to Tooting Bec station in silence. Evie could tell that if Trix tried to speak she would explode about faeries and mirror shards. The seats facing them were filled with tired Sunday shoppers, dreading the Monday morning that was creeping up on them. Their lives were normal. Christmas gifts, train commutes and employment. Or so she presumed. For all she knew there could be another person sitting there pretending to be a normal Londoner, who had in fact just over twenty-four hours to break a faerie curse.

  Auran had told them to go home, and went into the antiques shop alone. The thought of the bizarre old lady who had given her the apples tending to his wounds was a strange image in her head. She wondered if he already knew her. Wondered how the old woman had known to send Evie to Bran, why she cared about Bran at all.

  A man with a white comb-over stared at her hands. She peered down to see that they were covered in purple and green stains. She looked like she had been painting. She smiled at him, and embarrassed he looked away, concentrating instead on a discarded flyer on the floor at his feet.

  Their station came quicker than Evie expected. Trix jumped up, and Evie followed her at a much less hyper pace out onto the platform. The train pulled away behind them as they climbed the stairs out of the subway.

  “It’s cold.” Evie broke the silence as soon as they were walking along the slippery footpath towards Trix’s house.

  “I can’t feel a thing,” Trix said, grinning. “Do you think it was okay to leave Auran like that? He looked awful.”

  Evie was glad she was calm enough to make a normal observation now. “He’ll be okay. I think he’s right that we should go and get some rest.” She slipped her arm through Trix’s and huddled closer to her for warmth. “I haven’t eaten or slept properly in two days or something. I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  Trix patted her hand as they turned up past the Indian takeaway that sat on the corner of Trix’s street. A young couple were making out in the shadow of a building of flats. They were breathing loud and fast, and making other noises.

  Trix sighed as they passed them. “Seriously, you wouldn’t need to pay for a adult channel around here.”

  Evie smiled. Trix really was normal again. She jangled in the large pocket of her hippy skirt, making a lot of noise. She pulled her mobile phone out and handed it to Evie, before she plunged her hand back in and found her keys. Evie put the phone in her bag for safe keeping as they came to Trix’s front door. The lights were on in every window of the house.

  Evie was glad. She wanted to be in Trix’s busy house, with people coming and going, and all her brothers teasing them. She wouldn’t even mind Trix’s drunken dad. It would be a normal house, a normal evening spent staying over at her friends, drinking hot chocolate and getting a decent rest.

  The smell of curry filled the air. Evie felt relief that it tempted her, prickling on her tongue. Her empty stomach grumbled audibly. It felt like it was trying to devour itself. Maybe the faerie food was gone from her system now, and she could actually eat something human. She hoped Trix’s brothers hadn’t gobbled up the lot already. Five tall boys meant five bottomless food bins.

  “Mum, I’m home!” Trix called. “I have Evie with me.”

  Michael’s sandy blonde head popped out of the living room. “No way, you can’t bring scum like that into the house.” He winked at Evie, and then pretended to recoil as Trix gave him the finger.

  “Hi Michael,” Evie said, smiling b
efore Trix pulled her into her bedroom and slammed the door.

  “Maybe he should get a real sense of humour.”

  Evie rolled her eyes, flopping back on Trix’s purple bed. She had always envied the bed, and never let Trix back out of the old guest gets the bed tradition. “I forgot to ask Michael how his exam went. Is he now a masterful Sensei?”

  Trix dragged her hidden My Little Pony beanbag out of her cupboard and sank down into it. “Yes, he passed. If he flips me over one more time this week I swear I’m going to chop his head off with his stupid Samurai sword.”

  “Katana, Trix.”

  Trix plucked a little polystyrene ball from a hole in the beanbag and flicked it at Evie. “Whatever, geek.”

  Evie ducked to miss the tiny ball. “I think the offensive term you were looking for was Japanophile.” She stared up at the myriad of dream catchers hanging above the bed, watching the light catch the little mirrors. She couldn’t get away from mirrors these days.

  Trix was quiet too, and they both sat in an amicable silence, letting the events of the day settle into them. Evie felt tired, right through to the centre of her bones. A pulse was thumping gently in her temples, promising a spectacular headache to come. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “You want me to go get some curry for us?” Trix broke the silence. Evie was glad she didn’t want to talk about the weird stuff yet.

  “Yes please. I’m going to eat myself in a moment. Grab me a painkiller too, would you?”

  “Sure thing.” The beanbag rustled, Evie didn’t open her eyes, but she could hear Trix walking past her to the door. She came back a few minutes later carrying a large orange tray, with two plates of curry steaming on top.

  “Mum says not to take the aspirin with the coke.” She set the tray on her bedside table and handed Evie two small white tablets and a glass of water.

  “Getting high on aspirin is the least of my worries.”

  Trix laughed, lifting herself a plate of the curry and a glass of coke, settling back down into her beanbag. Evie took the pills and then lifted her own plate. She took the first bite nervously. It was normal, deliciously normal. It didn’t crumble in her mouth, or make her want to drink it down like the elixir of life. She just wanted to eat it like everyone else ate a curry.

  “I really love your mum’s cooking,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Trix said mid chew, her cheeks puffed out with rice.

  They both scraped their plates clean, and then Trix went to the kitchen to wash them. Evie kicked off her shoes and climbed under the heavy patchwork covers that Trix had stitched. She snuggled down into them, closing her eyes and breathing in the sweet homely scent, trying to banish the last of the dungeon stench from her nostrils.

  When Trix came back Evie had to pull herself out of some world halfway between sleeping like the long dead, and sleeping like someone almost alive.

  Trix was unwinding the string of a gauzy bag from the bedpost. Her tarot cards.

  Evie groaned, rolling onto her side. “Aren’t things freaky enough?”

  Trix climbed onto the foot of the bed. “Tarot cards are a guide Evie, like I always tell you. There’s nothing freaky about them, they are just an energy metre, measuring the feel of the situation.”

  “Blah, blah, blah.” Evie teased. But she sat up anyway, sliding down the bed to get closer to Trix.

  Trix handed her the pack, Evie examined them closely wondering which pack Trix had chosen from her collection. A curious group of troll faces, some upside down and others right way up, peered at her from the back of every card.

  “Brian Froud’s Faerie Oracle. Hilarious, Trix.”

  “I couldn’t resist, babe.”

  Evie shook her head, shuffling the cards between her fingers. “Will I ask a specific question?”

  “Like what the hell is happening?”

  Evie laughed, but dread was sinking into her stomach, making her curry sit uneasily. She already had a bad taste in her mouth from napping after eating it. But she knew the real fear churning in her stomach was because she had thought of a question, and it was a question she didn’t really want to see an answer to. Will I succeed or will I fail? She divided the cards into three piles.

  Trix turned the first over.

  “Penelope Dreamweaver,” she announced.

  Evie gazed at the fairy. There was an ethereal, angelic light around her. And she held her hands palm up towards the sky.

  “Well, she’s telling you not to be afraid of fantasy,” Trix said.

  “A little too late for that, huh?”

  Trix smiled wryly, flipping the next card in the row. “Honesty.”

  Evie smiled. “Well that’s self explanatory.”

  Trix raised an eyebrow. “Is it? Who’s the liar, and who’s telling the truth?”

  Evie ran a finger over the smooth card. Honesty looked more like an alien than a faerie, with wide beseeching eyes, and a sad little mouth. “I’ll take it as a warning then, shall I?”

  “That might be wise.” Trix turned the last card. “Flaff the Flooter.” She smiled.

  Evie lifted the card up and kissed it. The tiny little faerie sat on a toadstool, pulling his feet up towards him, a cute little grin on his pointy face.

  “Well, that means be wary of flights into fantasy, remember the real world might burst your bubble. It also says alternatively you have to learn to fly.”

  Evie giggled. “It says in the art book that he eats holes into socks.”

  Trix threw a pillow at her, laughing. “Well, yeah. Watch your socks too!”

  The shrill ring of the home phone on Trix’s bedside table cut their mirth short.

  Trix leaned over and lifted the receiver. “Hello? Oh, Lou.” She looked into Evie’s eyes, questioning.

  Evie nodded.

  “Yeah she’s here, I’ll hand you to her.”

  The phone was cool in Evie’s sweaty palm. Lou’s voice was quiet, apologetic. “Evie. Are you okay?”

  Evie wasn’t okay, but she found herself nodding, and saying “yeah” into the receiver. Only because she hated to make anyone feel guilty. She hated to make anyone feel bad at all. No matter how much they deserved to.

  “Will you come home tonight, sweetheart? So we can talk?”

  Again, though she didn’t want to, Evie agreed.

  “I’ll come pick you up now. See you soon.”

  “Bye.” Evie handed the receiver back to Trix who hung it up again.

  “Well?”

  “She wants me to come home and talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They talked about trivial things on the drive home. Evie leaned her head back and closed her eyes, the purr of the car engine almost lulling her to sleep.

  Lou kept talking, almost nervously. Evie’s concentration floated in and out of the conversation. She wished she could have just stayed at Trix’s house and gone home in the morning.

  She glared through her heavy eyelids at the clock on the dashboard. It was only 10 P.M. She hoped Lou would let her go straight to bed when they got back. She was in the mood for Lou’s forgiveness, but not in the mood to invent lies about what she’d been up to.

  The engine stopped, and silence poured into the air. Evie opened her eyes with a start.

  Lou was smiling across at her. “You fell asleep. That’s what happens after too many teenage escapades.” Her voice was warm when she said it, lacking any darker edge. She lifted Evie’s bag from the back seat. “I’ll get this.”

  Evie hauled herself up from the car and out onto the pavement, Lou had already opened the front door by the time she succeeded. The cold air on her face helped her to wake up a bit. She followed her stepmother inside. The warmth of the house was like a furnace, completely reversing the effects of the night air.

  Lou had a fire going in the grate. She added more coal to it, and Evie shuffled into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.

  Lou went into the kitchen. Then came back out, and perch
ed on the edge of the sofa gazing into the fire.

  She looked like a fire queen. The different shades of red glimmered in turn as her hair caught the firelight. Her blue eyes gleamed, following the dancing flames. “I know what you’ve been doing.”

  Evie sat up, as if from a nightmare. Her heart plummeted through her chest. “What?”

  Lou twisted to look at her, alarmed. “I said I’ve got the kettle going.” She frowned. “For tea. You could do with some.”

  Evie relaxed, lying back down. “Sorry Lou, I’m so tired I’m hallucinating, or something.”

  Lou rolled her eyes, and stood up. Her heels seemed too loud on the wooden floor as she passed Evie and went back into the kitchen. Cups clinked, ringing like bells in Evie’s ears, chiming out a sinister melody. Evie was starting to really regret coming home.

  Lou made two full cups, and Evie wriggled into a sitting position to accept one. Steam rose from the surface and she blew to cool it before taking a small sip. It was incredibly sweet. Even sweeter than she usually liked it.

  Lou settled back in the other sofa and sipped her own cup. “School dance tomorrow then?”

  Evie took another sip, deliberating before she answered. “Well, maybe. I’m not sure though, the popular crowd pretty much organised the whole thing.”

  Lou shrugged. “I saw the dress. You’ll have to try it on for me before you go to bed.”

  Evie shook her head. “No way, I really need to sleep.”

  “Did Trix make the dress up?” Lou asked, completely ignoring the protest.

  Evie nodded. “I haven’t been able to look at it yet.”

  A sudden excitement gripped Lou and she stood up, setting her cup on the windowsill. “You should try it on now. You can look at it in my mirror.”

  Evie’s heart beat harder at the mention of the mirror. She thought about the frame and the precious jewels. Imagining the frame, Bran’s work of art and his curse. Lou took the cup from Evie and set it on the floor, drawing her by the hand out into the hall and up the stairs.