13 Curses (28 page)

As Gredin had promised, they rode hard, stopping only once on that second day. Red’s body ached from riding. Each jolt from the horse rattled her bones and her teeth, but she did not complain. Every minute that passed was a minute closer to the Unseelie rule. That night, they bedded down under the stars.

On the third day, the sun rose in a red sky.

“Samhain,” said Gredin.

The word sent fear slithering down Red’s back like an eel.

“We’re a little farther away than I’d hoped,” Gredin continued. “But we can still make it in time.”

They journeyed relentlessly, over hills and past villages large and small. All the while the sun rose above them and then gradually fell in the sky.

“Are we nearly there?” Red asked time and again. “How much farther?”

At first Gredin would grunt a response, often lost in the wind. Then he appeared not to have heard, and so she stopped asking. By the time yellow lights dotted the horizon she had all but given up hope that they would make it in time, but then Gredin yelled for them to keep up, and she spurred her horse on with all the strength she had left.

Faint music reached their ears as they neared the lights and, as they approached, Red saw a town similar to the one they had stayed in on the first night.

“This is it,” Gredin called, slowing his horse. “Our destination: Avalon.” He dismounted and beckoned them to follow as they passed into the town. The music was louder now, raucous and frenzied. They followed it along the narrow stone streets, which grew busier the closer the music got. Red peered out from beneath the fox-skin coat. She was careful not to fasten it, for she did not want to transform but simply conceal herself a little from those around her.

Soon the paths were clamoring with fairies, old and young, alone and in groups, ugly and beautiful. Red felt dazed as they milled past, yet she held a thought in her mind as she looked into each face. At least one of these fey people knew where her brother
was—and there was every possibility that James himself might be among them. She found herself staring into the face of each child as she passed, trying to imagine what he would look like now.

The center of the town was the rowdiest. A manic dance was taking place.

“That’s them!” Stitch hissed suddenly, pointing to the middle of the crowd.

Red looked and saw three musicians: a faun, a goblin, and a crooked, old winged man leaping about to their own music.

“They’re the ones who caught me in the fairy ring!”

Beyond the fey musicians was a maypole, with dozens of fey folk dancing in time to the beat while knotting the colored fronds of red-gold leaves that spiraled out from the pole. Some of the faces were alight with joy. Others betrayed a sense of doom and impending obligation. It was these fey people who were afraid.

“The Samhain dance,” said Raven in a low voice. “It is danced every year in this place, and fairies travel from all over the realm to partake. In spring, there is another dance—the Beltane dance, which celebrates the Seelie rule.”

“Keep walking,” Gredin murmured. They passed the bulk of the crowd and moved on through the streets, where the throng of fairies lessened. Now that they were less conspicuous, Red allowed herself to take in her surroundings a little more. All around them was a mixture of homes, shops, and inns. Half
of them bustled with life, decorated in autumnal colors. The other half were dark, their shutters closed. In one little shop, curiously named The Cat and the Cauldron, a hand-painted sign was propped in the window.

C
LOSED FOR
S
AMHAIN
, it read. B
ACK IN
S
PRING
.

Red raised her eyebrows. “So they really do just up and leave.”

“Yes, unfortunately,” Raven grumbled. “I was hoping we’d catch them in time, but obviously we’ve just missed them. They do some of the best remedies around.”

“What kind of remedies?” asked Red, peering into the darkened window.

“Oh, the usual,” Gredin replied. “Ear tip salve, that kind of thing. And their wing repair service is second to none.”

“
Ear tip
salve?” Red wondered aloud.

“For pointed ears,” Gredin explained, gesturing to his own. “If you’ve been using a glamour to entice them into a rounded, more human shape they can become a little tender after a while.” He turned to Raven expectantly. “Was it the wing-rot treatment you were after?”

Raven nodded. “Not for
me
, you understand,” she told Red and Stitch hastily. “For the Mizhog. It suffers the most horrendous breakouts. Drives us mad with the scratching—” She broke off as an indignant noise sounded from the folds of her dress where the Mizhog was nestling.

Stitch’s eyebrows shot up. Evidently wing-rot was not a desirable subject for discussion.

“Let’s leave the horses here,” said Gredin, as they came to the end of the street. They were on the edge of the town now, with fields and pathways ahead of them. As Red looked into the distance she saw flickering lights, seemingly in midair.

“What are those?”

“Torchlight,” Gredin answered. “From the Tor.”

“Glastonbury Tor,” Stitch added. “The home of the court.”

“We have to climb that?” she asked. “But look how high up they are!”

“It’s not as bad as it appears,” said Raven.

They set off, following a barely visible footpath that took them away from the town. Gredin led the way, pointing out a narrow stony path that had been carved into the surface of the grassy mound.

“We must hurry,” he said grimly, and after that, nobody else spoke, instead saving their breath for the ascent.

Red’s thighs ached with the exertion of the climb. After three days of traveling and little sleep, she was weaker and wearier than she’d ever been in her life. But now she was close—closer than she had been to James in nearly two years.

It took around twenty minutes to reach the top. Stitch was the last to arrive. Red handed him her flask as he made it to the summit, for his lips were dry and cracked. The wind was high at the top, whistling
around them and carrying strange, echoing sounds of laughter and singing. The land surrounding the vast hill was lost to darkness; just a few tiny, lit windows from the faraway town were visible.

“Are you ready?”

Gredin’s voice caught her off guard. She nodded, shivering.

Gredin and Raven walked to the center of the hill. Red and Stitch joined them.

“So where is it?” she whispered, her eyes searching. She had been expecting a grand palace once they had reached the hilltop. But all that was there was a circle of torches on the empty hill.

Gredin nodded toward his feet.

“It’s below us.”

“Then how do we get in?” Stitch asked, clearly baffled.

“Like this,” said Raven. She spread her arms, motioning for them to stand in a circle and join hands. Red’s heart drummed as she stepped in and completed the circle. The moment her hands touched Stitch’s and Raven’s, the ground rippled beneath their feet. Red jumped back in surprise, beginning to unclasp her hands—but Gredin shook his head fiercely.

“Don’t break the circle!”

Red understood then, and held on tight with her eyes fixed on the ground.

The grass rippled again, and then a tuft of it curled back into a thick roll that landed at Stitch’s feet.

A chink of light burst from the ground along with a chorus of voices and music. The circle of light widened as the grass unfurled, peeling back like the skin of an orange until there was a hole in the ground before them.

What it revealed was astounding: an ornate staircase of twisted roots that curved down and then split into two separate sets of steps, spiraling around each other. Beyond it, snatches of a vast hall, full of light and movement. It was magnificent, beautiful, terrifying.

It was the fairy court.

Masked figures in elaborate costumes lifted their heads to view the newcomers on the stairs. They descended in pairs on the staircase to the right, Raven and Stitch at the front and Gredin and Red following on.

Red did not know where to look. Her eyes were being drawn everywhere: to the grandness and splendor of the hall they were coming into, the intricacy of the staircase, and the way the inhabitants of the hall were divided into two, almost cleanly split down the middle. Their eyes were disturbing her, staring and unreadable behind the masks. Her own exposed face left her feeling like prey.

A feast was in progress. Two long tables were set on either side, both laid with exquisite food and drink: roasted birds and hog; ripe, glistening fruit; golden-brown nuts; and goblets of fiery, blood-red wine. The
sights and scents of it all sent saliva rushing into Red’s mouth.

Each table mirrored the other, but the seated guests paid attention only to their own. Those at the table on the left of the hall were loud and boisterous, eating and drinking with gusto. In contrast, the table on the right was subdued. Red quickly deduced that the former must be the Unseelie fey, preparing for their new term of power, while the latter were the Seelie, regretful to relinquish theirs.

Beyond the tables a masked dance was taking place on a dimly lit floor. From the hillside above, twisted roots tumbled down from the domed ceiling, the longer ones culminating in gnarled wooden pillars, and the shorter ones home to garlands of autumn leaves that cascaded down to decorate the entire hall.

Overseeing the dance and the feast on a raised altar, two figures sat side by side on carved thrones, neither speaking to nor looking at each other. The figure on the left was male, dressed in dark brown fur. His face was hidden behind his mask: the head of a stag with enormous antlers. On the right sat a woman. Her dress and mask were of brilliant blues: the iridescent, shimmering feathers of a peacock splaying out defiantly.

As they twisted farther down the staircase, Red saw two guards standing at the bottom of each set of steps, waiting to receive them. She saw Stitch’s cheek twitching, and realized he was clenching and unclenching his jaw nervously. She wondered if he regretted
accompanying her, but knew—as he too must have known—that now that he was here, it was too late for him to turn back.

“State your business,” one of the guards barked at Gredin, blocking the final steps into the hall.

“We have given safe passage to these two travelers,” said Gredin, gesturing first to Raven and himself, then stepping back to motion to Red and Stitch. “They seek an audience with the court.”

The guard scoffed, the sound stifled a little from behind his mask.

“Then they have had a wasted journey. No one comes for an audience on Samhain or Beltane. It is unheard of.”

“We know of no rule that forbids it,” Raven said, her voice insistent but respectful.

The second guard leaned in, his eyes glittering through his tree bark mask.

“It is ill-advised. I urge you to return when one court is in power—not when it is neither and both, like tonight. In less than an hour the changeover will be complete.”

“No,” said Red, clenching her fists at her sides. “It has to be
now
. You have to let us try.”

“As you wish.” The guard stepped aside, and though Red could not see his face, she thought she heard a smile in his voice. “On your head be it.”

They moved forward into a susurrus of whispers. The entire court was now aware of their presence, and if Red had felt exposed before on the steps, it was nothing to how she felt now. All eyes were upon them,
and their simple, tattered clothing and lack of masks marked them out as different—and more important, uninvited. A quick glance back at the stairwell confirmed that the grassy entrance had folded back into place after them. They were now at the court’s mercy.

When they reached the dance floor, the dance stopped. The guests stood still, frozen as they waited for them to pass. Grudgingly they parted, allowing a clear path to the altar. Too soon they were there, frighteningly close to the horned man and the peacock-feathered woman. Following the example of Gredin and Raven, Red and Stitch bowed their heads and knelt before the thrones.

The whispering around them escalated to a rabble of voices, and even the music stopped playing. Red sensed a movement from the altar. A deathly silence stole over the hall. All she could hear was the rush of her own blood as it pulsed through her ears. Daring to raise her eyes, she saw that the horned man had lifted his hand for silence.