13 Secrets (6 page)

“Just sitting there on the floor, facing the door. She’s taken the coat off and has it draped over herself. From the look on her face, I’m pretty sure she’s waiting for something, or…” He hesitated.

“What?” asked Tanya.

Fabian’s eyes were wide. “I think she’s meeting someone.”

Rowan huddled against the wall of the stone building. The chill of the damp brickwork at her back was giving her the creeps, stirring up memories of the cold, damp cellar once more. She kept her eyes trained upward, watching the moon through the broken roof, and pushed thoughts of the cellar from her mind.

Once or twice she tensed as rustles came from outside. It was not one of
them
, not yet. It must be some nighttime creature, a fox or badger perhaps. She would know when
they
arrived. She shivered, breaking her stillness to blow into her hands.

The minutes dragged by, and she grew colder. She got up and began to pace, looking at her watch. Any minute now, they’d start arriving. A noise made her freeze. A footstep, outside.

The door creaked open, barely staying on its hinges, and a man stepped inside. Though the night had stolen his coloring, washing his features in shades of blue and gray, Rowan knew his face well. Dirty blond hair skimmed his shoulders, kept long to conceal pointed fey ears. His eyes were mismatched: one hazel, one green. She heard him draw breath to speak as the door swung shut.

“Well, well,” he said in a low drawl. “Red—you’ve come back to us.”

“Tino,” she replied evenly. “Where are the others?”

Tino came closer. “They’ll be along. Not much point in us getting started until they arrive. I’m sure they’ll want to hear what you’ve got to say for yourself just as much as I do.”

Rowan blinked at the barbed words but said nothing. She concentrated on holding his gaze. To look away would be a sign of weakness, but it was taking everything she had not to. She’d forgotten how intense his stare was, how scrutinized he made her feel. She’d felt that way ever since the very first time she’d met him.

Rowan remembered the smell of fresh mint in the caravan, steaming from the glass of liquid that Tino had passed her. She hadn’t touched—and wouldn’t touch—a drop of it.

“It all depends on how involved you want to get,” he’d told her, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass.

“I’m already involved,” she had replied, clutching her own glass tightly. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get my brother back.”

He knew he had her after that. His swarthy face had broken into a smile, and he had reached for her hand, shaking it. Sealing the words to a promise.

“There are thirteen of us working against them,” said Tino. “We call ourselves the Coven.”

“You’re a coven?” Rowan asked uneasily. “Like… like witches?”

Tino shook his head, his mismatched eyes never leaving hers.

“No, not witches. The word ‘coven’ is older than that. It means ‘gathering.’ ”

“So why are there thirteen of you? Don’t witches’ covens have thirteen members?”

Tino leaned forward. “Forget witches. Can you think of no other significance for that number?”

“The thirteen treasures of the fairy court?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

“What happened with the thirteen treasures was the cause of the changeling trade in the first place,” Tino said patiently. “The split into the Seelie and Unseelie Courts was the beginning of it all. There were thirteen members of the original fairy court. And so the Coven has thirteen members, to counteract them. Like the Seelie and Unseelie, we’re divided.
Some of us are human, some of us are fey. Each member swears an oath—an oath to serve the Coven to the best of their ability, and to keep it from discovery at all cost.

“It’s a dangerous job,” Tino continued softly. “People come and go. We’re always on the lookout for new… recruits. Those recruits need to be invisible. Nameless. People who are tough and hardy. People who have known loss.” He leaned forward. “People with nothing left to lose. People like
you
.”

“What do you mean about people ‘coming and going’?” Rowan asked.

“The Coven is hundreds of years old,” Tino replied simply. “And no one lives forever. When old members retire, new ones are recruited.”

“And if people change their minds?” she asked. “What then?”

Tino’s finger paused momentarily in its track around the rim of his glass before starting again, slightly more slowly. “People don’t generally change their minds,” he said softly.

Rowan was jolted from the memory as the next member arrived. A stocky boy of about her age slid through the door, his sandy hair obscuring his face. He shook it back out of his eyes and stared at her. She waited for the easy smile she knew—the smile with the distinctive chipped tooth—but it did not come.

“Sparrow?” she said hesitantly.

The boy responded with a curt nod and moved closer. Still he did not speak, but now that he was nearer she could smell him, all unwashed clothes and body—the smell of the streets. It was the first time she’d noticed that smell, and with a shock, it hit her: the last time she had seen Sparrow, she had smelled exactly the same as him. Placing his back to Rowan, Sparrow faced Tino.

“Do we know if all the others can make it?”

“Most have confirmed.” A muscle started to twitch in Tino’s cheek. “A couple have gone… quiet.”

“Who—” Sparrow began, but fell silent as two more figures slipped into the building: a petite, sharp-faced girl whom Rowan recognized as the beggar she had met in Tickey End, and a skinny teenage boy with a shock of messy black hair. The girl’s eyes were everywhere—on the faces of the others, their surroundings, taking everything in. Rowan scowled at her.

The boy’s gaze was slower, craftier, but Rowan knew who he was and knew he missed nothing. He set down the slim black case he was carrying, stuck his hands in his pockets, and casually leaned against the wall.

“So who is she?” Rowan asked Tino, nodding toward the girl. “Apart from a convincing actress, that is.”

“She’s called Suki,” said Tino. “She’s been with us for almost a year. She’s Cassandra’s replacement.”

“And she can speak for herself,” Suki retorted in a voice that was as sharp as her features.

Rowan studied her, for the first time wondering who her own predecessor had been. Tino had never volunteered the information.

“We lost contact with Cassandra last summer, in July,” Tino said quietly, and this time Suki did not object to his speaking. “We don’t know whether she’d had enough or whether something… happened to her. No one heard from her, or about her. I started to look out for a replacement. It was around that time that I remembered Suki.”

“You already knew Suki?” Rowan asked. “How?”

“I was taken when I was five,” Suki said, taking over from Tino. “I never thought I’d be coming home… but then Tino found me. He brought me back to my mother.”

Tino nodded. “Suki was recovered by the Coven. Even then, we could see she was special. We could see why she’d been taken. Her gift was so strong—”

He stopped as Suki held up her hand for silence. Her head was tilted to one side, causing her short, white-blond hair to skim her cheek.

“What is it?” Tino asked softly.

Suki’s head straightened, and her eyes narrowed. “Seems one of us has been careless tonight.”

“What do you mean?” Sparrow asked.

Suki’s eyes shifted across all of them in turn. “If I’m not mistaken, we were all told to come alone.”

Tino’s head snapped up. “That’s right. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve been followed.”

Still crouching behind the trough, Tanya began to shiver. The night was none too warm, and the new arrivals were unnerving her.

“Who are these people?” Fabian whispered.

“Only one way to find out,” Tanya replied. “We need to get closer and try to hear what they’re talking about.”

“Or we could just go in and demand to know what’s going on.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t know who they are or what they want with her—they could be dangerous.”

“Shh,” said Fabian. “Look, over there. There are two more people coming through the field, just about to go in. Look how soundlessly they move.”

“How many is that?” Tanya wondered out loud, once the figures had crept out of sight. They heard the slight scuff of the door opening and closing.

“There’re seven of them in there now, including Rowan,” Fabian said. “How many more will come?”

The door scraped again and three figures came into view at the side.

“They’re leaving!” Fabian hissed.

“We’re going to have to follow them,” said Tanya,
beginning to edge out from behind the trough. She stopped when she saw that the figures were walking. “They’re coming this way!”

“Get down and keep quiet,” said Fabian. “We’ll follow once they’ve passed.”

Tanya hunched down behind the filthy trough, pressing her back against it and pulling Oberon toward her. The first they heard of the approaching strangers was the hissing of their breath in the night air and the whispering of their voices.

“… Not far away,” said a girl’s unfamiliar voice. “Nearby… I can sense it.”

Tanya turned to Fabian. His pale eyes were wide. The strangers were too close now, the trough the only thing separating them from Tanya and Fabian. When it was heaved from behind them, both fell back onto the soft ground with a shout, and Oberon ran for the trees, his leash trailing behind him.