Banished (16 page)

‘We’ll be fine,’ Aiden says. ‘Thorn and I are practically dating and Kit’s ready to swing that sword of hers.’

‘Must you make a joke out of everything, wolf?’ Thorn asks, but the disapproval in his voice is only slight. ‘Thank you, Olga, for helping. Let Lord Elias know I am grateful
for any aid he can give both stranded and the Free Fae.’

‘Before you go,’ I say to Olga. ‘Have you heard any rumours about where the trolls are camping out at the moment?’

‘The last time I heard, they were holed up beneath Tower Bridge, north side. You know the ritual to open the doorway, right?’

‘Uhm.’ I think about it, mentally scrabbling for anything that would help me but when I come up blank I hesitate only for a second. ‘No, to be honest. No clue.’

‘I know how,’ Thorn says at Olga’s indrawn breath. ‘As long as we have chalk.’

I think back to the emergency supplies kit I have in my backpack upstairs. ‘I have chalk,’ I assure him.

‘Then you’ll be safe. The trolls are very specific about who they allow into their caves.’

‘Caves?’ Aiden looks uncertain. ‘No one said anything about caves.’

‘Trolls are the gossip-mongers of the Fae world. They know everything. They hear everything.’ I frown at Aiden as we walk down the road towards Tower Bridge.
‘How do you not know this?’

Aiden shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Usually when we want information we intimidate people. You try saying no to three werewolves dangling you off the side of a
building.’

Thorn grunts but I can see him hiding a smile.

‘Remind me never to have something your pack wants,’ I tell Aiden.

‘Are there always this many people in the Frontier?’ Thorn asks us as we wind our way between and around several groups of tourists. We’re making our way through the old
Victorian warehouse district of Shad Thames. With its tiny boutique shops and eateries, its million-pound apartments and stunning views across the river, it still manages to hold on to its charm
with names like Vanilla and Sesame Court. I came here often with Nan in the past once we’d moved back to the UK. A friend of hers let us stay with her in her large flat whenever we came into
town to watch a musical or theatre show. I cringe now, remembering how very cosmopolitan and grown-up twelve-year-old me felt walking around the area, imagining myself as an adult, wealthy enough
to own an apartment here and working as a designer or artist. I would sit sketching by the river for hours and quite happily let my nan hang out with her friend, Emmaline.

Today, though, London is busy. Loads of tourists are around and several river-cruise boats are making their way up and down the river. The weather isn’t ideal, but everyone seems to have
come prepared for the drizzly British summer.

‘It’s no busier than usual,’ Aiden replies as we walk around, our breath steaming in the cold air. ‘It’s supposed to be the summer holidays and yet this weather is
totally drab. Have you spent a lot of time in the Frontier?’ he asks Thorn.

‘I spent a year in Canada and we come for the revels in Regent’s Park.’ Thorn hunches his shoulders deeper into his jacket. ‘I was supposed to join a university later
this year. To study human law.’

I look at Thorn with surprise. ‘Really? You guys go to school here and everything?’

‘My brothers have been schooled here, Barcelona, St Petersburg and Stockholm. It is the done thing,’ he says. ‘If the Fae are to survive in the future we need to know how
humans think. What they learn. There are some people at Court who do not agree with my father and his friends’ way of thinking. All high-born Sidhe send their children for further schooling
in the human world when they are old enough.’

‘I never knew that,’ Aiden admits. He rubs his jaw.’ So, law, huh?’

Thorn looks worried that he’s said something wrong but he gives a brief nod. ‘Yes. These past few years I’ve been studying Fae law with a tutor, Istvan. I have many more years
to go but human law is easier, I think.’

‘Oh? What will you specialize in? Property law? Family law?’

Thorn looks at Aiden in confusion and shrugs. ‘All of it, of course.’

Aiden and I look at each other and mouth ‘of course’ to one another and then burst out laughing.

‘What? Is that so difficult to do?’

‘My friend, I have no idea, but I’ll wish you the best of luck.’ Aiden claps him on the shoulder and loops his other arm around my shoulders, squashing me to his side. ‘I
think we’re bonding, here. Do you think we’re bonding?’

Before I can answer, Thorn leans forward so he can see me past Aiden.

‘I think we’re here,’ he says. ‘Where the trolls are.’

‘And how do you reckon that?’ Aiden frowns as he peers around. We are alone on this stretch of the riverbank; even though there are lots of tourists about, clutching miserably at
their umbrellas, the place feels more deserted than it should.

I follow Thorn’s pointing finger and can’t help but chuckle. Someone’s fixed a sign to the wall next to a gate barring a set of steps that disappears into the river itself. The
sign read:
Beware! Trolls! Enter at your own risk!

‘Do you think the water is a glamour? How can the trolls live there and not be drowned by river water?’ I ask him, peering over the gate.

‘It’s a glamour. You can see the way the water looks cleaner than the rest of the river.’ He points out the relevant section to me and I have to agree. The water looks less
muddy here than it does a few metres into the river.

‘So, are we going in?’ Aiden asks, looking extremely uncomfortable at the thought.

‘In? Yes. And if you mean going underground, then, yes. We have to go all the way inside. To meet the trolls.’ I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘Unless, of course, you have any
other ideas.’

‘How about I stay up here and guard the entrance? I can also keep the phones with me in case anyone rings.’

To my surprise Thorn nods in agreement. ‘It makes sense to have
someone out here to keep watch. We don’t want to be ambushed.’

‘Yes,’ I say, my voice tinged with sarcasm. ‘Just let us go into the deep dark underground cave to meet with giant creatures from legend all by ourselves. I’m sure
we’ll be just fine.’

Aiden claps my shoulder. ‘You are so brave, Kit Blackhart. It’s astonishing.’

I shove my phone at him. ‘Shut up. If we’re not back in two hours, come looking for us.’

I turn to Thorn, who is humming under his breath and flexing his fingers. It’s cold, with a soft incessant drizzle that makes your clothes cling to you uncomfortably. Aiden looks
under-dressed in jeans and a thin longsleeved T-shirt but Thorn had thought ahead and wears the stab-proof jacket I grabbed from the manor before we left.

‘We have to ask permission to enter, right?’ Thorn asks me as I zip my hoodie up. ‘Do you have any gifts?’

I arch an eyebrow. ‘Gifts?’

‘Yes, an item of value to show that you are there to trade for information. Otherwise you will be in their debt.’ This comes from Aiden, who looks unbearably smug that he knows an
intricacy of Fae lore that has passed me by. I suppress the urge to stick my tongue out at him and instead do a mental tally of everything I have on me but shake my head. ‘Nope. I have me, my
knife, my clothes.’ I lift the gym bag we borrowed from Aiden. It holds both our swords. ‘And these.’

Aiden sighs and takes a small velvet pouch from his pocket. ‘I never
leave the house without it,’ he says, handing it to me. ‘Get in the habit of doing the same. If you’re going to be dealing with bigwigs, you do not want to be in their debt
because they will make you do a shedload of weird things. Most of them detrimental to your health.’

I nod, ignoring his patronizing teacher-voice. ‘Right. Gifts. Never leave the house without them.’ I open the velvet pouch and I’m sure my eyes bug out in shock.
‘Diamonds?’ My voice rises an octave. ‘Really?’

‘Well, don’t give them everything, but some, at least. If the information is worth it.’

‘The information will be worth it,’ Thorn says. ‘Time to go.’

He takes my hand and leads me to the gate. ‘Because it’s iron, I can’t touch it. But you can. I’ll show you how to open it.’

He lifts my hand and curls my fingers around the one spar. ‘Now say: I command thee, open.’

Cheesy as hell but then, if it’s tried and tested, why mess with it? I echo his words and feel a spark of magic shoot through me, my arm and hand, into the gate.

‘Well done.’

I grin at him and check my palms. No burn marks, nothing. It feels as if my skin should be charred but there’s nothing.

We walk down the stairs for a long way, and the water just keeps receding. I turn to look up and see Aiden chatting with a group of women. Most of them are teens. They look like a school group
with their teacher. I can’t help but laugh as I watch Aiden gesture with his hands, indicating the impressive suspension bridge spanning the river, then the Tower of London on the other side
of the bank. He also points out the warship from the Second World War, HMS
Belfast
, moored further up the river. He seems to have gone into impromptu tour-guide mode.

‘Watch out,’ says Thorn, steadying me as I step off the last step onto a muddy bank, and walk straight into him.

The traffic juddering above us seems far quieter down here and, looking up, I realize how incredibly tall the bridge is and how very small we are in comparison.

The river laps gently at the small muddy beach we’re standing on. I swing my backpack off my shoulder and find my first-aid kit. I rummage around inside it and find the herb-infused piece
of chalk Megan gave me a few months ago when we were practising drawing summoning circles.

‘What do I do?’ I ask Thorn over my shoulder.

‘Draw a door, big enough for us both to pass through, side by side.’

I turn to the wall holding up the embankment and start drawing. It’s a large door, similar in style and look to the one that graced Blackhart Manor before it got sucked into nothingness. I
draw the doorknob and a keyhole.

‘Have you heard of the troll runes?’ Thorn asks me when I stand back to admire my door.

‘Uhm. Should I have?’

In answer he holds out his hand to me and I pass him the piece of chalk, now much reduced. He sets about hastily and with precision sketching sigils on the outside of the doorway. They look
similar to Viking runes but, as I watch him sketch, the runes sink into the concrete until there’s no sign of them.

He takes out the small sickle knife he threatened Aiden with earlier, nicks his finger and presses it against the final rune. His blood, only a small mark, remains visible for a few seconds
longer than the chalk rune, before it too disappears into the concrete with a soft
schloep
sound.

‘And now we wait?’ I ask, looking out across the river with its barges and tourist boats floating by. Watching the river calms my jangling nerves and I push my hands deep into my
pockets and hunch my shoulders against the rain. Thorn reaches out and tucks the hood up over my head.

‘Now you’ll be a little bit less wet,’ he says with a smile.

‘Have you ever met the trolls?’ I ask him, pretending not to notice that he’s trying to shield me from most of the rain by angling me towards the wall.

‘A few times, but because they travel so much, you never know who you’ll meet. And there are quite a few of them.’

‘Oh?’ So, ten points to me that I actually knew of the trolls. All the other points to Thorn for knowing far more about them and not being braggy about it.

‘There are maybe seven of them, and three of them get to stay in London somewhere and work their spy network. And the others travel or hibernate. No one really knows.’

I grin and shake my head. ‘I never thought I’d hear that trolls run a spy network.’

‘Well, to be fair, it’s not really a spy network. It’s more like gossip. Your house brownie will speak to a nixie in the local park, who’ll tell a boggart, who’ll
pass that information on to a dunter and, before you know, the trolls know that you’re being particularly mean to visitors by giving them sub-par wine to drink. Reputations are made and
broken this way.’ His face is serious, except for a faint quirk of his lips but then he’s all grave again. ‘You really don’t have to come along, Kit. It may not be
safe.’

‘Don’t even think it,’ I say, keeping my voice even. ‘We’re a team, you and I. I told your friend Scarlet that I’d look after you and I intend to keep my
promise.’

‘Scarlet’s been Kieran’s bodyguard for years. I think I’ve always been a tiny bit in love with her. Kieran used to tease me mercilessly whenever she left the room and I
would just stand there, gaping after her. She taught me to fence.’

‘She seemed very fierce.’ I can’t reconcile the broken Fae creature we buried in Olga’s garden with the person he’s talking about. ‘And loyal.’

‘Her family have been bodyguards and soldiers in our army for millennia.’ His gaze is bleak. ‘We have to stop Eadric before he tears the kingdom apart.’

I jump as someone coughs politely behind us. We turn at the same time and take in the little girl standing in the doorway I’d drawn. Dressed in a summer party dress that has quite a bit of
Alice to it, she looks maybe eleven years old. Her arms and feet are bare but she gives no indication that she feels the cold. Her mass of tumbling chestnut-coloured hair matches the rich tones of
her skin and eyes.

She favours us with a quick smile and does a tiny curtsy. ‘Prince Thorn?’ she says, her voice light and friendly. ‘They have been expecting you. Please, come with me.’
Then her gaze moves past him, to me, and her smile deepens. ‘And you brought a tribute. They will be very pleased with your gift.’

Thorn’s gaze widens but he holds out a hand. ‘No, she is not a tribute. This is Kit Blackhart. A companion and a good friend.’

She looks crestfallen for a few moments and I wonder about the type of gifts people bring the trolls but then I decide not to think about it too much and smile at her nervously. She gives me a
brief nod. ‘Ah, the Blackhart, of course. Are you one of Jamie’s nieces? He always brings me sweets. He is my favourite.’ Suddenly, she seems to remember her role and turns to
Thorn, arranging her features into a serious expression as befits her status as messenger. ‘Please, come with me. You’ve been expected for some time.’