Brightly (Flicker #2) (7 page)

“Can you do something with it?” Alice asked.

“I know a man in the north who is always seeking a good hunting dog,” Conall answered. “It will not be difficult to find a place for this one.”

“We appreciate it,” Alice said. “All of us.”

“It is no great thing.” Standing, Conall took the rope from Alice and tugged it once. The cu sith didn’t move, but when Conall tugged again, the hound slipped reluctantly from under Henry’s hand and went to sit by Conall’s feet.

For a moment, Conall was silent. Then his gaze moved to Henry, his dark eyes glittering.

“Did someone teach you to talk with animals, child?” he asked. “Or are the words part of you?”

“I…” Henry swallowed, shifting a little under Conall’s scrutiny. “I’ve always done it.”

Conall just smiled pleasantly. “Yours is a wonderful gift. Use it well. And, Alice—do give Filo my best when you see him.”

With that, Conall led the cu sith through the door at the back of the shop, dismissing them. Alice ushered them out of Sandpiper and back onto the sidewalk. Even wearing the amber charm, Lee could feel the dull edge of the heat pressing against her.

“Who
was
that?” Davis asked, sounding awed, as they started up the street.

“That’s Conall,” Alice replied. “He’s my boss. He’s also one of the Tuatha de Danann, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t know there were any in America,” Clementine mused. “I thought they all lived underground.”

“Apparently not,” Alice said crisply.

Lee frowned suddenly. “Henry.… What was Conall asking you about back there?”

“Oh—that.” Henry shrugged, looking sheepish. “I’m good with animals. They like me. They respond to me. We understand each other. ”

“Is that your secondary ability?” Most people with the Second Sight developed some other magical skill: Alice healed faster than normal humans, Filo had the gift of tongues, and Nasser was extremely sensitive to magical energy.

“That’s right.”

“So
that’s
what you did in the park. You told it not to attack me.” Lee paused as the thought sank in. “Thank you.”

Henry smiled. “Any time.”

When they reached Flicker, Lee let them into the shop. Sunlight streamed through the front window, flashing on the scales of the magnificent blue carousel dragon that crouched before the window. Like the rest of the shop, the dragon had been in sad shape when Lee arrived last fall. She had spent weeks painstakingly repainting every inch, restoring all the little details: the dragon’s purple-black gums, just visible above its grinning fangs; the sheen of its indigo claws; the gold accents around its shimmering blue scales.

At the same time, Filo had carefully transformed the animation spell on the dragon. When he acquired the dragon, it was cursed to spring to life whenever its carousel started and take its passenger on a different kind of ride. Filo had rerouted and altered that magic so the dragon would react in a different way.

“Lee?” Nasser was standing at the bottom of the stairwell in the rear of the shop. She hadn’t realized he’d be visiting today—but she took another look at his expression, at the hectic light in his eyes, and she understood.

“I’m fine,” she assured him quickly. “It was nothing.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, starting toward her. “I felt something, but I didn’t know where you were. We came over here as soon as—”

Nasser stopped, seeming to notice the three strangers for the first time. Before he could speak, Jason’s voice floated down the stairwell.

“Is that them?” Jason called, as he ducked into the shop, Filo a step behind him.

Unlike Nasser, Filo immediately noticed the strangers. He gave them a brief once-over—and maybe it was the slanting sunlight that filled the shop, but when his gaze fell on Henry, he seemed to go suddenly pale before a faint flush colored his cheeks.

“Customers?” he asked, glancing toward Alice and Lee. “Or are they with you?”

Lee bit her lip. “Both, I guess. We met them in the park. They saved me from a cu sith that was running loose.”

As Nasser looked between Lee and the strangers, he narrowed his eyes—not in suspicion, but in concentration. Lee recognized what he was doing: extending his senses, trying to get a feel for their energies.

“You’re Sighted,” he concluded a moment later. “Aren’t you?”

“Good eye.” Clementine flashed him a smug smile. “My turn. You are either Nasser or Jason Rew. You look older, so I’m going to go with Nasser. Right?”

“Right,” Nasser confirmed uncertainly.

Clementine’s smiled widened. “That makes
you
Jason,” she said, pointing to the other boy. “And you’re Filo Shine. We’ve already been introduced to Alice and Lee here. It’s good to meet you all—we’ve heard so much about you.”

“My name is Henry Heartstill,” Henry said, shooting Clementine a quelling look. “This is Davis Pike.”

“I’m Clementine Clearwater,” the other girl finished. “And we’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

“She doesn’t mean that,” Henry said quickly, as Filo’s frown deepened. “It’s more like we have a proposition for you. A job. It may take a little time to explain.”

Eyes narrowed slightly, Filo dragged several chairs and stools out from behind the counter. He shoved three chairs toward the strangers, who took a seat as the rest of them settled themselves. Alice and Lee hopped up on the counter, while Nasser and Jason pulled up stools. Filo didn’t sit.

Leaning back against the counter, Filo said, “I’m listening.”

“We’re from Siren Island,” Henry began. “It’s in the San Juan Islands, an archipelago in the Salish Sea. It’s a private island—no ferry service, no tourists. The island has around a hundred residents, and even fewer right now. People have been leaving since we started having trouble with the local fey.”

“Are the residents aware of the faeries?” Filo asked.

Davis nodded. “It’s a small island. They don’t talk about it, but people understand how it is. Everyone’s pretty much used to seeing faeries from time to time—sprites, moss maidens, selkies, merfolk.”

Alice quirked an eyebrow. “Merfolk?”

Henry shrugged. “It’s called Siren Island for a reason. The colony of merfolk sticks to the waters surrounding the island. You can see them near the shore pretty often. But not lately.”

“In early spring,” Clementine said, “the merfolk disappeared. In their place was another colony. The new merfolk had forced the old colony out, trying to take over the territory around Siren.
Our
merfolk had been pushed farther out to sea. The new merfolk don’t swim close to shore very often, but they are… aggressive.”

“How so?” Nasser asked.

“A few times, we’ve seen merfolk from the old colony approach the island—and every time, they were attacked by the newcomers before they could get close. And,” Clementine added, her voice a little softer, “they attacked a small boat a few months ago. Somebody drowned.”

“The merfolk are singing, too,” Henry said quietly. “Almost every night. Merfolk song is hypnotic. It doesn’t affect everyone the same way, but some of the people who hear it walk out of their houses and down to the water in a trance. They’ll throw themselves into the sea if you let them. We’ve had to lock people in their homes, tie them to their beds at night.”

“You’re looking for us to help you send these merfolk back to where they came from?” Filo asked.

“I wish that was all,” Clementine said. “There’s more.”

Alice frowned. “What else?”

“Some sort of illness is spreading across the island,” Davis said. “We don’t understand how it spreads, how it chooses its hosts, what its incubation period is, how to treat it—nothing.”

At that, Nasser perked up. “Symptoms?”

“People have been developing these… growths. Barnacles that grow on the skin.”

“Barnacles?” Nasser echoed.

Davis nodded gravely. “The illness causes discolored skin, too. Fever, hallucinations, and an intense desire to go into the sea.”

“Those merfolk brought it with them,” Clementine grumbled. “Their bodies are covered in those barnacle things—not that it hurts
them
. It must’ve spread to the island somehow. More than half the people left are sick.”

“Faerie struck,” Nasser said. “If the illness is caused by those merfolk, that’s the term for it. And you said the humans aren’t responding to treatment?”

“Nothing we’ve tried is helping. And we’ve tried everything we can think of.” Davis grimaced. “We decided it was time to get outside help.”

“Let me get this straight,” Filo said. His eyes hadn’t lost their suspicious glint. “You want us to relocate these merfolk,
and
help cure whatever sickness they brought with them?”

Clementine nodded. “What do you think? Can you help us?”

Filo’s tone was flat: “No.”

She arched an eyebrow. “That was quick.”

“You’ve got vicious merfolk and a faerie blight,” Filo said. “Even if any of us could leave Bridgestone for more than a few days to investigate, which we can’t, none of us want to get infected with whatever’s going around on your island or bring it back here, and nobody wants to be drowned.”

Clementine’s expression was carefully neutral. “Are you sure?”

“Is there anyone else you can go to?” Nasser asked. “Anyone at all? We might even know some people closer to you who could—”

“Siren Island is very isolated,” Henry said, “and we’re the only magical practitioners we know of in the San Juans. Even our mainland contacts haven’t been any help this time. We were counting on this—on
you
. There is nobody else.”

For a moment, everyone was silent. Then Clementine cleared her throat.

“We anticipated some hesitation on your part,” she said finally. “But I’m afraid you don’t have much choice.”

She turned to Davis, who silently drew a file folder from his backpack. He set his mouth in a grim line as he passed it to Clementine.

“There’s something you should know about us,” she said, accepting the file. “We already told you’re that we all have the Second Sight, and we’re pretty handy with magic. But we didn’t mention that we apprenticed under faerie masters.” She gave Filo a level look. “Their names were Neman and Morgan.”

Chapter Four:

For a long moment, Filo just stared at Clementine.

Ever since Neman and Morgan had left last winter, they’d barely been spoken of. As the permanence of their departure sank in, Filo thought of them less and less. He stopped flinching in anticipation of a blow whenever he dropped something, stopped pinching himself whenever he made a mistake. Little by little, he was freeing himself from their memory.

Still, the sound of their names on Clementine’s lips made his skin crawl. It didn’t help that the boy from the Goblin Market was standing in front of him, the one with the green eyes. Filo had recognized him straight away—the sight of him had made Filo’s insides twist with something like nerves. But if Henry remembered listening to Filo’s story, or seeing him at all before today, he didn’t show it.

Filo finally summoned the strength to challenge: “Prove it.”

“I thought you might say that.” Again, Clementine nodded to Davis, who pulled a leather-bound book from his backpack and held it up for them to see. On the inside cover, the image of two crows shimmered in black ink. Filo knew that symbol as well as he knew his own handwriting: the mark of Neman and Morgan. Many of his books carried an identical stamp.

“They didn’t live with us,” Clementine said. “After they brought us to Siren, Neman and Morgan only visited a few times a year to check up on us, to note our progress.”

Nasser looked dubious. “You live alone?”

“No,” Henry said. “We live with my mom, Anna Heartstill. Or, we did. It’s just us, now. Our house doubles as our shop. It’s more of an apothecary, really. We do work for the people on our island, sometimes on other islands or the mainland, but we mostly keep to ourselves.”

“I don’t understand,” Alice frowned. “What do you mean, they
visited
you? How did you get there in the first place?”

“Forget about that.” Clementine waved her hand dismissively. “If you’ll just listen for a second, you’ll change your mind about helping us.”

“I doubt it,” Filo muttered. But he let them talk.

“When those merfolk and that illness turned up, we tore our house apart, looking for anything in any of our books or records that might help,” Davis intimated. “One day, at the bottom of an old trunk, we found a stack of loose papers stuffed inside a book—the papers in these files. And that changed things.”

“What’s in them?” Jason inquired.

“Everything.” Henry’s voice was quiet and serious. “Neman and Morgan kept records of a shop called Flicker, and of the apprentices who live there. There’s information on all of you. Well, everyone but you, Lee.”

“Names, hometowns, when you were taken,” Clementine said. “Notes on your progress and powers—the works. Neman and Morgan stopped visiting us about three years ago, so they must’ve left the files before then. They probably wanted us to find them.”