The Falconer (Elizabeth May) (9 page)

He laughs coldly. I recoil as he strokes my cheek with a long, graceful finger. ‘I hope you have more of your little weapons,’ he whispers, his breath kissing my lips. ‘Because now they will never stop hunting you.’

I can’t breathe any more. I flatten my hands against his chest and push him away. His smile flashes, more ferocious than ever. Then he turns and starts towards Calton Hill.

‘And who might this innominate
them
be?’ When it becomes clear that he has no intention of stopping, I move in front of him so he can’t escape. ‘You said the redcaps were in the mounds. I thought faeries couldn’t lie.’

‘
Sìthichean
,’ he corrects. He hates it when I call his kind
faeries
. ‘No, we can’t.’

‘Then how did they escape?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, his jaw set. ‘When we hunted together, I could disguise our kills as mine. Now you’ve hunted alone and she knows there’s a Falconer in Edinburgh.’

Falconer
. That word again. I remember the revenant’s gaping smile as it ripped the energy out of me.
Falconer
.

‘What does that mean?’ I say.

Before he can answer, I hear voices behind us. Kiaran looks past me and I turn. People are hurrying towards Waterloo Place, chattering, calling back and forth. They’re off to find the source of the explosion, I realise. It made a great deal of noise.

Dash it all. I’ll have to take a long detour on the way back to Charlotte Square if I don’t want to be seen.

‘Just go home, Kam,’ Kiaran says.

‘But—’

‘I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow.’ He pivots on his heel and walks down the road.

An hour later, I re-enter my bedroom through the hidden door. Derrick flies out of the dressing room. His wings are fluttering so fast they blur.

At the sight of me, he halts and lets out a whistle. ‘I feel I must inform you: you look like hell.’

I shove the lever that brings up the door, then slam my palm against the wooden wall panel. ‘Thank you,’ I say drily. ‘How very kind of you.’

Then I look in the mirror. My hair is in complete disarray, copper curls springing every which way. Blood peppers my face and clothes. My neck is bruised; tomorrow it will be deep purple. Derrick is right. I am an absolute mess.

‘I finished the gown,’ Derrick says. ‘Payment, please.’

‘Close your eyes.’

Dutifully, Derrick places his hands over his face and I open the cabinet where I hide the honey. A small panel slides aside to reveal a compartment containing a jar. I pour some of the contents into a wooden bicker and hide the honey again.

I set the bowl on the table. ‘No dribbling, please.’

With a squeal of glee, Derrick zooms over to the table. His light shines golden as he perches on the edge of the bowl. He dips his fingers into the honey and – without any shame – proceeds to place his entire hand in his mouth.

I cringe and step inside the dressing room. After I remove my soiled clothes and slip on my nightdress, I study my hands. My knuckles are torn, swollen and already bruised from hitting Kiaran. I kneel next to the washbasin Derrick has left out and slip my hands inside, hissing in pain.

I should never have let Kiaran see me that way. I need to keep better control over my rage. He’ll see it as a vulnerability far worse than my physical limitations. A weakness. It’s one thing to tell myself this. It’s quite another to act accordingly in front of him.

‘Damnation,’ I whisper to myself as I dry my hands. I don’t know what I’ll do when I see him tomorrow.

By the time I return, Derrick is already half-finished with the honey. He flashes me a wobbly smile. ‘How are you this fine –’ he hiccups ‘– evening, you lovely human?’

‘I thought you said I look awful.’

‘Like hell,’ he clarifies. ‘Like splendid, magnificent, beautiful hell.’

I drop my clothes into the washbasin to clean them. The water turns dark with blood and dirt. ‘Now you’re just being silly.’

‘
Diel-ma-care
.’ He waves a dismissive hand.

I stare at myself in the mirror again. I wonder how my power would taste if I were a faery. Ash and sandalwood, I decide. Things that burn. Maybe a hint of iron, from all the faeries I’ve killed for my mother.

Using a cloth, I begin scrubbing at the blood still splattered dark across my cheeks amid the vast number of light freckles. I look like a murderess, like death personified.

Crimson suits you best.

With a growl, I scrub hard enough that my flesh reddens and aches. No more memories. No more. The one Kiaran triggered earlier was enough.

I force my thoughts to the redcaps. I have to find out where they came from, and how they slipped out of their prison before it happens again. There’s no possible way I could manage to fight three in one night again. I already struggle with the solitary faeries I fight, and they weren’t trapped underground for more than two thousand years. The fae that were must be angry, and very, very hungry.

I can’t trust that Kiaran will tell me everything I need to know. What he doesn’t reveal might be essential to my survival. I won’t make the mistake of waiting.

‘Derrick?’

‘Hmm?’ Derrick turns his head towards me; he’s glowing brightly with rapture. He slips his fingers into the bowl again.

‘Have you ever seen a redcap?’

Derrick grins with delight and laughs. ‘Such hulking creatures. Slow as molasses. Do you know I once took my blade, danced around one and sliced it to ribbons!’ He stuffs more honey in his mouth and sighs. ‘Alas, nothing left for a trophy.’

Slow as molasses?
The redcaps had swung their hammers and run faster than any faery I’ve ever faced. I’d love to see what Derrick considers fast. Or perhaps not.

I continue scrubbing my clothes. ‘Do you know how it might be possible for some to escape imprisonment?’

‘It takes time,’ he sings. ‘
Tiiiiime
.’

Oh, for heaven’s sake. ‘Derrick, focus. Kindly articulate in complete sentences. What do you mean?’

He proceeds to lick his fingers. ‘I can do that. I can speak sentences. What were we discussing?’

‘The redcaps,’ I say through clenched teeth. I try not to snap at him, but he is making this very difficult. ‘How might they escape from beneath the city?’

‘Oh, that’s happening now? How interesting!’ At my glare, he sits up straight and his wings fan. ‘One can’t have a functioning prison without a seal. Over time, the seal reaches the end of its life and begins to falter. Complete sentences!’

My stomach drops. ‘What do you mean, the end of its life?’

Derek smiles gaily. ‘Nothing lasts for ever. A good thing, considering the number of intolerable people about.’

The clothes slip from my hands into the washbasin and water splashes all over my nightdress. ‘Derrick, this is serious!’

He raises his hands. ‘Bright side! If the redcaps were freed first, whoever built your prison had a plan in case it failed.’

A glimmer of hope worms its way inside of me. ‘Really?’

‘Of course! It means the most power is being used to keep the strongest
sìthichean
inside the longest. So the least powerful are released first –’ he gobbles more honey off his fingers ‘– and their enemies can kill them off more easily and reduce the army’s numbers before the more powerful ones escape. Brilliant plan. Wish I had thought of it.’

My hope dies, as I should have suspected it would. Whoever built the prison thought
redcaps
could be killed easily? Frankly, that’s the worst blasted plan
I’ve
ever heard. ‘So let me see if I understand this,’ I say carefully. ‘The one thing protecting Edinburgh is a weakening seal and the current insurgence of evil faeries being let through is the
bright side
?’

Derrick looks a bit sheepish. ‘Well. Aye.’

‘But we don’t have our own army to kill them off!’

Derrick blinks at me, his light dimming. ‘Cor. When you state it like that it sounds rather depressing.’

‘So where is the seal? How do we fix it?’

‘Don’t know. Never seen it. Pixies don’t get involved in other
sìthichean
business.’

No wonder Kiaran didn’t look at all surprised by those redcaps, the secretive bastard. How on earth am I supposed to blow them up if I don’t know where they are? If we don’t fix that seal, Edinburgh will fall. It is an utmost certainty. The faeries beneath the city were trapped there for a reason. If they rise, they will destroy everything in their path.

And there’s something else Kiaran didn’t tell me. ‘Derrick,’ I say. He glances at me warily. ‘Have you ever heard of a Falconer?’

If I weren’t watching for his reaction, I might not have noticed his entire body go rigid. That isn’t the normal response of a pixie drunk on honey. Derrick has never looked more sober.

‘Wherever did you hear that?’ His voice is low. A flicker of fear crosses his wee features. His thin wings fan slowly, his halo darkens.

I frown. ‘Kiaran mentioned it.’

Derrick remains entirely silent despite hearing Kiaran’s name.

Another secret. No matter how much Derrick might despise Kiaran, they share a past that I fear I shall never know fully. Faeries might be incapable of lying, but that has only forced them to develop more inventive ways of circumventing the truth.

Derrick turns from me. ‘It’s someone who hunts with a trained falcon, of course. What else could it mean?’

‘Right,’ I say, not without a hint of sarcasm. He won’t give me the truth, not tonight. I’ll have to wring the rest out of Kiaran when I see him. I set my clothes next to the fireplace to dry. ‘I’m certain that’s what he meant.’

A lie in exchange for his half-truth.

Chapter 11

I
primp and dress myself to receive visitors the following morning, so Dona won’t see my injuries. Silk gloves hide the cuts on my knuckles and fabric tied at my neck conceals the faint bruising on my skin. The bow rests at my nape, below the loose chignon I managed to pin up by myself. It matches my day dress of soft green, one of the only colours in creation that complements my freckled skin.

I walk downstairs, inappropriately carrying a cup of tea from one room to another. Sunlight – a rare thing in Scottish winter – shines through the drawing room windows and into the large hallway. It’s late morning, but the sun is already low on the horizon. Its light catches the chandelier, and tiny rainbows dance over the blue urn-and-coral-patterned wallpaper in the hallway.

All I can think of is what Derrick told me last night. I have to find that blasted seal before more redcaps escape . . . or worse. When Kiaran shows up, I’ll wring the information out of him. The
daoine sìth
would have been the most powerful of the creatures trapped inside, and I can’t come near to besting even Kiaran. If he won’t help me fight them, I’ll convince him to tell me what I need to know to defeat them. I’ll do what I have to.

The desire to kill again uncoils inside me, so strong and relentless that for a moment I can’t breathe.

I set the teacup on a table and reach into the pocket of my day dress. My fingers fumble over the tiny parts inside until I find my turnscrew and the small automated valve I’ve begun to construct for a fire-starter. I place a screw and twist.

Tinkering like this helps me think, but the release from a kill would allow me breathe again. It would ease the ache in my chest. Find the seal, then continue to track and prepare to kill the
baobhan sìth
. The same as every night.

No. Not yet
. I place another screw, twist it. I must remain focused. It’s time to socialise, to act the perfect lady. Time for
sit up straight, shoulders back, smile
.

‘Lady Aileana?’

I jump and my hand knocks the teacup from the table. It hits the Persian carpet with a muffled
thunk
and tea spills onto the cloth. ‘Oh my,’ I say to my father’s butler. ‘That wasn’t very well done of me, was it?’

MacNab smiles under a full sorrel-coloured beard. He leans his immense form down to pluck the teacup off the carpet. The china is dwarfed in his palm as he straightens. ‘Not to worry, my lady,’ he says. ‘I had every intention of sending the carpet to be cleaned.’

‘How very timely.’

MacNab bows. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘More tea would be wonderful, thank you.’

‘Very good, my lady.’ He nods to the table closest to the door. ‘Some gifts arrived this morning from your gentlemen admirers.’

Prominently displayed on the drum table are four bouquets of various flowers: roses, violets, tulips, heliotrope, heather, wild flowers – expensive arrangements that can only be obtained from hothouses this time of year.

The antechamber has never been bereft of bouquets or calling cards since I came out of mourning two weeks ago. The controversy surrounding my mother’s death has only increased the interest in me, though I’m not certain that would be the case if I lacked a substantial dowry.

I stare at those arrangements and quell the urge to throw them out the front door. They are part of a future I cannot control, where I exist as a wife whose foremost concern is producing bairns and being presentable on my husband’s arm. My weapons will be replaced with lace fans and parasols.

It takes every ounce of careful control to return my attention to the fire-starter’s automatic valve. I slip another screw out of my pocket. Insert, twist, repeat.

MacNab clears his throat. I didn’t realise he was still there. ‘Will you require anything else, my lady?’ he asks. ‘Shall I send some replies, perhaps?’

‘Just the tea, please. I’ll take it in the drawing room.’ I pluck a calling card off the table.

William Robert James Kerr, Earl of Linlithgow
. I’m fairly certain Lord Linlithgow’s prerequisites for a wife do not include:
trained for battle, highly aggressive, slaughters faeries
.

The front door opens and my father, William Kameron, Marquess of Douglas, strides into the antechamber.

I straighten in surprise. Father has been away at our country estate for more than a month, with not even a letter to inform me of his intended return home.