No Ordinary Fairy Tale, page 36
part #0 of No Ordinary Fairy Tale Series
“All right, you can come out now,” said Timothy at last, and Linden wriggled out of the pack and dropped to the floor beside him, making herself human size again. By now she hardly had to concentrate at all to make herself grow, and being big felt almost as natural as being small: the spell didn’t even give her a headache any more.
“I think Rob was right,” she confided to Timothy as she stepped out from the shadows, “the Empress’s people don’t like these places. Maybe they don’t even know we—”
Timothy caught her arm and jerked her back as a huge man in baggy clothes strode past. “Watch where you’re going,” he said. “In a crowd like this, you can’t count on other people to watch out for you.”
Linden blinked and looked around, noticing her surroundings for the first time. Behind her, a set of moving staircases rose and fell with mesmerizing smoothness. Beside her was the darkened alcove where Timothy had let her out of his pack. And stretching before her – a wide, windowless tunnel, swarming with more people than Linden had seen or even imagined in her life.
They came in every skin color, every possible size and shape. Their clothes and hair were such a riot of styles, textures and hues that she felt hopelessly drab, like a wren among goldfinches. But strongest of all was the wave of sheer humanness that washed towards her, that thick meaty smell pungent with chemicals and salt.
“Come on,” said Timothy, tugging at her, and Linden obeyed, gulping shallow breaths to calm her nausea. She clung tight to Timothy’s hand, and together they plunged through the crowd to the end of the tunnel.
They had just emerged onto a platform whose sign read Northern Line when the ground rumbled beneath her feet. Linden clapped her hands to her ears, her hair whipping in all directions, as a giant metal snake came crashing out of the darkness and hissed to a stop in front of them, disgorging more humans onto the platform. Linden’s knees wobbled, and she couldn’t move until Timothy took hold of her and practically dragged her inside.
“Sit down before you faint, will you?” he muttered in her ear as he led her to the back of the carriage. Linden sank into an empty seat and put her head in her hands. The human smell wasn’t quite as strong here, she realized with dim relief . . . but then a thread of winter-pine scent wafted towards her, and she sat up abruptly, dread prickling the back of her neck.
There was a faery on the train with them.
“We have to get off,” she started to tell Timothy. “It isn’t—” But then time stopped, and she couldn’t say anything at all.
•••
There was no sound, no movement, not even a breath of air. The passengers around Timothy were as still as photographs; even the platform outside the train had ceased to bustle. Feeling as though he were swimming in wet cement, Timothy forced his head around to look at Linden and saw her frozen like all the others, one hand uplifted and her mouth open in a cry of warning that had come half a second too late.
And yet he could still move, however sluggishly. Why? He crept his hand into his front pocket, and as his fingers brushed past his train tickets and touched the iron key the heaviness in his muscles fell away. His first impulse was to jump up, leap out the door, and dash for the station exit – but Linden was still trapped, and how could he use the key to free her without robbing her of all her magic as well?
The faery rose from his seat at the far end of the carriage and walked towards them, teeth gleaming in a feral smile. A young male, slight and wiry, with blond hair worn poet-length but no softness in his face at all. He stopped in front of Timothy, then raised his fingers as though touching a hidden earpiece and spoke into his palm:
“It’s Martin. I’ve found them—”
There was only one thing Timothy could think to do. He leaped out of his seat and tackled the faery, slamming him back against the carriage wall.
Martin went limp, slithering out of Timothy’s grasp. He dropped to the aisle, rolled away, and bounded to his feet again; then he snatched a pen from the pocket of a nearby passenger, and with a flash it became a silver knife in his hand.
“Dance, human boy,” he said silkily, and lunged forward. Timothy dodged, but not quite fast enough. The knife drew fire across his ribs, and he gasped – but at the same moment he flung out the hand that held the iron key, and the faery ran straight into it.
The iron jerked in his palm, flaring with sudden heat: Martin gave a harsh cry and dropped to the floor. At the same instant the carriage woke up, doors hissing shut and passengers settling into their seats as though nothing had happened. Quickly Timothy kicked the knife away from Martin’s hand – but it was a pen again now, harmless.
“Cleverly done,” panted the faery, getting up slowly and shaking the hair from his eyes. “But what good is a secret weapon, when it is no longer secret?”
He had barely finished the sentence when the train jolted forward, throwing them both off-balance. Martin lifted a hand as though to grasp the rail, then suddenly feinted and jabbed his fingers into Timothy’s wounded side. Timothy staggered, choking off a cry, and with a mocking slap on the back and a tug at his pocket the faery shoved him away and ran.
Timothy rebounded against the wall and crumpled into a seat, his ribs flaming with agony. He was scarcely aware of Linden’s hands fluttering over him, her panicked whisper as she begged him to forgive her, it had all happened so fast and she hadn’t known what to do and she was so, so sorry . . .
“Here, you can’t do that!” bellowed a man further up the carriage, and Timothy looked up dazedly to see Martin grab the doors and pry them apart with impossible strength. He braced them open with his feet as the train slowed, then sprang forward and landed on the very corner of the platform, sure-footed as an antelope. Within seconds he had vanished into the crowd.
The train ground to a stop halfway out of the station. Grumbles and clucks of protest rose from the other passengers as a terse voice over the loudspeaker announced that there would be a delay. But no one appeared to have noticed that Timothy was injured, and through his haze of pain he wondered why – until he saw the look of concentration on Linden’s face.
“I’m trying to put a glamour around us,” she said between her teeth, “so I can look at your wound without anyone seeing. But it’s hard.”
Slowly Timothy opened his hand. He’d been gripping the key so tightly that it had left a red imprint on his palm; now he let it drop onto the seat beside them, and Linden relaxed.
“That’s better,” she said. She crouched in front of Timothy and pulled up his shirt. Her touch was feather-light, but when her fingers probed the wound, he flinched.
“It’s messy,” she said after a moment, “but not too deep. Do you have anything we could use for a bandage?”
•••
Several minutes passed while the underground train remained motionless, and Linden was beginning to despair when it finally shuddered to life again. She leaned into the circle of Timothy’s arm, pressing a crumpled rag against his side, as the lights of the platform slid away and they plunged into the blackness ahead.
“You were so brave,” she said softly, trying to give him something to think about besides the pain. “It’s not your fault he escaped.”
“I don’t even care about that,” Timothy mumbled, his head lolling against the window. “I just hope we don’t miss the train to Birmingham.”
“I thought we were going to Aber . . . somewhere in Wales.”
“We are, but we have to change trains at Birmingham New Street first.”
Linden’s heart began to thump. “How much time do we have?”
“I can’t remember,” said Timothy wearily. “Let me look at my tickets.” She moved aside as he straightened out one leg, slid his hand into his front pocket – and stiffened.
“What is it?” she asked.
Timothy didn’t answer: instead he leaned onto his other side with a pained grimace, and felt in his back pocket. Then he said an ugly-sounding word she didn’t recognize, and slumped down in the seat again.
“What?” Linden repeated, more alarmed than ever.
Timothy’s mouth twisted bitterly. “The tickets are there, all right. But my wallet, with my ID and my cards and all our money in it – it’s gone.”
Twelve
They couldn’t turn back. They couldn’t call for help – even if they managed to beg or scrape together enough coins for a pay phone, what could Paul and Peri do? Besides, they had no time to spare; they had to keep moving if they wanted to catch the next train. Timothy just hoped they could make it out of the city before any more of the Empress’s servants found them.
Linden sat close to him, holding the cloth pad to his wounded side; she’d put on a brave face, but he could feel her trembling. She must realize, as he did, that having no money meant no food, no lodging, no coach fare to Cardigan the next morning – and no way to find the Children of Rhys before the Blackwings caught up with them. But if the only alternative was to surrender to the Empress . . .
Timothy sat stiffly, every breath a stab of pain, while the minutes dragged by and the stations passed one by one. At last the recorded voice above them said kindly, “The next station is Euston,” and as the train began to slow Timothy steeled himself to get up.
“It’s still bleeding,” said Linden in a worried tone, lifting the rag away from his side and peering underneath.
“Never mind,” he said between his teeth. “Let’s go.”
Together they limped off the train, skirting the edge of the fast-moving crowd as they followed the signs toward the overground part of the station. When they reached the foot of the escalators they shuffled back into the shadows and Linden made herself small again – but this time instead of climbing into Timothy’s pack, she burrowed up under his jacket to keep holding his makeshift bandage in place. Grateful, he shifted the rucksack to his good side and stepped gingerly onto the moving stairs.
They glided slowly out of the underground, up a second set of escalators and then a third, emerging at last onto a busy concourse lined with shops. Timothy feared to look at the monitors hanging on the wall, in case their train had already left – but no, it had been delayed, there was still time. He shoved his ticket through the turnstile to the overground trains and loped toward the platforms as fast as the pain in his side would let him.
“Wait!” cried a small voice from beneath his jacket, and Timothy stopped, blood pounding through his ears. That warning tone told him everything he needed to know. Linden had scented another faery nearby.
“Where?” he breathed, glancing wildly in all directions. Was it the too-sleek businesswoman striding up on his right? Or the boy leaning against the wall ahead, who looked about seventeen but was suspiciously spot-free? Timothy inched the iron key out of his pocket and gripped it between his fingers, bracing himself for another fight.
An elusive floral scent teased his nostrils, and he twisted around–ouch–to see a young woman with glossy black hair and a face like a harvest moon regarding him thoughtfully.
His heart stopped.
“I have waited in this human place a long time,” the faery said in lilting tones as she walked a slow circle around him, “watching for you, as I was bidden. And yet . . .” Her fingers brushed his shoulder, warm even through the jacket he wore. “I never saw you.” And with that she gave a conspiratorial smile and melted back into the crowd.
Dazed with relief, Timothy was still gazing stupidly at the place where she had stood when a voice echoed from the speakers above: “The train to Birmingham New Street is now boarding from platform seven.”
Timothy hefted the rucksack, gritted his teeth, and ran.
•••
“Rob said there were other faeries who didn’t like the Empress,” Linden whispered to Timothy as she settled into the seat beside him, human size once more. They’d caught the train just in time; already it had slipped free of the station and was picking up speed. “But I didn’t expect one of them to help us like that. Did Rob send her a message, I wonder? The same way Veronica talked to that other faery before?” She looked at her open palm. “I wish I knew how to do that.”
“Maybe you can,” said Timothy, but his voice sounded thin, and his eyes were half-closed. “Has it stopped bleeding yet?”
Linden peeled the makeshift bandage away from his side. “It’s not quite as bad now,” she said, though privately she was glad she’d spent enough time with Knife not to be squeamish. She folded the sodden rag over and pressed it back against the wound, then moved Timothy’s elbow down to keep it in place. “I’ll see if I can make a better bandage—”
“Ticket inspector,” gasped Timothy, and Linden ducked down, hastily casting a glamour to hide herself and Timothy’s wound from view. She could only be glad that the backs of the seats were high, and there was no one sitting across the aisle to notice her disappear. She held her breath until the man had looked at Timothy’s ticket and moved on to the next carriage, then willed herself visible again.
“Will he come back?” she asked.
Timothy shook his head fractionally, his eyes shut tight. “Not until we stop at the next station.”
“Good,” said Linden. She pulled the remnants of Timothy’s T-shirt out of his pack–she’d used part of it earlier to stanch the wound, but there was still a good bit left–and began ripping it up to make bandages. Passengers in the seats ahead of them stirred at the sound, and Linden’s face grew hot, but she kept working until she’d torn off several long strips of the soft material. Carefully she knotted them together, then made Timothy sit forward and pull up his shirt while she wrapped the makeshift bandage around his waist.
“Is that better?” she asked.
He took a slow breath, and color eased into his face. “Yeah.”
Linden sank back into her seat, wiping her blood-smeared hands. Until now she’d been so focused on tending Timothy’s wound that she could think of little else, but now the enormity of their situation pressed in on her again. “I’m so sorry, Timothy,” she said miserably. “I dragged you into this, and everything’s gone wrong, and it’s all my fault.”
Timothy made a creaking noise that might have been a laugh. “Right. You forced me to come to London with you, and then you beat me up and stole my wallet.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Linden, shut up a minute, will you? It’s true this wasn’t how I imagined things would turn out. But it’s still better than being stuck back at Greenhill and hating every minute of it. At least I feel like I’m doing something here. Something that might actually matter.”
That quieted her. She slid down a little, picking at a ragged edge on her thumbnail, and said in a small voice, “But if we don’t have any money, then how are we going to—”
“I don’t know, all right? Maybe you could try thinking of something.”
His voice sounded harsh, and Linden shrank back, disconcerted. What had she done wrong?
“I’m going to rest for a while,” he said flatly. “Wake me if anything happens.” And with that he turned his face away.
The city was falling behind them now, ugly square buildings and heaps of rusted metal giving way to grassy banks and stretches of open countryside. Linden pressed her cheek to the window and watched, the hurt inside her fading to fascination as the train passed one village after another – dreary places, all built of the same red brick with roofs of moldy-looking slate, but it made her realize just how many people must be living in those towns, and how enormous and complicated the human world was compared to the Oak.
But as their journey lengthened, even Linden’s enthusiasm began to wane. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day, and by the time their train finally stopped in Birmingham, her stomach felt bruised with hunger. Then they had thirty minutes to wait for their next train, so all they could do was wander around the station and watch other people eat. On their third trip past the sandwich shop Timothy gave her a pointed look; but when she asked him what was wrong, he only shook his head.
She felt a little better when they boarded the train to Aberystwyth, not only because the Empress’s servants still hadn’t caught up with them, but by that time she and Timothy had found a water fountain and drunk enough to make their stomachs feel bloated, if not exactly full. And as Linden gazed out the window and watched the scenery change from the gentle flats of the English Midlands to the mountainous grandeur of Wales, the sight filled her with such awe that she could think of nothing else.
But eventually the spectacular view blurred into fog, then vanished as the sky grew dark. Exhaustion crept up on Linden, and at last she wilted onto Timothy’s shoulder and fell asleep.
“Linden. Wake up.”
It felt as though only seconds had passed since she had laid her head down. Her stomach held nothing but a gnawing hollowness, and she felt dirty all over. “Uh?” she mumbled, sitting up and knuckling her eyes.
“I said, wake up. We’re here.” Timothy climbed out of his seat, wincing as he bent to pick up his rucksack. “Come on.”
They stepped out into a cold, spitting rain. An icy wind swirled along the platform, smelling faintly of salt, and Linden shivered. “Where do we go now?” she asked.
“It’s too late to get a coach to Cardigan tonight,” Timothy said. “Even if we had the money. So I guess we just wander around and look for a dry place to sleep. Unless you have a better idea?”
Linden shook her head.
“Didn’t think so.” He sounded angry again. “All right then.” He limped toward the archway at the end of the platform, and Linden hurried to follow.
The streets of the town were deserted, its shops and most of the restaurants closed. Linden and Timothy walked past one blank-faced building after another, the rain soaking into them all the while. Every few minutes they paused in a doorway to escape the biting wind, but the chill and the dampness followed them everywhere.
