Swift (26 page)

‘I’ve never met your Joan,’ Gillian replied, ‘but she wouldn’t be the first female to put her own interests ahead of anyone else’s. Perhaps she’s afraid that if she lets the other piskey women go above, one of them will grow strong enough to challenge her for the throne. Or perhaps she fears the males will overthrow her if she does anything to threaten their privilege and power.’ She leaned sideways to avoid a jutting branch, then continued, ‘But she can’t really believe that you’re safer underground, even if a thousand spriggans were waiting on the surface. Surely your mother told you about the poison in the mine? If you’d seen how ill Marigold was when she came to me, you’d agree that death itself could hardly be more cruel.’

‘So that’s why you decided to turn the men into clay statues,’ said Ivy, ‘and let the women go free?’

‘Not exactly,’ Gillian said. ‘Even after meeting Marigold and hearing her story, I still meant to kill every male in the Delve if I could. But I was only one faery, and I knew that even if I could convince your mother to join me, we would not have enough power between us to kill more than a few. I discovered the Claybane much later, after Marigold had disappeared.’

‘After you betrayed her, you mean,’ Ivy said coldly. Now she knew what her mother had meant when she said,
I trusted someone I should not have trusted…

‘The Empress’s servants found her without any help from me,’ Gillian retorted. ‘She was careless, and too unskilled at hiding. I was sorry to see her taken away, but what good would it have done to interfere? I had been living as a human for a long time while I planned my revenge, and I had no intention of throwing away my disguise to fight some fool of a so-called Empress.’

Her indifference made Ivy furious all over again. ‘So that’s all Molly was to you? Part of your disguise?’

‘Hardly,’ replied Gillian. ‘Faeries may be less emotional than piskeys, but that doesn’t make us heartless. Still, I was glad when I heard the news that the Empress was dead, and that I no longer needed to stay so close to my human family. By that time I had located the site of an ancient battle between the piskeys and my ancestors, and discovered a book which told of spells my people had used against their enemies – including the magical clay that would trap any piskey who touched it, but leave faeries and humans unharmed.’

She kicked Duchess into a canter as they crossed a roadway, then settled back into a walking gait on the other side. ‘When Marigold returned to Truro I sought her out and apologised, hoping to rebuild our friendship. I knew she was anxious about your welfare, so I encouraged her to send a message to you, and offered to deliver it myself. But Marigold’s time with the Empress had changed her, and she was no longer so quick to trust. She began to avoid me, and when I saw her talking with your Richard, I knew she had grown suspicious of my motives.’

‘Why didn’t you let her go, then? If you already knew she wasn’t going to help you—’

‘I would have,’ Gillian replied, ‘if not for your sister…and you. When I found Cicely trapped in the Claybane I had no idea who she was, but it troubled me. I had thought that only male piskeys and the Joan ever went out of the Delve. I wanted to talk to your mother again to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood, but she was still keeping her distance. It wasn’t until Molly came home with her pamphlets from the school, and I saw Marigold’s name on one of them, that I found my chance to talk with her again.’

And by that time Ivy’s mother had seen the clay piskeys, and knew that Ivy believed Richard to be trapped inside one. She knew that Cicely was missing, as well – so once Gillian showed up, it wouldn’t have taken Marigold long to realise that her old friend had become the piskeys’ deadliest enemy.

‘She fought you, didn’t she?’ asked Ivy. ‘She wanted you to let Cicely go.’

‘Yes,’ said Gillian. ‘At first I tried to reason with her. I offered to free Cicely if she would agree to help me – or at least promise not to interfere in my plans. But she refused to cooperate, and I was forced to restrain her.’ She sighed. ‘That was when I decided to approach you instead, in the hope that you would be more sensible.’

‘Sensible?’ asked Ivy. ‘You killed a boy I grew up with. And now you’re talking about turning my brother and my father and – and all the other men I care about into statues for the rest of their lives. How am I supposed to be
sensible
about that?’

‘You know that the way you were forced to live in the Delve was unjust,’ Gillian said. ‘You know that you were deceived, or at least misled, about the dangers of going up to the surface. You know that your Joan refuses to believe that the mine is unfit to live in, even though you were born crippled and your mother nearly died. Doesn’t that make you angry, Ivy? Don’t you believe that something needs to change?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Don’t answer yet,’ Gillian told her. ‘Just think about it. And when we reach the place where your mother and sister are waiting, we’ll talk again.’

A few minutes later, Gillian brought Duchess to a halt and nudged Ivy to dismount. Beside the path, barely visible through the shrubbery that surrounded it and the vines that netted its surface, stood a low stone building that looked as though it might once have been part of a mine.

‘Here we are,’ Molly’s mother said, securing Duchess’s reins to an overhanging branch and leaving the mare to graze. As she walked towards the entrance, she raised a hand and the plants recoiled, revealing a surprisingly stout and modern-looking door. She unlocked it with a spark from her fingertips and pushed it open. ‘My workshop. Mind the step.’

Willing her skin to glow brighter, Ivy climbed cautiously over the threshold and down onto the floor below. The building consisted of a single bare room, damp and musty-smelling. She glimpsed shelves along one wall and an old plastic feed bucket in the corner, but apart from that the place seemed empty.

Ivy turned to Gillian, about to demand where she’d hidden her mother. But at the same moment, the faery woman waved her hand. The shadows parted, and now Ivy could see—

‘Mum!’ Ivy cried, rushing to her side. Marigold slumped against the wall, her brown hair hanging over her face. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, but she didn’t move, even when Ivy shook her. ‘What have you done to her?’

‘Nothing more than it seems,’ Gillian replied. ‘She’s asleep – but she won’t wake until I allow it. As for your sister, she too is safe, and in good company.’

Ivy looked up, and her heart flipped over. The whole bottom shelf was filled with ugly grinning piskey statues, empty and waiting. And on the shelf above them stood a row of the real piskeys, frozen in mid-struggle. She saw Gem there, twisted back on himself as he tried to wrench one foot free. She recognised Feldspar, his hands uplifted and his eyes bulging in shock. And at the end of the row stood a terrified-looking piskey girl with two braids hanging over her shoulders.

‘Cicely!’ Ivy snatched the little figure down from the shelf and cradled it in her hands. Like the statue of Keeve in her bag it was perfect in every detail, her sister’s mouth still frozen open in her last, wordless scream. No wonder Gillian had crafted those jolly-looking shells to hide her victims; what human would want to buy a statue that looked like this?

‘I would have freed her, if I could,’ said Gillian. ‘I had no desire to harm a child, especially a girl. But the spell to release her requires not only my blood but the blood of a near relative, so there was nothing I could do for her until today.’

Ivy looked sharply at her. Richard had said something about blood, too. ‘Why does it have to be a relative?’

‘My ancestors created the Claybane as a method of taking hostages,’ Gillian replied. ‘It was designed to hold enemies captive without need for prison or guard, until someone from their tribe came to make an offer of peace. If no one came within seven days, the piskey or spriggan trapped in the Claybane would die.’

So that was what had happened to Keeve. His time had run out, and there’d been no one to save him. Ivy clutched Cicely’s statue’s tighter. ‘Then the others will die too, if they aren’t released?’

‘No,’ said Gillian. ‘I altered the spell, once I realised my mistake. They will live indefinitely…if you can call it living.’

So there was still a chance to free Cicely. She might even be able to rescue Gem and Feldspar, if she could convince Gillian to change her mind. But there was nothing she could do for Richard. Grief knotting her chest, Ivy lowered her bag to the floor.

‘You can’t save the men of the Delve,’ Gillian told her. ‘With or without you, I will have my revenge. But you can save your sister and your mother, and make it easier on the other women as well, if you help me.’

Ivy looked down at Cicely’s tiny, pleading face. How could she let her sister go on suffering when she had a chance to rescue her? It was Ivy’s fault that Cicely had fallen into Gillian’s trap; now it was Ivy’s responsibility to bring her out of it…

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked quietly.

‘I know where to find the Delve,’ said Gillian, ‘but not any of its entrances and exits, or the paths that your hunters use. Your Joan’s protective glamours are too strong.’ She moved closer to Ivy. ‘I could carry on setting traps here and there about the hillside, but it will be over much more quickly if you show me where to put them.’

Ivy felt as though an iron band had clamped about her chest. ‘And if I don’t?’ she managed to ask.

‘Then your sister will remain trapped,’ Gillian said. ‘Your mother will sleep herself to death. And you will stay here with them, a helpless prisoner, while I carry out my plan.’ She walked a circle around Ivy, fingers trailing across her wingless shoulders. ‘But you won’t make me do that, will you, Ivy? Your father and brother may believe that their lives are worth more than yours, but surely you know better?’

Revulsion shivered up Ivy’s spine, but she didn’t move. All at once she found herself thinking of Mica – how arrogant and selfish he’d become in the wake of their mother’s disappearance, and how little he seemed to care about anything Ivy did. How she’d been ready to share her deepest secret with him, only to be shamed into silence by his superstition and bigotry. The shattering pain she’d felt when his stone struck her in mid-flight, and nearly killed her.

And her father, too. What had Flint ever done for her, since her mother went away? How many times had she turned to him for comfort, and met nothing but stony indifference? He might as well be a statue already, for all the life that was in him now. Why should she sacrifice her own life, let alone Marigold and Cicely’s, for his sake?

‘Don’t think of it as a betrayal,’ Gillian urged softly. ‘Think of it as justice for all the faeries your piskey ancestors killed – those faeries were your ancestors, too. And think of what you’ll be doing for the women of the Delve. They may not understand at first, but once they learn the truth, they will hail you as their deliverer.’

Ivy gasped out a laugh. ‘After I’ve helped to turn their husbands and sons into statues? I don’t think so.’

‘Of course they will. Don’t you see, Ivy? Once the present Joan is gone and the women of the Delve are free, they’ll need a leader who knows the ways of the upper world. They’ll have no choice but to look to you for guidance, and once they discover how much stronger and healthier and happier they are living on the surface, they’ll realise how foolish they were to trust someone like Betony.’

The moonlight slanted through the open door behind Gillian as she spoke, haloing her auburn hair and limning her body with silver. For a moment she was as beautiful as the faeries of legend, and Ivy could almost see the world she was describing. A world in which the women of the Delve were free to walk in the sunshine or gaze at the stars whenever they pleased. A world where sickness was rare instead of commonplace, and piskeys could live three hundred years without growing wrinkled or feeble, or losing their wits with age. A world where her people could live in peace with faeries as well as humans, and creativity could blossom freely among them.

Yet when she looked into Gillian’s avid, expectant face, the vision died away. She had seen that expression on the faces of her fellow piskeys right before they pulled off a prank, and it reminded her that Gillian cared far less about saving the women of the Delve than about taking revenge on the men she hated. It also reminded her that Molly had to have got her theatrical gift from somewhere, and it might not have been from her father’s side…

For this I declare
, whispered Molly in her memory,
someone is plotting vengeance.

Ivy raised her head defiantly. ‘No. I’m not helping you. If you want to destroy the Delve, you’re going to have to do it by yourself.’

Fury twisted Gillian’s features, but it only took her an instant to regain composure. ‘So you would rather I left you here with your mother and sister to die?’

‘I’d rather take my chances with them than trust you,’ said Ivy. ‘I don’t know if you can lie or not, but even if you can’t, I know you’re hiding something. I’m not going anywhere.’

There was a long, cold silence. Then Gillian took a little pouch out of her pocket. ‘You are as stubborn as your mother,’ she said. ‘I only hope your sister can forgive you for it.’ And before Ivy could react, she flicked a pinch of sparkling dust on the ground at Ivy’s feet.

Ivy tried to shape-change, but it was already too late. The dirt beneath her had turned to a slimy puddle of clay, gluing her feet to the floor. She threw her weight from one foot to the other, trying to break free – but she was already paralysed to mid-calf, and the muck was spiralling higher up her legs every second.