contemporary fantasy

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: Epilogue

by

I sat in a chair in Milady’s tower. A chair, an actual real chair; House almost never provided those, not when one was young and fit (sort of) and perfectly capable of supporting oneself on one’s own two legs.

Which I wasn’t, entirely. Magickally speaking, I’d been scrambled like a jug of eggs, and the body objects to that sort of thing.

A week had drifted by since Farringale, and I’d experienced very little of it. I’d spent an unconscionable amount of time tucked up in bed, with a stuffed unicorn under my arm and a stack of cosy romance novels at my elbow.  I hadn’t spent an entire week at rest since I’d left university.

In that, as Jay so objectionably points out, I’m not so unlike my mother after all.

‘Welcome back, Ves,’ Milady had said, very kindly, when I’d taken my place in the hot seat.

She sounded okay. ‘Thanks?’ I said, my voice breaking a bit. I was nervous.

There was no sign of Mab, of course. Her ladyship consisted, once again, of a glitter in the air and a voice that came from everywhere at once. To hear her talk, you’d think her identity remained the darkest of secrets, known to none but the privileged few (emphatically not including me).

It was a pretence I could go along with.

‘Are you… well?’ said Milady, with a most unfamiliar note of uncertainty in her smooth, measured tones.

‘Mostly?’ I said, a question more than a statement.

‘You performed an astonishing feat of magick,’ said Milady, rather generously. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you are suffering some lingering effects.’

Lingering effects. Typical Milady understatement. I hadn’t been able to walk for three days. I still needed help to make it to the bathroom and back without folding like an ironing board. I kept crying for no reason whatsoever, and I’d flatly refused to be parted from my unicorn cuddly toy. It sat, even now, under my left arm, a soft, fluffy note of comfort in a world I couldn’t process anymore.

‘I—’ I began, and had to pause, take a shuddering breath. ‘I’m—dissatisfied with my performance.’ I managed to get all the syllables out before I dissolved into tears again.

‘And why is that?’ said Milady, still calm. Not the blaze of recrimination that I’d expected, but I was beyond the reach of reassurance at that point.

‘I—I—lost the magick of Merlin,’ I sobbed. ‘All of it. It’s still there in Farringale, down in the earth, and I don’t know how to—get it—back—’

Words failed me after that. Ophelia had been kind about it, on the whole, when I’d told her, but there had been in her face a look of such shock, such utter devastation…honestly, in future I’d rather have to admit to someone that I’d run over their beloved puppy. Or husband.

Milady waited in polite silence while I snivelled, mopped at my nose with a tissue, and—with a few inelegant, gulping breaths—contrived to pull myself together.

Then she said: ‘Ves. Why do you think Merlin’s magick still exists?’

I groped, frantically, for a vaguely intelligent answer, and came up with nothing. ‘I don’t know?’

The air sparkled: amusement, perhaps? ‘It is not merely for longevity’s sake. Those who commit their arts to the care of others—to the future—do so out of love. For magick, and all that magick can do. So. What did you do with this magick that was once Merlin’s?

‘You saved a kingdom. And not just any kingdom: one of the foremast magickal Enclaves in the country. Farringale will thrive, and it’s down, in large part, to you.

‘And it’s more than just that. You’ve proved that it can be done. In future, many more Farringales and Silvessens will be revived, and thrive. The decline of magick is over, Ves. That is the gift you’ve given to Britain—to the world—and I hope you will take pride in it, in time.’

I was crying too hard to reply. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. I haven’t cried half this much since I was six years old. Saving magickal kingdoms reverts a person to childhood, apparently. ‘Great?’ I managed, choking on a fresh wave of tears.

‘Their Majesties of Mandridore couldn’t be more thrilled,’ Milady offered, like a slightly perplexed adult hoping to bribe a sobbing child with a treat. ‘And your esteemed mother—well. Let’s just say that her unique talents are being put to excellent use.’

I could well imagine. Farringale as a hive of industry, speedily being put back together by my mother’s relentless energy and will. Hordes of talented people pulled in from kingdoms and enclaves across the country, united in their desire to drag the ancient troll capital out of the dustbin of history and into the glittering present.

Their Excellent Majesties, King Naldran and Queen Ysurra, had thus far expressed their appreciation for my efforts by way of gigantic bouquets of flowers displayed in every room I was likely to appear in (no fewer than six presently adorned my boudoir). I had received a personal letter of thanks, signed by both, and a vague but firm promise of nameless rewards to be bestowed in the future—I needed only ask.

And I appreciated it all, honestly. But whenever I thought about it, I couldn’t help but see Ophelia’s face, white with shock; her fumbling, devastated attempts to be nice about my casual sacrifice of the oldest magick in England.

Not that I had meant to. I hadn’t known what I was doing—which was typical of me, wasn’t it? Half-crazy Ves, winging it every step of the way. Well, once in a while the results were more devastating than I could ever imagine.

And—more marvellous.

‘Ves,’ said Milady, sensitive, as always, to some intangible sign of my turmoil. ‘I knew Merlin. And I think—I know—he would be proud of what you’ve done.’

I sucked in a shuddering breath, too appalled—and star-struck—to speak, at least for a moment. ‘Are you sure?’ I finally sobbed.

‘Entirely. It’s what he would have wanted.’

I was going to have a considerable cry about that, it seemed, and mercy was I tired of crying. I hoped my shattered nerves would think about recovering themselves pretty soon, or I’d—well, I don’t know. Check myself into a peaceful spa resort for the rest of my natural life, probably.

‘You made a nice tree,’ I said abruptly, apropos of nothing. ‘Fenella, I mean. Lovely.’

A pause; then Milady said, ‘You are wondering why I didn’t do that sooner.’

‘A bit.’

She took a while to reply. At length she said: ‘It is a question of…hope. That even the most…challenging of us might change, might grow. That I won’t have to forcibly deprive the Fenellas of this world of action and agency, because they can be trusted to manage themselves.’

I thought about that. Fenella wasn’t the only person I’d encountered who’d failed, again and again, to “manage themselves”, as Milady put it. ‘Do you regret it?’ I asked, rather daringly.

‘No,’ said Milady, but she hesitated as she said it, almost imperceptibly.

‘I don’t either,’ I agreed, with approximately as much certainty.

‘Get some rest, Ves,’ said Milady, after I’d palpably failed to summon words for a minute or two together. ‘There’s chocolate in the pot.’

***

There was, too. In fact there were three silver pots waiting upon the various desks and tables of my room, each ornately engraved and gently puffing steam. Pup lay curled up on my bed, blissfully asleep, and squeakily snoring.

Jay had awaited me outside the door to Milady’s tower-top room, and escorted me back down again once I’d been gently dismissed. He lent me his nice, strong arm, fussed over me flatteringly when I stumbled a bit on the steps, and thanked House very prettily when we found ourselves transported from the bottom of the stairs straight into my room without further difficulty.

Addie had made her personal displeasure with me very blatant indeed. I’d had to recruit Jay, Zareen and Indira to assist me with the steady delivery of freshly-fried chips for her personal delectation, otherwise I’m certain she would never forgive me for almost obliterating myself. It had taken thirty-three portions to date, and we were still trying.

The grove had been still less welcoming. Oh, not that it had rejected me, or anything so impolite. But I could wander about in it on two legs, now; nothing, it seemed, could restore me to my former status as a member of the herd.

Jay gently assisted me back into bed, and tucked my stuffed unicorn toy back under my arm. He was so very obliging as to plant a firm kiss on my forehead, too. He looked deep into my eyes, and said, with conviction, ‘You are wonderful, and everything is going to be all right.’

I captured one of his hands, and laced his fingers through mine. ‘Have you…’ I began.

He waited, and finally prompted, ‘Yes?’

‘Have you happened to run into Ornelle, lately?’

‘No. But I could.’

I dithered on the borders of confession, and finally broke. ‘I can’t change my hair.’

He glanced, briefly, at the mess of the hair in question, hastily combed with my fingers an hour before, and unchanged in hue since before Farringale. ‘That’s unacceptable,’ he said.

‘I was hoping—I could get my Curiosity back. The ring?’

‘I’ll get it back,’ he promised. ‘We can’t have you confined to a single colour for the rest of your days.’

I wrinkled my nose expressively. ‘Or obliged to—dye it. Do you know how revolting that stuff smells?’

‘I do, yes.’

I raised my brows.

‘Sisters,’ he explained.

I wondered which of Jay’s several sisters had undergone an experimental phase with her hair. Not Indira, anyway. ‘You’re the best,’ I declared sleepily.

Jay stroked my hair. ‘I know.’

Tears threatened again, but I was done with resenting them. I’d survived; I was alive, free to drown in the mess of my own emotions if I wanted to. For a while.

And we’d accomplished something nigh on impossible. We’d saved Farringale. Saved magick, rich and old and strange; the future, as far as I could see it, shone.

I opened my arms to Jay, a wordless request—and offer. A plea and a gift: affection, love, proffered and requested. Whatever the future might bring, I couldn’t imagine it without Jay beside me.

He didn’t hesitate. In another moment he was in my arms, the two of us as close as love could bring us. ‘What do you think we should do next?’ I murmured against his hair.

He smiled; I could feel the joy surge in him. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured, ‘but it had better be something dazzling. I’ve developed high standards.’

I thought that over. ‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘Ply me with sufficient hot chocolate, and I can probably muster something at least a little bit dazzling.’

He did; and I did.

But that’s a story for another time.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 17

by

The purging of Farringale took a long time; time that seemed boundless, endless, in that state, and it seemed to me that I had always been down there among the rocks and roots, a part of the city as ancient, as immoveable, as time itself—and as relentless. I ran through the undercity like a wildfire, like a plague; and when, at long last, I was spent, the city rested in a profound, half-shattered silence.

The infestation was gone. The city had suffered for it, somewhat, but it would stand: time lay spread before it in welcome, bursting with potential, with possibility. The ortherex were a part of its past, now, purged from its present and its future. The people of Farringale could come back.

Great, I thought, weakly; a ghost of something like satisfaction, like joy, passed over my exhausted heart, and faded.

I was spent. I had nothing left, which was good; nothing to draw the magick of Farringale back to me, to keep it about me. I was an echo, a whisper, everything I had once been poured into the earth and stone; and the magick followed, rippling through the city like spreading water. Mine; Merlin’s; Farringale’s; magick, old and new, sank into the bones of the city and held.

A thought stirred, distantly. Baroness? I called, weakly.

Is it time? Came the answer.

Yes.

She withdrew, out of the echoes and into the light. Somewhere above, she would be bringing her own arcane arts to bear, taking on the mantle I had so recently occupied. A griffin would sail the skies over Farringale once more, and all the latent magick of the city would rise up to welcome her.

The rest would return, too, soon enough, and Farringale would be restored in full: its people and its magick, thriving as they always should have done.

Me, though. I was—tired. I was rainwater and dirt, I was weathered stone and the roots of tall trees. I was magick, old and slow, permeating air and brick and rock.

My consciousness faltered, and winked out, snuffed as thoroughly as the parasites I had destroyed. Darkness, thick and serene, enveloped me, and I was gone.

***

The earthquake lasted long enough to shake Farringale down to its foundations. It ought to have brought the roof down on us; how the walls held I’ll never know. The whole world shook in a deafening roar of distressed stone, and all I could do was cling to Indira and pray.

It passed at last, settling into a shocked, hushed silence. Dust and dirt and plaster rained down from the ceiling, centuries of detritus suddenly dislodged. For a time I couldn’t see through it—or breathe; we pulled our shirts up to mask our mouths, and choked.

The haze dissolved, bit by bit, until I could see—somewhat. The cellar had gone dark, which, I vaguely realised, was a very good thing. That weird, sickly light was gone, which meant the ortherex were, too. Several long moments passed before my eyes adjusted, and the full impact of what I wasn’t seeing hit me.

‘Ves?’ I called. The word echoed off the blank, bare walls, and no answer came.

Indira summoned a wisp of light with a snap of her fingers. I was already scrambling to my feet, running forward, hoping against all the evidence of my eyes that I’d find her back there. Somewhere. ‘Ves!’

‘She’s not here,’ said Indira tightly.

‘What do you mean, not here. She has to be here.’ I looked around wildly, my heart pounding with fresh terror. ‘Where else could she possibly be?’

Indira looked hard at the neat, square flagstones that covered the floor, and probed at one with the tip of her shoe.

‘Gods, no,’ I gasped. But it was all too probable, wasn’t it, she’d ended up as a stone before—more than once. I might be standing on her.

I backed away from where I’d last seen Ves, horrified—and fell over something. My elbow cracked hard against the floor, my head hit the wall, and for a dazed instant I couldn’t think.

‘That’s—’ Indira darted towards me, and fell to her knees before a dim object sticking out of the stonework. ‘It’s—’

‘The lyre.’ Ves’s moonsilver lyre, the beautiful, dangerous instrument we’d unburied from Ygranyllon. I’d never seen it other than luminous, bright silver like the moon, and now it was dead and dark and embedded into the floor of the cellar like it had been there for centuries.

I grabbed it, and tugged uselessly. It didn’t budge.

‘It’s completely inert,’ Indira said, wrapping both her clever hands around its frame. ‘It’s like—normal silver. Like it never had any magick at all.’

Normal silver, swept bare of magick, and grievously tarnished. Its strings were gone; it would never play music again.

‘You don’t think…’ I stared at Indira in horror. ‘You don’t think the same thing happened to Ves?’

She stared back, appalled. ‘That she was—no. Surely not.’

Ves had more in common with Mab than the rest of us, these days: a creature of overwhelming magick. What would happen if something had taken that away? Would she end up like the lyre? Inert. Used up. Dead.

I couldn’t think about that for too long. I pushed the thought away, and clung instead to that knowledge of Ves’s recent escapades that gave me hope. ‘She’s just ended up—stuck,’ I said, with as much confidence as I could manage. ‘Like the Fairy Stone. And the chair.’

‘And the tree.’

‘Right. We just need to figure out which one she is, and—we can probably snap her out of it.’

Indira and I stared in helpless silence at the wide expanse of the cellar, paved with hundreds of identical stones.

‘We’re going to need help,’ said Indira. ‘I don’t have anything that… I don’t know how to find her.’

I didn’t either, but I hated to admit it. Hated to walk away and leave Ves there, even temporarily. Was she aware? Did she know she was stuck? She might be frightened. She’d certainly be exhausted.

‘We’re coming back,’ I said, loudly and firmly. ‘Ves? All right? We’re coming back for you.’

Nothing answered me, and another shred of hope died. I shook my head, made myself turn my back to the devastated lyre and walk away. We needed to find Milady. She would know what to do. She was Mab, magick incarnate.

I hadn’t noticed my physical state until I started up the stairs. Then it came crashing in upon me that I’d suffered through an earthquake, not to mention falling and hitting my head afterwards. I had aches and bruises in too many places, and I shambled and staggered up the stairs like an old man of ninety. Indira, spared the embarrassing fall, fared a little better, but she too groaned in protest as we started up the second flight.

When we emerged at last into the open air, breathing in great, gulping gasps, we found a darkening sky. Twilight glimmered overhead, a dim scattering of stars beginning to shimmer. A great, raucous cry split the silence, and a dark shape wheeled overhead, lightning crackling in bursts over its feathered hide.

A griffin. Despite my fear for Ves, something in me smiled, for a moment: magick was coming back to Farringale at last, the way it should always have been.

‘She did it,’ said Indira, watching the griffin’s progress as it banked and wheeled far above. ‘She saved Farringale.’

‘And now we need to save her. Come on.’ I turned away from the griffin’s majestic flight, and headed back towards the mews.

It was deserted, empty and still. No sign of Milady, or Rob, so they had moved her after all. But where to? I felt a rising frustration, and choked it down: I had to stay in control. ‘The guardian,’ I said, suddenly remembering. He had said he would watch over us, but he’d been gone by the time the earthquake had ceased. For a little while I’d forgotten him.

‘Let’s go,’ Indira agreed, and set off at a run for the library once more. I followed with a stifled groan, my abused muscles protesting at the punishing pace.

We clattered back through the streets, clambered over the remains of the wall Ves had bashed her way through when she’d been a tree. In minutes we were back on the stairs. ‘Um,’ said Indira. ‘Did you catch his name?’

I hadn’t. ‘Baroness Tremayne?’ I tried, in case it hadn’t been her we had seen in the skies. ‘Or—anyone?’

Silence, for three agonising breaths; nothing moved.

Then—

‘Yes,’ came a voice, a whisper, so faint I could barely hear it. A shape emerged, a wavering outline lightly etched upon the air. Our guardian friend, but—diminished, fighting for breath, bent almost double under the weight of a kind of suffering I couldn’t imagine.

‘Are you well?’ Indira rushed forward to help him, but her outstretched hands passed through empty air.

‘I—may be,’ he answered weakly. ‘In time.’

Time. He had already endured so much of it. ‘Is there something we can do to help?’ I asked him.

He waved this away, and said, between gasping breaths, ‘You seek your—companion.’

‘Yes,’ I said instantly, hope flaring back to life. ‘Is she—can you reach her?’

‘She’s not—’ Indira started, and hesitated over the terrible words. ‘She isn’t—gone, is she?’

‘She remains.’ Two little words, but they brought such a world of relief. ‘She remains,’ he said again, ‘but she is… distant. I do not know how to recall her.’

‘Can you tell us where Mab is?’ I tried. I wasn’t sure how I expected him to know, but he was tied into the fabric of Farringale in ways I didn’t understand. The baroness knew things, sensed things, that I never could have: would this, her fellow guardian, prove the same?

‘Mab,’ echoed the guardian. ‘Yes. Mab, old as the stones themselves. Her light is—brighter.’ He took a breath, steadied himself, and added, ‘She lingers at the gate.’

Hoofbeats interrupted anything else he might have said, and a shimmering unicorn came cantering up the street towards us, shining like the very stars and evidently pissed off. She came to an abrupt halt before me, stamped a hoof in pure temper, and snorted.

‘I know,’ I told her, not daring to touch her when she was in such a rage. ‘We don’t know where she is either, exactly, but we’re working on it.’

‘Can you take us to the gate?’ Indira said, and was bold enough to approach.

Addie stood quietly as Indira swung herself up, and snorted at me when I didn’t.

‘Okay, okay,’ I sighed, resigning myself to one more bruising, alarming horseback ride, and without the comfort of Ves to hang onto.

She was fast, though, so it was worth it. We left the beleaguered guardian with promises of an imminent return, and thundered through the shadowed streets to the gate.

A small crater made a blank, black hole in the earth, surrounded by debris: the spot where George Mercer had blown the regulator into the sky. Addie skirted easily around it, and came to a halt around the corner, near the elegant archway that marked the gate itself.

A great many people were gathered there, an entire crowd, many talking at once. After the eery quiet of the rest of the city, I found it a relief.

‘Mab,’ I was already shouting as Addie halted. ‘Please, we need Mab. Anybody seen her?’

I was answered, vaguely, in the negative, several utterances in the negative reaching my ears. Milady’s voice I did not hear, nor any other that I recognised—

No, that wasn’t true. One rose above the others, a raw, somewhat uncouth holler. Out of the milling crowd with a stride like a soldier’s came Delia Vesper.

‘Jay? Where the bloody hell is my daughter?’

‘She’s—’

‘And what the bloody hell has she been doing?’

Delia Vesper had arrived with an entourage. Half the people around her were Yllanfalen, brought, in all probability, from Ygranyllon; they were here to help.

No Mab, though.

‘She’s in trouble,’ I said. ‘We know where she is, sort of, but—well, it’s tricky to explain—’

‘Just spit it out,’ she ordered, and I did, pouring the whole story out in a muddled torrent while Ves’s mother glared daggers at me.

‘Right,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Take me there.’

‘Can you—’

‘Just take me there, and don’t talk until we get there. I need to think.’

‘I’ll keep looking for Mab,’ Indira said, making go-forth gestures with her hands.

I went. Addie bore Delia and I back to the library with a kind of boundless energy born, probably, from rage—or fear.

The guardian was nowhere in sight when we clattered once again down the steps, and I didn’t call for him again. It had obviously cost him to materialise for us before, and besides, he’d told us all he could. It was down to me, now, and Delia Vesper.

That lady stormed into the cellar like it had personally offended her, and stood in the middle of it, staring wordlessly at the remains of the lyre. ‘Right,’ she said again, and sat down, her good hand pressed to the cold floor and her other arm draped over the lyre.

That’s right: Delia Vesper, the archaeologist (before she became a fairy queen), adept at detecting the lingering traces of past magick. The memory of it, so to speak. I waited in silent hope, hardly daring to breathe, as she did—whatever it was she was doing.

‘She is here,’ said Delia at last, and opened her eyes in order to glower at me again. ‘But it’s like she was here ten years ago, not earlier today. What exactly was it you did to her again?’

‘Er, nothing,’ I blurted. ‘Maybe that’s the problem, there was something I should have done in order to keep her—ground her, or something—but I didn’t know.’

‘Right.’ Delia tapped a fingernail against the tarnished silver of the lyre, making a tinny, rhythmic, pinging sound. ‘The problem is, the person most likely to be able to get her out of there is Ves herself. I don’t know anyone else who has the power.’

‘We thought Mab—’

‘Mab isn’t here. I am. And Cordelia is fading fast.’

‘Shit,’ I said, eloquent as only terror could make me.

‘Yes,’ Delia agreed. ‘I’m going to—’

The air flashed oddly, and fractured—I was starting to hate the way it did that, way too hard on the nerves—and a figure rippled into view: the guardian returned.

No, not the guardian—or, not the one we had spoken to before. Baroness Tremayne. And where her compatriot had been pale and faded, she was all vivid energy and colour. I knew with a sudden certainty that it had been she I’d seen in the twilit skies, revelling in magick and moonlight.

‘I can reach her,’ said the baroness, and my knees weakened in sheer relief. ‘But you must assist me.’

***

Stones dream. Did you know that? So does loam. Leaves and tumbling river-water, flowers and vines and trees—above all, trees. Everything dreams, after its own fashion.

I dreamed with it, for a time; a pebble in rich earth, a droplet of water in a downpour of rain.

Then came a sharp, fierce pain, and a bludgeoning force struck me: once, twice. Thrice.

Something grabbed me—hooked long, relentless fingers into every part of me, and, merciless, pulled.

I came forth out of the land in screaming protest, ablaze with searing agony—and then I was free, and whole, and separate, and the pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

I lay in a boneless, gasping heap on a very cold floor, blinking in blurry confusion at three figures looming out of the shadows.

Baroness Tremayne, straight-backed, resplendent in her wide-skirted gown: the source of the agony. And the reprieve. ‘Hi,’ I said weakly, and belatedly croaked, ‘Thanks.’

‘Ves.’ The second figure grabbed me, then thought better of it, touched me with gentle hands that shook a little. Jay. ‘Are you okay? Gods, I thought we’d lost you.’ Something was wrong with his voice: there were tears in it.

‘I’m all right,’ I told him, and said it a couple more times; he didn’t seem to be hearing me properly. I patted his shoulder, his hair, trying, with the little energy I possessed, to comfort him.

The third figure thrust itself rather rudely in upon this tender reunion: a familiar shape, with wild auburn hair and the kind of deeply-etched scowl left by three or four decades of near-permanent irritation. ‘Cordelia,’ my mother demanded. ‘What the bloody hell did you think you were doing?’

Then, to my utter astonishment, she threw her arms around me, and squeezed me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 14

by

‘You’re saving Farringale,’ I repeated, with perhaps an unwise emphasis on the first word. I was conscious of a stir around me: a reaction from the assembled Society, but I couldn’t turn to gauge what it was. I kept my attention on Fenella.

‘Of course,’ she said grandly. ‘Urgent work, I am sure you must agree. The Court won’t thank you for getting in the way of it.’

‘Oh? You’re here on the authority of Mandridore, are you?’

‘Of course,’ she said again, to my great surprise. I’d expected hedging, deflection, excuses, but not a bare-faced lie.

For an instant, I wondered if it might be true. The king at Mandridore had tasked us with rehabilitating Farringale, if we could; might they have contracted Ancestria Magicka to do the same? From their perspective, the end goal was important, not the tool they used to achieve it. It was plausible.

But I remembered the patent horror with which the Court had heard the news of Fenella’s incursion. The urgency with which they’d appealed for aid. It was possible they had employed Ancestria Magicka, and that grubby organisation had betrayed them—but I didn’t think so. More likely a lie.

But a believable one. Now I understood how Fenella had recruited trolls to her cause.

‘That is untrue,’ I said. ‘We’ve just come from Mandridore, and they certainly didn’t send you.’ Futile, really; my word against hers; their word against ours; people would go on believing whatever they wanted to believe.

Fenella waved this away with visible scorn. ‘I suppose you’d like me to believe they sent you.’

As though it was so far-fetched a possibility, considering she’d called me Merlin herself. ‘What’s your plan?’ I said, tiring of the tit-for-tat.

Fenella, off-balance, blinked at me. ‘What?’

‘Your plan. For saving Farringale.’ I swept an arm out, indicating the sorry state of the noble griffins, the clusters of her people guarding the mews, and the expanse of our people ranged in opposition. ‘This is all part of it, I suppose?’

I was curious to see whether the whole story was a lie; the “saving Farringale” a story spun to justify the looting, the thieving. Or was there some truth to it after all?

‘I’m sure you don’t need me to explain it to you,’ she answered, which was a cop-out, but also true. I didn’t.

I was looking at everything they’d done in Farringale with fresh eyes. What they’d done to the griffins.

If we—I—wanted to restore Farringale, we had to neutralise its wild magick, which meant neutralising—temporarily—the griffins. Is that what they were doing?

And what of the library? Had they been looting it, or extracting it prior to potentially damaging magickal procedures?

They’d stolen our regulators from Silvessen, but not, apparently, to sell them, or even to copy them (though I’d be willing to bet they’d be doing the latter at some point). They’d brought them here, to Farringale, and—used them. Hmm.

‘And what happens once you’ve saved it?’ That was Jay, his tone ringingly sceptical. ‘Who gets control of it?’

‘Why, Mandridore, of course,’ said Fenella, sweetly.

I sighed, frustrated. It might have been true; it wasn’t hard to imagine the kind of fame and favour they could win by such a feat. The Troll Court would owe them for generations.

It might have been a lie, too; I wouldn’t put it past Fenella to covet a small kingdom of her own, given half a chance.

We had no way of knowing, and we were wasting time arguing about it. I opened my mouth to say—I don’t even know what, I was running out of ways to counter such slippery insincerity from Fenella—but at that moment Milady materialised, as if from nowhere (and, being Mab, she might have).

Her abrupt appearance caused a fresh stir, on both sides—and stopped Fenella cold. It helped that she was laying it on rather thick, hovering at near eye level with the proud leader of Ancestria Magicka, her wings a glittering blur. She shimmered with myth and magick, a palpable power beyond anything most of us had ever experienced. She inspired the purest awe—and, I hoped, a modicum of fear.

For the first time, I detected uncertainty in Fenella’s face. She knew a great many things she shouldn’t have, but she had not discovered this secret.

Milady spoke, and her voice rang with all the power and majesty of a legendary queen. ‘Fenella Beaumont.’ The syllables rolled and echoed, like suppressed thunder. ‘This is not your task to perform.’

Fenella straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and stared right back at Mab. ‘I say the task belongs to anyone who can perform it successfully.’

‘And can you?’

‘Yes,’ said Fenella, without hesitation. Bravado? Or did she truly have a workable method?

A pause. Then Milady spoke—Milady again, not Mab; those low, calm, soothing tones I’d heard so often at the top of the tower at Home. ‘In that case, you will agree to a co-operation pact.’

‘We require no assistance,’ said Fenella, instantly, and with scorn.

‘You may enjoy our assistance or endure our opposition,’ replied Milady coolly. ‘You will, of course, make the wisest decision.’

I wanted to object. They were not to be trusted; they had not honour enough to keep to their promises. They would pretend cooperation, and then betray us at the first opportunity.

I needn’t have worried, however. Fenella had not the wisdom Milady credited her with, nor the guile I’d expected. ‘There will be no cooperation,’ she declared. ‘Farringale is in safe hands. Ours.’

Another pause. This was not the response Milady had expected; she did not have an immediate answer to offer. Tension built; Rob and his team shifted, gathering themselves, preparing to oppose Fenella with force, if necessary.

A terrible prospect, and one Milady had always dedicated herself to avoiding. The Society did not cut swathes through our opponents, maiming at will; we certainly did not kill.

But we could not simply walk away, and leave Farringale in their hands. Theirs were not safe hands; never that. If they would not work with us, then we would have to remove them—by any means possible.

Rob lifted his Lazuli Wand, letting Fenella see it. He was legendarily fearsome with it. ‘Release the griffins,’ he said, deadly quiet.

Fenella levelled her own Wand at him, stared defiance. Giddy gods, had she such unshakeable faith in the might of her own people? Or was this foolish recklessness, an inability to admit herself bested?

Was she bested? I felt a creeping sense of unease, felt it radiating from Jay beside me. We didn’t know the extent of either her forces or the powers they mustered between them. We’d seen giants at the bridge, and trolls; we knew she had the likes of Katalin Pataki and George Mercer at her disposal. As to what, or who, else… we were woefully underinformed.

What if we were the ones outmatched, and unable to see it?

‘Stop,’ I blurted. ‘Please. Wait.’

Everyone looked at me. The combined weight of so many surprised, shocked, wondering, tense, frightened, enraged gazes made me shrink, for a moment, bowed under the combined pressure.

And it made it so much harder to continue. Milady wasn’t going to like what I had in mind; the glimmers of a plan so risky I felt nauseated from the strain of it.

But it was that, or—disaster.

‘You’re right,’ I said to Fenella. ‘The important thing is that Farringale is saved, and if you’ve got a surefire way to do that then you should go ahead and do it.’ I was babbling a bit, not at my most eloquent by a long shot: but I was committed now, and rushed on. ‘I expect you’ll be wanting to take the griffins out of here, and we won’t oppose you, but as a gesture of good faith we would like to offer you the assistance of one of our best agents. She’s a world expert on the care and handling of magickal beasts, including mythical ones, and will assist you very creditably in keeping them safe and well.’

There, let her refuse that without losing face. She could hardly reject my offer, not without undermining her own claim to be “safe hands” for Farringale—and the griffins. I couldn’t see Miranda in the crowd, but knew she must be somewhere nearby. She’d stay as close to the beleaguered griffins as she could.

Jay was silent at my side, rigid with tension and (probably) anger. He wasn’t questioning me, he wouldn’t undermine me in front of Fenella. But he had, must have, grave doubts. I could only hope he—and Milady—would trust me.

I could only hope I deserved to be trusted.

Fenella took several long, terrible moments to consider my proposal, and I couldn’t breathe for fear that she would decline, this too—or that my own people would break, that Milady would publicly overrule me.

‘Very well,’ said Fenella, though the questioning look she cast at Milady showed how well she understood the limits of my authority.

I waited in fresh agonies for Milady’s response. Would she trust me this time? Could she? What I asked required a huge leap of faith, and I couldn’t explain why—

‘Stand down, Society,’ said Milady, softly, and I could almost have wept with relief—and panic.

We were committed. Now I had to make it work.

Miranda went past me, heading straight for the griffins, now she had official leave—directing at me a tense, questioning look en route. I met that gaze squarely, trying, probably futilely, to telegraph reams of thoughts with a mere glance: keep the griffins safe. Stay close to them. Tell us exactly where they’re being taken.

I knew she would perform the first two without question, but the latter? I was gambling on Miranda, too, on the chance that her confused loyalties had settled: that she was a Society agent again, through and through.

Nothing in her face told me whether or not I was right to put faith in her. Time would tell.

A great deal happened after that, and quickly. Milady mustered our people, and pulled them back; Fenella consolidated hers around the griffins, now surrendered into her dubious care.

Jay bristled with something: either rage or fear, I couldn’t tell. I followed him over to Milady, and Rob, and about thirty other Society agents all staring at me like I must be crazy. Or a traitor.

We fell all the way back, leaving the mews to Ancestria Magicka, and regrouped at a safe distance. Handsome townhouses rose on either side of me, looming in judgement, empty windows staring out of stuccoed facades.

‘Well?’ said Milady.

Jay, beside me, didn’t move, or barely so. But he’d stopped very close to me: his arm pressed against mine, a reassuring pressure. He might think I was crazy, but he was standing beside me anyway.

My courage rose.

‘The thing is,’ I began. ‘She’s right. Someone’s got to save Farringale. We can’t just leave it like this, and now we have the technology to—’

‘Our objective in coming,’ interjected Milady, severely, ‘Was to eject Ancestria Magicka, and reverse any damage they may have caused. That is all.’

‘I know, but we can’t do that without a fight, a very damaging one, which nobody wants, and we might be—we might be the ones driven out. But if the griffins aren’t here—’

Rob said, in a voice of controlled anger, ‘Ves, the griffins are not safe in Fenella Beaumont’s hands. She’ll never return them. You cannot conceive how priceless they are—’

‘I know, which is why I sent Miranda with them. She’ll see to their safety and make sure we know how to get them back, later. We didn’t come prepared to remove them, but they did, so it’s actually quite perfect. And in the meantime—’

‘Later? She could take them away and kill them and there would be no later—’

‘She won’t. Not when they’re so priceless. Please, Rob. I’m going to need your help.’

He eyed me with a look of frank disbelief, a boundless exasperation, and my heart sank.

Milady hadn’t relented either, and I couldn’t blame her. At last she said, ‘Ves. Are you certain you can do this?’

I was silent for a second, in consternation, the full enormity of what I proposed to do settling over me like a leaden cloak. Was I sure? Truly?

‘With the right help,’ I said, mustering my courage. ‘Yes, I think I can.’

Milady nodded once, and that was it. We were committed. I was committed.

Giddy gods. What had I done?

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 13

by

‘Ves. Thank goodness—I think? Are you okay? Gods—’ Jay was babbling, most unlike him, but he swept me into a fierce hug and somewhere in there I managed to stop screaming.

‘I’m okay,’ I said thickly against his chest, and I was—mostly. I was feeling an odd mix of profound relief and a strange desolation. For while the baroness had saved me from eternity stuck as a Fairy Stone, she’d also torn me out of the most profound peace I’d ever experienced in my life.

And now here I was, in Farringale, with a lost city to save and a few hundred people embroiled in fervid struggles around us while we did it.

It took me a few deep and tremulous breaths to pull myself together. Jay too, probably.

‘Any chance you could stop turning yourself into inanimate objects?’ said that gentleman after a while.

‘I may not have looked it, but I was fairly animate,’ I protested. I’d held a conversation, at least. A bit. Sort of.

‘That was not animated. This—this­­—is animated.’ Jay grasped both my arms and moved them about, most illustratively. ‘I prefer this.’

‘Me too,’ I sighed, meaning it more than I didn’t. I straightened, gently disentangling myself from Jay. ‘Right. Where are we at.’

‘Farringale Dell,’ Jay answered promptly, all business again. He pointed. ‘City’s that way.’

For once, I didn’t even need him to tell me. I could feel it, the deep, irresistible pull of Farringale’s wild and roiling magick, a lodestone I couldn’t have missed if I’d tried.

I took a proper, long look around, having scarcely noticed my surroundings before. Peaks and valleys, the sort they  had in mind when they coined the phrase “rolling hills”. Landscape like a rumpled blanket, lusciously green, and—intriguing, this—laced still with that latent sense of ancient power, a tapestry of memory and magick. Would I always be so alive to these things from now on? Or was it the temporary effects of having played the—

‘The lyre,’ I blurted, rigid with horror. ‘I’ve lost the lyre.’

‘At your feet,’ said Jay calmingly.

There it was, indeed, and being a magickal object of indescribable power and unimaginable antiquity it wasn’t just lying there on its side, patently dropped by a careless hand (mine). It stood tall and proud atop a nicely flattened rock, as though I had placed it there myself with tender care, and it was playing some silent melody to itself: its glittering strings visibly vibrated.

‘I’m not sure I should be trusted with any more irreplaceable artefacts,’ I decided, though this one seemed to be able to take care of itself. ‘Will you carry it?’

Jay picked it up, gingerly, and stood frowning. ‘I think,’ he said after a moment, ‘that you’ll have to take it after all.’ He held it out to me.

I eyed it doubtfully. It shone at me, enticingly, radiating magick in most tempting fashion; but then it tends to do that. Nothing unusual there.

‘It’s singing at me,’ Jay elaborated.

‘And that isn’t a good thing.’

‘Emphatically not a good thing.’ Jay winced as he spoke, as though his teeth hurt.

The fact that I’d dropped it apparently didn’t mean that the lyre and I weren’t still all tangled up together. I took it from Jay’s hands feeling only slightly aggrieved. It played me a joyous ode, which mollified me—a little. ‘Everyone’s gone,’ I observed, for we were entirely alone on the windswept hillside.

‘Gone into the city, and we should follow. Are you ready?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Me neither.’

Jay set off, striding grimly over hill and dale like a modern-day Heathcliff. Breathless with magick and panic and admiration, I trotted in his wake.

***

Heading into the teeth of that magickal mess was like wading into the ocean against the incoming tide. It beat at me, waves of it, relentless as the sea—and all the while, the sense of irresistible force, an undertow waiting to sweep me up and drown me in it.

If it weren’t for Jay just ahead of me, advancing upon it like a human wrecking ball, inflexible as death itself, I might have turned tail and fled like a frightened hare, lyre and all. We could’ve been happy, me and the Yllanfalen Lyre. In Barbados, possibly, or the Seychelles.

But if Jay could face Farringale, so could I. We could face it together.

We had to.

The gate into Farringale city looked so much like an actual entrance I was almost disappointed. No cunningly disguised rocks or airy archways of subtle magick; this one was obviously and unabashedly a door. A grand one, to be sure: ten feet tall and wrought from solid granite, with a set of double doors occupying an ornately carved frame. They looked like they’d been there since the dawn of time, and hadn’t been opened in almost as long.

I wondered how the first teams to reach them had contrived to get them open, but they had: one stood far enough ajar for a human to slip through, if not a troll. I glanced through, and saw nothing but a white mist, like dense fog.

‘I’ll go first,’ said Jay, and went, without even waiting for me to reply.

‘Wait—’ I began, but too late. He was gone, leaving me alone with the hills and the doors and the lyre and the mist.

‘Damnit,’ I muttered. Nothing for it. I grabbed what passed for my courage with both hands, and stepped into the fog.

Jay caught me on the other side, physically grabbed me. Presumably before I could manage to wander off and get myself lost (plausible). ‘The doors lead right into the centre,’ he told me. ‘We’re near the library.’

Or what was left of it, after Ancestria Magicka and I were finished with it. I blushed a little at the recollection: had I knocked down a wall on my way out? I might very well have.

‘Which also means,’ he continued, ‘we’re near the mews where the griffins were being kept.’

I read the unspoken question in there. Now that we’d made it inside, what did we want to do? Milady hadn’t assigned us to any particular unit, nor given us any particular task.

I knew why. My not-so-secret personal mission, mad as it was: I’d personally declared war on the ortherex. Milady hadn’t endorsed it, but she hadn’t forbidden it either. She’d left Jay and me free to choose where we placed ourselves and our talents.

I chose to conclude that a lack of active opposition from Milady was as good as support, as far as Jay’s reservations were concerned. And I’d go on thinking so unless and until he clearly stated otherwise.

I chewed a thumbnail, thinking. If I wanted to purge Farringale of its infestation, how would I even do that?

They were feeding off its wild flows of magick, or so we had theorised. It was those surges of power that kept them here, oddly static, like the rest of the city. If I wanted to remove them, I’d have to take away their source of sustenance.

I’d have to take the magick out of Farringale. All of it.

A thought I’d been shying away from ever since the emergency council at Mandridore. It was too insane, even for me; too vast, surely, to be accomplished, even with all the magick of Merlin at my disposal.

I didn’t want to consider the possibility that I couldn’t do it, at all—that it wasn’t within my power, or anyone’s. Because that would mean accepting defeat. There wasn’t a way to save Farringale for the trolls without clearing the ortherex, and as long as they had all the deep power of ages to feed upon, they’d be here forever.

We had to find a way, or give up on Farringale. And I wasn’t prepared to do that.

I looked at Jay, and his face told me he knew. He hadn’t mentioned the griffins at random. ‘We’ve got to get them out of here, haven’t we?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

The griffins, bound up inextricably with the magickal ebbs and flows of Farringale. The very heart and soul of it, the core; without them, magick would wither and die, and Farringale Dell with it. And they’d been resident here for more centuries than I could imagine.

Taking them out—all of them—I didn’t even know what that would do to the city. But I knew that I couldn’t perform my nigh-impossible task in the face of all their terrible power.

‘Miranda’s team went straight there,’ Jay said. ‘With Rob’s. They’ll be—I don’t know what they’ll have done by now.’

‘And Indira?’ I asked.

‘Retrieving the regulators. Plus she’s got two more that Orlando rushed.’

Good. We’d be needing those. Four might be… enough. Perhaps.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

***

We passed few people on our way through the contested streets of Farringale, at least at first. The combated areas were elsewhere; nobody had cause to care about the library anymore, not now I’d emptied it of its treasures.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere of the city couldn’t be more different from our first visit. A palpable tension set my teeth on edge, a sense of urgency, of menace; and the magick of Farringale tossed and roiled like the sea in a storm. It dizzied me, threatened to overwhelm me—what in the name of all the gods had they done with the regulators? Not to mention the griffins—Jay had to steady me several times when I threatened to topple under it.

The lyre wasn’t much help. I felt like a tree trapped betwixt two hurricanes, each of them trying to tear me to pieces.

When we neared the griffins’ makeshift prison, the fraught peace quickly shattered. I heard a tumult of voices raised in conflict, and a terrible, sharp, raucous cry that could only have come from a griffin. Jay and I quickened our steps down a widening street, passing towering townhouses of brick and stone at a near run.

The mews had become a battleground. We tore into an open square, lined on three sides with large, brick-built stable blocks. I counted four griffins still captured, chained and enchanted, unnaturally placid. People were everywhere, I couldn’t tell how many were ours, and how many Ancestria Magicka.

I recognised Fenella Beaumont, however, poised beside her imprisoned griffins like a queen holding court. She was dressed all in black, tight trousers and jacket, with her grey hair tied back: practical attire for taking over a city.

She had a Wand out, something emerald, by the look of it, and she was pointing it at Rob.

Rob, unmoved, had his own Wand trained on her right back. He was flanked by his entire team, but then so was Fenella. We had a stand-off going on.

I looked for Indira, or Zareen, but didn’t see them.

‘Release the griffins,’ Rob was saying, calmly but firmly. ‘You are surrounded. Reinforcements are imminent. You cannot win this.’

Fenella looked by no means ready to accept defeat, and I wondered afresh what her plan had actually been. If her only goal had been to empty the library, well, she and her organisation should be long gone by now. They’d have no further reason to stay.

But they’d seized control of the gate, and the griffins. Something else was afoot, something much larger. Surely she hadn’t thought she could get away with occupying Farringale?

‘We’re so close,’ Fenella said angrily, which wasn’t an answer to anything Rob had said. ‘Let us work, Rob Foster. We’re doing great things—things the Society can only dream of—’

‘Oh, balderdash,’ I interrupted, and stepped forward. ‘What could you possibly be doing that involves imprisoning the—’ I stopped, because as I spoke a horrible thought entered my head.

Fenella’s eyes glittered with rage at sight of me. ‘Ah, the great Merlin,’ she said nastily. ‘You should have joined us when you had the chance.’

I didn’t waste any time wondering how she’d heard about my new role: expecting to keep anything much from the knowledge of these sneaks was clearly futile. Ignoring her remark, I said, warily, ‘What exactly is it you think you’re doing?’

She smirked at me. ‘Can’t you guess?’ And I could guess, of course I could: for weren’t the Society and Ancestria Magicka like opposite sides of the same coin? I heard, with a horrible sense of inevitability, the expected words fall from Fenella’s smirking lips: ‘We’re saving Farringale.’

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 10

by

The meeting didn’t close so much as peter out, dissolving into ragged knots of people promising aid and plotting tactics.

Jay and I were called on to describe the situation in Farringale, and to express the Society’s intentions regarding its resolution. Once done, our part was largely finished. Alban excused us, and escorted us out.

‘Our regards to Milady,’ he told us outside the great meeting hall, evidently about to zip off somewhere.

‘You mean Mab,’ I said, spurred by some spirit of mischief.

An odd look crossed his handsome face: the sort that spoke of indecision. To dissemble, or not to dissemble?

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ I accused. ‘The Court’s known forever, probably.’

‘I did know about Milady’s identity,’ he admitted. ‘I was asked to keep it to myself.’

I fumed a bit, though silently. I could hardly blame Alban for keeping his sworn word, and it wasn’t his fault that Milady had never decided to trust us with the knowledge.

‘She had her reasons,’ he said, gently enough.

I sighed. Of course she did, and if I could put aside my own feelings for a moment, I could take a guess at hers. Knowing some part of the truth about Milady changed things, there was no question about that. I’d known her – sort of – for over a decade, and yet, now that I knew her to be Queen Mab, my impression of her was markedly different. She hadn’t ceased to be the solid, wise, reliable chief of our odd little organisation, exactly; she was still that. But she was something much larger, too.

And I hadn’t known. Hadn’t even guessed.

‘Everything’s changed so much lately,’ I said, a little plaintively. ‘I can’t keep up.’

‘Things have changed,’ he agreed. ‘But some things haven’t, and won’t.’ He winked at me, kissed my cheek and left, with a nod to Jay.

‘Which things aren’t changing?’ I asked Jay.

He took my hand, and squeezed it. ‘Most of the things that matter. A few of the things that do, but we’ll manage.’

‘I like that “we”,’ I offered, and leaned on him for a moment.

‘I’ll be here,’ he said. ‘That isn’t changing. Come on. Let’s go talk to Queen Mab.’

***

The atmosphere at Home proved unusually tense. Jay and I whisked our way back to the henge in the cellar, and stepped smartly up the stairs. We were suffering a fair degree of weariness at that point, after a long day of events; but our dreams (or mine, anyway) of a quiet moment with a cup of chocolate were instantly dashed.

I’d no sooner stepped off the stairs than several people dashed by, almost mowing me down as I emerged. One of them was Melissa, offering a distracted greeting as she bombed past, clearly on a mission. Halfway down the passage towards the kitchens—if I couldn’t have a peaceful hour in the first-floor common room, I could at least bother Magnus for a snack—I ran into Zareen, or the other way about.

‘Ves! Where’ve you been,’ she proclaimed, snagging me by the arm as she passed, and dragging me along with her. ‘Everything’s gone mad. We’re being mobilised. You’d think there was a war on, or something. If anybody knows what it’s all about, it’d be you. Is it true that Farringale’s under siege? They’re saying Milady’s some kind of fairy queen? I’m telling you, it’s mental.’

Preoccupied with doing my best to keep up with Zareen’s frantic pace, I managed no more than a few, vaguely assenting syllables.

They were enough. Zareen stopped dead. ‘No. It’s all true?’

‘More or less,’ I said. ‘I mean, Farringale isn’t exactly under siege, but it’s certainly under a kind of attack. And Milady—’

‘Queen Mab,’ Zareen interrupted. ‘That’s what they’re saying, but surely not, that’d be crazy.’

‘It’s true.’ I looked around for Jay, hoping for backup, but he was nowhere in sight. ‘You remember Baroness Tremayne?’ I caught her up on recent events as we walked—half ran, really—and wondered, idly, where she was taking me. I was too tired to care overmuch. Milady would want me soon enough, and until then, I might as well go along with Zareen.

I did wish Jay hadn’t vanished, though.

‘That explains a few things,’ Zareen said, when I’d finished. ‘Miranda’s holding some kind of council of war in the convention room. Everyone who’s ever so much as looked at a magickal beast is in there with her. And Rob’s got half the rest mobilising to mount what he’s calling “a firm defence” but it sounds more like it’s going to be the bluntly aggressive kind. Ornelle’s handing out Wands like she’s running a sweet shop, though I don’t suppose you need any of that sort of thing now—’

‘And where are we going?’ I managed to interject, slightly out of breath after two flights of stairs.

‘Indira said—’ Zareen began, but as she spoke a great bell sounded out of nowhere, tolling three times. It had the deep, sonorous roar of those massive cathedral bells, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once. Zareen and I both stopped dead, and clapped our hands over our ears—not that it did us much good. The tolling vibrated right through to my bones.

In the wake of the third strike of the bell, Milady’s voice rolled and echoed through the corridors of the House. ‘My dear Society. We find ourselves in a state of emergency, as you are no doubt all aware. I call upon each and every one of you to answer the call of Mandridore, and of Farringale. Those willing to participate in a mission of great urgency and likely danger shall assemble in the great hall immediately.’

‘Right.’ Zareen changed course, heading for the hall, and I dashed after her. We were going—going now, right now, there would be no more time to prepare. So great was the confusion of my thoughts that I scarcely blinked when my mother appeared around a corner, heading our way, and fell into step beside me.

‘Cordelia. Good. Here.’ She thrust something at me, which I absently took. Only when my fingers closed around the cool, smooth metal of the thing, and felt its latent buzz of magick, did I understand. She’d brought the moonsilver lyre, the lyre of Ygranyllon, her kingdom. Milady must have requested it: one of those moments of prescience she seemed to have, a hunch that we’d need it.

‘Mum?’ I said, fuzzily. The lyre was singing to me already, all the deep magick woven into its ancient frame calling to all the magick woven into mine. ‘What are you doing here?’

She looked at me like I was a complete idiot, and perhaps I was at that moment. ‘I’ve brought that,’ she replied, indicating the lyre I was clutching.

‘Yes, but—you’re the—you could have sent someone else?’

‘Could’ve,’ she allowed. ‘But I’m going with you.’

‘Oh.’ Several more questions blossomed in my mind in response—my mother didn’t often volunteer herself to clean up other people’s messes; what in the world was she doing involving herself with this one?—but I didn’t have chance to ask them. We were arriving at the hall, which was bristling with far too many people, and more were arriving every moment. I caught a glimpse of Jay’s face, and Indira’s, and felt reassured.

The double doors were open, affording me a glimpse of the green and blue spring day beyond. Several large vehicles waited outside, waiting to convey our forces south.

Our forces. It hadn’t seemed real, listening to Zareen babble about mass mobilisation of the entire Society. But now I was here, in the thick of it, it felt terribly real. At last, after considerable and varied forms of provocation, Milady had declared a kind of war on Ancestria Magicka. For the crime of looting the priceless heritage of Farringale, they were going to pay.

Milady’s voice rolled over the assembled crowd, loud enough to drown out the tense, excited chatter. ‘Quiet, please,’ she said, sternly, and the noise died instantly. ‘For those unaware: Ancestria Magicka, an organisation with which we have long endured an uneasy relationship, has violated the sovereign borders of the city of Farringale and committed several acts of theft and vandalism against it. This is unacceptable.

‘The Troll Court of Mandridore has begged our aid in securing the city, and expelling the intruders. You will all have received instructions: follow them. We are not coming home until Farringale is restored to peace and sovereignty.’

‘We?’ I ventured, and heard the question echoed around me by several other voices.

‘We,’ repeated Milady, ringingly, and then added, in a softer tone: ‘I am coming with you.’

‘I must have misheard,’ I said to Zareen. ‘She can’t have said—’

‘She did.’ Zareen pointed. ‘She’s here.’

I couldn’t see what she meant, at first: only a wall of people crowded near the doors, Jay among them. But a space was clearing there, people drawing back, away from something I couldn’t see.

No. Away from someone. I don’t know if Milady arranged it herself, or someone else did, but a shaft of golden light beamed down from somewhere above, illuminating the diminutive—very diminutive—form of a person I’d never seen before.

She stood a foot tall, if that. In fact, she hovered, for at her back fluttered a pair of gossamer wings, a blur of pale colour and light. Her hair was a white cloud about her face; that face both aged and ageless, for she was not, could never have been human.

That, at least, did not surprise me. I had long imagined her as, possibly, troll; the hints of her connections with the Troll Courts, and with Farringale, had been plentiful. But this, I could never have guessed.

Understanding dawned, like a brick to the face. ‘Giddy gods,’ I breathed. ‘She’s Mab.’ Not Mab in the same way that I was Merlin—a modern avatar of an ancient power. She was older, far older, than I could ever have suspected, for she was Mab herself, the Mab of legend and of myth.

She’d spoken, once, of feelings which had sent her into the heart of our House for comfort, as I had done: I myself once spent two days complete in this very room, quite alone. She had been offered her current role, she’d said, and did not know whether to accept.

I, full of my own concerns, had assumed she had meant a role like mine: a role like Merlin. That she was an archetype, like me, and the Baroness Tremayne. But she’d never confirmed that.

She had been speaking of her role as Milady. As the Society’s leader. Her other role—Mab—was no role at all: just her.

‘Giddy gods,’ I managed, near prostrated with awe. No wonder she had so many connections—so much rare knowledge—so many secrets. ‘Zar. Am I dreaming?’

‘We all are,’ she answered. ‘We’ve been dreaming her dream for years. We’re a part of it.’

Milady, with effortless stage presence, held her pose long enough for the rising chatter to peak, and die away again. Then she said, with a soft smile on her ageless face: ‘Are we ready, then? Shall we go?’

We were; we went. Our rag-tag band of scholars, scientists, inventors, librarians, and magicians, led by mythical Mab, filed en masse out of the safe world of our beloved Home, and off to something horribly like war.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 9

by

The first time I met the king and queen of the trolls, they were rather informally dressed. They were wearing leisure kit, to be precise—pyjamas, almost (excepting the coronet sported by her gracious majesty Ysurra).

When there’s an emergency council of war, though, they bring out the sartorial big guns.

Alban escorted Jay and me into a sort of grand presence chamber, dating, probably, from the 1600s. Its vaulted ceiling swooped away to impossible heights – or so it seemed, from my modest vantage point. Quite a few people occupied an array of silk-upholstered chairs, but the room dwarfed us, the chatter of voices echoing in the emptiness of the space.

Enthroned in the centre—more or less literally—were their joint majesties, King Naldran and Queen Ysurra, draped in sumptuous state regalia. Both were coroneted; both wore robes of crisp silk brocade, and sat with a kind of statuesque posture which couldn’t help but seem imposing. I wondered as to the identity of some of the other attendees, several of whom bore the grandeur of visiting dignitaries. Most of them were trolls, but not all: I saw a few other humans, like myself; one or two Yllanfalen; and several fae. I looked for Emellana Rogan, hoping to see her familiar face, but she wasn’t there.

Alban seated Jay and I at the front, where we sat feeling like prized exhibits in some grand museum (or I did, anyway; Jay appeared as composed as ever). Alban settled nearby, in between us and their majesties. I felt a little reassured by his familiar bulk so close, like a bulwark against the storm.

Our arrival appeared to signal the beginning of the meeting, for the great double doors were closed behind us (with an echoing boom), and King Naldran began to speak.

‘We thank you for your prompt attendance of this impromptu council. The matter at hand, as you may imagine, is of some urgency, and does not admit of any delay. I believe everyone here is acquainted with the situation of ancient Farringale; in particular its impassibility, at least by those of the troll people. It has therefore been impossible for us to reclaim the vast wealth of our cultural heritage which remains within its walls, reports of which we have lately received in some detail from the Society.’ His august gaze rested, briefly, upon me, and I couldn’t help wincing a bit. Here we came to the crux of the matter. He was, thus far, characterising our involvement in positive terms; however I was as aware as he must be that a more negative construction could be placed upon it. If Jay and Alban and I hadn’t breached the walls of Farringale a year ago, and carried out tales of its marvels (not to mention examples of it, like Mauf and his predecessor), well then Ancestria Magicka would never have been alerted to its treasures either. And the current incursion probably would never have happened.

The king said none of this, thankfully. ‘Unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘there are those who covet the unique treasures of Farringale, and who are, even now, carrying away some portion of its irreplaceable artefacts. If we do not act, and quickly, we are like to see the total devastation of the priceless heritage of our ancient court. The extent of the cultural loss to the troll people can scarcely be described.’

‘We call for aid,’ said Queen Ysurra. ‘The might of the Troll Court stands at naught in this instance, for our people can only enter Farringale at the greatest cost. Queen Mab assures us the full support of the Society and all its expertise, but against the might and the ruthlessness of Ancestria Magicka it must struggle to prevail alone.’

Queen Mab! I felt a jolt, a shock, to hear that name so openly pronounced. Milady’s identity, if it had ever been a secret to these people, was secret no longer.

‘Who will answer this call?’ continued Ysurra. ‘We and all our Court shall stand forever in your debt.’

My hand shot up before I’d had chance to think things through. ‘I can promise the assistance of the kingdom of Ygranyllon,’ I said, with a confidence it in no way merited, for did not my mother delight in being difficult?  

The queen inclined her head at me. ‘If they are so inclined, then we are grateful.’

Which was a polite way of saying: if my mother actually backed me up on my promise, great.

She would. I’d get her to help us, by hook or by crook.

I remained silent after that, as others offered aid. The emerging picture proved serious: if I’d been minded to name Ancestria Magicka’s move into Farringale as an invasion, well, this was an army mustering in response. If Fenella Beaumont had imagined she could rob the city with impunity, she was sorely mistaken.

She might have imagined just that, I supposed, for had not Farringale been left, all these long centuries, in its abandoned state? A whole year gone by since Jay and I had first set foot in the decaying city, and all its treasures remained therein: untouched. Unwanted?

No, she could never imagine them unwanted. She must know that the Court would exercise its right to the contents of Farringale, as soon as a solution was found to the infestation which rendered it impenetrable to the trolls. That’s why she had acted now: before there would be any chance of the entire Troll Court descending in all its fury to oppose her plundering of the city.

What a pity they could not. For all the ready assistance of the Court’s allies, there’d be nothing quite like a legion of infuriated trolls to send a wily thief packing. And it was their ancestral home: who had the right, if not they?

‘Jay…’ I whispered, as voices rose and fell around us, determining the fate of Farringale in a few hastily agreed deals.

‘Yes.’

‘What if we could…’

He waited, and then prompted: ‘Yes?’

‘I mean, wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could…’

He turned his head to look at me when I trailed off again. I knew that my idea was written large across my face: blazoned there in awe at the sheer audacity of my thinkings. I could hardly pronounce the words.

‘We’ve done many marvellous things,’ he said, encouragingly. ‘I daresay we could manage one more.’

Poor fool. He imagined I had something sensible in mind, something halfway achievable, and I wondered where he had got that idea. ‘Orlando’s got another couple of regulators ready,’ I said in a rush. ‘If we’re taking everyone down there anyway—Milady’s committed us already—well, what if we could—what if we could—’

‘Just say it, Ves,’ said Jay, his patience expiring.

‘What if we could—fix it?’

Jay’s brows rose. ‘Fix it? Fix Farringale?’

‘Yes. What if we could—sort it out. Mend the magickal surges. Get rid of the ortherex. Fix it. And then the Court could send all the might of the trolls out there, and wipe Ancestria Magicka off the face of Farringale forever.’

Jay stared. ‘I hardly dare ask, but… do you have an actual plan? Something workable?’

‘Well—no, not exactly, but I’m stronger than I used to be, and I think Merlin’s powers might be able to accomplish quite a bit. And we’ve got the regulators now, and Baroness Tremayne to help us—she’s Morgan after all, there must be something she could do that would help—and—’

‘Ves.’ Jay’s eyes were very wide. ‘We cannot just barrel in there and take on the entire mess that is Farringale without having a solid plan. No!’ he said, when I tried to interject. ‘We aren’t winging this. It’s crazy.’

‘It’s crazy,’ I agreed. ‘Wonderfully, superbly crazy. Don’t you trust me?’

‘To—to take on centuries of disease, neglect and decay at the age-old capital of the troll kingdoms more or less single-handedly, in the face of serious opposition from Ancestria Magicka, and without any clear idea what you’re going to do? Am I supposed to have a ready answer to that?’

‘You’re supposed to say “yes”.’

Jay passed a hand over his face, as though to clear the mist from before his eyes. ‘You know, the craziest thing is that I probably do. But I shouldn’t.’

‘Come on, Jay! Imagine how incredible it will be if we can pull this off.’

‘I’m imagining how much of a disaster it will be if we can’t.’

‘It could be a disaster if we don’t,’ I returned, grimly. ‘We’re sitting here talking, while Fenella Beaumont and her horrible friends are looting the libraries, enslaving the griffins, and conducting who knows what other nefarious activities within its unprotected borders. We’ve got to do something.’

‘We are doing something. This entire council is for the doing of something.’

‘And that’s wonderful, but it is also slow.’

We had attracted Alban’s attention with our whispering. ‘Ves,’ he said, leaning over. ‘Is this true? You’ve got a way to make the site safe for us?’

‘No,’ said Jay.

‘Maybe.’ said I. ‘I could try—’

‘That would change—everything.’ Alban stood up, and went away to confer with his royal parents—leaving me to face Jay’s wrath alone.

And he was wroth with me. ‘Ves, this isn’t just a you-and-me adventure anymore. This is serious. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Don’t make promises to these people when you can’t keep them!’

I could have protested that I hadn’t promised; I’d only said I could try. But that would be quibbling. Jay was right: I’d raised an expectation and now I had to find a way to fulfil it. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ I said instead. ‘We try and we don’t succeed, leaving us no worse off than we are now.’

‘The worst that could happen,’ answered Jay, with that terrible, elaborate patience he gets when he’s entirely at his wit’s end with me, ‘is that we wreak some fresh disaster upon Farringale, unleashing unknowable but doubtless appalling havoc upon a city already sorely beleaguered, and emphatically make things worse.’

‘That isn’t likely.’

‘It’s a more likely outcome than success.’

Jay, I knew, was no risk taker. He was steady and methodical; he liked to feel fully in control, to know exactly what to do and what to expect. That he put up with me at all was a source of wonder to me; when I asked him to take a leap of faith on my account, and barrel down the road of recklessness in hope of a good outcome, I asked a great deal.

I’d never asked more of him than I was asking right then. I took a deep breath. ‘Jay,’ I said, very seriously. ‘Will you trust me? This one last time?’

‘It won’t be the last time.’

‘I’ll never ask anything this crazy of you again.’

He pointed a finger at my face. ‘That is a promise you definitely can’t keep.’

I tried a smile. ‘How many lost and devastated cities can I possibly find to test my powers upon?’ A moment’s thought forced me to add, hastily, ‘Don’t answer that.’

His mouth twitched: a smile, ruthlessly suppressed. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you.’

‘Yes!’ I said, elated. ‘I agree.’

‘You haven’t heard my terms.’

‘I trust you. I agree to any terms you name.’

He eyed me. ‘You can’t do this alone, and I absolutely decline to try it as your sole support. Thus. If Milady—Queen Mab herself—is in favour of this insane scheme, then I’ll go along with it.’

I clutched at Jay’s arm in delight. ‘Yes. Thank you. I know she’ll want us to try.’

‘Do you know that?’

‘Yes,’ I said, a bare-faced lie.

Jay, finally, grinned. ‘You’ve got your mother and Mab to convince; you’d better get cracking.’

I looked over at Alban, still in conference with the king and queen, along with a severe-looking Yllanfalen lady and a pair of trolls I didn’t know. He gestured at me, and several pairs of eyes fixed upon my tentatively smiling face with clear intent. Whether I liked it or not, I’d convinced them; I could only hope that I hadn’t finally, irrevocably, bitten off far more than I could chew.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 8

by

It took me altogether too long to remember a couple of things—which, I might as well add, would have been immediately apparent to Jay (not to mention Indira).

One: I was travelling with a small forest, yes, but said forest had one of the greatest libraries in the world dangling from its swaying branches.

Two: I might not have been similarly festooned with knowledge, but I did still have Mauf somewhere about my person.

‘Does anyone know the way to Mandridore?’ I’d said, not really expecting a response.

Response, however, there had been: an immediate susurration of rustling leaves—tree chatter—had gone up, with a babble of ancient, learnèd voices mixed up somewhere therein.

—thou’rt a fool; it is not westerly, thou hast the pages upside down—

—manner of nonsense is this. Ha! Mandridore! There is no such place, nor has ever been—

—past Mount Battle and over the River Winding—

And over the top of this babble, Mauf’s refined accents raised to a near roar: ‘My good tomes and volumes—my very dear lexicons and folios—WE are the greatest library this world has ever known. Such conduct is highly unbecoming of our situation in life.’

The chatter did not appreciably lessen, but Mauf went on, inexorably shouting over them: ‘IF you would be so good as to hold your tongues, all of you, I believe we may swiftly find our way to a resolution of Merlin’s little difficulty.’

I didn’t immediately recognise myself by the name Merlin—I required a moment’s reflection, for that—but it was clever of Mauf to use it. These ancient volumes could never have received any information about the Society, nor would they care; but Merlin, that was another matter. The books’ quarrelling stopped, became instead an excited babble in which that hallowed name, Merlin, was many times repeated.

‘Precisely,’ said Mauf, at a more decorous volume. ‘Merlin. Shall you now comport yourselves with some dignity?’

The books, duly shamed, fell largely silent, barring an occasional rustle of pages—and one, slightly disturbing giggle.

‘Thank you. Now then. Mandridore, as most of you will not know, is as Farringale once was: the great, and very grand home of Their Majesties, Queen Ysurra and King Naldran, noble heirs as they are to Their  Majesties Hrruna and Torvaston; seat of the Troll Court, and therefore, home to the current Great Library of Magick. And if you would like to be restored to your rightful places upon such august shelves, you will assist me in directing Merlin to the gates of Mandridore forthwith, and without further ado.’ Mauf paused, and added, ‘The next volume to giggle shall instead be cast into the nearest brackish stream.’

The giggling, mercifully, cut off with a choking sound.

‘Thank you. Now. Which among you contain maps of England?’

Several books piped up.

‘And which among you contain some manner of reference to the Old Roads of the Court?’

‘The what—’ I put in, but stopped as the answer occurred to me. The Troll Roads. He was talking about the magickal Ways I’d once or twice travelled over of late, usually with Baron Alban. ‘Oooh, that’s clever,’ I said instead.

Mauf radiated a quiet, smug pleasure. ‘Yes, it is. Do not worry, Miss Vesper. We shall have you in Mandridore in a trice.’

***

They did, as well. I was obliged to promise, later, that I would not say exactly how; such knowledge is for the rarefied few, and those tomes whose pages offer some useful clue will doubtless disappear very quickly into Mandridore’s protected archives.

I can only say that our little ambulatory forest was very soon in motion again, and it was not long before we were out of England Proper and sauntering joyously down the wide, rose-strewn boulevards that the trolls built long, long ago.

Had I been obliged to walk those Ways as myself, I would have tired in due time, for despite the Way-wending magicks infused into the white stones of those roads, the journey was a considerable one. I did not tire, though, as a tree; a tree has no muscles, that can grow weary with use. I was powered by magick, and not only my own: the fizzing, ferocious magick of over-burdened Farringale was in me still, and wafted me with the greatest ease all the way to Mandridore.

We caused rather a stir, let me tell you. It’s not every day an entire copse of English trees in full and varied leaf trundles en masse through the gilded gates of the Court Enclave. We accumulated curious followers as we went, and by the time we stopped outside the palace we had an entourage at least as large in number as we were.

Things became somewhat confused after that. I recall being ushered, by what means I know not, into the vast formal gardens that lie behind the palace, into which my arboreal fellows cheerfully dispersed. I must have dropped into a doze, I suppose, for such an excess of magick cannot help but weary a woman eventually.

I drifted out of slumber again to find myself parked in a quiet corner of the queen’s garden, flanked by fragrant orange trees, and with an ornate stone bench positioned under my eaves. Two people were seated upon it: the soft murmur of their conversation had woken me.

‘—most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen,’ Jay was saying. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea how she thought of it.’

‘She’s Ves,’ answered Alban. ‘Her mind works in mysterious ways.’

‘Turned the whole damned library into a forest and walked off with it.’ Jay was shaking his head. ‘Some damage to the building in the process, of course, but nothing the Court can’t fix.’

‘They won’t object to that. Not when Ves has brought them the entire lost library of Farringale.’

Not the entire library, I tried to say, without success: my leaves rustled frenetically, but no words emerged.

Both faces looked up into my branches. ‘Have another go,’ said Jay, laying a hand against my trunk.

I did, with much the same result.

‘I hope you aren’t planning to remain a tree forever,’ Alban said. ‘Not that you aren’t a splendid, majestic tree, of course.’

‘The very best of trees,’ Jay agreed. ‘But there’s a cup of tea with your name on it, Ves, and it’s getting cold.’

‘And a plate of pancakes,’ Alban added. ‘The enormous ones, with the fruit and the ice cream.’

I rustled a bit more, dropping a purple fruit into Jay’s lap, which burst juicily.

Jay looked at it in silence, then said to Alban: ‘It’s not the entire library. That’s probably what she’s worried about. Ancestria Magicka took some books before we could stop them.’

‘Excellent,’ said Alban, in an uncharacteristically grim tone. ‘Those books are lawfully the property of the Troll Court. We’ll prosecute them for theft.’

‘Later. The griffins need help first.’

Griffins? What was amiss with the griffins? My brain exploded with questions; several more fruits sprayed juice over the pristine gravel walk.

‘Maybe have those pancakes brought out here,’ Jay suggested. ‘Where she can see them.’

With careful intent and precise aim, I dropped a fruit on Jay’s head.

‘You’re welcome to do something terrible to me,’ Jay correctly interpreted, ‘but you’ll have to turn human again first.’

I sagged, my branches drooping. I’d love to turn human again, I told him (rustle, rustle).

Jay patted my trunk soothingly. ‘I know. But if you conquered the chair problem, you can do this, too.’

‘Chair problem?’ Alban queried.

Jay shook his head. ‘Best not to ask.’

***

They brought out the pancakes. And when those turned cold and congealed, another plate of pancakes—not to mention huge, troll-sized pots of tea. Jay and Alban sat with me for an hour straight, and then another, swapping stories of our escapades, reminding me of my human self.

I chafed under the delay, and so did they, I’m sure, though they hid it well. Something was gravely amiss with the griffins of Farringale; Ancestria Magicka had got away with a lot of the library’s books; who-knew-what other mischief was brewing; and I was stuck in the shape of a tree.

Trying to perform difficult, unfamiliar magicks under a sense of intense pressure isn’t my preferred way of doing things.

At length—at very great length—my bark softened and became cloth; my leaves and withies dissolved into jade-green coloured hair; and I had eyes again, lips to talk with, arms to wrap around Jay and Alban in the hugest, bone-crushing bear hugs I (in my diminutive frame) could manage.

And questions. I had a lot of questions. ‘What do you mean about the griffins—thank you, by the way, for all this—this—but what’s afoot in Farringale—oh, did you find out what became of the regulators?—can we get the lost books back—’ I uttered all this in bursts, in between enormous gulps of tea (sweet, and milky), and forkfuls of pancake.

Jay apprised me, fairly succinctly, of the Griffin Problem, which made my blood boil with impotent rage. ‘Rob’s back at Home, updating Milady,’ he concluded. ‘I came here to find you, I hoped, and also to report to the Court. We’ll need help, at this point. We couldn’t take on all of Ancestria Magicka with just the two of us.’

Perhaps he’d read a certain mulish accusation in my face, for that last bit came out slightly defensive. ‘I know,’ I assured him. ‘I wish you could’ve, but—’

‘So do we,’ Jay said bleakly, and I saw what it must have cost him to walk away and leave those noble griffins in captivity.

‘Their Majesties are holding an emergency council soon,’ Alban told me, and checked his watch. ‘In about half an hour, in fact.’ I burst into speech, and he held up a hand to forestall me. ‘Your presence is required, don’t worry. We’ll need you and Jay to explain the situation at Farringale, and you’re to represent the Society while we debate how best to launch a sensible opposition.’

Sensible meaning: they couldn’t send many of their own people with us. No troll could safely enter Farringale, not yet. Maybe not ever.

But they were a large, cosmopolitan Enclave: they had people who weren’t trolls, and besides that they had some of the brightest minds in the country. We wouldn’t have to handle a problem of this magnitude alone.

‘That being so,’ I said, ‘I’d better fortify myself with plentiful comestibles. I’m hungry.’ In fact I was ravenous: a tree may thrive on sun and water alone, but I couldn’t.

Jay handed me another mug of tea, and downed the dregs of his own. ‘We’re as ready as milk and sugar can make us,’ he proclaimed.

Which, I hoped, would be enough.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 7

by

The last time I’d experienced one of Farringale’s magickal surges, the effects had been entertaining as much as they’d been alarming. Indira had flown, quite literally, like a bird. Rob had conjured creatures of scintillating light out of the tip of his Lapis Wand, and sent them soaring about the library. I’d turned myself into a pancake. The fact that we’d all been so totally out of control of ourselves hadn’t been great, with hindsight, but none of us had been inclined to do anything dangerous.

This, though. This was something else.

My lovely, flourishing trees, books hanging from their branches like streamers, roots tearing out of the earth with appalling rumbling, crashing, cracking sounds—those trees were angry.

‘Oh,’ I said numbly, spellbound with horror. I watched as several trees mustered themselves into formation and—eight thousand books screaming in cacophonous concert—ran at the hapless looters.

Not that so many of the latter had stuck around for it. About half had left the library after my impromptu intervention, probably to seek advice, and most of the rest had sensibly legged it the moment the first tree had torn itself loose.

George Mercer was among the foolhardy souls who remained. For a split second, I felt glad—let him pay for his many offences, a good skewering wouldn’t be undeserved—but I thought better of it almost immediately.

I was responsible for this.  If I hadn’t interfered, there might have been no surge happening at all; and if there had, there’d have been no ornery oaks on the warpath, feeling a wee bit bitter about being hacked down and turned into shelves. I didn’t want to be the reason somebody died today.

An enraged oak thundered past far too close—Jay hauled me out of the way, thankfully before we could establish whether or not their fury extended all the way through the echoes of memory and time. I felt a strong whoosh of air as it passed; shock had me clinging, just for a moment, to Jay.

‘Thanks,’ I gasped, and took off running.

What I was planning to do, I couldn’t have said. I couldn’t hear Mauf anymore, not over the tumult of vituperative voices, but his indignant presence at my side was an extra spur as I shot into the heart of the library, dodging warring trees and fleeing agents of Ancestria Magicka. At least I had thoroughly disrupted their plundering party: nobody would be trying to touch those books anymore.

I ran through chambers that had once held thousands of books, several somnolent birch or elm or ash trees still slumbering in the corners. I was making for the room we’d come to think of as the museum: an unfathomably tall-ceilinged space filled with artefacts behind glass, the lost relics of a vanished Troll Court. There would be no trees in there, most likely, for there hadn’t been any bookcases: only starstone and glass.

I found it intact, and—relatively—peaceful. The cacophony of disaster went on beyond the rounded archways, all too audible; I winced at a particularly devastating crash. Small hope that the books weren’t coming to collective, and terrible, grief: my fault, too.

‘Mauf,’ I gasped, dropping to the floor, and hauling him out of my satchel.

‘I cannot sufficiently express the extent of my disappointment,’ shouted the book, and snapped—actually snapped—at my fingers.

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. I intended none of this to happen, and you’ve got to help me stop it.’

‘It cannot be stopped!’ shrieked Mauf, rather hysterically. ‘These blundersome, quarrelsome creatures are beyond anyone’s control.’ He began, shockingly, to sob. ‘My books. My poor, poor books…’

‘Never mind the books right now,’ I snapped back. ‘We’ll mend them. Later. We need to focus on the trees.’ I thumped the heavy weight of him smartly against the floor: the equivalent of a ringing slap. ‘Focus, Mauf. I need your help here.’

The wrenching sobs stopped, to my relief. A long moment’s silence followed, before he said, much more coolly, ‘Logic suggests that, when the surging of magick in these environs should ebb, then the trees will settle.’

‘It does suggest that,’ I agreed, ‘but that may be some time in happening.’

‘Then the best thing to do would be to turn them back into bookcases—’ His words cut off as I abruptly slammed his covers closed again, struck with a piece of genius I hadn’t, in the end, needed Mauf for.

‘I could,’ I answered him rapidly, ‘I think. Maybe. But that would just put us right back where we were, wouldn’t it? This is Ancestria Magicka we’re dealing with. They aren’t going to slink away like whipped dogs just because a couple of trees tried to butcher them like pigs. The moment the trees are gone, the shelves are back, and the books are accessible, they’ll be out the door with the lot.’

Mauf uttered something, rather muffled. ‘—fear you are contemplating further madness—entreat you to see reason—’

‘You’re quite right,’ I told him, stuffing him back into my satchel. ‘I am contemplating madness.’ Possibly the magick was getting to my brain by then, for I was far too pleased with myself, grinning like an idiot, and nowhere near as sensible of the risks as I should have been.

I laid my palms against the buzzing starstone floor, felt the ripples and waves of burgeoning magick shocking the atmosphere. It was easy, in that environment: barely cost me a thought.

Poor Jay came haring into the museum just an instant too late. I was already growing taller—much, much taller—my trunk thickening, arms and tendrils of hair lengthening into lithe, supple boughs. My eaves bristled with a glittering crop of silver leaves, and as I shook myself a spray of purple fruits flew out and splattered across the walls.

‘VES!’ Jay bawled at me from a long way below. ‘You can’t do this—come back from there, this is insane, what are you thinking—’

I heard no more, for I picked up my winding roots and stomped off, causing only a little damage to an unoffending wall in the process.

I’d already noticed that these trees seemed to possess the capacity to order themselves. They’d formed up like a battalion, attacked in concert—and that meant they could be lead.

By, for example, me.

‘FORM. UP,’ I roared, though it wasn’t words that reached them. I rumbled and crashed in a cacophony of bough and branch, a roar of spraying earth and shaken, shattering leaves: and they heard.

I’d popped out from between the echoes, I distantly realised—burst out of it, a shattering tide of magick too vast to be contained—swollen with Farringale’s own disordered currents, burgeoning into an unstoppable wave.

Nobody stopped me. Nobody could have, in that moment. I stomped out of the wreck of the library and away down the bright white boulevard, a pied piper of the forest, with a legion of irate trees stamping along in my wake.

What tales they might tell of this in days to come: the thought came to me dimly, prompted by the awed stares—nay, flabbergasted—I was receiving from Ancestria Magicka’s rotten agents as we passed (just before they scurried out of my path, like rats deserting the proverbial sinking ship).

The legend of Farringale, already a place of myth, story and song, had just grown a little larger and more improbable. I smiled to think of it, somewhere beneath leaf and bark, for as strange a story as they’d tell of this day, the truth was stranger still.

We were out of Farringale and halfway to Winchester before I faltered, paused, and, ultimately, stopped. Fields surrounded us, rippling with burgeoning wheat, or barley, perhaps: a verdant blanket of growth, dotted with copses of my fellow oaks and birches and yews. I turned about, spirits sinking with the velocity of a brick turfed off a tall building.

‘Um,’ I uttered in a rustle of silverish leaves. ‘Does anybody know the way to Mandridore?’

***

The day may yet come when I’ll be so used to Ves’s antics as to feel no surprise, however mad her methodology.

That day is a ways off, I reckon.

Yelling sense at Ves as she turns herself into a gods-forsaken tree and strides away: why did I imagine that would work? Off she went regardless, tossing her leafy canopy in a maddeningly Ves-like gesture despite the arboreal format and for a painfully long minute, Rob and I were left in frozen silence.

Rob permitted himself an audible sigh.

‘What’s interesting is,’ I said at length, ‘she seems to have taken most of the magick with her.’ The magickal surge that had been steadily building was ebbing away again, and perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. I couldn’t even dimly imagine the power it must have taken Ves to perform those several improbable feats in such quick succession.

‘She’s going to need help,’ said Rob.

I blinked, and straightened. Good point. Where in the name of her giddy gods did she imagine she was going with the library of Farringale? ‘Perhaps she can, I don’t know—’ I spread my hands in a hopeful gesture—‘Merlin her way to somewhere?’

Rob just looked at me.

‘Right. No, you’re right.’ Ves might be magickal beyond sense, marvellous beyond reason, and impossibly, dazzlingly competent, but she was still Ves. She’d be lost inside of half an hour.

I succumbed to a momentary burst of panic. I wanted to dash after her instantly—she needed me—but I couldn’t just abandon Farringale. Ves herself would kill me if we bombed out of there without completing the mission.

We’d have to get a move on.

‘Regulators first,’ I said. ‘Then Ves.’

‘Thought,’ said Rob. ‘Griffins.’

I nodded. The notable lack of them as we’d come in had struck me forcibly, only to be swept out of my mind by the chaos that had immediately ensued. There were several that lived atop Mount Farringale, not far beyond the borders of the city. They’d violently opposed our entry, the first time we’d stepped through the portal. Why hadn’t they dealt with Ancestria Magicka?

‘Oh no,’ said I, struck by a horrible thought. ‘You don’t suppose they used the regulators—?’

I couldn’t finish the thought in any detail: just what might they have used the regulators to do as regarded the griffins? Something, anyway: the likelihood that those regulators were here and the griffins unaccountably missing, purely by coincidence, was slim. They had to be related.

Rob nodded grimly. ‘Baroness? Do you know what’s become of the griffins?’

A long pause followed, and I began to fear we’d lost her somewhere. But then she spoke: ‘One is no more; two are captured. The rest bide yet in Farringale, but they are ensorcelled.’

I wished, fleetingly, that we had brought Indira after all: my sister would know at once how they had used Orlando’s regulators to ensorcel—or capture, or kill—a griffin. ‘Where are they?’ I asked.

‘Come,’ she said briefly, and the shadowed shape of her flickered into view, limned in pallid light. She led us away from the library, through streets largely deserted, now; wherever Ancestria Magicka had gone, their attempts to divest the city of its knowledge had been permanently foiled, to Ves’s credit.

We didn’t need to go far. A few minutes’ slinking around shadowed corners brought us to a kind of stables, or mews: rows of tall, handsome stone buildings arrayed around a square courtyard, grand in both size and style. Once upon a time, horses and perhaps even unicorns had resided here, I supposed, along with those who cared for them.

The stalls stood empty, as far as I could see, but the courtyard bustled with activity.

Three griffins crouched there, bound in a strange kind of lassitude: not asleep, quite, but fuddled, dreaming. So secure was their confinement that they were not even bound, save by a shackle chained around one furred leg, and attached to the stone walls.

Several people lingered near them, only a little wary of demeanour: with a wave of fury I recognised Fenella Beaumont. She was playing overseer, three of her henchmen engaged in the operation of one of Orlando’s regulators: I could feel the odd pulse of its magick thrumming through the floor.

It took me a moment longer to realise what else was so wrong with this scene. The griffins, hunched in their demi-slumber, lay inert: not so much as a flicker of lightning wreathed those handsome, feathered forms. That was what the regulators had done; of course it was. The griffins were the magickal heart of Farringale, the source—we surmised—of its deep, wild magick, and the regulators had—well—regulated them.

Helped along, doubtless, by Ancestria Magicka, with the specific aim of subduing them.

I took a long, slow breath, too consumed with fury to speak—at least for a moment.

‘Well,’ I said at last. ‘It’s maybe a good thing Ves isn’t here to see this.’

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 6

by

‘What’s the plan,’ Jay whispered to me as we stood there, frozen with horror amidst the destruction of the great library of Farringale.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, already reaching with those other senses, hooking my mind and my heart into the landscape around me. ‘I think I’m about to wing it.’

If he replied, I didn’t hear it. My consciousness winged away from him, from Rob; away from the hideous spectacle of looters emptying those long-neglected shelves; brushed past Mauf, still asleep in my satchel—a mercy upon him; I left him undisturbed—past Baroness Tremayne, a distressed shadow haunting the scene, just out of sight or hearing; sank at last into the bones of the earth below.

Trees. I joined a tangle of their deep roots, a web running beneath the paved streets and stone houses, oak and ash and elm; we’d seen some few of them flanking the library, their heavy boughs still shading the deserted boulevards, long ages after those who had planted them had gone.

Something else lingered there: a memory, a ghost; trees-that-were, once; had ceased to grow, ceased to soak up the sunlight and rainfall of Farringale. The last of their sweet, spring leaves lay far behind them: hundreds of years had passed since they had last borne fruit, borne seed, let their green leaves turn the colour of amber and drift down into the slow death of autumn.

They had not forgotten. The memories lay locked inside every knot, every whorl, and I realised at last what it was I had encountered.

Shelves. The bookshelves of the library of Farringale had been built here, out of the siblings of those same trees that rose so proudly outside: and they were trees still, somewhere inside.

An idea unfurled in my own mind, like a leaf in spring: fresh and lovely and perfect. It was the work of a moment to touch those slumbering sparks with a thread of magick, to whisper to them of light, and fresh-fallen water. They responded, stretching themselves as they woke, reaching with fresh life and growth for the heavens.

And the leaves of Farringale—the thousands, hundreds of thousands, of bound and inked and printed pages, each one pressed from the mulch that had once, also, been a tree—these they carried with them, unfurling them like banners, opened to the sun.

I came back to myself slowly, through a greater exertion of effort than it had cost me to lose myself, for that little space of time. How simple, how easy, the life of a tree: the slow turning of the seasons around me, the crisp freshness of rainwater, the dulcet warmth of sunlight upon my upturned leaves…

In what stark, sharp contrast, the life of a Ves: hurry and haste, pain and turmoil, pressure and distress—I liked being a tree, could easily come to prefer it over any other shape—I fought to grasp the beauties of my little human life, the details: strong cups of tea in the morning, with lashings of milk; carrot cake, and Bakewell tarts; dance parties at midnight, when I couldn’t sleep—hugs, preferably from Jay; the velvety softness of Addie’s nose; the snap in Milady’s voice when I’d displeased her—

I flailed, halfway Ves and halfway tree, and then someone was shaking me, shouting my name in my ears and—

I had eyes again; I felt them; I opened them.

Jay, a vision of concerned fury. I was still a creature of heightened and layered senses, every pore tuned to the myriad cues of my environment. I felt every wave of Jay’s distress, felt it begin to ebb, when he saw me looking back at him.

‘We are really going to have to talk about this,’ he growled at me, his fingers digging into my shoulders where—I concluded—he had been shaking me.

‘Agreed,’ I breathed, gulping air. The ease with which I meld with landscapes, turn myself into boulders and bridges and chairs—it’s exhilarating, in the same way as a rollercoaster, the kind where you’re only mostly certain that you aren’t going to go hurtling off the rails at the next corner, and sail off into oblivion, screaming.

If I could only turn myself back with the same ease I wouldn’t mind it half so much.

‘Was I a tree?’ I whispered, half afraid of the answer.

‘Something like that—’ began Jay.

‘Ves,’ Rob broke in, and I tore my gaze away from my fascinated scrutiny of Jay’s expressions. ‘Was that you? I really hope that was you.’

He gestured, widely, and I beheld, with some awe, the fruits of my impromptu labours.

The library-as-was would, in all likelihood, never be the same again. The bookcases were gone, the very walls had shifted, and the roof gaped open to let the sky in; I wondered distantly what had become of the rafters, not to mention the roof tiles.

A forest had sprung up out of the earth. Chiefly oaks, these handsome trees: not so very old yet, their trunks still slight and lithe, but they were growing, thickening: changing, changing back, into the grand old trees they had been long ago, before men of Farringale had come with axes, and chopped them down.

A thick canopy shaded us from sun and wind: a rustling, green arbour, smelling of spring, and among those unfurling leaves there were: books.

I breathed out, a note of relief, for I had not, in my haste and carelessness, disassembled every book in the library, turning every separate page into roots and leaves. The books looked intact, as far as I could tell from some distance below: hanging from the branches like tempting fruits, far out of reach.

I watched as a quick-thinking looter jumped, reaching for a low-hanging tome; his hands never closed upon it, for the tree snatched it back, quick as lightning. The earth shook in palpable warning.

‘Yes, but before you ask,’ I informed Rob, and Jay, ‘No, I don’t have the slightest idea how I am going to get them down from there.’

‘Noted,’ said Jay.

‘But they seem to be safe, for the moment.’ So I fervently hoped; it was always possible that I had done as much damage to the books with my magick as the thieves had with their careless, grabbing hands, but I couldn’t think of that now. It was too late. I would have to hope that the love and fear I had laced into my magick had preserved them; the trees’ obvious protectiveness of their bookish burdens boded well.

Of course, I had been anything but subtle. Only some of the book thieves’ attention remained upon their prize, now hanging out of reach; others were raising the alarm, shouting questions at each other, beginning a search for the culprit. For me.

They wouldn’t find us: not yet, not while we remained tucked behind the echoes of space and time, swaddled in shadows and silence. But we couldn’t stay that way, and we had other objectives before we could hasten back to the Society.

I paused long enough to watch as several more energetic souls attempted various methods of retrieving the hanging books: jumping; boosting each other on cupped hands, or shoulders; climbing into the boughs of the trees themselves. All failed: the trees retaliated, swatting and swiping away the climbers, or shaking the looters out of their branches.

‘Right,’ said Jay, shaking himself out of his absorbed appreciation of the scene. ‘We need to find out what’s become of the regulators.’

The regulators, freshly ripped from Silvessen and—what? What were these people intending to do with them in Farringale? Whatever it was, I didn’t think they had yet deployed them. Surely there would be some sign already, some shift in the conditions of Farringale. Or would there? Could two regulators have much of an effect on an entire, magick-drowned city?

Someone passed by me, almost close enough to touch, and my train of thought shattered—I knew him, I was sure of it—shadowed as he was in my sight, his movements juddery and jerky, the strange effect of my disconnected state—even so—I followed him at a trot, noting his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the public schoolboy cut of his hair—

‘That’s George Mercer,’ I hissed, and stamped my foot in sheer rage. ‘Ancestria bloody Magicka.’

‘You’re certain?’ Jay called, following me.

‘Yes. I suppose he might have defected to some other soulless organisation devoted to the plunder of magickal heritage, but I doubt it.’

Jay seemed unsurprised, and so was I. Fenella sodding Beaumont: she just couldn’t go more than a month or two without kicking up fresh trouble.

Rob was hulking. It’s a squared-shoulders, chin-raised, threatening sort of posture he does when he’s contemplating destroying someone (to do him justice, he hardly ever actually does).

‘Now’s not the time,’ I told him. He’d have to step out from behind the echoes to actually lay hands—or Wands—on Mercer directly, and we were vastly outnumbered in here.

Rob gave me a terse nod, and his shoulders relaxed. ‘We’d better get a move on,’ he told me. ‘I may be wrong, but I think we have a surge coming on.’

I glanced at what was left of the library’s mullioned windows, forest-bound as they now were. I might have imagined it, but was that a slow flush of pale colour creeping across the glass? A soft, palpable hum of magick building in the air?

‘That seems—’ I began, but was unable to finish the sentence for the sheer sinking of my heart. It seemed like improbably prompt timing, but what if it wasn’t random? I had just unleashed a small tidal wave of magick in the great library. I’d turned the previously inert bookshelves into Merlin-trees, and now that I had occasion to think about it they were rather fizzy with magick—

‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed, exchanging one fraught glance with Jay. The same realisation was written all over his face.

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We’ve weathered these surges before.’

We had, but that was before I’d emerged from the fifth Britain in a state of dangerous magickal excess. Before I’d set eyes—or hands—on the strange old lyre from my mother’s Yllanfalen kingdom. Before I’d become a Merlin. No one could say what the effect would now be upon my shrinking self.

I had two choices. Wait and see—or run away.

I took a big breath, squared my shoulders, and hulked. ‘It’ll be okay,’ I echoed Jay, trying to sound like I meant it.

I could feel it now, pulsing through the floor under my shoes and thrumming in the air.

From the depths of my satchel, an irate voice began shouting. ‘Miss Vesper. Permit me to ask—with the utmost esteem and respect for your ordinarily unimpeachable judgement—what in the name of every conceivable god have you done to my LIBRARY.’

Mauf had woken up. And I saw his point fairly quickly, for quite apart from the unusual elevation of the formerly neat rows of books there was something else going on. They were—swaying. Their pages were fluttering, as though riffled by invisible fingers. As I watched, a cloud of butterflies erupted from the pages of one handsome old tome, and exploded in tiny flashes of light.

A discordant chorus of babbling voices rose in volume, rising with the magickal tide: the books of Farringale were gibbering, cackling, screaming in rage—

–And then, horror of horrors, the bright young oaks I’d conjured out of the bookshelves ripped their roots out of the earth and began to walk.

Episode 12

The Fate of Farringale: 5

by

Whisht.

The sound broke in upon my reverie. Light splintered.

I woke up, partially.

I wasn’t Ves just then. I couldn’t have said what I had done with my eyes or my limbs or my fabulous hair, nor what shape I presently wore. I felt at ease with the landscape, as though I had grown there. Perhaps I had.

Cordelia Vesper, came the voice again, and I had regained enough of myself to recognise Baroness Tremayne’s tones.

How she perceived me in that state, I couldn’t imagine.

Baroness? I attempted to reply.

I sense you but I see nothing of you. How comes this about?

I mulled over how to answer that, when I had so little information myself. What had I done, exactly? What did I look like, just then? I’ll explain later, I decided, for time pressed, and I had no idea how long I had spent in my sunlit haze. Can you get Jay and Rob in, without their being seen? They’re waiting just outside the portal.

Cannot you?

Fair question, that. Since I had no real idea what I had done to myself, I had no real idea how to do the same to anyone else—nor even if it were possible. I was hoping you could take all of us into the echoes, I went on, ignoring that question too.

A moment.

A flash and a sickening shift; I felt wrenched out of the earth, like an uprooted tree.

Golden light dimmed to a pale, muted silver, and the soft sounds of the city—birdsong, the wind through ancient eaves, and, somewhere, voices—faded. I felt swaddled in mist, my senses muffled.

I had passed into the baroness’s strange world.

‘Ves,’ someone was calling, thin, distorted sounds, as though we hung suspended underwater. Jay. He was here somewhere.

I steadied myself with a breath or two, and looked about me. The baroness had moved me in distance as well as time; I stood in a white-walled room, small by troll standards. A single armchair rested, lonely, in a corner, besides which the chamber bore scant decoration: a plain stone mantel crowned a narrow fireplace; shelves built into the walls might once have held books; the bare boards of the floor might once have been covered with a cheerful rug. Perhaps I was in one of those modest merchant’s townhouses I’d seen on a prior visit. Shadows flickered oddly in the corners, light crackled and shifted; I blinked, shaking my head. I don’t know how Baroness Tremayne has contrived to live in this odd, mutable space for so many years. Perhaps she finds solidity disconcerting, now.

A door stood open opposite me, and in another moment Jay barrelled through it. ‘There you are,’ he said, with palpable relief.

My heart eased a notch at the sight of him. ‘Is Rob with you?’

He jerked his head in terse reply: behind him.

I couldn’t see the baroness, but this was her turf: she, of all of us, could be relied upon to handle it.

Her voice emanated out of nowhere even as I framed the thought, and I jumped. Art prepared?

Were we prepared. For what? Disasters innumerable and unnameable? Almost certain catastrophe? Slight, but not insignificant risk of actual death?

Eh, probably. I’ve got used to calling that “Tuesday”.

‘Art prepared,’ I answered firmly. ‘Ready for mission briefing.’

This puzzled the baroness; there was a palpable pause. I’d forgotten, for a moment, how she lived—giving new meaning to the term “out of touch”. ‘Occupation,’ she said after a moment, ‘seems centred around the library, though there are pockets of activity in other places.’

The library. Of course, the first thing these people had done upon invading Farringale was take control of the library.

Although… I frowned, rapidly revising my ideas. The first thing I would do upon invading a sovereign territory—however empty—would be to take over the library. But this wasn’t me. ‘Who are these people,’ I muttered, though I was beginning to develop an idea. If the library was their first, or even sole, objective, then they were a lot like us—only more ruthless.

‘Three guesses,’ said Jay.

‘Too generous,’ put in Rob.

I was beginning to agree. If I didn’t find Fenella Beaumont somewhere at the back of this mess, I might be eating a couple of hats.

I sighed. ‘Let’s go to the library, then,’ words I usually uttered with more genuine joy, it has to be said.

I braced myself against another sickening lurch through space and time, but nothing happened. ‘Tis but a short distance,’ the baroness told us. ‘This is the librarians’ quarters.’

I imagined a complex of dormitories, like a university campus, all housing the multitudinous librarians that must once have staffed the sprawling archives of Farringale: part of a bustling hive of intellectual activity, the likes of which the world may never have seen again. The shattering tragedy of its loss hit me afresh.

‘Oh,’ said Jay, realisation dawning, as I continued to stand there. ‘I’m up.’

‘Delighted as I generally am to lead,’ I confirmed, ‘I’m still me.’ Merlin or not, I still couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag without assistance.

Jay went to the door and passed out of the room, Rob motioning me to follow. He brought up the rear, guarding us, I supposed, from threats materialising behind us. Strange feeling; Farringale, as yet, seemed almost as empty as it had ever been, the only signs of other life hitherto being a faint babble of voices—and only then when I’d been merged with the land, Merlin-style. It felt almost like playing some kind of game; let’s pretend we’re on a quest to save a lost kingdom from a terrifying threat. I’ll be Merlin, you can be a Waymaster of indescribable power…

I followed Jay into a large vestibule, high of ceiling, with a pair of griffin statues flanking the tall door to the outside. Jay went straight out; I paused only to pat one of the statues on its smooth stone head as I passed. I couldn’t have said why. It seemed friendly.

The moment we stepped outside, all my comforting notions of make-believe fell into tatters.

Someone whisked past the librarian’s house, close enough to touch Jay: he halted abruptly. My heart stuttered; for an agonising moment I expected to be seen, to be caught; then the odd dimness of the noontide light, the shimmering, flickering haze over everything we saw, reminded me that we were undetectable. Hopefully.

We waited in brief, frozen silence, immobile—my mind spiralled back into childhood games and Granny’s Footsteps—a most inapposite desire to giggle rose in me, and I choked it down. The pressure was making me hysterical.

The person, whoever it was, passed by at a near-run, and it struck me that the hive of activity I’d been imagining moments before had returned to Farringale after all. If only they weren’t uninvited, irresponsible, and destructive—

‘This way,’ Jay whispered, stepping confidently out. I trailed after, heart pounding—it takes serious nerve to wander down a street, out in the open, and just trust that nobody will be able to see you.

Nobody did, but we saw plenty. Jay led us on a short, winding route around a cluster of stone-built houses—the rest of the librarians’ quarters, I supposed—and several people passed us, moving at considerable speed.

Now that we were closer, I was able to see that they were carrying armfuls of stuff. Books.

‘They’re stripping the library,’ I hissed, a surge of such rage swelling my heart that I couldn’t breathe.

‘I feel bound to point out that we did the same thing,’ Jay said. ‘Not that I mean to defend them, of course.’

‘We did not. We took several books, and only to save them. They’re taking—everything—’ I shut up, and breathed.

‘Maybe they’re saving them,’ Rob put in, but in a dry tone.

I scoffed audibly at that. ‘Of course they are. Zero personal interest involved.’

They were all human, these bustling thieves, which did not surprise me. Though the notable lack of any trolls did interest me a little: was that mere happenstance, or had these invaders known about the state of Farringale, known that any trolls they brought here would be in severe danger?

The existence of the ortherex; the fate of Farringale, and other Troll Enclaves; these things were not secrets, exactly. It had taken a huge, concerted effort to save some of the beleaguered Enclaves, involving the Society, the Troll Court, and other organisations; word of it must surely have spread.

Still. This was looking more and more like a carefully planned operation by somebody with considerable information. Someone who’d been paying close attention to what we had been doing this past year.

We turned a corner, and the library rose before us: a statuesque construct, a cathedral to knowledge, its gleaming white walls glittering with glass. Another person came barrelling out of the entrance as we watched and hurtled down the steps, a woman with soft brown hair, an armful of books, and a harried expression. They weren’t wasting any time: clearly they expected this incursion wouldn’t remain a secret for long.

Was this their only goal? Robbing the library?

Would that alone have rattled the unflappable baroness so?

Jay stealthed up the wide stone steps to the entrance, neatly evading further bandits dashing out with more books. I wondered where they were taking them, pictured trucks driven up to the gates of Farringale somewhere and filled up with stolen material. What a coup—if they could pull it off.

I smothered a rebellious corner of my soul that traitorously wished we had thought to come here with trucks and empty the library—there were reasons why we hadn’t, we had ethics and standards and we didn’t do this sort of thing, let it go, Ves—and followed Jay up the stairs.

Inside, chaos reigned.

On our last visit here, the library had been shrouded in dust and silence, like Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted tower. Spellbound, as though the city had fallen asleep, and might wake at any moment.

Now it bustled with the worst kind of activity. Easily twenty people were looting the shelves, hastily, haphazardly, scooping armloads of delicate tomes onto the floor and shoving them into boxes. Others merely grabbed eight or ten off the nearest shelf and ran for the door. I winced at the thud, thudding as more and more books fell off their shelves and landed in crashing heaps, sending waves of dust into the air.

Rage set my heart afire; I could have screamed my fury.

As much as I could understand the desire to loot every single page of precious knowledge out of the lost library of Farringale, I could never condone this—this—this travesty, this piracy. Nobody cared if the books were damaged during this shambles of a process; nor did they care that the right of ownership over them was emphatically not theirs.

They weren’t emptying the great library of Farringale; they were destroying it.

My feelings were echoed in Jay and Rob, for the three of us stood frozen in shared horror for some minutes. It defied belief, that anybody with a value for knowledge could treat the place with such a total lack of respect—how could they—

‘Right,’ I said, crisply, and the syllable contained worlds of steely resolution.

‘Right,’ Jay agreed, grim as death.

Rob merely nodded. We were agreed. Whatever it took, we were stopping these people.

But we were here on reconnaissance only. We didn’t have the numbers to mount a counter offensive, and it would take days to muster that kind of a force and get it all the way down here (we had only the one Waymaster, and there was no conceivable way Jay could be expected to cart a hundred Society members across such a distance).

By the haste with which these thieves were working, they knew this. They weren’t planning to be here in a few days’ time; they were getting the goods and getting out. By the time reinforcements arrived, it would be too late—at least for the library.

If there was ever a good time to go catastrophically, devastatingly Merlin on somebody, this was it.