contemporary fantasy

It was too cruel to abandon my mother to her new role among the Yllanfalen straight away, though I was sorely tempted, for her sudden accession to rank and privilege had only soured her temper further. But Jay and I agreed to stay for a day or two, to see that she received suitable care.

We needn’t have been concerned. The sprites may have treated my father with indifference, but for some reason they adored my mother. They flocked around her, plied her with curatives and pillows and sweetmeats and every good thing, and played her lullabies until she fell asleep (or hurled her pillows at their heads, which she tried once and never attempted again, for the immediate and predictable result was a mass pillow fight).

Ayllin conducted her, very late that night, to a sumptuous suite of rooms near the top of the King’s Halls (henceforth to be termed the Queen’s Halls, no doubt). Whereupon, she disappeared into the depths of the largest, most ornate bed I have ever seen, and for the next two days thereafter spent little time awake.

My father was not disposed to await her waking. He consented to spend a night among the Yllanfalen, but no more, for bright and early the next morning he appeared in the Queen’s Breakfast Parlour (where Jay and I were dining in mother’s place) with the brisk air of a man desirous of immediate departure.

‘She’ll do fine,’ he told me, then hesitated. ‘Won’t she?’

‘Once she’s got used to the idea. You haven’t seen Delia when she’s got a project in hand. The Yllanfalen won’t know what hit them.’

‘My commiserations to the Yllanfalen.’

I smiled. ‘No, I think this is just what Ayllin and the rest were hoping for. It might take them a while to get used to my mother’s methods, but she’ll get the job done.’

‘And what’s the job?’

‘Overhaul?’ I shrugged. ‘If they want to survive, well, no one survives the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune like my mother.’

‘With or without a full set of hands.’

‘You see my point.’

He smiled, faint and wintry. ‘Maybe the lyre got it right, the second time.’

‘It must’ve seen some qualities in you, Dad.’

‘Goodness knows what they were. Anyway, I depart.’ He nodded at Jay in friendly enough fashion, who nodded back, and added a wave. ‘Take care of Cordelia,’ said Dad.

‘It’s Ves,’ I said.

Jay grinned at me. ‘I will, sir, but you should have realised by now: Ves is more of a chip off her mother’s block than she likes to think.’

‘I don’t know what that is supposed to mean,’ I said, with a flinty look.

He pointed a chunk of fresh bread at my face. ‘That, right there.’

I composed my features into an expression of sunny serenity. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Dad hesitated. In fact, he positively dithered. ‘Cordelia—’ he began.

‘Ves.’

‘Ves, then.’ He dithered some more, then gave up whatever the point might have been, and shook his head. ‘It was good to meet you.’

‘Mm. You too.’ I watched as he walked away, dithering a bit myself.

Jay was busy buttering another roll. He said, without looking at me, ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t.’

‘Curse it.’ I launched myself out of my chair and ran to the door, just as my father disappeared from view. ‘Dad?’

He returned. ‘Yes?’

‘Erm. Sprites?’ I said, groping at thin air. ‘Anybody got a thing to write with?’

‘A thing?’ said Cadence in my ear, though without troubling to manifest.

‘Pen, pencil, quill, tomato juice, fresh blood— ah! Perfect, thank you.’ An exquisite pen of coiled silver leaves appeared in front of my nose, together with a miniature scroll. When I set pen to paper, a shimmering silvery ink poured forth. Never have my name and phone number looked more magnificent.

I handed the results to Tom. ‘In case you feel more like being a dad than being a king.’

‘It’s possible,’ he said, and tucked the paper into his trouser pocket. ‘I couldn’t have been less interested in being a king.’ He stooped to give me the briefest peck on the cheek, and then he was gone.

I wandered back to Jay, feeling vaguely dissatisfied with this response. ‘Does that mean he does or doesn’t want to be my idol, role model and hero?’

‘I don’t wish to insult your father, but I think he’s a tiny bit of a coward,’ said Jay. ‘It’s my belief he’ll square up to the idea, though, given a little time.’

I leaned my cheek in one hand, and toyed with a bit of fruit left on my plate (some unidentifiable thing resembling a peach crossed with a cherry). ‘I’m not sure I want a coward for a hero.’

‘You’ve courage enough for both of you. Cut him some slack.’

‘Is your father a hero?’

‘Every inch of him.’ Jay said this with pride, but it was mixed with something wry and rueful. ‘I’ll introduce you sometime.’

I perked up at that. If Jay wanted to present me to his heroes, maybe I wasn’t doing a bad job of being Ves after all.

Jay smirked at me, and added, ‘I’d better make sure they put on a spread fit for a princess.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why not? You’re the descendant of a king and a queen.’

‘My father was king in name only, and doesn’t count. Anyway, it’s not hereditary around here, however much Mum might have wished otherwise.’

‘I wonder why she wanted that for you.’

‘Mum was always good at that. Long periods of neglect, then some peculiar attack of remorse and she’d make some big gesture to make up for it.’

‘This was a pretty big gesture.’

‘Six years was a pretty long silence.’

He conceded the point with a nod. ‘So what’s next for us, if it isn’t royalty and privilege?’

I went to chew a fingernail, and stopped myself in the nick of time. ‘I want to contact the Court at Mandridore, see if there’s news about Torvaston’s book. Or that box of junk we picked up.’

‘Junk?’ Jay spluttered. ‘The jewels on that scroll case alone could buy my parents’ house.’

‘I meant junk in the sense of random. A fork? A snuff box? What does it all mean?’

‘Maybe nothing. I imagine even kings accumulate clutter.’

‘Don’t ruin my dreams.’

‘Sorry.’ He grinned. ‘I’m sure it’s the Enchanted Fork of Magick and Wonder.’

‘Doubtless. And the Snuff Box of Mystery and Dreams.’

‘With a naked lady on the lid.’

‘It wasn’t a— no, never mind.’

‘Wise choice.’

After a couple of days of kicking our heels in the Queen’s Halls, hobnobbing with the sprites (mostly me), and playing hauntingly beautiful music on every instrument we could lay our hands on (mostly Jay), we grew bored.

Actually, that was mostly me, too.

I announced that my mother clearly had no need of us, and set forth to bid her a firm goodbye.

I found her reclining in a state of near unconsciousness in her boudoir of pillows, attended by three hovering sprites. Her eyes opened when she saw me. ‘Cordelia.’

‘Mother. We’re off.’ I bent to kiss her cheek.

‘Wait.’ She sat up, wincing. ‘The— the lyre. Where is it.’

‘Lying on your throne. Do you mean to retrieve those pipes, by the by?’

‘Nope. We don’t need ‘em. Nor the lyre either, for now. Take it.’

My feelings about that idea could only be expressed by my backing away, very quickly. ‘No. I’m not touching it.’

‘Get Jay to take it, then.’

‘I don’t think he wants to touch it either.’

She snorted. ‘One of you will have to.’

‘Have to?’

‘I promised Milady.’

‘A few things have changed since then.’

‘A promise is a promise. Take it.’

‘Milady wouldn’t choose to divest the new Queen of the Yllanfalen of her sacred instrument—’

‘Take it.’ Mother was growing agitated, which in her case meant aggressive. ‘I promised her. She made me promise.’

‘Made you?’ I echoed numbly. ‘No one can make you do anything, Mother.’

‘Except for Milady. Cordelia, the sole reason you were sent out here was to get that lyre. You won’t be popular if you go back without it.’

‘Why does she want it so badly?’

Mother wheezed, which I realised was meant to be a laugh. ‘She told me all about her plans in exhaustive detail, naturally. After that, we had a pyjama party and braided each other’s hair.’

‘I see your point.’

‘Mm.’

‘I’m still not touching it.’

‘Then I hope your man Jay’s braver than you.’

‘He’s not my— I’m not a coward!’

Mother just looked at me.

‘Fine, we’ll take it. But what does the damned thing even do, besides install monarchs on that shiny throne down there?’

‘I don’t know, quite, but…’ Mother lapsed into thought for a moment. ‘It has an unusual line on the past, I think.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I can sense bits and pieces of a location’s past, to a certain degree. I told you that. When I had that lyre in my hands…’ She was growing tired with the effort of talking, and fell silent for a moment. ‘Whoosh,’ she finished feebly, making a something-exploding gesture with her good hand.

If Mother was right about that, I began to get an inkling as to why Milady wanted to borrow it. ‘It would make sense,’ I suggested. ‘It is an instrument of history and tradition.’

‘Until lately.’ Mother’s eyes crinkled in a tired smile.

‘Change comes to us all. But why aren’t we borrowing you as well as the lyre, in that case? Your ability there isn’t too common.’

‘Milady probably has someone for that.’

Could be so. The Society employed quite a lot of people, and Milady made a point of collecting the rarer talents.

Mother’s eyes closed again. I watched her for a little while, trying to convince myself that her pallor was fading. She looked terribly weak, and somehow… forlorn, adrift within that enormous bed by herself.

Her eyes snapped open. ‘Weren’t you going?’

‘Right. Sorry. Bye, Mum.’

‘It is a truly remarkable thing,’ said Milady upon the following morrow.

Jay and I were at the top of her tower, comfortably seated in chairs of House’s providing. The lyre occupied a plinth before us; that, too, had been spun out of nothing by our beloved House, and it was of fitting beauty: silver studded with amethysts, and attractively carved. House had style. The moonsilver lyre sat there sparkling dreamily in the sun, its strings peacefully flowing, emitting a faint, fae melody to tease our ears.

I’d taken it up, at first. Jay had taken one look at my eyes, and swiftly swiped it off me.

‘Nope, nope, nope,’ he’d said. ‘Bad idea.’

I’d studied him carefully for some minutes afterwards, but he showed no signs of developing the same peculiar symptoms as I did.

And lo, Jay became our designated lyre-carrier.

‘It’s one of the oldest Great Treasures I have seen, or even heard of,’ Milady continued, in a voice of uncharacteristic enthusiasm. ‘To think that it has been lying in a pond these thirty years!’

‘I can only apologise for my father,’ I said.

Milady said, more gravely: ‘I must apologise, Ves. I had no idea the venture would prove so… personally significant for you.’

‘Except that it began with my mother.’

‘Delia gave me no reason to imagine you were so completely out of touch.’

‘Would you have chosen differently, if you had known some of these things?’

When Milady decided to be open and honest, she really did it properly. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Shall we move on from the apologies, then? Why have we just retrieved this lyre?’

‘I believe it may be of use to us in the matter of Farringale, and perhaps the fifth Britain. If the reports of its talents are true, much may be learned. It goes to Orlando’s department at once, and I have hopes of hearing something shortly.’

‘Orlando? Why?’ He was our inventor. His specialty was new stuff, not dusty old artefacts.

‘Because nobody understands the inner workings of enchantments better than he, and his associates. How do you suppose he produces such high quality products? His creations are not produced out of thin air. He has studied a vast number of existing artefacts and treasures.’

‘Right. Has there been any word from the Court?’

‘Little of relevance, yet. Torvaston’s book is being translated and studied as we speak, though it has yet to shed any light on those objects you retrieved along with it.’

My heart sank a little. I’d hoped to have something new to dive into as soon as we returned.

Perhaps Jay had, too, for he said: ‘What would you like for us to do next, then?’

‘You are free to take some time off, if you’d like.’

Time off? My mind went blank at the prospect. When was the last time I’d had more than, say, half a weekend of free time?

‘Great,’ said Jay, rising from his chair. ‘Because it’s Anaya’s birthday, and I’m late.’

‘Convey my greetings to your family, Jay,’ said Milady.

‘Absolutely, ma’am.’ Jay bowed.

‘Who’s Anaya?’ I asked as he passed me.

‘My sister.’

‘How many sisters do you have?’

‘Three. I’ll see you in a couple of days, all right?’ He smiled at me, and left.

A couple of days. I watched the door close on his retreating back.

‘Can I stay here?’ I asked, trying not to sound plaintive.

Milady hesitated. Probably she should say no.

‘Yes, Ves,’ she said instead. ‘It has been a difficult week for you, hasn’t it?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Of course. There’s chocolate in the pot. And on this occasion, you will find your pot on Valerie’s desk.’

I found two pots on Val’s desk, in fact, and some more joys besides. Enthroned atop the expansive surface lay my favourite book in the world: dear Mauf, his purple covers gleaming. And curled atop Mauf was a tufty bundle of yellow fur, sound asleep.

Val was deep in a book, of course; I rarely saw her in any other state. She did not immediately look up as I trailed into the library, so I sat in the chair opposite and laid my cheek against Robin Goodfellow’s soft fur.

‘Bad week, hm?’ said Val.

‘Mmpf,’ I said.

She closed her book, handling it with tender care. ‘The Baron left those for you. He’s off on some kind of diplomatic mission, and said you’d probably want them.’

‘So I do.’ I sat up and poured chocolate.

‘Is that for me?’ said Val, pointing at the second pot.

‘I expect so. Milady sent me down here.’

‘Why?’

‘No idea. Actually, she didn’t send me so much as put my chocolate down here as bait.’

‘I don’t have much for you to do.’

‘It’s okay. Apparently I am having “time off”.’

Valerie blinked. ‘Oh.’

I gulped chocolate.

Valerie watched me with her steady dark eyes, and nodded slowly. ‘You’d better tell me about it, hadn’t you.’

‘Do you want to hear about it?’

‘I don’t know. Do I?’

I began, wretchedly, to laugh. ‘It makes the most farcical story. You may not believe me.’

Val took a swallow of chocolate, and grinned. ‘I like farce. Hit me with it.’

And I did.

A week drifted by, only some of which I spent at Home. After a day or two of basking in House’s familiar comforts, I felt obliged to remove to the Scarlet Courtyard, and bask in Mrs. Amberstone’s comforts instead (which, to be fair, are not insignificant). Jay had leave to remain with his family for much of it, which was doubtless good for him. I tried to recall if he’d managed to have more than an afternoon off since he’d joined the Society, and concluded possibly not. Good sport, Jay. It would be a shame to burn him out.

The problem with a lifestyle like ours is, you forget what to do with free time. I lounged; I chatted with Val; I caught up on a bit of walking, and a bit of reading. There was cake, which I ate listlessly.

I slept too much.

No doubt this was good for me, too, for when a summons to Milady’s tower materialised some eight or nine days later, enthusiasm couldn’t begin to cover my feelings.

I was back at Home and at the top of the tower within an hour.

‘Welcome, Ves,’ said Milady as I ventured in. An elegant chair had been placed for me, facing the centre of the room, where manifested the faint sparkle in the air that was all one ever saw of Milady. The suggestion of a second chair occupied a spot nearby, an intangible outline; House had got halfway through conjuring another, and paused.

‘Good morning, Milady,’ I said with my usual curtsey, and took the solid chair.

‘I trust you are well?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If a little bored.’

The sparkle intensified: amusement. ‘You ought to have time off more often,’ she said. ‘There are laws about that sort of thing.’

I tried to feel as though that would be a nice idea. ‘What would I do with it?’

‘Jay, for example, has been—’

‘Visiting his family.’

Milady acknowledged the justice of my unspoken objection with a polite silence. ‘Relations with your mother are…?’

‘Still peculiar. Likely to become more so, now that someone’s been idiot enough to give her free rein to boss everyone around.’

‘Perhaps she will benefit from a suitable outlet for that side of her personality.’

‘I am unlikely to see anything of it, if she does.’

‘Very well.’ I braced myself for questions about my father, but Milady permitted the subject to drop. ‘I would have spoken to you yesterday, but we await Jay—’

‘Here,’ said Jay, and the door opened smartly to admit him. He smiled at me, looking bright-eyed, glowing with health and very happy indeed.

‘Good week?’ I said, returning the smile.

‘Splendid. The girls are doing well. Dev’s up to his eyeballs in exams, but he’ll fly through them; nobody’s worried about that except him. And I met—’ He stopped abruptly, and cast me a look I found it impossible to interpret. ‘It was a good week,’ he finished, and turned away his eyes.

The second chair took solid shape, and Jay sank into it. ‘I brought Indira back, ma’am. She’s on her way to Orlando.’

‘I know. Thank you, Jay.’

He grinned. ‘Of course you do.’

‘I have a new assignment for you both,’ she said. ‘If you are ready to continue?’

‘Perfectly,’ I said.

‘Absolutely,’ said Jay.

‘Excellent. I have had word from Mandridore regarding those books you secured from Farringale. They are not yet fully deciphered, and there is some disagreement as to the precise import of some parts. However, there appears to be some support for the hypothesis you formulated on that occasion: namely the links between magickal creatures such as griffins, and magickal surges.’

‘So they are linked,’ I said, with a glow of satisfaction.

‘There appears to be some support for the idea,’ Milady repeated, which meant: maybe, but don’t get carried away. ‘Certainly it appears that the causal relationships here may have been misinterpreted. Are griffins drawn to areas of excess magick, or do certain areas become concentrated sources of magick because of their griffin population?’

‘Maybe some of both,’ Jay suggested.

‘Yes; a symbiosis, which can on occasion get out of hand. That is possible, maybe even likely. And if this is the case, then the gradual decline of magick in Britain can be partly attributed to the commensurate decline in such creatures as griffins.

‘So: what can be done about this?’

All sorts of possibilities popped into my mind, one thought chief amongst them. ‘Had they begun to realise this in Torvaston’s day?’

‘Yes,’ said Milady. ‘His books indicate that the notion had occurred to the Court’s scholars. Of course, there is no real consensus among academics as to when the decline truly began, or how far back it can be traced; reports are conflicting, and conclusions differ widely. But if Torvaston and Hrruna knew of it, then that casts a different light on some things.’

‘Such as what they were doing with Farringale’s griffin population,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Torvaston wasn’t magick-drunk and addicted. Maybe he was… trying to help.’

‘Both,’ said Milady. ‘Possibly the former came about as a result of the latter, at least in part. His books seem to indicate it.’

Which made him a rather tragic figure after all, if it was true.

‘What was he really doing on the fifth Britain, then?’ said Jay. ‘Were he and his entourage really looking for a new home? Were they exiles?’

‘That is unknown. The books we have were written before that occurred, of course. If any records were created afterwards, they are presumably on the fifth Britain.’

‘Is that where we are going, then?’ I said.

‘It is. The scroll-case and its map suggest that Torvaston had a mission planned in advance of the disaster at Farringale. I want the two of you to find out what it was, and what became of it.’

Jay and I were silent for a moment, figuring out everything Milady had not specifically said.

‘The maps were of the fifth Britain, were they?’ I said. ‘The Vales of Wonder, and the Something Mountains?’

‘Hyndorin,’ supplied Jay.

‘Right.’

‘Since that is where Torvaston ended up, it seems likely,’ said Milady. ‘But there is nothing on the maps to confirm it beyond doubt.’

‘And the books? Do they explain why he wanted to go to those two places?’

‘Not in clear terms. However, the Court believes that the mission was bound up with the question of the sources of magick, and its connection with what are sometimes called the beasts of mythology.’

What had Torvaston’s scholarly book been called? A Treatise Upon Magicke: Its Sources and Histories. Something like that. And we’d heard that the fifth Britain had a much more thriving population of creatures like griffins than we did. Coincidence? Perhaps not.

Furthermore, the griffins of the fifth collected in places like the very Vales of Wonder Torvaston had been heading for.

I had to agree with the Court: there was a clear case for investigation here.

‘Is this a solo mission?’ said Jay. ‘Sounds like it’s coming from the Court.’

‘They have proposed a joint effort.’

‘And you were saving us for this,’ I said, rather cheekily.

‘I was.’ Milady admitted it with perfect serenity. ‘The Court undertakes to spearhead this venture, at least officially.’

‘So technically, we are working for them again.’

‘Technically.’

‘And the Ministry?’

‘The Hidden Ministry will be informed once we have solid findings to share.’

I grinned. ‘Top secret mission it is.’

Jay glanced at me. ‘Who are they sending to go with us? I assume we’ll have help.’

‘That is not yet known. You have one day to prepare, and will depart for the Fifth tomorrow. Whoever is to accompany you will be here by then.’

I understood from Jay’s sideways look that he was worried it might be Alban.

It probably would be Alban, to be sure. But was I worried about that, too?

I rather thought not.

Maybe?

No.

‘Is there anything else?’ I said, dismissing the subject from my mind.

‘Yes. Don’t forget to take the moonsilver lyre.’

‘Ves shouldn’t touch it,’ Jay said quickly.

‘Then you may carry it.’

He saluted. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And, Ves, if you can contrive to take your unicorn companion along, you may also find that a useful measure.’

Who better to take on a find-the-mythological-creature game than a unicorn, indeed?

‘I imagine it can be managed,’ I said. ‘Are we using Millie again?’

‘The Court has prepared her for service.’

I hoped the process had proved a pleasant one for Millie, whatever it had entailed.

‘There is one more thing,’ said Milady, as I rose from my chair.

I paused. ‘Oh?’

‘If at all possible, I want you to find Miranda.’

I froze. ‘What?’

‘And take her with you.’

‘But— but she’s a traitor.’ That was Jay, sounding unusually upset for him.

‘She remains among the foremost experts on magickal beasts in Britain.’

‘Are there more? Can’t we get one of the others?’

‘They are unavailable.’

‘Why?’

‘Two are somewhere in South America, in search of the camahueto. They have been gone for some months, and are not expected to return for some time. One is too elderly, at ninety-seven, to accompany you on any such venture. And the last placed himself beyond our reach when he accepted an offer of employment from Ancestria Magicka.’

Jay was frowning fiercely. ‘Miranda accepted an offer of employment from Ancestria Magicka, and betrayed us on her way out.’

‘She may appreciate an opportunity to make amends.’

‘Or she may betray us again.’

‘Find her, please.’ Milady’s voice developed a rare note of steel. ‘It is my belief that you will be glad of her expertise.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said quickly, forestalling Jay’s next objections with a slight shake of my head.

‘Excellent. Good luck, then. Please report first to Orlando. He has some new equipment you may find useful.’

Jay and I trailed out.

‘Well,’ said Jay, with a frustrated sigh. ‘Marching orders. Only: where do we even begin looking for Miranda?’

‘Good question,’ I said. ‘But I have a feeling she never left the fifth Britain. And if she didn’t, there’s one person who might know where to find her now.’

Jay nodded. ‘Right. Time to go see Zareen.’

***

“Fun” for all the family, right…?!

Next we’re going back to the Fifth Britain for a whole world of shenanigans, but first let me remind you about two things: there’s an ebook edition of Music and Misadventure, if you’d like your own copy to re-read. Also don’t forget to check out my Patreon club, for exclusive stuff (previews of new episodes, ebook copies of every book I write, plus extra short stories!)

Okay, onward. Hold on to your hat…

Turn page ->

‘It’s about the lyre,’ I said to Ayllin.

‘I could have guessed that much,’ she replied. Her eyes strayed to my father, still seated upon his throne, with the moonsilver lyre in his lap. I tried to read her expression, but failed; she was impassive, after an icy fashion.

‘Can you fix it?’

Her gaze returned to me. ‘Fix it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it broken?’

‘Um. My father’s presence on that throne says it is.’

To my surprise (and discomfort), she smiled at that with genuine amusement. ‘Perhaps he is not the only one who has drawn such a conclusion,’ she said. ‘But he’s no less wrong for it.’

‘I… don’t understand.’

‘How did you get it back?’

‘The lyre?’

‘Yes, the lyre. What is it doing here?’

‘We retrieved it from the water, obviously.’

‘We?’

‘Yes. You knew that was the goal — you helped us. So why do you ask?’

Her lips pursed. ‘I have helped many on that particular quest. I had no reason to imagine you would be successful, but it is always worth another try.’

‘So you wanted the lyre back? My father said—’

‘Your father appears to be spectacularly misinformed,’ she said, betraying a trace of irritation. ‘Which ought not to surprise us, considering he has spent a mere matter of hours among his people.’

‘His people threw him out. Is that not the case?

‘His people required a period of adjustment, to adapt to so much change. If he had stayed—’

‘If? Did the Yllanfalen throw him out, or did they not?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And the lyre with him.’

‘There was anger. It was my fault. I mishandled the matter.’

‘So I heard.’ I folded my arms, and did my best to stare the lady out of countenance. I do not much enjoy being so thoroughly confused. ‘The lyre was meant to choose you, no? But strayed into my father’s hands by accident. Mishandled indeed.’

‘Accident? It would be impossible to control the course of that lyre on festival night. It takes its own course, and chooses who it will. I had hoped it would choose me, but it did not.’

‘Hoped! So you did not manipulate its song? You didn’t fix it up to pick whoever got hold of it next?’

‘Is that what our precious king thinks?’

‘He is quite convinced of it.’

‘Well. He’s modest enough, I will give him that.’ A faint smile ghosted over her face. ‘He is still wrong. Supposing it were possible to impose such a course upon that lyre, and I highly doubt it: no Yllanfalen could be so crude. Don’t you see? It is not enough simply to have a monarch, any monarch. It must be the right one for the era. One who can be… what we need.’

‘And what did you need, thirty years ago?’

‘Change.’ She was not laughing now. ‘We had grown set in our ways. Too hidden from the outside world, too closed to everything that is not tradition. It is a poor course for any culture, is it not? Look at the wider world now. So many kingdoms, so many cultures, have faded away forever — and it’s my belief they exacerbated their down troubles by their very efforts to mitigate them. Closing one’s doors to progress achieves nothing but stagnation and decay. We did not want that for the Yllanfalen.’

‘We?’

‘Our former queen, and many others, including myself. Did you never ask your father why he was here that night?’

‘No… nor my mother either.’

‘That was no accident. It was our choice to throw open the doors, to invite everyone who might feel some affinity with us and our ways. And if the lyre chose outside of our own people: perhaps that would be right.’

‘But your own people were not quite so happy with this as you’d hoped.’

‘No. Neither, crucially, was your father. And that is one thing we did not count on: the lyre must choose a monarch, but the monarch must also choose themselves. Your father did not.’

I took a moment to think, and wrap my head around Ayllin’s words. The ground was shifting under me so fast, I could barely keep up. ‘Right. But, wait. I see that it went wrong, and — what, the doors were closed again anyway?’

‘With greater emphasis than before,’ said Ayllin, with a wry smile.

‘Talk about unintended consequences.’

‘Yes. Rather what I meant, when I said that one’s best efforts to mend a problem can sometimes deepen it.’

‘But why then did you never try again? Why leave the lyre languishing at the bottom of a pool for thirty years?’

‘Oh, we tried. And we encountered a new problem: over some things, the monarch’s will holds total sway. One such, of course, is the lyre.’

‘Ohgods.’ I thought back to my doomed attempt to swipe that other set of skysilver pipes off the effigy of King Evelaern. ‘That’s why we couldn’t get the pipes.’

‘You tried, did you? Many have tried before you. And many tried to remove the lyre, too, with no more success. The bottom of the pool was its appointed place, as far as our king was concerned. Only he could reverse that command, and take it out again.’

My breath stopped, for a long, agonising moment, as my mind turned a few unhappy somersaults.

‘What?’ said Ayllin. ‘What is it?’

‘Um,’ I croaked. ‘Only the king…?’

‘So it seems, for none other has succeeded.’

‘And… and, um, do you have to play the lyre in order to be chosen as monarch?’

‘That is how it has always been done.’

‘But you wanted change.’ I had to laugh, though the sound had more despair in it than mirth.

Ayllin’s eyes widened. ‘It… it was the king who retrieved the lyre, wasn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘Was it… you?’

‘No.’

I saw dismay in her face. ‘Was it that handsome fellow you travel with? He plays the ancient airs like no one I’ve heard.’

My eyebrows rose. ‘Jay? No.’

Her face fell. ‘Then it was—’

‘That lady. Yep.’ My mother was on the approach, elbowing people aside as she stomped and pushed her way through the crowd. She looked in as good a mood as a day of disasters and constant pain was likely to produce, and fixed both of us with a forbidding scowl.

‘Cordelia,’ she growled. ‘These sprites will not leave me alone.’

Looking behind her, I saw Cadence, Euphony, and Descant, together with a few unfamiliar ones. How many more might be hovering invisibly around her?

Ayllin gave a great sigh, and I detected a brief roll of her eyes heavenwards. Then, to my surprise and my mother’s obvious disgust, she performed a graceful curtsey and said: ‘They are eager to greet you, Majesty, as am I. Welcome.’

Mother stared. ‘You appear to be mistaking me for my… for that man.’ She waved her stump in Dad’s general direction.

‘I think not.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’ Mother turned her shoulder to Ayllin, and frowned darkly at me. ‘I begin to think you were right. I’d be glad of some rest. Can we go? I can’t get that boy to stop playing the piano either.’

A fine concession from my mother; it told me that she was suffering, if her pallid face and weary gait had not been enough. ‘I don’t think that’s going to be possible now, Mother. Though if you want rest, you’ve only to say so, and your people will no doubt provide you with everything you could want.’

‘This isn’t an amusing joke, Cordelia.’

‘No. No, it really isn’t.’

‘Then take me home. I am sure the selection of a new leader can go on without us.’

‘It’s already happened.’

The sprites, indeed, were backing us up with coaxing professions of joy, devotion and concern, together with assorted requests and petitions. My mother ignored all of it.

‘The thing is, Mother,’ I said, interrupting her next diatribe. ‘You shouldn’t have been able to take the lyre out of the pool at all.’

‘Shouldn’t? But it was the easiest thing in the world. I just reached in and…’ She trailed off.

I mustered a faint smile. ‘It seems you weren’t the only one to try that. You were the only one to succeed, though.’

‘No.’ Mother stared at me with something like anguish. ‘It was meant to be you. I took the lyre for you!’

‘Nonetheless.’

‘But you wanted it, Cordelia. Anyone could see that, whenever you looked at it—’

‘I may lust after that lyre, but not the trappings that go with it. Besides, Mother, you miss the point. It’s not about wanting the lyre. It’s about the lyre wanting you.’

‘Why would it want me?!’

‘Good question. Are you going to argue about it all night?’

‘Or,’ Ayllin put in, ‘run away from us, like the last one?’

‘What makes you think your damned xenophobic people will want me any more than they wanted Tom?’

‘Tom’s accession was thirty years ago. Change touches us all, in the end.’

‘There’s one way to be certain about this,’ I said. ‘Ayllin, you must know that my mother has scarcely a drop of musical talent in her.’

Ayllin’s lips quirked. ‘Well, that is certainly… new.’

‘Quite. So, let’s go talk to Dad.’ I took hold of Mother Dearest and plunged into the crowd, heading for the throne. I’d expected to spend a few minutes pushing and shoving in order to reach it, but Mother — ever her impatient self, and now infinitely weary to boot — barked, ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, just step aside!’

And they did. A clear corridor opened up for us through the throng of people, giving us an unimpeded view of the throne.

Mother gaped. Those who’d so obligingly cleared space for us looked scarcely less surprised.

I grinned. ‘Oh, life never gets any less bizarre, does it?’

Jay stepped into view, flanking my father’s right hand. He’d abandoned the piano at last, apparently in favour of a little lap-harp, which he cradled in both hands. A wooden flute hung around his neck. ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

‘We’re about to witness a coronation,’ I told him. ‘Of sorts.’

He looked aghast. ‘Ves, no. You can’t let yourself be pushed into this.’

I flashed him a swift smile. ‘Don’t panic. It isn’t me.’

His eyes went from me, to Mother, to Ayllin, and settled on the latter.

‘Nope, wrong again. Dad? Can we have that lyre a minute?’

My father, for all his complaints, exhibited a trace of reluctance as he held out the lyre. I wondered what it had cost him to throw it away in the first place, for all that he did not want the responsibilities it conferred.

But he was holding it out to me; even he could not grasp the truth without assistance. I stepped aside, and ushered Mother forward.

‘Just give it a quick go, Mum. If you’re right and this is an absurd joke, you’ll soon prove it.’

Mother glowered at me, but snatched up the lyre with her good hand. There followed an ungainly fumble, for a one-handed lyre player will always find herself at a disadvantage.

My father’s eyes sparked with amusement. ‘You’ll need to sit down,’ he said, and rose from his own seat upon the throne. ‘Why don’t you try this one?’

Muttering something about conspiracies, Mother plunked herself down on the throne and settled the lyre in her lap.

And the matter was promptly settled, for once she’d set her good hand to the strings, her fingers began to move as though she had played the lyre since the cradle, and what poured forth was the most heavenly, ambrosial melody I could ever remember hearing. She even outdid Jay’s playing; her sudden talent far exceeded mine.

I gave up a polite round of applause. ‘Congratulations, Father. You’re liberated.’

And my father, wretch that he was, promptly went off into a gale of helpless laughter.

Turn page ->

Some half an hour later, a period of intense search on the part of the three sprites, and the four of us as well, it was Descant who suddenly screamed, ‘I FOUND IT!’

Her sisters rushed to her side, as did Jay and I, though there was nothing to see. She had hold of a fine, large bubble in her small fist, its shell pearly-white, and she waved it around in triumph. ‘It’s the oldest of all the old ones! Here, Cadence, see if it isn’t the oldest.’ And she delivered the melody into her sister’s hands with a flourish.

Cadence considered it closely. ‘It is well-found, Descant. We will see if the lyre remembers.’

‘How old is the lyre?’ asked Jay.

I looked at it, but being unfamiliar with Yllanfalen aesthetic history I was unable to determine anything to the purpose at all. Except that it was pretty. So very, very pretty… its curves shone moon-bright, and its strings flowed like sunglow on the sea—

‘Ves,’ said Jay, and gently turned me around until my back was to the lyre.

‘Thanks,’ I sighed. ‘Why does it do that?’

‘Maybe it’s because you’ve got those pipes. Like calls to like.’

My adored Great Treasure was proving to be almost as much a liability as a boon, here in this place of its making. That seemed unfair.

I heard music, then, and cautiously turned back around. Cadence had done I-don’t-know-what with the melody, and now the lyre was playing it by itself, its fluid strings rippling in song as an ancient, haunting air filled the echoing library.

I hastily turned my back to it again. Curse the thing, it was almost agonisingly pretty.

‘What’s this song?’ said my father.

‘The King’s Lament,’ said Cadence.

‘A song of mourning.’

‘Yes.’

It did not sound sufficiently lamenting, to my ear, to qualify as a dirge, but then different cultures do mourn in different ways. This was a hopeful tune, and perhaps that was fitting enough.

Once the song’s final strains had died away, though, the lyre lapsed into a thrumming silence, ostensibly unchanged.

Father picked it up and played an experimental note. ‘Ineffectual,’ he pronounced.

‘In what fashion?’ said Cadence.

‘I want to restore the lyre to its state prior to the events of thirty years ago. Before Ayllindariorana altered its song—’

‘Ayllin?!’ said Jay and I together.

‘That woman?’ said Mother.

My father looked helplessly at the three of us, nonplussed. ‘You’ve met.’

‘She’s the one who guided us through to the vault,’ I said. ‘She’s the reason we found you at all.’

‘But why would she do that? She hates me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. She wanted to install herself as queen, not me.’

‘Why?’ I said.

He blinked. ‘What?’

‘Why did she want to be queen so badly?’

‘I never asked.’ He snorted. ‘I hadn’t time. They were too busy throwing me out.’

‘They who? Was Ayllin one of them?’

‘I can’t remember.’

Jay and I exchanged a long look. ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ said Jay.

‘Not a bit,’ I agreed. ‘For another thing, if she was willing to go to such lengths to queenify herself, how did the lyre just happen to wind up in your hands instead, Dad? You’d think she would have taken care to eliminate such happenstances.’

‘No one can eliminate the effects of chance.’

‘True,’ I conceded. ‘Perhaps it was just an accident.’

‘Were you much acquainted with her before that night?’ asked Jay.

‘No.’

‘But she told you her plans anyway.’

‘Not before! After, when she was tearing my face off for getting in her way.’

Mother said, ‘We need to talk to that woman.’

‘She’s not popular with you, hm?’ said Jay.

‘I don’t trust her.’

‘No,’ agreed Jay. ‘It would probably be wise not to.’

Mother scowled, and said nothing.

‘The lady Ayllindariorana,’ said Cadence, ‘has often visited this library.’

‘To do what?’ said Father.

Cadence shrugged. ‘She reminisces with the music.’

‘She’d like to go back to the old ways, would she? No doubt.’

‘You know,’ I put in, ‘if she wants to be queen so much, and nobody else in this room wants the job, perhaps she should just have it.’

‘But she’s a liar,’ said Father. ‘And she cheats.’

‘I don’t see how that’s worse than a king who’s ignored his kingdom for the past three decades,’ said Mother.

‘And it’s par for the course for leaders, anyway,’ I muttered.

Father threw up his hands. ‘Fine. You’re right. If it gets me out of this mess, Ayllindariorana for queen.’

‘Right.’ Mother squared herself up for the task ahead. ‘Where do we find Lady Longname?’

But Descant interrupted before anyone could answer. Her squeak of excitement split the air, and she threw a bubble-song up into the air with glee, and caught it again. ‘This one, this one!’

Cadence took it, and examined it. ‘The Queene’s Rapture,’ she intoned, in a singsong voice.

‘There’ve been queens!’ said Mother. ‘Good. You all bang on too much about the kings.’

‘I think you mean queenes, Mother,’ I said. ‘With an E.’

She gave me her are-you-crazy stare. ‘What?’

I couldn’t explain what it was about Cadence’s… well, cadence, that had put the thought into my head, so I just said, ‘Nothing,’ and let it go. At least Jay smirked.

‘Ancient faerie queens are always spelt with an E,’ he agreed.

‘Exactly! Especially the extra magickal ones.’

‘Was this an extra magickal one?’

‘Indubitably. Just listen to that.’ Cadence had set the new song to the lyre, and its dulcet tones now swamped anything else I might have said. I’d heard something before, and recently too, with a similar texture — layers of fae magick woven into the melody — where had it been?

My pipes distracted me, by jumping to join in the singalong. The music deepened, and so did the magick. We all stood bespelled, even the three sprites, until silence returned. When it was over, the lyre seemed to have developed a brighter radiance. Or was that my imagination?

‘A little better,’ said Father, testing the tone. ‘But there is a resistance here.’

Cadence appeared unsurprised.

‘Can you go back to being the person you were thirty years ago?’ she said, rather cryptically.

‘I’d like to,’ said Father.

‘Would you?’

He hesitated, and thought.

‘I would not,’ said Mother. ‘I was an idiot at that age.’ It could be considered ungenerous of her to glower so darkly at my father as she said it.

He spread his hands, his eyebrows going up, the gestures saying as eloquently as words, not my fault!

‘Ahem,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we could argue about who is to blame for my earthly existence some other time?’

Both parents scowled at me for that, but at least they stopped arguing.

‘Lady Smugboots, then,’ said Mother. ‘Where is she.’

‘That song,’ said Father. ‘We’ll take it along.’

Since they spoke at the same time, it took the rest of us a second or two to parse these separate pronouncements.

‘Yes, Majesty,’ said Cadence.

‘I’m not—’ began Father, but was soon defeated by Cadence’s twinkling, impish smile. ‘Right, have it your way.’

‘Maestro Ayllindariorana is not in the Halls,’ said Euphony. Her eyes went a bit peculiar as she said it, as though she was looking at something very far away — walls notwithstanding.

‘We met her in the town,’ I said. ‘Presumably she went back there after she’d got rid of us.’

‘Got rid?’ Father’s brows snapped together.

‘We did get the impression she was glad to see the back of us.’

‘Or maybe she was glad to see where we were going,’ said Jay.

‘One way to find out. To the town?’

I heard a sigh from my mother, a soft one rapidly suppressed. It did then strike me that she was looking grey around the edges again, and her shoulders were slumped.

No wonder, either. Caught up as we’d been in mystery, magic and adventure, we had barely noticed the hours passing. But night must be falling outside, and once it occurred to me to consider the matter, I realised I was ravenously hungry. We’d been running all day, and our last meal had been too many hours ago.

‘Perhaps we could rest a little first,’ I suggested. ‘Dear sprites, do you suppose there is anything resembling sustenance to be had in these parts?’

‘There is!’ said Euphony. ‘In the Queene’s Orchard.’

‘Does everything around here come with a royal label?’

‘It is the King’s Halls,’ Jay pointed out.

‘Right. Fine. Which way to the Queene’s Orchard, please, Euphony?’

She did not answer, except by an airy laugh. Then, the library dissolved into faerie dust, which swirled around me in a dizzying, twinkling whirlwind.

When it passed, I was standing beneath the arching boughs of a twisted old tree, its gnarled shape casting long shadows on the grass in the dying sunlight. From its boughs hung a multitude of apples. ‘Cadence,’ I said. ‘Descant, Euphony? When we’re finished here, I’d really like to talk to you about some exciting employment opportunities at The Society.’

‘Hey,’ said Father. ‘Those are my retainers.’

‘So you’re the king again now?’

‘If you want them, you take the monarchy too.’

‘You drive a hard bargain, Father.’

He smirked, and reached out for a plump golden-green apple. But the moment his fingers touched it, it became a wrap sandwich stuffed with what looked like curried chicken, and fell tamely into his palm.

We both looked at it in silence.

‘Pork pie!’ said Mother, and added gleefully, ‘I love pork pie.’

Since Jay had a bag of crisps in one hand and a fat samosa in the other, I judged this to be a highly unusual orchard.

When I reached for an apple of my own, I received a miniature cheese-and-onion quiche and a chunk of Bakewell tart.

‘You know what,’ I said, clutching my prizes. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to be the queene.’

Mother smirked around her mouthful of pie.

Sustenance and rest restored my mother, to a certain degree, but not enough. The passage of an hour found her slumped beneath a sheltering apple tree, her back against its trunk, eyes shut against the further demands of the day. I watched her for a while, wondering how it was that she had made it through so many hours, even with the restorative I had given her. She sat cradling her injured arm, enduring a species of pain I could only imagine.

Tough lady, my mother.

I’d rummaged through the remains of my minimal equipment, and come up with one more dose of the restorative potion. But, should I give it to mother? She would use it as an excuse to go on, and on, and on, until she collapsed altogether. Potent as it was, I doubted it could bolster her through the demands of, perhaps, a sleepless night filled with frenzied activity.

Would she consent to being left behind? Certainly not.

Would a single night’s rest do more for her good than the potion? No, probably not either.

So, then. What was the quickest way to wrap up this bizarre misadventure, the sooner to get my mother out of the kingdom of Yllanfalen and into a hospital, where she presently belonged?

I sat beneath my own tree for the majority of that hour, apart from the rest of our disparate company, and thought.

When at length Jay stood up, peered at me through the twilight, and said: ‘We had better find Ayllin before nightfall, no?’ I shook my head.

‘I have a better idea,’ I said.

‘Uh oh.’ Jay took two steps back.

I smiled briefly. ‘I don’t think you’re going to like it all that much.’

He folded his arms, squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin. ‘Right. Hit me with it.’

‘We’re throwing a party.’

‘A what.’

‘Like the one my esteemed parents attended thirty years ago. Forget finding Ayllin — let her find us, together with the rest of the kingdom, when they all show up for the festival.’

‘It’s not a festival day, is it?’

‘The king is going to declare a new one.’ I beamed at my father. ‘Right now.’

Turn page ->

‘Now that we’re here,’ I said, as we trudged upstairs towards the grander halls, ‘how does one go about mending the lyre?’

‘I don’t know, precisely,’ said my father. ‘But it is to do with its song. Something has been altered in its melody.

‘Which means what?’

‘Means it needs to remember how it used to sing.’

‘Vague.’

‘It is the best I’ve got.’

‘Then we’ll take it. Are these old songs recorded somewhere, by chance?’

‘That is my hope. There used to be a library, of sorts.’

‘I love libraries.’

He smiled sideways at me. ‘We have that in common. But the library I speak of is not quite what you’re thinking. This is the Library of Music, and while it has some books of written melodies, the majority of its collections are composed of other records.’

‘Such as?’

‘You’ll see.’

On our previous visits, the King’s Halls had been so absolutely empty that we’d grown careless, traipsing about the place like we owned it.

When we arrived at the Library of Music, that changed. We’d heard the distant strains of faerie melodies as we’d walked, growing nearer and louder with every step; ‘That is not unusual,’ Father had said. ‘There is always music in the Library, with or without anyone to play it.’ But as we stepped over the threshold, we found that Tom was right — and also wrong.

I saw at once what he had meant about “other records”. Melodies hung all about the doorway as we entered the vaulted chamber, strung together like chains of bubbles — or beads. I reached out to one, touched it; I couldn’t resist, any more than I could resist caressing a particularly beautiful book. The moment my fingers brushed its iridescent blue shell, it sparked with a pale light, and a lilting song filled my mind, sung by a hundred voices. It had an air of antiquity about it, and I judged it early modern in era.

There was no restraining myself after that, of course, for they were everywhere: wafting in puffs of light and mist from wall to wall, clustering in multitudes under the ceiling, and filling up the corners. Some attempt had been made to organise them, for the large, square room was fitted with a great number of clear glass cabinets; behind those locked doors waited many a melody, bobbing to their own tunes. But the quantity had far outpaced the librarians’ efforts to store them, and the result was a charming chaos. I went through it like a pig in a cake shop, greedily absorbing melody after melody until my ears rang and I could scarce hear myself think.

Jay was just as enchanted as I. ‘Indira has to see this place,’ he enthused, his dark eyes alight.

‘Oh? Is she musical, too?’

‘We all are.’

‘All the Patels? What a talented family you do have.’

‘Music is a skill to be mastered, like any other.’

‘No doubt, but you do seem to have mastered an unusual quantity of skills between you, and at a young age to boot.’

‘I don’t sleep much.’

Neither did Indira, apparently. Was that by choice or happenstance? If by choice: why were they so driven?

And just how many siblings did Jay have, anyway?

Before I could ask any of these questions, though — once again displaying my splendid talent for getting distracted from the main point — a dry voice interrupted us. ‘Were you looking for anything in particular?’

So absorbed had we been, we had failed to notice that a large chair in one corner was occupied. It hadn’t even occurred to us that we might find someone else in the library. My parents were having a low-voiced argument in another part of the room, but they, too, stopped mid-sentence and observed the librarian in surprise.

If librarian she was. She had an appearance to draw the eye, being shorter even than me, and withered, but in the way that ancient trees are withered. Her skin was dark, dark brown, almost black, and her eyes the same; her hair, though, was an airy white, and drifted about her head like wisps of summer cloud. She was wearing a pair of old grey jeans, with a long cardigan over the top that looked hand-knitted. Hardly could she have been more different from the elegant Yllanfalen, or more incongruous a presence in that room of ethereal melody and magick.

I looked for signs of hostility in her face, or her tone, but there was none. Her eyes smiled at us, and I wondered what she had found so amusing in our behaviour.

‘We’ve come about the lyre,’ I said, when neither of my parents seemed disposed to explain themselves.

‘The lyre?’ said she.

‘The moonsilver lyre. Lyre of kings and queens.’

‘Has it come back, then?’ she said, with interest but without surprise. ‘It’s about time.’

‘Is it? I thought it was no longer welcome here. Was it not thrown away?’

‘Aye! And a greater piece of foolishness I cannot think of.’

‘Well,’ said my father, and held out the lyre. ‘Here it is. If you know how to mend it, I beg you’d assist us, for we can find nothing in this mess.’

The amusement gleamed more brightly in her eyes, and white teeth flashed in a grin. ‘Rather a shambles, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘But it’s a pretty mess, for all that. Was it the king’s old songs you wanted?’

‘Any that it used to sing, before it was changed. I thought that might help.’

‘Changed?’ The withered woman tilted her head. ‘Has it been?’

‘Naturally,’ said father. ‘For it would never otherwise have chosen me.’

‘Would it not?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Ah. You are unqualified, in some obscure way, for the role.’

‘In every way, I would say.’

‘But it seems the lyre would not.’

‘It was not… thinking clearly, if we may suppose that it thinks.’

Her head tilted again. ‘Was it not?’

Father grew impatient. ‘You cannot tell me the Old King’s Moonsilver Lyre deliberately chose a human to fill his shoes.’

‘I will not, then, if the idea offends you.’ She was laughing again.

‘It offended the Yllanfalen.’

‘It offended some of them. If the lyre did not mind it, then why should you?’

Father set the lyre onto a table, and gave a great, weary sigh. ‘I don’t want to be king of this place.’

‘Ahhh. Then we get to the real trouble.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Few are given the right to choose their own course in life. Our paths are as much chosen for us, as by us.’

‘I’m choosing not to take this one,’ said Father firmly.

The withered woman nodded. ‘And you’d like the lyre to choose someone else.’

‘Yes. I’ve been hiding from the damned thing for thirty years, and my daughter imagines it might be possible to stop.’

Those bright black eyes flicked to me, and stayed there.

I tried to look wise and innocent in equal measure, and probably failed equally too. ‘That and I thought the Yllanfalen might like to have a king again.’

‘They have done very well without one.’

‘Have they, though? Look at this place. Abandoned, ignored. All their ancient culture is seeping away, and they’re letting it go.’

‘If that is their choice, why does it matter to you?’

‘I protect culture, and tradition, and history. It is my job, my purpose… I don’t understand why a people would let theirs slip away like this. I cannot believe that they really wish it.’

‘Perhaps they don’t, at that.’ The woman leapt out of her chair, so suddenly as to startle me, and I took an involuntary step back. She seemed overflowing with energy, despite her apparently advanced age, and I felt in that moment that she could achieve anything. ‘Let us try to mend a culture, then, shall we? And see what comes of it.’

‘Who exactly are you?’ snapped my mother. ‘Do you have aid to give, or just weighty words?’

‘She’s a sprite,’ said Father.

The sprite cackled in a fashion I found decidedly unspriteish. ‘I am Cadence,’ she said. ‘I and my sisters can help you find the Old King’s songs.’

‘Sisters?’ said Father faintly.

‘I am Descant,’ said a second voice.

‘And I am Euphony,’ said a third.

I whirled to find two more sprites appeared out of nowhere: both shorter still than Cadence, one with skin as purple as a ripe beet, and the other as pale as me. I could not guess which was which. They were both ancient; an unforgiving fairy tale would have termed them haggish. But they were as merry and quick as their sister, and as sharp, I judged.

To my surprise, these two bowed before my father and said: ‘Majesty.’

‘I’m not your king,’ he growled.

Their eyes strayed to the lyre sitting meekly atop the nearby table. ‘But the lyre says—’

‘And should a pile of enchanted metal make all your important decisions for you?’ he said.

‘It is the way of things,’ said the pale one (Descant?)

‘Hush, Euphony,’ said Cadence. ‘It is unwise to argue with kings.’

‘But you did! A moment ago! I heard you.’

‘Aye! And it is the king’s will that I shut my mouth and bend my wits to the task at hand.’ Her laughter was back, squarely directed at my father.

‘The sooner then you may be rid of me,’ said Father calmly.

‘We don’t want to be rid of you,’ said Descant. ‘It’s dull here all alone. We want the music back.’

‘You have every imaginable strain and song in here.’ Father gestured vaguely at the plethora of magickal musics drifting every which way. ‘Is this not enough for you?’

‘They are echoes,’ Descant replied. ‘Like memories. Imagine if you had only memory left, nothing real—’

‘I would love for you to have your kingdom back the way it was,’ Father interrupted. ‘But not with me at the head of it. I will do everything I can to help you replace me. Fair?’

Descant looked ready to argue, but a warning look from Cadence silenced her, and she bowed her head. ‘Only it is perfectly king-shaped already,’ she muttered rebelliously, almost too quietly to be heard.

‘It is!’ said Euphony. ‘Tall enough, to be sure! And the lyre loves it.’

‘It does not love the lyre.’

‘It is a fool.’

‘Shall we want a fool for a king?’

‘Why should a fool not be a king? It has come about before.’

‘But is it a good king? Shall we want one that is not a fool?’

‘A wise fool? A merry fool?’

‘A cross fool! Look at the face. It despises us.’

Father took a breath. ‘Can we just get on with it? Please? I’ve a book to finish.’

Cadence waved her sisters to silence. ‘The old king’s old songs. Old, old, old. Find them all.’

‘Is it better to be old?’ whispered Descant. ‘If so, we’re in a fine space, sisters.’

‘Always better,’ said Euphony wisely. ‘The King says so.’

‘I didn’t say that—’ protested Father. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

Mother, to my surprise, laughed. ‘I like you,’ she said to the sprites.’

‘It is missing a hand,’ said Euphony to Cadence, and waved about both of her own. ‘How does it play?’

‘It doesn’t,’ said mother. ‘But then it never did, particularly. It’s my daughter that’s the musical one. And she’s got the king’s pipes, look.’

All three sprites surveyed me, with expressions deeply thoughtful, and — speculative.

‘Shall we have this one for the king, then?’ said Descant.

‘It looks merry enough,’ said Euphony.

Cadence smiled broadly at me.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I said, for my father’s words seemed to sum up the situation nicely. ‘Can we all please get off that idea?’

Turn page ->

‘The Yllanfalen are a fine people, all told,’ my Father began. ‘Noble, enlightened, highly talented. But where there is power, there will always be those with a desire to seize it at any cost. So it was thirty years ago, when the old king passed and the time came for another to step into the role.

‘I’d travelled into the kingdom of Yllanfalen because I was a student of music at the time, and of magick. I wanted to develop the combined arts, and where better to do that? They are rightly legendary for their prowess at magickal melody and song. I knew nothing about the succession, and cared less. I just wanted to play.

‘And play I did, when my turn came around. What I did not know was that the lyre had been, by some means, corrupted, before it fell into my hands. Its ancient song no longer worked as intended. Instead of selecting a suitable monarch by its own judgement, it would simply bestow the crown on the next person to play it. It was meant to fall into other hands than mine; by some accident, I received it instead.

‘But it did not choose me, nor did I choose to accept the role. I didn’t want it. The night dissolved into chaos after that, for I was unpopular with everyone. She who had intended to take up the lyre and the monarchy both was furious with me, as you may imagine. The rest of the Yllanfalen were furious with us, too: me for being human, and the lyre for daring to install one over them as ruler.

‘They declared the lyre broken, and me an exile. Well, I was happy to go! I tried to leave the lyre with the effigy of old King Evelaern on the hill, but I couldn’t, somehow. So I threw it into the water. I found that the sprites were minded to obey me; exile I might be, but I was still the king by their law. So they took me home, and… I have never been back there since.’

I digested all this in silence for a moment. ‘So when they said the king had passed, they meant they’d thrown him out.’

‘They were probably speaking of the old king. Many among the Yllanfalen still consider the lyre’s last choice invalid, and fairly enough. I wasn’t really chosen.’

Jay said, ‘And they’re so happy with the idea of a human for a king, they’d rather have none at all.’

Father smiled faintly. ‘If you consider how superior they look to our eyes, only imagine how inferior we appear to theirs.’

Mother was silent among the wreckage of all her wild plans. When I saw the look of utter dismay in her eyes, I lost some of my desire to eviscerate her. Six years’ work crushed inside of three minutes.

Father wasn’t so kind. ‘So you see, Delia, your daughter—’

‘Our daughter,’ she interrupted, almost snarling the words.

‘—has no right to the monarchy at all, and they would never accept her even if she did. Such dreams ought to be put away.’

Mother shrugged, and offered me the lyre. ‘She can still have the lyre to go with those pipes. The Yllanfalen don’t seem to want it anyway.’

I put my hands behind my back. ‘No thanks. That thing scares the living daylights out of me.’

Jay, though, interceded — and not quite on my behalf. ‘Ves, the fact that you’re the only one who seems so drawn to it… that might be significant.’

‘What.’

‘The way your eyes reflect its light. Why? There’s some kind of connection between you and it that neither your mother nor I are subject to.’

‘Neither is your father,’ Mother put in.

‘Doesn’t mean it’s a good connection,’ I argued. ‘And it’s probably just responding to the palpable greed in my little heart whenever anything shiny is put before me.’

‘That could be it,’ Jay allowed, with a faint smile.

‘How did you get those pipes?’ said my father, with a sudden, sharp look.

‘Your unicorn,’ said Mother.

But he shook his head. ‘I wasn’t king long enough to form any bonds with the unicorns. If she’s got one of those trailing around after her, it’d be a former king in question. If any.’

‘Maybe Addie just likes me,’ I said. All in all, I much preferred that idea.

Mother held out the lyre to me, and said, with a deep weariness, ‘Please. Just take it. Apart from anything, I promised Milady.’

‘You promised Milady what?’

‘I promised the Society the use of the lyre, if we got hold of it. Why not? If you claimed it, you’d surely share.’

The possibility that Milady and my mother had conspired together to shove me onto a faerie throne did not much improve my mood. I opened my mouth to express some of this.

My expression of simmering rage apparently tipped my mother off, for she held up her stump. ‘No, I didn’t let her in on the queen-of-all-faeries plan.’

Queen of All Faeries. I distantly remembered awarding myself that title, around about age five, during many of my solitary games. I was hardly the only child to do so, surely. What was wrong with my reprehensible mother?

‘I’m sorry, Delia,’ said Jay firmly, ‘but I think we’ll have to disappoint Milady. That lyre has to go back to the Yllanfalen.’

She blinked up at him in shock. ‘But they don’t want it. You heard the man.’

‘It’s Thomas,’ said my father. ‘In case anyone was interested.’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Thomas what?’

‘Thomas Goldwell.’

I offered my hand, which he took, and we shook hands with exquisite politeness. ‘How nice to meet you, Mr. Goldwell.’

‘And you, Miss… Goldwell.’

Was that my name, then? Cordelia Goldwell?

Nah. I’d been Vesper all my life.

But hey, a proposed name-change was a vast improvement over the horror with which he’d earlier looked upon me.

‘Call me Ves,’ I said.

‘Tom, then.’

That settled, I was at leisure to attend to the argument unfolding between Jay and my mother. He was in favour of the lyre’s return, she staunchly against. The battle looked set to rage on for some time, and the combatants were evenly matched: my mother’s gritty, rock-solid stubbornness against Jay’s calm logic and inflexible morality.

I’d privately put my money on Jay.

‘But they don’t want it,’ shouted Mother, like it was at least the sixth time she’d said it.

‘That is beside the point,’ said Jay, raising his own voice more than is usual for him. ‘It is rightfully theirs. And if they don’t want it, it’s only because it’s been broken. They do want what it was before.’

‘We can’t just unbreak it,’ said Mother scornfully. ‘It’s broken for good. So if they don’t want the broken one, why can’t we have it?’

‘It needs to be mended!’

‘Do you have any idea how to do that? Because if the Yllanfalen did, don’t you think they’d have done it by now?’

I had to admit, that point of my mother’s was a hard one to answer.

But Jay had it all under control. ‘I’d say there’s one person who could mend it, perhaps with a little help. The problem is, the Yllanfalen didn’t want to have anything to do with him. We have no such feelings.’

Everyone looked at Tom, who held up his hands. ‘I will have nothing to do with this.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

Silence fell, and my father looked consternated. ‘Well — you heard. They threw me out. I’m forbidden from ever setting foot in Yllanfalen again.’

‘Why? For being human?’ I said.

‘That, and I think they believe I was the one who corrupted the lyre.’

‘You weren’t, were you?’ said Jay, with a narrow look.

‘No. I swear it. Only a madman could imagine the Yllanfalen would accept a human for a ruler.’

‘And only a madwoman would want to be queen of a faerie kingdom, for real,’ I snapped.

‘You’re serious,’ said Mother.

‘Utterly.’

She grumbled something inaudible. ‘Then you can explain to Milady about the lyre.’

‘Gladly.’

One parent down, one to go. ‘Dad?’ I said.

He visibly flinched.

‘We are going to need you.’

‘You cannot make this into my problem if I do not choose to permit it,’ he said, snapping straight back into his icy-cold routine.

‘It is already your problem,’ I said. ‘It’s been your problem for thirty years.’

‘Don’t you want to be able to forget about the lyre?’ said Jay. ‘Forever? Help us, and it won’t be your problem ever again.’

Father tossed aside his book. ‘There are days when I wish I just hadn’t woken up at all.’

‘Could turn out to be the best day ever,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘You’ve already found a daughter.’

Father did not look as though this had been as transformative an experience for him as I might like. He stood up, and did a spectacular double-take in my mother’s general direction. ‘What,’ he said in a terrible voice, ‘happened to your hand?’

Mother gave her wolf-grin. ‘Why don’t I tell you about it on the way.’

So, back we went. To Cumbria; to Sheep Island; to the extinct gnome village, and to the caverns beneath (now with fewer lindworms!).

Mum made Dad carry the lyre.

He wasn’t happy about it.

The lyre, though, clearly was. It sang all by itself, without cease, adjusting its airy melodies to the circumstances as it saw fit.

And so it was, that our reluctantly heroic quartet set off in search of adventure with our own theme music to accompany us.

I keep thinking there’ll come a day when life will get a little simpler — or at least less absurd? Dream on.

‘What happened with you and your mother?’ said Jay at one point, somewhere en route.

‘Nothing?’ I said. ‘Which is sort of the problem.’

‘But she talks as though you two were close, when you were a child.’

‘If we were, I don’t remember anything about it. She sent me to boarding school at the age of six.’

‘That’s… young.’

‘Rather.’

‘Why would she do that?’

I could only shrug. ‘Jay, you’re the product of a solid marriage where both parties wanted to become parents. Or so I assume. I’m the product of a drunken one-night stand between two deeply irresponsible people. Why my mother didn’t just abort me I will never understand.’

‘Maybe she decided she liked the idea of parenthood after all.’

‘Then changed her mind after a few years? All too possible.’

‘Aren’t you glad she went through with it, even so? I know I am.’

He’d earned a smile with that one, so I bestowed my best one. ‘Thanks. Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Though I wish you’d had a better childhood.’

‘Apparently it’s not entirely vital after all. I turned out fine.’

Jay was silent after that. Whether that was because he’d said everything he wanted to say on the subject, or whether he privately disagreed with my assessment of my character in adulthood, I decided not to ask.

I did turn out fine… right?

These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as we wandered back into the King’s Halls, our party augmented by one king. I should’ve been paying more attention, though, for we were little more than halfway across the cellars when mother abruptly stopped and said: ‘Lindworm.’

‘What?’ I gulped. ‘I can’t—’

‘It’s fine.’ My father took up the moonsilver lyre, played exactly three perfect notes, and while the crashing sounds of a lindworm on the approach rent the air, he stood with perfect composure and waited.

It came on in a rush, jaws agape, and looked ready to devour my father in one gulp.

Dad played those three notes again, and said in a ringing voice: ‘No.’

The lindworm stopped dead, closed its jaws with a snap, and then — I kid you not — it put its great head in the dirt and literally grovelled before my irascible parent.

‘Go,’ said Father. ‘Leave these halls to me.’

And the lindworm went.

‘Was there something?’ said Father, in response to our three-way stare.

‘Nothing,’ I squeaked.

‘It’s good to be the king,’ said Mother, with a sideways glance at me.

And damn her, she wasn’t wrong.

Turn page ->

I might be becoming an old hand at travelling by the Ways, but this was something else.

We were whirled up, up and away into the aether; so far, so ordinary. After that, we were leaves on the wind, and not in a cute way. Ever watched a coppery autumn leaf tossing and turning in the currents, sailing with airy serenity from gust to gust? It looks like the epitome of freedom.

It feels like crap.

As if the Winds themselves weren’t “playful” enough (as Jay had euphemistically put it), invisible hands snatched at my clothes, my limbs, my hair, and sent me tumbling in dizzying spirals. After half a miserable minute of this, I was longing for solid ground beneath my feet and praying, otherwise, to die.

When at last the whirl of winds ceased, and I felt approximately stationary again, the first words to pass my lips were: ‘A pox on all sprites. One of the really bad ones, too.’

‘Smallpox,’ said my mother.

‘Too… small.’

‘The Black Death,’ said Jay.

‘Might do.’

‘Actually,’ came a new and unfamiliar voice, ‘they’re sylphs.’

I opened my eyes.

Considering the starting point and our mode of transport, I’d expected to end up somewhere else improbably beautiful, even if it ended up being another clone of Hansel and Gretel’s forest.

Instead, we’d landed in somebody’s living room. I felt carpet under my hands — reasonably plush, not cheap — and the ceiling I was staring at was white plaster, with fussy ornaments in the corners. A huge bookcase monopolised the far wall, and tucked into the corner was a standard lamp with a kingfisher-blue shade, and a deep, luxurious armchair.

In the armchair sat a man of, maybe, sixty. His hair was grey, his face rather tanned, his eyes extraordinary: a kind of silvery-blue colour. He looked unassuming, in his wine-coloured jumper and dark trousers, with a large book open on his lap. His stare, though, was penetrating.

‘I appear to be horizontal,’ I said.

‘It’s rare to encounter the sylphs and come out standing,’ said the man.

I looked around, wincing around a pain in my neck. Jay had already made it to his feet, and stood with his back to the window, looking rather… trapped.

Mother had dragged herself into a corner, like a wounded animal, and sat scowling at the person we’d inadvertently gate-crashed upon.

‘Have I changed that much?’ she growled.

The man closed his book and turned a thoughtful stare upon Mother. ‘When a trio of hitch-hikers wash up without warning in my living room, it’s rather too much to expect to know them as well.’

‘Just one,’ said Mother. ‘Just me.’

I sat up, and peered at the man with unabashed scepticism. This was the gorgeous lyre-player? He looked ready to become somebody’s kindly grandfather about now, or he would if it wasn’t for that steely stare.

‘Mum,’ I said. ‘This can’t be him.’

‘It is,’ she said.

‘It can’t be.’

‘I know, but it is.’

‘Mother. He’s either under the best fae glamour I’ve ever heard of, or he’s human.’

‘You’ve come from the rath?’ said the man, ignoring this exchange.

‘The what?’ said Mother.

‘The fort. Is my effigy still there?’

I stared. ‘Your effigy?’ I blurted.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ He smiled, faint and wintry.

I clutched, involuntarily, at my pipes, which proved to be a poor move. His eyes zoned in on them immediately, and if I thought he’d looked intimidating before… ‘You took my pipes?’ he said.

‘These aren’t your pipes,’ I said hastily. ‘At least, they might be, but they’re not the ones from the rath. And anyway those aren’t your pipes either, they can’t be, because they’re the king’s pipes and you aren’t the king.’

He endured my babbling with enviable serenity and only said: ‘Am I not?’

‘You’re human.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

I blinked. ‘Who ever heard of a human faerie king?’

‘Every man, woman and child in Yllanfalen, more’s the pity.’ The man opened his book again, and went back to reading.

A glance at my mother’s face suggested she was as impressed with this conduct as I was.

So I threw my pipes at him.

Okay, not at him, quite. They landed harmlessly in his lap.

 ‘All right,’ said his rudeness, the purported faerie king. ‘Why are you here?’ He picked up the pipes and subjected them to close scrutiny. I saw his eyes widen a fraction, though he quickly hid his reaction.

‘We came looking for you,’ said Mother.

‘I gathered that. Why?’

‘I told you. I know you.’

He played a few notes on my pipes, just enough to instantly lay my pride in the dust. With ten years of practice, I thought I had got pretty good at the art.

If I was pretty good, he was a maestro. Under his hands, my little pipes produced a sound of such aching beauty, I felt tears spring to my eyes.

I hate emotionally manipulative music.

As he played, he stared unblinking at my mother’s face, and slowly shook his head.

‘Does this help?’ said my mother. She withdrew the lyre from under her arm, held it up, and let its full radiance shine.

And, oh, shine it did. It shone like the moon.

The king-who-might-not-be dropped the pipes, and silence reigned.

Then, he put his face in his hands. The muffled words, ‘Oh gods, no,’ emerged.

‘Not the response I was hoping for,’ muttered Mother.

‘Thirty years,’ said he, without removing his hands. ‘Thirty years, and no one’s been foolish enough to remove that thing.’

The thing in question was busy being so indescribably beautiful, I was wounded on its behalf at so unflattering an epithet. I sat and watched it shine, entranced. The strings really were water. They rippled, and they were faintly pearly, like moonlight on the river…

‘Ves,’ snapped Jay, and interposed himself between me and the lyre. He snapped his fingers in front of my face. ‘Your eyes are changing again. Focus.’

‘Fine, I’ll put it away,’ said Mother.

‘Best do, or I’ll feed it to the nearest sewer-grate.’

‘At last, someone with sense,’ said the maybe-king. He narrowed his eyes at Mother. ‘You were there, weren’t you. That night at the halls.’

Mother rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I was present.’

‘Delia.’

She went quiet, and finally said, ‘You do remember.’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t entirely look pleased about it.

‘But you weren’t human, that night,’ said Mother.

‘Glamoured. My own face, only better. More beautiful… you know how it works,’ he finished with a scowl.

‘Mhm.’ Mother apparently went into an appreciative reverie.

‘Are you the king of the Yllanfalen or are you not?’ said Jay, in tones of exasperation.

‘No,’ said the man.

‘Then what have you been talking about?’

He threw aside his book. ‘I was, until I managed to get rid of that damned lyre.’

‘What’s the lyre got to do with it?’ I said.

‘Everything.’

I looked from him to Mother, deeply confused. Nobody had even touched on the topic of his possible fatherhood, yet, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I saw nothing in his face that reminded me of my own, but what did that signify?

I detected a shade of uncertainty in my mother’s eyes.

‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to explain,’ said Jay, with a politeness that seemed a trifle forced.

‘I will do that,’ said the erstwhile faerie king, ‘once I understand what you are doing in my living room.’

No one spoke. Jay and I were waiting for Mother to explain, but she sat cradling that mischievous lyre in silence, her face impassive.

I sighed. ‘We came looking for… the lyre. Or you. Or both.’ I waved a hand at my silent parent. ‘All her idea. Jay and I are still catching up.’

‘Great girl, my daughter,’ said Mother, placing a slight emphasis on the last word.

‘I’m not a girl, mother. Hit womanhood quite a while ago.’

‘This is your girl, hm?’ said the not-king.

I gave up the point. ‘Mum, if you’re waiting for him to figure it out on his own, we could be here a while. Could we maybe save some time?’

Mother rolled her eyes, and strummed her fingers lightly over the lyre’s watery strings. ‘Cordelia was born about eight and a half months after that night,’ she said.

Well, that got Dad’s attention. He reeled back as though she’d thrown something at him, and stared at me in dawning horror.

‘Hallo, Father,’ I said, casually tossing back my hair.

My show of nonchalance did not fool Jay, at least. He drew nearer to me, as though closing ranks against the parental complications. I appreciated that.

‘That’s impossible,’ my maybe-father gasped.

‘Biologically speaking, it’s highly probable,’ said Mother.

‘But not definite?’ I disliked how quick the wretched man was to leap on that point.

Mother studiously avoided my eye. ‘The other alternative is rather less likely.’

So much for Richard Rosser. No wonder he’d never contacted me.

‘So you brought her here to meet me.’ There still wasn’t a trace of welcome or joy discernible in his face, and I developed a sudden, fervent desire to tear my mother’s other hand off with my teeth.

One’s ego can only take so much in the way of a beating.

‘Yes…’ said Mother, and you can bet all three of us caught the hesitation in the word.

Finding three pairs of eyes fixed upon her, Mother gave up all in a rush. She lifted the lyre, waved it at me — at me — and said: ‘It’s about Cordelia meeting her father, but it’s also  about this. If she is your daughter, then… then this, and everything it signifies, is her birth right.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘And what does the lyre signify, Mother?’

‘Ohgod.’ That was Jay. He looked like he wanted to copy my father’s fine example, and put his face in his hands. ‘You said the lyre had everything to do with the monarchy. It’s not that the king gets the instruments as some kind of perk, is it? Whoever owns the instruments is the king.’

‘Or the queen, in this case,’ said Mother, with a smug quirk of her lips.

I backed up so fast, and so far, that my back hit the wall with a thud. ‘Oh, no. No way, absolutely definitely not, you have got to be joking…’ I shook my head vigorously. ‘No. You said anyone can play the lyre on festival days! Anybody!’

‘Anyone can play it,’ said Mother inflexibly. ‘I also said, no one else could play it like that.’

I hadn’t heard my father play the lyre, but if he played it the way he’d played my pipes, then fair enough.

‘But I can’t play the pipes half so well,’ I objected. ‘If musical talent is an indicator of royalty then I’m out.’

‘Because they haven’t chosen yet,’ said Mother placidly. ‘It’s not about musical talent at all. It’s about— oh, you explain.’ She cast an irritable glance at my father.

He sat back, wide-eyed with amazement. Or amusement, damn him. ‘These instruments were made by King Evelaern himself, long ages ago,’ he said. ‘Your mother is right: it is an ancient ritual and an ancient spell. When one monarch is ready to pass on the crown, the instruments choose another. No one knows how.’ His lips twisted. ‘It hasn’t always been that simple.’

‘Why then didn’t you just let me pick up the lyre, if this has been the plan all along?’ I said to Mother.

‘I wanted to make sure your father was ready to hand on the crown, first.’

‘But— but—’ I was floundering. ‘But what do bloodlines have to do with any of this?’

‘Nothing,’ said Father flatly.

‘It’s passed down family lines before,’ said Mother stubbornly.

Father raised a brow at her. ‘Has it?’

‘I’ve researched the matter.’

He grimaced. ‘Done your homework. Very good.’

‘Why, Mother?’ I said. ‘Why by all the giddy gods would you want to install me as queen of some damned faerie kingdom?’

She looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Cordelia. You spent fully half your childhood playing at being the Faerie Queene.’

‘Just games! I was a child!’

‘But were they? Maybe it was your heritage speaking.’

‘Have you been planning this ever since?’

‘No. Only for the last half a dozen years.’

Having run out of words, I could only stare at her, flabbergasted.

Father held up a hand. ‘I feel I ought to enlighten you on one or two points.’

Jay said, ‘You mentioned it isn’t always simple.’

Father nodded. ‘Never less so than when I was chosen. I’d better tell you the story.’

Turn page ->

It wasn’t.

‘Addie?’ I called, playing snatches from her song from time to time in hopes that one or the other sound would penetrate the forest gloaming.

No answer came, and she did not appear. I trudged through tangled thickets of conifer trees, their trunks wound about with ivy so dark green in hue it was almost black. Pools of water hid beneath the carpeting brambles, the one wetting my feet and the other scratching my ankles and legs, and progress was slow. How had Addie managed to disappear so thoroughly with such terrain to hamper her?

Magickal faerie creature. Right.

At last I heard a faint whinny, and another, and I adjusted my steps accordingly.

But it was not Addie that had called. It was another unicorn.

Another two minutes’ trudging brought me to the edge of a shadowy glade. There the trees grew more sparsely, and grass rather than bramble and vine covered the ground. In the centre was a serene pool, its glassy surface darkened.

Around the edges of that pool stood a whole herd of unicorns. I counted at least twelve, including Adeline.

She was making enthusiastic friends with a great, golden-palomino stallion.

Very enthusiastic friends.

‘Oh,’ I said.

I turned away my eyes, and sidled up to the pool, for a glimmer of something had caught my eye.

There, submerged at the bottom of the clear waters, was the most exquisite lyre. Smaller than most, its arched, curving frame looked made from moonlight itself: the moonsilver was aptly named. It appeared unstrung, but what had Mother said about it? Strung with enchanted waters from the king’s own pools.

Was this one of those pools?

Either way, what was it doing here, instead of up on the hilltop with the rest of the lost king’s personal effects?

My feet being soaked anyway, I shrugged and began to wade into the water.

‘Stop.’ My mother’s voice split the clearing like a whiplash, and I stopped on reflex.

‘What—’

‘Remember what happened when you tried to take the pipes off the bier?’ Mother and Jay had made it as far as the glade, but they remained on the edge of it, well away from the unicorn herd and the pool. Both looked disquieted.

‘Yes, but this has nothing of the same appearance. Look at it. All lop-sided as though someone just chucked it in there.’

‘They probably did. And what would encourage a person to hurl a Great Treasure to the bottom of a pool, do you suppose?’

‘Nothing good. Even so—’

‘Never mind even so. Leave it alone.’

I felt a flash of irritation. ‘Mother. You’ve dragged us all the way out here in order to find this damned lyre and the man who once played it. No? Well, we’ve found one of them. There it is, right there! And now you want me to just walk away?’

‘Yes. We’ve found it; excellent. And that’s enough.’

‘We can’t just leave it here. The Yllanfalen will want it back.’

‘You think they don’t know exactly where it is?’

I frowned. ‘They said it was missing.’

‘Yep. All of them, over and over, using almost the same words. We suspected there was something shady about it, no? Come on, Ves. Fight it off.’

‘Fight what off?’

‘The lyre,’ said Jay. ‘Has a hold of you somehow. If you could see your own face—’

‘What’s wrong with my face?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jay peaceably. ‘But there’s something a little bit wrong with your eyes.’

‘Namely?’

‘They’re the wrong colour.’

‘And they’re what colour now?’

Jay pointed towards the moon-pale lyre glimmering with its silvery glow. ‘That colour.’

So I had moonsilver eyes.

Right.

Only then did I realise that the pipes around my neck were glowing faintly with a similar light.

Mother pointed imperiously at Adeline. ‘Unicorn,’ she said sternly. ‘You’ve led your friend into danger. Now get her out of it.’

The unicorns, indeed, seemed untouched by whatever weird fae magick was going on in that glade. Possibly they were a part of it; certainly they were attracted to it.

Adeline stamped one hoof, and snorted.

‘If my daughter comes a-cropper in this glade,’ said Mother darkly, ‘I shall cut off your tail.’

Adeline’s ears twitched.

‘And you’d deserve it.’

Slowly, with the demeanour of a scolded child, Adeline wended her way around the pool’s edge until she reached me.

Then, with deliberate and tender care, she bit my ear.

‘Ouch,’ I shrieked, as much with surprise as with pain.

But something shattered, and unwound. I felt as though I’d been doused in ice-cold water, suddenly alert. I became abruptly aware of the frigid temperature of the pool I was standing in up to my calves, and backed out of the water so fast I almost fell over.

Hands grabbed me and pulled me farther free: Jay had hold of me.

‘All right,’ he said calmly, once he had pulled me all the way back to the glade’s edge. He gave me a considering once-over. ‘You look nearly normal again.’

‘Nearly?’

He indicated the pipes in my left hand, which were still softly aglow.

‘I’m getting confused,’ I said. ‘Are these the king’s pipes, or was that the set up on the hill?’

‘This isn’t a story,’ said Jay, lips curving with faint amusement. ‘Why can’t the king have more than one set of special magick pipes? Maybe he made them both.’

‘Quite likely,’ said Mother. ‘Cordelia. What I was going to tell you before your mad dash to inevitable doom: those winds that blew up, those were Winds of the Ways. There are strong traces of Waymagick all over the hill and the forest both. Faded, to be sure — at least decades old. But there’s no mistaking it.’

‘So there must be a henge somewhere here?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘It’s my guess that whoever threw the lyre into the pool left by the Winds. But,’ she added, holding up a hand to forestall my response, ‘I don’t think that person was a Waymaster.’

‘What? How can you tell?’

‘Because the place is crawling with faerie magick, too.’

‘Hardly surprising. It’s a faerie glade, Mother.’

‘Yes, but even the fae don’t throw magick around willy-nilly without a purpose.’

‘The Winds aren’t what I’m used to,’ said Jay. ‘They’re more… playful, unstable, erratic. Like they’ve been summoned by an unfocused mind, or—’

‘By lots of minds,’ I supplied.

He nodded. ‘And whoever it is has been mucking about with them, like they’re a toy.’

‘Sounds very fae.’

‘Specifically,’ said Mother, ‘sounds very sprite.’

Of course. The music-seller had said the sprites tend gardens; from Ayllin we knew that they kept the doors, among other things — and they did not often show themselves. Were the glade and the forest awash with them?

‘Did they throw the lyre in the water?’ I speculated.

‘Maybe,’ said Mother. ‘But maybe not. It’s hard to sense under all the fae magick, but someone human’s worked enchantments here in the past.’

‘Your lyre-player?’

She shrugged. ‘No way to know.’

‘Can you catch these Winds?’ I said to Jay.

‘Yes. If we find the henge.’

‘Will you?’

‘If someone gave me good reason to.’ He folded his arms and gave me his sceptical look.

‘I want to find out where they go.’

‘And then do what?’

I shrugged.

‘Don’t you ever get tired of playing Trial and Error?’

‘Nope.’ I smiled.

‘This is the henge,’ said Mother.

Jay looked sharply at her. ‘Are you sure? I don’t see it.’

I realised that when Jay said “see” he meant with his Waymaster senses. It wouldn’t be the first time we had used a buried henge with no visible stones or earthworks.

‘Might be fairer to say it used to be a henge,’ said Mother. ‘But the residue’s still here.’

Jay nodded. ‘We can try it.’ He took a hold of me, and beckoned to Mother.

‘Just a second,’ said she, and stepped into the glade.

The unicorns had drifted away, and stood in a cluster on the far side of the pool, idly munching grass. At first I thought Mother was heading for them, perhaps Adeline specifically.

But no. Her path led her unerringly to the pool of water I had so lately been hauled out of. And she didn’t hesitate. She waded right in, up to her ankles, her calves, her knees.

‘Mother!’ I called, and ran for her. ‘What are you doing?’

She made it to the centre before I could reach the edge of the water. Quick as a flash, she plunged her healthy hand into the pool and snatched up the lyre.

I was wading in after her by then. ‘Mum, you bloody madwoman, what did you just say to me?’ I grabbed her and began hauling her backwards, hoping she would drop the lyre.

She didn’t. ‘I told you to leave it alone,’ she said, in a voice of grim satisfaction. ‘Didn’t say anything about me.’

‘Isn’t that just the way with parents,’ I growled as we stumbled out of the water. ‘A thousand rules for me, none whatsoever for you. What have you done?’

I looked full into her face, expecting to see that moonsilver shine in her eyes that Jay had described in mine. But it was not there. Her own, hazel eyes stared back at me, just the same as they always were. Not a hint of faerie glamour could I detect.

As far as I could tell, my mother had acted voluntarily.

‘Tell you later.’ She stuffed the lyre under one arm, where its strings of rippling water promptly soaked through her sleeve.

Oh well. She and I both were thoroughly drenched by then anyway.

‘Shall we go?’ She was looking at Jay, who had adopted his Bleak Stare.

‘Why did you do that?’ he said.

‘My daughter is right, we cannot just leave the lyre there.’

‘So why did you stop her from taking it?’

‘Because when it comes to faerie treasures, there’s always a consequence. A woman may weather the effects of one faerie instrument well enough. Not two.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘So you were protecting me. How nice.’

‘Is it so hard to believe?’

‘Yes.’

She scowled. ‘So, are we going?’

Jay’s eyes narrowed, but what more could he say? The damage, whatever it might prove to be, had been done.

‘Just keep the thing away from Ves,’ he said. ‘The second I see her eyes turn all moonish again, we’re throwing it away.’

Mum clutched at it like he’d have to remove her other hand first.

Jay returned her a stare that said, try me.

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Mum was looking at Jay. ‘That trick with the nothingness. You said you’d open a door through the lindworm.’

‘Not the same kind of door. I was just trying to express the general concept in comprehensible language.’

‘All right. But could it be adapted for this gate?’

Jay took a moment to consider. ‘No,’ he finally said. ‘A gate — the kind you mean — is an insubstantial thing, it has no tangible presence. In a sense it’s already nothing, and I can’t open a nothing in nothing.’

Mother took this philosophically, and lapsed into thought.

I wracked my brains, too. What was known about these intra-realm gates? It was the province of the various magickal authorities to maintain existing gate networks; The Hidden Ministry poured a lot of resources into it. And, naturally, they had all kinds of rules about how many gates should remain open, and which should be barred. The Society had no one with those skills, because it wasn’t part of our mandate.

That meant I, too, was rather more ignorant about the process than I liked. Opening a new gate is the kind of impossible even I won’t venture upon, so I’ve never considered the matter before.

Course, I told myself, we weren’t opening a new gate here. Just freshening up an old one, and purely for the purposes of detective work.

‘Ves,’ said Mother tightly. She was making strange gestures with her surviving hand, as though she was pulling on an invisible thread. ‘Help me here.’

‘How?’

‘Remember when I taught you to knit?’

‘You never taught me to knit.’

‘I did, when you were six. You were almost as bad at it as I was.’

‘How is this relevant?’

‘Well.’ She was sweating now, her face glistening in the moonlight. ‘If you think of the magickal world as a thing knitted up out of — of — well, magick, then it can also be unknitted. Someone’s gone through a door here, and they may have firmly closed it behind themselves, but the door’s still here.’

‘You’re unravelling it?’

‘So to speak. Here.’ She grabbed my hand and thrust it out before herself. And I felt something. Nothing tangible; more like a sensation that shivered through my skin, neither heat nor cold but something beyond those two things. Whatever it was wound around my hand like — ugh, like I’d thrust my arm into a knot of spider’s webs. ‘You feel that?’

‘I wish a bit that I didn’t, but yes.’

‘Great. Grab a handful and pull.’

I obeyed — but the moment Mum let go of my hand, the sensations vanished and I was groping at empty air. ‘You’ve a sensitivity I lack, Mum. You’ll need to guide me.’

‘Fine. I’ll do this, you do that.’

We did all that, Mum keeping a firm grip on my wrist with her healthy hand and me using both of mine to tear holes in the magickal fabric of the Halls of Yllanfalen. As mother/daughter bonding events go, it was a weird one, but I’d take it over nothing at all, any day.

After twenty minutes or so, Mum — who’d been periodically waving her stump of an arm about, apparently testing the tear we were making — said, ‘Stop. I think we can go through.’

I was happy to obey, for I was trembling with weariness by then. You wouldn’t think unravelling the very fabric of magick would take so much out of a person.

‘Just need a second,’ I gasped.

Mum rolled her eyes and stood up, which was humbling. The woman had lost three friends, a hand and a lot of blood in recent days, and she was still unstoppable.

I hastily pulled myself together.

‘You okay?’ said Jay, looking at me with a concern I both welcomed and mildly resented.

‘Fine,’ I said crisply, only belatedly aware of how much I’d sounded like my mother.

The thought crossed Jay’s mind too, for his lips twitched.

Mother said, ‘We’re wasting time,’ and promptly hurled herself head-first into nothingness. I tensed, half expecting her to land painfully on the quartz-rock ground, but she disappeared.

I smiled at Jay. ‘After me,’ I said, and leapt after Mother.

I’d expected to end up on some distant street in Britain somewhere, or perhaps a forgotten heath or moor in the wilder parts of the country.

That’s not what happened.

‘This,’ I said, picking myself up off the floor, ‘is not Britain.’

‘You don’t say,’ muttered mother.

We’d emerged at the top of a low, sloping hill ringed all around with pine and conifer trees. The surrounding forest had an air of utter impenetrability, and was shrouded in gloom.

How did I know it was not Britain? Because the same silvery mist that cloaked Lyllora Var poured out of those trees, and clung to the base of the hill. Said hill was grown all over with a grasses and moss of a tawny gold colour, and scattered with jewel-like flowers.

At the summit, about three feet away from where we were standing, was a low stone bier upon which lay a corpse.

It was, as one would expect from the Yllanfalen, a most attractive corpse. The man was clearly fae, as improbably beautiful as the rest of his kind, with pale golden hair and a face that looked sculpted from marble. He wore a long robe of the finest silk I’ve ever seen, richly embroidered, and a delicate golden crown encircled his brow.

Around his neck hung a set of syrinx pipes that looked exactly like mine.

‘Found us a king,’ I observed.

Jay stood frowning down at the exquisite corpse. ‘I don’t understand. Why would anyone rip open a gate between the lyre-vault and the king’s tomb?’

‘I think this is the vault,’ said Mother. ‘That bubble back there was the gate.’

‘But there’s nothing here of value, except those pipes.’

‘Thief on the loose, remember?’

‘Then why not take the pipes, too? If they’re as similar to Ves’s as they look, that’s a Great Treasure just lying there unclaimed.’

‘Okay. Let’s try it.’ I reached for the pipes, and instantly a great bell tolled somewhere, at a volume that left my ears ringing. The ground shook beneath our feet, and thunder cracked the sky.

‘Ow,’ I said, and speedily withdrew my hand.

‘All right, that answers that,’ said Jay. ‘But then, how was the lyre taken? Was it here at all?’

‘I’d say yes,’ Mother replied after a moment. ‘There are traces of something that seems consistent with a musical Great Treasure. But, I thought that about Lyllora Var, too.’

‘Who could take it?’ I said.

They both looked at me with identical puzzled frowns. ‘What?’ said Mother.

‘Who could physically reach in and take the lyre, if it was once here? Who is that scary thief-repelling enchantment not protecting the lyre against?’

‘If you’ve got some idea, Cordelia, please just share it.’

‘The lyre belongs to the king, doesn’t it?’

‘Are we back with the idea that the king isn’t dead, because—’ Mother stopped, and abruptly bent over the king’s gorgeous corpse, her nose inches from his chin. Silence stretched. Then she said: ‘I was about to say you were crazy, but maybe not. There are about eighty layers of magick shrouding His Majesty here, and since he’s demonstrably not skeletal I might reasonably take them for enchantments of preservation, reverence and so on. But they don’t feel quite right. It’s something else.’

‘Like what?’ said I.

She grinned suddenly. ‘Ever heard of a faerie stock?’

‘You mean the doll type things some of the fae used to leave in the place of stolen human children?’

‘That’s it, though they’re a lot more realistic than a typical doll. Significantly, they do a terrific job of looking like a recently expired person.’

‘So,’ said Jay. ‘These aren’t preservation spells, because this man was never alive?’

‘I’m thinking so. Which doesn’t mean the real king is still alive; he’s just as likely to be taking up ground-space as a skeleton somewhere. This is some kind of… shrine to his memory.’

‘So it probably included the lyre,’ said Jay.

‘If the King’s pipes are here, it would’ve made sense to put the lyre here too,’ Mother allowed.

‘Did the king have any children?’ said I. ‘Surely the role of monarch would go to one of them when he died. They could’ve taken the lyre.’

‘But not the pipes,’ said Jay.

‘You’re really harping on that point.’

‘Because it’s a detail that makes no sense. I don’t think the thief hypothesis is working too well.’

My dreams of being involved in a daring heist story evaporated. Jay was right.

‘Unless,’ said Mother, ‘whoever took the lyre had a specific use for that one instrument only.’

‘Such as?’ Jay said. ‘I can’t recall that anyone’s ever said what the thing does, except get passed around at parties.’

‘That may prove a crucial question,’ said Mother.

‘Mum, how about you do your magick-tracing trick so we can get out of here,’ I said. ‘His Majesty here is giving me the creeps.’ Perhaps because (real corpse or not) he looked like he’d died about twelve seconds ago. Just lain down on his personal bier and… died.

‘Right.’ Mother wandered off, her steps describing a wide circle around his dead-but-not-decaying majesty’s bier.

On a whim, I picked up my pipes and played Addie’s song.

She appeared so promptly, she cannot have been far away. Up she trotted, unusually lively, shaking her head and whinnying loudly.

‘Ves,’ said Jay. ‘Look. That song’s—’

‘Done something? I see it.’ A pearly light shimmered around the dead king, or his effigy, and I half expected him to wake up.

He did not. Addie, though, went wild. She trotted around the bier, stamping her hooves, and nudging the body with her nose so hard she almost threw the king onto the floor.

Then she picked up her silvery feet and charged away down the hill, mane and tail flying in the winds that blew up out of nowhere.

Jay and I watched this display in wide-eyed silence.

‘Follow that unicorn,’ said I, and began to run.

‘Follow—?’ said Jay. ‘Can you keep up with a unicorn at full gallop, because I—’

The rest of his sentence was lost to the winds, as I ran full tilt away from him in the direction Adeline had gone. Down and down the hill we went, my feet thudding in the grass, fey winds tossing my hair. There was music in that wind, faint strains but half-heard, but they lent me speed and energy and I could almost have danced my way down the hill.

Adeline still left me far behind, but I ran on, breath turning short as I neared the bottom of the hill and the edge of the dense, dark forest that surrounded it.

Ahead of me, Adeline plunged heedlessly into the trees, her bright, moon-pale coat swallowed up instantly in shadow.

I paused for a moment on the edge of that forest, attempting without success to peer into the gloom.

‘Seriously?’ panted Jay, drawing up beside me. ‘We’re going to follow a unicorn into the dark depths of a faerie forest? Did you learn nothing from your bedtime stories as a child?’

‘I learned that adventure lies beyond the borders of the familiar.’

‘We’re way beyond the borders of the familiar already. Does it have to be a dark forest, Ves?’

‘I’m trusting Addie.’

‘She’s literally a magickal faerie creature.’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ I grinned, with a shade of my mother’s wolfish smile about it. ‘So am I. Where’s Mum?’

‘Here,’ growled my mother. ‘Don’t be a fool, Cordelia.’

‘Whyever not? It’s been working well for me for the past thirty-one years.’

Mother was limping. The pelting run down the hill hadn’t been good for her. ‘Why don’t you stay here?’ I added. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Without waiting for further arguments, I plunged into the trees, conscious that Addie drew farther away with every minute’s delay.

I’ll never admit it to my  mother, or to Jay, but I instantly regretted it. Three steps was all it took; the trees closed in around me, cutting off most of the light, the temperature dropped by at least ten degrees, and even sounds faded to a muffled distance. I felt cut off from the world, and utterly alone.

‘Right,’ I said stoutly, and took another step. ‘This had better be worth it, Adeline.’

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