Swift

  ‘Did she know you were a…a faery?’ asked Ivy. It was still hard to get used to the idea that her mother had no piskey blood in her at all.

  ‘No,’ said Marigold. ‘And when I was captured by the Empress, I thought Serita would never forgive me. I’d left without even saying goodbye. But when I returned to Truro she welcomed me, even though I couldn’t tell her where I’d been. Then she told me she was ill, and that she wouldn’t be able to teach for several months. She asked if I would take her place at the school until she was better again.’

  Which explained why Marigold had sent Richard to deliver her message, instead of coming herself. She’d made a promise to Serita, and like a true faery she was determined to keep it. But the revelation brought no comfort to Ivy. She could understand her mother not wanting to come back to the Delve as long as the poison remained. She could even understand her being afraid of Betony. But she’d made it sound as though Serita was more important to her than her own husband and children.

  ‘Yet I never forgot about you,’ said Marigold softly, no doubt reading Ivy’s thoughts in her face. ‘I missed you every day. And I’m so glad you came to me. I feared you’d choose to stay in the Delve, and I couldn’t have borne it if—’

  She plucked a white cloth from the box on the table and dabbed at her eyes. Then she went on in a firmer tone, ‘But you’re safe now, and that’s all that matters. Once we find Cicely, we’ll send a message to your father and brother, and tell them what’s happened. Then everything will be all right.’

  Ivy slept fitfully that night, and woke with the first rays of dawn. It wasn’t that she’d been uncomfortable on the sofa – Marigold had offered her the bed and she’d declined it, knowing she’d feel more secure with a wall at her back. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Cicely.

  When her mother emerged from her tiny bedroom, Ivy got up at once. ‘Could we cast that searching spell again now?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said her mother, taking both Ivy’s hands in her own.

  They stood together with eyes closed and heads bent, their shared magic rippling out across the city and into the countryside beyond. Marigold had been right in urging her to rest, thought Ivy; her mind felt clearer, her power stronger than before. Hope rose inside her, and she concentrated with all her might. Surely they’d find Cicely now.

  But though they sent out one call after another, there was no answer – not even the tiniest flash of light. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marigold heavily at last, letting go of Ivy’s hands. ‘It’s no good.’

  ‘But we can’t give up,’ said Ivy. ‘We have to keep trying!’

  ‘We can cast the spell again tonight,’ her mother said. ‘But I don’t know what else to do. I fear…’ She turned away, then looked back sharply. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Out,’ said Ivy hoarsely. ‘I need to—’ Then her eyes started to burn, and she couldn’t speak any more. She hurtled out of the flat and down the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

  Ivy returned to the flat late that evening, weak with exhaustion and misery. She’d flown across Cornwall from one end to the other, stopping every few miles to cast the searching spell. But only once did she sense the glow of another faery’s magic, and as soon as she did it vanished, as though whoever it was didn’t want to be found. It might have been Richard, but it certainly wasn’t Cicely.

  When Marigold opened the door, she didn’t ask Ivy what had happened. She threw her arms around her, and Ivy closed her eyes and stood motionless until she could breathe again. Then she came inside and ate the dinner her mother had saved for her.

  Yet later that night, when the flat was dark and quiet, Ivy’s grief welled up again. She wept into her pillow until she had no tears left and then fell into exhausted sleep, her dreams haunted by the truth she could no longer deny.

  Her sister was dead, and it was her fault. Her mother was a faery, who’d left the Delve by her own choice and had no intention of ever returning. Ivy had destroyed her family and betrayed her people, all for nothing.

  And now she could never go home.

  thirteen

  Over the next few days Ivy gradually became accustomed to life in Truro, though she still felt restless and discontented. Marigold bought her new clothes and a proper bed and introduced Ivy to her human friends – including the ailing Serita and Trix, the academy’s drama teacher. But she didn’t offer to cast the searching spell again, and Ivy didn’t ask her to.

  Ivy had been in the city for nearly a week, and had lost hope of ever seeing anyone from her past life again, when she made a discovery that changed everything. She was walking the streets around the cathedral one afternoon when she felt an itch at the back of her mind – a nagging sensation as though she had forgotten something important, or as though some soundless voice were calling her name.

  It was impossible to ignore that feeling, even if she’d wanted to. Ivy followed it along the pavement, step by step, until she found herself in front of a shop that sold books and art supplies – and her gaze fell to the grinning piskey sitting in the window.

  Not again, she thought in disgust, and tried to walk away. But the tug inside her was too strong, and before she could stop herself she’d reversed direction, put her hand on the latch, and pushed the creaking door open. A bell jangled, and the shopkeeper sang out, ‘Be with you in a moment!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Ivy called back to him – she’d learned a few things from shopping with her mother. ‘I’m only looking.’

  ‘Right then,’ came the reply, and Ivy was left alone with a line of bookcases stretching away on both sides, and the window display in front of her. The piskey sat with its back to her, just within reach.

  Ivy’s hands were tingling now, blood rushing to the surface of her skin. She didn’t want to touch the figure, and yet she felt as though she needed to – as though it were some missing part of her own body, and without it she’d never be whole again. She fought the compulsion one last time, shutting her eyes and backing away. But her head and her heart throbbed in unified protest, and the piskey’s call was too urgent to ignore. With a last nervous glance over her shoulder, she bent and lifted the piskey statue from its place.

  It was as ugly as all the others she had seen, a little man in a pointed cap and short jacket. But this one didn’t stick to her hands, and it felt oddly heavy compared to the one she’d held before. She turned it over, wondering what made it different – and nearly dropped the statue in shock.

  For an instant, so quick she might have missed it if she’d blinked, its eyes had glowed silver.

  Ivy gripped the piskey convulsively. What are you? she thought, and at the same instant a voice echoed in her mind: Help…me.

  But not just any voice. A voice she had heard before.

  It was Richard.

  ‘How much for this?’ Ivy asked, brandishing the statue at the startled owner. Whether Richard was trapped inside the pottery figure or whether he’d only been using it as a vessel to speak to her, Ivy didn’t know. But either way, she wasn’t leaving the shop without it.

  ‘It’s not for sale,’ the man said, looking baffled. ‘It’s just for show—’

  ‘I’ll pay you twice what it’s worth,’ said Ivy, reaching into her bag. ‘Where did you get it? And when?’

  ‘A couple of days ago, in the Pannier Market,’ he said. ‘But look, if you want it that badly, I won’t cheat you. Nine pounds’ll do it. Want it boxed up?’

  Ivy cradled the statue against her side. ‘No, that’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll carry it with me.’

  ‘…And that’s when I heard Richard’s voice,’ Ivy explained to her mother as they sat at the kitchen table with the clay piskey between them. ‘But I’ve been trying for hours to get it – him – to talk again, and nothing seems to work.’

  Marigold rubbed her forehead, as though the news pained her. She’d just returned to the flat after teaching her last class and she looked tired and dishevelled, her hair wind-blown and
her clothes spattered dark with rain. ‘Ivy, are you sure? It might simply have been an echo. A shadow, a memory, of some piskey or faery who died calling for help a long time ago.’

  ‘It was Richard,’ Ivy insisted. ‘I know it was. We have to help him.’

  Reluctantly Marigold took the statue in her hands. But after a moment she set it down again. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how he could be in there, Ivy.’

  Ivy looked into the clay figure’s dull brown eyes. It definitely felt heavier than the other statues she had handled, and the base was solid, not hollow. Did she dare to smash it, and see if Richard was trapped inside? But what if he was part of the statue now, and she ended up killing him?

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said Marigold. ‘We should get rid of it.’ She reached for the figure, but Ivy pulled it away.

  ‘I owe Richard my life,’ she said. ‘I can’t give up on him like that.’

  Her mother’s lips thinned, and she gave the statue a resentful look. But she must have known it was fruitless to argue with Ivy, because after a moment she sighed and sat back.

  ‘Molly rang the school today,’ she said, unwinding the knot of her hair and running her fingers through it. ‘She’s going to audition for Trix tomorrow.’

  And just like that, Ivy’s mother was changing the subject. Did she really not believe that Richard was in danger? Was she so wrapped up in her own concerns that she didn’t care? Or was there something else going on that Ivy didn’t know about – something her mother didn’t want to tell her?

  Either way, the message was clear enough. If Ivy wanted to help Richard, she’d have to do it on her own.

  Ivy remained sitting by the window long after her mother had gone to bed, waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to rise so she could try some spells on the piskey statue by moonlight. But the sky remained closed, and the rain refused to stop falling. At last, discouraged, Ivy set the clay figure on the tea-table and lay down on the sofa beside it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Richard,’ she mumbled, her fingers tracing the statue’s homely features – so unlike the sharp, fine-boned face she remembered. ‘I wish I knew what to do.’

  The statue didn’t answer, or give any sign that it heard. But there was something forlorn about it despite its comic grin, and it felt wrong to leave it sitting there all alone. What if Marigold got up and took it away in the night? Ivy picked it up and tucked it in beside her – and immediately felt better, as though that was what she should have done all along.

  ‘Good night,’ she whispered, and closed her eyes.

  Ivy hadn’t dreamed in a long time, at least not that she could remember. But that night her mind was full of images, each more vivid and strange than the next. She flew over the rooftops of a great city she’d never seen before, where buildings of glass and steel rose like armoured giants against the sky. She held a pebble that turned into a knife, its silver blade sharp enough to kill. She looked into the faces of people she’d never seen before – an older human with blunt grey hair and a wry expression, a cheerful-looking man who winked at her before disappearing behind a curtain, and a faery with blonde curls and a sweetly vicious smile. One moment she was in the midst of a group of skinny boys all fighting like wild animals; the next she was sprinting across a darkened lawn with smoke billowing all around her and light exploding on every side. But none of the dreams seemed to connect to each other, or make any sense.

  Then everything went black, and for a dreadful moment Ivy could see nothing at all. She might have thought herself dead, if not for the searing pain around her ankle. But when the darkness greyed into an eerie twilight and a girl with tousled black hair dropped to the ground before her, Ivy realised with a shock that she was looking at herself.

  These weren’t dreams; they were memories. Richard’s memories.

  Where are you? she cried out to him silently. Who did this to you? How can I set you free?

  At first the answer came only in images, as disjointed as the ones that had come before. A wounded swift spiralling towards the ground. Molly looking startled, then furious. Marigold rising from a crouch, eyes narrowed and one hand blazing with magical light. But just as Ivy began to despair that she would ever make sense of it all, she heard Richard’s voice:

  Don’t trust… The words were weak and fragmented. Mother…

  Ivy’s heart gave a hard thump. Did he mean that the way it sounded?

  Trapped me…Keeve is…Cicely…

  Cicely! Was he saying she and Keeve were still alive? Could they be trapped inside the piskey statues too?

  Find them… Richard whispered, and then even more faintly, Molly…your blood…save…

  She was losing him, and she couldn’t bear it. Not when she understood so little of what he’d been trying to say. I want to save you! Ivy shouted. And Cicely too, but you have to tell me how! Richard!

  There was no answer. Then a shadow loomed up behind her, and Ivy knew something terrible was about to happen. She tried to run, but her feet were locked in place, and suddenly she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe—

  With a strangled cry, Ivy bolted awake. She was lying on the sofa with the blankets tangled around her legs, and around the edges of the nearby window the first light of dawn was glowing. Next to her the piskey statue beamed its foolish grin, its gaze as vacant as ever.

  Yet it hadn’t been just a nightmare; she was certain of that. Richard had spoken to her. Ivy stared across the room, sickness burning her throat. She had to remember everything he’d said to her, before—

  ‘Ivy?’ Marigold appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, clutching a robe about her. ‘Are you all right?’

  Her expression was anxious, and in that moment she looked exactly like the woman who had tucked Ivy into bed when she was ten years old. And yet Ivy couldn’t forget how she’d appeared in Richard’s memory, with remorseless eyes and power crackling around her fingertips.

  Don’t trust…Mother…

  Ivy pushed the piskey statue under the covers. ‘I had a bad dream,’ she said. ‘But it’s over now.’

  The Pannier Market was a busy place, full of shops and booths selling every kind of merchandise. Ivy made her way past lighted cabinets full of fresh meats and cheeses, shelves of china and antique silver, and a gorgeous display of cut flowers, until she found the stall she was looking for.

  ‘Well, good morning,’ said the grey-haired vendor, folding his newspaper and getting up to greet her. ‘Thought I might see you again. Looking for these?’ He gestured to the clay piskeys lined up at one side of the table, next to a set of porcelain faeries holding flowers in their outstretched palms. ‘Only got six at the moment, but I’ll be getting more soon. Collect the lot!’

  Ivy shifted the weight of the bag on her shoulder, conscious of Richard’s weight inside. ‘Where do they come from?’ she asked.

  The man scratched his ear. ‘Well, now…d’you know, I can’t quite remember. Can’t be far, though, or I couldn’t sell them as local. St Austell, maybe?’ He squinted as though trying to bring back the memory, then shook his head. ‘Sorry. Mind’s not what it used to be. It’s all a bit—’ He waved his hand vaguely.

  An unpleasant suspicion was creeping into Ivy’s mind, though she didn’t want to believe it, not yet. ‘Then tell me everything you know, please,’ she said, pushing a little magic into the request. She couldn’t afford to waste time on half-truths and evasions, not when there were lives at stake. ‘Who brought them to you the first time? And when?’

  ‘It was about a fortnight ago, I know that much. But…’ The merchant frowned, his expression troubled. ‘Can’t recall what she looked like, or even how old she was. Isn’t that odd.’

  She. Ivy clutched her bag tighter, dreading what was to come.

  ‘Anyway, she gave me one of these piskeys, said she made them herself. Told me to keep it in my stall for the weekend, and see if it didn’t bring me good luck.’ His face softened. ‘And didn’t it! Got a
head full of ideas all of a sudden, and knew just how to show off my merchandise. Never sold so much in two days in all my life. I was sorry to see that little fellow go, I can tell you, but she said she’d bring me more when they were ready…and she did.’ He picked up one of the piskeys and contemplated it. ‘Can’t say these ones seem as lucky, though. Not sure why.’

  Ivy knew the answer – she could see from where she stood that the statue was hollow, with no living piskey or faery inside it. And it wasn’t hard to guess that the little fellow he was talking about, the one who’d brought him such good fortune, had been Keeve.

  So the piskey-maker was a woman – a woman who knew that Cornish clay had strange powers, and that contact with magical folk enhanced human creativity. She despised piskeys enough to make a mockery of them, and sell them in the market as slaves. And as if that weren’t proof enough, she’d erased the man’s memories so he wouldn’t be able to identify her…

  The same way she’d erased Ivy’s memory, the night before she ran away.

  What if Marigold no longer cared about the piskeys of the Delve, not even her own husband and son? What if she’d come to hate them for having destroyed her home, killed her father, and taken her mother underground to die? What if she’d decided that a slow death by poison wasn’t good enough, and come up with a more fitting revenge – a scheme to capture any piskeys who ventured outside the mine, and trap them inside clay statues for the rest of their lives? Keeve could have been her first victim, and then – if only by accident – Cicely. And then Richard had found out the truth and confronted her, and she’d had to get rid of him too…

  Ivy had missed her mother so much, these past five years. She’d been willing to take any risk, brave any danger, to see her again. But she was no longer the woman Ivy remembered. She might still care about Ivy – you are more faery than any of them, she’d said. But anyone else with piskey blood would find her a ruthless and implacable enemy.