A Hollow in the Hills

  ‘Where is he? Your father.’

  ‘He went in to see the Storyteller.’

  They stared at each other, waiting for the other to talk, to say something, anything, to break this interminable pained silence.

  She had balled her hands to fists at her side, released them and did it again. She always did that when she was nervous and trying not to show it, when she was unsure, but too proud to ask for help. He could read her so well.

  He’d been trying to protect her when he’d cut off all contact. That’s what he’d told himself. That’s what Silver had said. What everyone said. They had to protect Izzy and Dylan, after all that had happened.

  So how could he explain that to her?

  ‘Don’t have anything to do with the fae,’ Dad had told her.

  Right. Sure. Then he’d left her alone in some random leprechaun museum in the heart of Dublin, right on the edge of Dubh Linn. Don’t have anything to do with the fae was easier said than done. Especially when, in the same museum, she’d found the one member of the fae race Dad really wanted her away from, the one she really didn’t want to see ever again.

  Except of course she did.

  Her heart sped up when she recognised him, her breath hitching in her throat so that for a moment she couldn’t say anything at all. She stared at those lips that had kissed her and longed to feel their touch again.

  But Jinx – being Jinx – just had to open his mouth, say a few words and ruin it all again.

  Or maybe that had been her, not that she was going to admit it. He hadn’t changed then, she reminded herself. Nor would he. That was one of the lessons Gran kept repeating and repeating.

  They are eternal and ageless. They cannot be trusted. And they never, ever change.

  It worked on more levels than one. Who knew?

  Of course, she should have known. Jinx always hurt her, whether he meant to or not. She really should realise that by this stage. She should have learned.

  How could he be here now? Why? What did he want with the Storyteller?

  ‘You felt it too?’ she asked. ‘Last night.’

  He nodded. ‘And there’s more. Izzy …’ He fidgeted, uncomfortable. He wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to, that was clear. She beat him to it.

  ‘There was an attack at my school. Dad called them the Fear.’ The words were out before she realised she was going to say them. Jinx’s face paled, his bones standing out stark beneath the skin. In a moment he was right beside her, his arms rising around her but not quite touching her, not yet. His steel-grey eyes studied hers.

  ‘Are you okay? Were you hurt?’

  Swallowing hard, she took a deliberate step back. ‘I’m fine. I drove them off.’

  To her surprise he smiled. Just a flicker of a smile over his lips. Pride in his eyes. ‘Of course you did.’

  She wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt. Her heart was thundering inside her ribs, desperate to get out. But before she could do anything rash, like lift herself up on her toes and press her lips to his, someone cleared their throat rather pointedly behind them.

  Cudgel was back.

  Bloody leprechauns and their bloody timing.

  ‘This way, Miss Gregory. The Storyteller will see you now.’

  Before she could move, Jinx stepped in front of her. Still so close, she could feel the heat of his body, smell his scent, warm and beguiling, so familiar.

  ‘Not alone.’ She could hear the rumbled warning in his voice.

  ‘Dad went in alone.’

  ‘He knows what he’s getting into.’ He turned back to her, took her hands in his and gazed into her face. ‘Izzy, don’t go in there alone.’

  ‘Jinx, it’s okay.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. That’s one of the Council of the Sídhe in there. Or at least she was, once upon a time. And she’s dangerous. Like Holly, like Brí, and just as powerful. You can’t risk—’

  Enough. She had put up with this for long enough. She was thoroughly sick of being told what she could or couldn’t do. She had to put up with it from her father, but not from Jinx, who had given up any right to tell her what to do. Not that he’d had that right to begin with. She shook herself free of his hands and stepped away.

  ‘I can take any risks I want to. I need to find Dad.’

  ‘Izzy, please.’ It was the concern riddling his voice that made her relent a little. That and the word ‘please’. The Jinx she first met would never have said it, unless it was in the most sarcastic or threatening way possible. Certainly never in that tone of voice, as if he really meant it and that saying it was his last resort.

  She stared at him, trying to figure out how he had changed. But then she remembered. On Wishing Stone, they both had changed. Changed utterly.

  ‘Dad needed to talk to her. I need to talk to her.’

  ‘I don’t know what game your father is playing,’ Jinx muttered with a hostility she’d never heard directed towards her dad from anyone. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘The Storyteller will allow that,’ said the leprechaun. ‘Since you’re both asking more or less the same thing. Follow me.’

  Cudgel turned and vanished through the door in the fireplace before Izzy could ask what on earth he meant. How did he know what either of them was asking? She had to follow him and she couldn’t exactly stop Jinx anyway if he chose to follow her. Infuriating hound that he was. It didn’t stop her turning on him. ‘Just don’t interfere, understand?’

  He gazed at her pointing finger and gave another half-smile. Such sorrow in that smile, along with bitter amusement. He reached out and pushed her hand gently to one side.

  ‘I’ll do what I must. I was once bound to protect you, remember?’

  ‘Really?’ Her voice turned scathing. ‘Then where have you been for the last three months?’

  The sadness hinted beforehand blossomed in his eyes, so close to pain that she instantly regretted it.

  ‘You didn’t need me, Izzy.’

  But she had, she had needed him. More than she’d ever admit. Words wanted to claw their way out of her, words she couldn’t say to him. Not now.

  Biting down on them, she turned and stalked away, aware all the time of the treacherous warmth seeping from the tattoo on the back of her neck, and of Jinx following close behind.

  The inner chamber was lit from below, each stone and rock, each bit of gravel throwing shadows up onto the familiar bronze ceiling. They weren’t in the museum now – at least not the museum as the human world knew it. Parts of it leaked through – the well in the centre of the room for example, and the blue spotlights set into the floor. Only here the well wasn’t fake – Izzy could hear the slow drip of water somewhere in its depths – and the lights weren’t artificial. They wavered like gas flames, like will o’ the wisps out of old stories, fairy lights, the type seen at fairy forts and rings, whose only delight was to lure the unwary off their path and into danger. Trees pressed close around them, rocking and creaking in a breeze they couldn’t feel.

  Izzy knew the moment they stepped through the fireplace, that threshold, that place of betweens, that they had entered Dubh Linn. Or maybe something like it. Jinx looked just as uncomfortable, but then he’d freaked out the moment he’d realised she intended to come in here alone. If the Storyteller was indeed like Holly or Brí, then maybe he had reason.

  The warmth of having him there had faded quickly. That low-level warning of a chill on the back of her neck replacing it told her that something was happening, even if experience hadn’t taught her already to pick up on the shimmering of the world as they passed between. Her body reacted, her blood flowing faster with the quickening of her heart. Each nerve ending charged with electricity. Her eyes picked out details she would barely register normally.

  Dad had told her to expect this. Recognising it and using it was part of her training. Her Grigori senses would heighten at times of danger, help her react and help her survive. She had to trust them. She just wished they didn’t make her stomac
h turn.

  Glancing back at Jinx, she saw that he looked different too – harder, sharper. His grey eyes had taken on that metallic sheen of the fae, like steel. His bones looked more pronounced beneath his smooth skin, making the tattoos stand out in sharp relief. His black hair shimmered, iridescent as a raven’s wing. He always had an air of danger about him. He was a hunter, after all, according to many a killer. Now it was just plainer to see. There was something new about him too, something she hadn’t seen before. Harder, darker. Like something else lurked behind a mask, some new part of him that was alien, something she didn’t recognise at all.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked.

  He nodded, just once. ‘With Silver.’ From the expression on his face it hadn’t been a good experience. ‘You?’

  Izzy shook her head, wishing now that she hadn’t agreed so readily to let Dad go on ahead. They would want something, he’d said. But what? And how was she meant to know what to ask?

  ‘Why are you here, Jinx?’ she asked.

  ‘I needed some questions answered. There’s something out and about that shouldn’t be. It’s my job to see to that.’

  ‘You have a job now?’

  A smile lifted the corners of his lips for just a moment and Izzy found herself starting at them with a fascination she couldn’t afford to have right now. Especially not for him. It would, as Gran was so fond of saying, all end in tears. It already had.

  ‘I have a job,’ he replied. ‘I’m Silver’s emissary. It’s the job she used to do for Holly.’

  Izzy flinched. She couldn’t help it. Her memories of Holly were not pleasant. ‘Good for you.’

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘School’s school.’ Even as she said it, she realised he probably didn’t even know what school was like when it was normal. Not when spectral monsters were popping up in the bathrooms. Maybe he’d be more comfortable with that than she was.

  Grim appeared, opening another door, and a dark-robed figure glided into the room. She stopped, waiting until Grim closed the door, and then she sat down beside the well. The hood concealed her face, but her long-fingered hands were dark and the skin stretched tight over the bones like the skin of a drum.

  ‘Well, now,’ she said, in a sweet, musical voice. ‘Here they are. You wandered. We had to come and find you.’

  Izzy was about to say they only stepped through the door, but sense got the better of her. ‘We wandered?’

  ‘There are many rooms in this hollow, Miss Gregory. Some are as beautiful as this. Some are dark and terrible. You were fortunate your mind chose this one as the room you needed.’

  Izzy frowned. Better to just go with it. That was the thing with Dubh Linn. Go with it and keep your wits about you. Otherwise it messed with you. It could screw you over completely.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’

  ‘David went on ahead. He will meet you outside. I can’t be having two of you in here at once. Two Grigori? Anything could happen. We should press on, so. You have questions, do you not? What are they? What will you give to have them answered? You have a gift for me, no doubt?’

  The question hung heavily in the air and Izzy knew that it meant more than it appeared to. A gift? No one had mentioned a gift.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she replied warily.

  ‘Of course you do. Every visitor brings a gift. Let’s see, what shall it be? If you don’t have something to give, maybe you have something pretty of your own. That hair … those eyes …’ She leaned forward, hawkish in her examination of Izzy.

  ‘I have a gift,’ said Jinx sharply. ‘I’ll give it on Izzy’s behalf.’

  The Storyteller sank back sullenly. ‘Let’s see it then.’

  He rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle. When he unrolled it, Izzy saw a little snow-globe with a green sheep in the middle. He handed it over as if it was a priceless treasure and the Storyteller ran her fingers over the surface, shaking it and holding it up to watch the little plastic flakes whirl around.

  ‘This is a fine gift,’ she said at last. ‘So? Tell me why you’re here.’

  ‘I need to ask you about …’ she glanced at Jinx again. She ought to thank him, but there wasn’t time. His face was unreadable. ‘About the Fear.’

  ‘The Fear are a fairytale,’ Jinx said quickly. Too quickly. Izzy knew when he was lying. That was one thing she had learned. And this wasn’t entirely a lie. But it was denial.

  ‘Jinx can tell you all about the Fear, can’t you? They’re a story to frighten fae children.’ The Storyteller leaned in and Izzy caught a glimpse of a sharp nose and chin beneath the hood. Skin like coffee, features too pronounced.

  ‘Something to frighten everyone,’ said Jinx bleakly. ‘And some believe they’re less of a story and more of an actual threat. Here, now. Anyway, aren’t you the Storyteller?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘Who has been telling you tales, Jinx by Jasper? Why are you here?’

  ‘Amadán asked me to look into something. A death. A young fae busker who worked for him. He’s put out, which isn’t good for anyone. He believes the Fear did it.’

  Her tone sharpened to a knife point. ‘That’s impossible. The Fear are imprisoned.’

  So, not a story suddenly. They’d gone from fiction to reality pretty quickly. But of course, Izzy knew that. She could still feel the touch.

  Will you come to me, Grigori? Will you come?

  She shivered. It was like they’d known her. And that name … they’d called her Daughter of Míl. ‘They didn’t look too imprisoned when they attacked someone at my school.’

  ‘So your father said. Very well. I shall tell you what I know. But there is a price.’

  ‘We gave you a gift. A fine gift,’ said Jinx.

  ‘You did, and I’m grateful for it. Now you need answers and there is a price.’

  Izzy ground her teeth together. There was always a freaking price. Why did they always make such a big dramatic deal about it?

  ‘What price?’

  The Storyteller pushed back her hood and Izzy saw her whole face at last. Her skin was a deep, bronzed brown, like polished mahogany, and her eyes dominated her face, bright and golden, too big for the rest of her features. Unnervingly round and bright, a child’s eyes in an adult face, but no child would wear such a look of avarice.

  ‘A small thing,’ she said, innocently enough. ‘An entry to add to my book. A memory.’

  Izzy frowned, doubtful as she registered the lie in the Storyteller’s face. ‘A memory?’

  ‘Careful, Izzy,’ Jinx warned in an undertone.

  Oh, she needed him to shut the hell up. It wasn’t his decision.

  ‘Did my father do this?’

  The Storyteller’s lips quirked. ‘We have other arrangements. David doesn’t care to share his thoughts with me. So I require a lot more by way of shiny treasures and suchlike. From you, sweet child, I just want a memory. Or a secret. Often it’s the same thing. Come now, everyone who passes through here writes in my book. There’s no harm in it.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ Jinx asked. ‘To feed?’

  ‘Such an ugly turn of phrase, Cú Sídhe. But then, why are any of us here if not to feed on something? We all have needs. I’m the Storyteller, Jinx by Jasper. And this is a place of stories. They are the bricks with which it is built, the ghosts that linger after dark in the corners. Children flock here. They listen so intently when I weave my tales. Here, I am beloved.’

  ‘What about their parents?’ Jinx bared his teeth, disgust twisting his face. ‘I can’t imagine they’re too keen on you anywhere near their kids. Don’t they sue?’

  The Storyteller said nothing in reply, but reached out her arm and pointed a long, bony finger at him. Gold flecks glittered at her fingertips and Jinx froze, the arrogance draining from him in an instant. He sucked in a pained breath and stretched, his head going back, his chest expanding, his arms dragging out behind him, his face a mask of pain.

&n
bsp; ‘Careful, boy,’ she whispered, in her soft, lilting tones. ‘I can pick your memories right out of your head. I can squeeze you dry and leave you with nothing.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Izzy. ‘Or I won’t do anything. You’ll get nothing.’

  The Storyteller’s head snapped around with uncanny speed, but she didn’t release Jinx. When she grinned, all her whiter than white teeth were exposed. ‘For most people, I charge nothing. It’s a ritual, my book, nothing more. But from you, I want a memory. Otherwise, like I told your father, there is nothing for anyone and the Fear will run rampant. And whatever else is set free …’

  A chilling clarity settled on Izzy’s shoulders. ‘What else? What else can be set free?’

  ‘What else indeed. Now perhaps you’re asking the right question. The Fear are terrible beyond words. But, there are worse things, little Grigori. Far worse. Do you really want to know what that is? Just look at the book. Give me what I want.’

  Jinx whimpered – it was the only sound he could still make, but Izzy knew it wasn’t through pain or terror. Not Jinx. He was trying to warn her. She ought to listen, but that had never stopped her before. She couldn’t leave him like that.

  ‘Let him go and I’ll do it. I need to know everything – about the Fear, about the earthquake, whatever you can tell me.’

  The Storyteller smiled. Not a nice smile.

  ‘Very well. Do we have an accord?’ She said it too quickly, eagerly, and Izzy knew she’d made a misstep somehow. She just couldn’t work out how.

  She held out her other hand and Izzy took it gingerly.

  Jinx dropped to the ground as if a wire had been cut.

  ‘All right,’ Izzy said, trying not to think about him right now.

  ‘You have to say it, sweet child.’

  ‘I really hope you don’t talk to mortal children that way,’ Jinx groaned. ‘Or treat them so roughly.’ He struggled to his feet, trying to work out the cramps in his muscles. But at least he had regained something of his caustic tone. ‘You’ll get arrested.’

  The Storyteller hissed at him, revealing more of her sharp teeth, and Izzy shied back, wishing she hadn’t come in here or accepted anything. But she didn’t retreat.