Torch Page 2

  “Well, maybe you’ll work it out,” said Cicely. “Or Aunt Betony might die anyway. Mica said she was wounded pretty badly, and Yarrow can’t heal her with magic like Broch healed Mum.”

  Perhaps not, but Yarrow’s skill with herbs and potions was almost as impressive. And the Delve’s healer wouldn’t give up on Betony without doing all she could to save her. Wearily Ivy put the pillow aside and reached for her nightgown.

  She’d barely started changing when a tentative knock sounded at the door. “Ivy? Are you asleep?”

  Cicely made a face and vanished under the covers. “Not yet,” Ivy said. “What is it?”

  The door cracked open, revealing their mother with her waves of honey-brown hair and dark, haunted eyes. “Come to my room when you’re ready. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What is this?” demanded Ivy, staring at Marigold’s freshly made bed and the open suitcases lying on it. Both were full, while the wardrobe in the corner stood empty. Ivy’s mother had never owned many clothes or trinkets, but she’d packed up everything she’d brought to the house, and now her room might have been a stranger’s.

  “I can’t stay here, Ivy.” She closed the first suitcase and clicked it shut. “Not after . . . It’s not safe. If Betony comes back . . .” Her lips trembled. She pressed them together and looked away.

  Of course she was terrified. She knew better than anyone, even Ivy, what it felt like to face Betony’s fire. “But it’s different now,” Ivy reassured her. “Mica’s here, and Mattock and all the others. We can protect you.”

  “I know you think that, my darling, but you shouldn’t have to. I should be the one protecting you and Cicely. And I can’t do that, not here.” She turned pleading eyes to Ivy. “Come with me.”

  Ivy sat down on the edge of the bed, a numb feeling creeping over her. “You’re going to London, aren’t you. To be with him.”

  It shouldn’t have come as a shock: she already knew her mother and David Menadue, the house’s human owner, were in love and eager to marry. But Ivy hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

  “It’s not just for me,” Marigold insisted. “It’s for Molly. It’s not safe for her to come here, now Betony knows where to find us. But David’s bought a house, a nice big one. We could all be together. As a family.”

  David’s daughter was one of Ivy’s dearest friends, so the idea should have been tempting. But unlike Marigold, who’d spent years living in the human world, Ivy couldn’t be happy pretending to be something she wasn’t. Especially not for the rest of her life.

  “What about Mica? He’s family too.” Even if she’d like to strangle him right now—but it wasn’t the first time, and it surely wouldn’t be the last either. “What about the other piskeys in the barn? I can’t just fly off and leave them!”

  Marigold sighed. “Mica wants nothing to do with me or David. He says he’s a piskey and he’ll die like one. But you know better, don’t you?” She moved closer, taking Ivy’s hands. “You can’t help those people any more than you’ve done already. You worked so hard to bring them here, but it’s only a matter of time before Betony comes to take them back.”

  Ivy wanted to deny it, but deep down she feared Marigold was right. While Betony lay wounded, her consort Gossan had exiled Mica and all the other piskeys who’d defied her. But Ivy’s aunt was hard as diamond, and once she recovered her strength, she might well overrule the Jack’s order. It was one thing to banish lone troublemakers like Ivy, but twenty-two piskeys were too many for her stubborn pride to lose.

  “Please,” whispered Marigold. “Cicely says she’ll only come if you will. Can’t you do it for her sake? And let Mica deal with whatever happens here?”

  Ivy searched her mother’s face, taking in the wide eyes and delicate features that were so like her own. Then at last, gently, she drew her hands away.

  “I don’t blame you for leaving,” she said. “I hope you and David are happy together, and please give Molly my love. But I won’t leave my people.” Or Martin, for that matter. How could she go anywhere he couldn’t follow?

  Marigold’s eyes brimmed, but she nodded. She closed the remaining suitcase and gave Ivy a sad smile. “Take good care of Cicely,” she said. “I’ll ring you on the weekend.”

  For six lonely years Ivy had longed to see her mother again. She’d taken wild risks and braved terrifying dangers, first to find her and then to save her life. But she sounded so human now, as though the years she’d spent in the Delve had never happened. As though she’d never been a piskey-wife, or even a faery woman, at all.

  “All right,” said Ivy, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. “I love you. Stay safe.”

  When she got up the next morning, leaving Cicely still burrowed under the covers, Ivy expected to find the rest of the house empty. But as she stepped out of the bedroom, Broch’s voice floated down the hall toward her.

  “You can’t hide it forever. She’s bound to find out eventually, whether you tell her or not.”

  “Not if we stay here,” Thorn countered. “A few more months, and no one’ll be the wiser.”

  “No one? Queen Valerian knows. Wink knows, and she’s not the best at keeping secrets. And you can’t expect the piskeys not to notice.”

  “What if they do? They don’t care about us. They’ve got their own troubles to worry about.”

  Curiosity roused, Ivy was tempted to go on listening. But sneaking about and eavesdropping wasn’t the piskey way. She followed the faeries’ voices to the kitchen and found them sitting at the breakfast table, helping themselves to jam and bread.

  If Marigold were here she’d probably ask them how they’d slept, but to Ivy’s embarrassment, she’d forgotten to make up a room for either of them. Broch could take bird-shape, so he probably didn’t need a bed, but she should at least have offered Thorn the sofa, or the foldaway cot in the study. “Have you decided to stay, then?” Ivy asked. “If so you’ll be welcome, but I should introduce you to the other piskeys. I don’t want them to think I’m hiding you.”

  “We’re staying,” said Thorn firmly. “At least for now. If your people won’t listen to us, that’s their crop to harvest. But I’ll be blighted if I go skulking back to the Oak without even planting a seed.”

  Ivy picked the crust out of the breadbasket and dropped it into the toaster. Cicely wouldn’t eat it, so somebody ought to. “All right. I’ll take you over after breakfast.”

  The faeries nodded, and they fell into a companionable silence until Thorn spoke up again. “I see your mother’s gone.”

  A statement like that, Ivy had learned, was Thorn’s way of asking a question she wasn’t sure she had any right to ask. Faeries had an elaborate system of bargaining for favors, and even information, that made little sense to piskeys. “She’s marrying David,” Ivy told her. “And staying with him in London. She can’t fight Betony anymore.”

  Thorn’s brows went up. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “That’s because I know what she’s been through.” And so did Cicely, even if she had shed a few tears last night. “It’s only Mica who blames her, but he’s still angry she left us six years ago.”

  “Even though she would have died if she’d stayed in the Delve?” asked Broch.

  Ivy had tried to explain that to her brother, but it hadn’t made any difference. He seemed to think everybody had to be as tough as he was, or else they were cowards. “You’d have to ask Mica,” Ivy said, helping herself to an orange. “Or Cicely—she’s the only one besides Matt who can make sense of him.”

  “Matt?” Broch looked puzzled.

  “Short for Mattock,” Ivy explained. “He used to live next to us, in the Delve.” Though he was far more than just a neighbor, to be sure. The knocker boy had been Mica’s best friend since the two of them were children, and his steady calm had smoothed over many a family quarrel. It was almost a shame that Ivy couldn’t bring herself to marry him, especially since half the piskeys in the Delve kept teasing h
er about it. Like Hew had last night.

  All you need’s a good fellow to be your Jack, and you’ll make us a fine Joan someday.

  Matt was unquestionably a good fellow, but was Martin? Not by piskey standards, for certain. The Jack O’Lantern, the Joan’s consort, was the chief example of what a piskey warrior should be. He had to be strong, brave, and honest, as well as unfailingly loyal, and Martin was seldom more than two of those things even when he cared to try . . .

  “I think you can eat that now,” Broch remarked, and Ivy blinked out of her reverie. She’d not only peeled the rind off her orange, she’d torn all the segments to bits as well.

  “Sorry,” she said, pushing the bowl away. “I was thinking. If you’re finished, we should go.”

  “This is Thorn,” Ivy told the other piskeys as they gathered around her in the barn. “She’s come to us as an ambassador from Queen Valerian of the Oak.”

  With news like that, a few suspicious looks from the men were only to be expected. Ivy’s people mistrusted faeries, and not without reason. But the women studied Thorn with interest, and their children nudged one another excitedly. Standing at their height, strong-boned and thick-waisted with her glassy wings hidden behind her, she looked more like a piskey than Ivy did.

  “And this is Broch,” Ivy continued, gesturing to the slim, bearded man. “The healer who saved my mother’s life. He comes from the Green Isles of Wales and knows all kinds of wonderful stories.”

  “I’ll warrant he does,” grumbled Hew, and Ivy felt like her heart had dropped down a mineshaft. How could she be so stupid? Hew’s father had been the Delve’s droll-teller for years, and Hew’s son Keeve had seemed likely to follow him. But Keeve had died at the hands of a vengeful faery, and his granfer had passed away soon after. The last thing Hew wanted was some jumped-up faery scholar trying to replace them.

  But Ivy couldn’t afford to hesitate. If she wanted her people to trust Thorn and Broch, she had to show how much she trusted them herself. “I know that in the past, the piskeys and faeries of Cornwall were enemies. But the Oakenfolk live in England, far east of the Tamar, and they have no quarrel with us. All Queen Valerian wants is an opportunity to show her goodwill and make us an offer of peace.”

  She stepped back, and Thorn cleared her throat. “I’m not a flowery talker,” she declared, “so I’ll keep it short. I don’t mind if you’re suspicious; you’ve a right to be. I’m a stranger, and you don’t know anything about me. But only faeries who spend a lot of time with humans are good at lying, and I’m not one of that sort. So if you ask me a question, you’ll get an honest answer, and we’ll go from there.”

  The men kept their eyes narrowed, but the effect of Thorn’s speech on the women was extraordinary. Hew’s wife Teasel whispered to Mattock’s mother Fern, and the two of them started to quake—not with fury, but with the sparkling eyes and tight-shut lips of suppressed laughter.

  Ivy had no idea what that was about, but she chose to take it as encouragement. If her people could find Thorn funny, they were more than halfway to accepting her.

  “I am a flowery talker,” Broch announced with a wry smile. “But I am trying to learn better. As Thorn says, you have no reason to trust us, and we have no right to expect you should. But if you will give me a chance to prove myself, I am a skilled healer and will gladly treat anyone who comes to me for help.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause when he finished, and Ivy was wondering what to say, when a small voice piped up, “I hurt my finger.”

  Her mother made a shushing noise and reached for her, but the little girl ducked away and trotted to Broch, thrusting out her hand. He knelt and considered it gravely, then touched her finger with his own.

  The girl’s face brightened. “You fixed it!” She scampered back to the other children. “Look, the hurt’s gone! See?”

  The older piskeys stirred and muttered, but it sounded less like hostility and more like hope to Ivy. Her people might not trust the faeries, but if they could find them useful, perhaps . . .

  “I’ve a question for you,” called Teasel, looking pointedly at Thorn. “Boy or girl?”

  Thorn turned purple, and Ivy stood speechless. Despite her cropped hair and mannish clothing, surely anyone could tell the faery was a woman? Broch winced, and Ivy feared an explosion. But then Thorn’s hand dropped to her stomach, and she mumbled, “Boy, if you must know.”

  “I knew it!” crowed Teasel, as Fern began to giggle. “And your first babe too, by the look of you. What a droll-tale!”

  Ivy stared at them, flabbergasted. No wonder the piskey-women weren’t afraid of Thorn: they weren’t seeing her as a soldier of the faery queen but as an awkward soon-to-be mother. Someone they might even take under their own moth-wings and help, if Thorn could unbend enough to let them.

  “And you’re the father, no doubt,” said Gem slyly to Broch. But if he’d thought to make the faery man blush, he was disappointed. Broch stepped up and took Thorn’s hand in his own.

  “I am, and I’ll welcome any advice you can give me. As my wife will, if she doesn’t burst from embarrassment first.”

  Of all the outcomes Ivy had imagined when she brought the faeries to the barn, she’d never imagined this. Fortunately, she didn’t have to say anything. The piskey-women came crowding around Thorn, all chattering at once, while the men ambled off to light their pipes and quarrel amiably in private. They didn’t invite Broch, but he didn’t seem to mind. He only watched, lips quirked with amusement, as Teasel and the others inspected his wife, poked the slight swell of her belly, and peppered her with personal questions.

  “You’ve got piskey blood in you somewhere, no doubt of it,” declared Fern, squinting up and down at her. “Your mother’s side, d’you think? Or your father’s?”

  “I don’t have a mother or father,” Thorn protested. “I hatched from an egg sixty years ago—”

  “Sixty!” exclaimed Daisy, Gem’s wife. “You look younger than I do, and I’m thirty.” She touched her mouth wistfully, tracing the faint creases there. “And did you say egg?”

  “It’s a long story,” Thorn told her. The color in her cheeks was still high, but easing; she seemed resigned to the piskeys’ curiosity, instead of outraged as Ivy had feared.

  Thrift, the little girl Broch had healed, tugged at Thorn’s breeches. “Are you going to lay an egg?”

  “Great Gardener, I hope not!” said Thorn fervently. There was a shocked pause, then all the piskey-women burst out laughing, and after a moment, Thorn chuckled too.

  It was a marvel. No, a miracle.

  “You never told me you were married,” said Ivy to Broch. The piskey-wives were giving Thorn advice now, some of it earthy enough to make her blush all over again.

  “That was Thorn’s wish,” he replied. “My wife may speak bluntly, but she keeps her own business private.”

  Ivy couldn’t help smiling. “Maybe in the Oak she did. But not anymore.”

  Despite the winter chill it was a beautiful morning, the sun gleaming like white gold in a near-cloudless sky. Ivy crossed the yard toward the house, her heart so light she felt like skipping. Introducing Thorn and Broch to the piskeys had gone better than she’d ever dared to dream.

  “You’ll never believe this,” she called, as Cicely came out to take Dodger for his morning ride. All the piskeys loved horses, but her sister and the bay pony had a special bond, and by now he was prancing with impatience to see her. “Did you know Thorn—”

  “Ivy,” said a soft voice, and she turned in surprise to find Mattock behind her. For such a broad-shouldered, squarely built young man, he could move with eerie quietness when he chose.

  “What is it?” Ivy asked.

  Matt glanced at Cicely, who was watching with bright interest. “Do you mind?” He made a shooing gesture toward the barn. “This is private.”

  Cicely’s steps faltered, and the corners of her mouth pulled down. Then she dropped her gaze and strode on without a word.

 
Ivy looked up at Mattock, apprehensive, but he shook his head. “Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of private. I know how you feel about me, and I’m not slurry-brained enough to think I can change that by arguing with you.” He took off his cap, eyes solemn beneath his thick, rusty brows. “I’ve got news from the Delve.”

  Ivy’s breath caught. “About Betony?”

  Matt nodded. “I took Mica to Redruth last evening, to get his mind off things, and we ran into Shale. You remember him?”

  One of the younger hunters, with a gormless grin and ears that stuck out like elbows. He was likeable enough, but not known for good sense or discretion, and it was a wonder Gossan had let him out of the Delve without an escort. “Yes,” Ivy said. “Go on.”

  “Well, he seemed friendly, so I bought him a pint and he gave me an earful. Betony’s mending, but slowly, and no one sees her but Gossan and Yarrow. The folk in the Delve are worried she won’t be up in time for the midwinter Lighting, and some fear she can’t start the wakefire even if she does.”

  That would be dire for the piskeys living underground, especially the women. The all-night Lighting ceremony not only gave them a much-needed taste of fresh air, it renewed the magic that made them able to glow. “What are they going to do, then?” Ivy asked, her pulse quickening. “Did Shale say?”

  Matt shook his head. “He just looked gloomy about it.”

  Ivy’s mind raced, leaping from one possibility to another. If Betony couldn’t light the wakefire for her people, they’d be more than disappointed—they’d be desperate. But if Ivy could give them what Betony couldn’t . . .

  “Gather the others,” she told Mattock. “We need to plan a Lighting.”

  “I want to help,” Cicely urged, running after Ivy as she crossed the yard. “There must be something I can do.”