13 Secrets (15 page)

With the exception of the fortune-telling, Tanya had visited every attraction the circus had to offer by the time Rowan and Fabian found her. Since the sun had gone down, there was a definite nip in the air, and the three of them were among the last few stragglers making their way back to their cars or walking the road to the bus stop.

They hurried along the lane to catch the last bus of the evening, Rowan and Fabian filling Tanya in on the events of the meeting as they went and for the duration of the bus journey. She listened without interruption. From their stop at Holly Bush Hill they walked the final ten minutes to the manor. The countryside was pitch-black, lit only by the stars and a thin scythe of a moon.

Not one of them gave a thought to the time until
they reached the gates of Elvesden Manor. Warwick’s Land Rover rumbled toward them, the headlights snapping on, startling them. Warwick cut the engine and jumped out, slamming the door.

“It’s late,” he growled. “I was coming to look for you all.”

“Why?” asked Fabian. “We told you where we were going.”

“And you said you’d be home before dark,” Warwick retorted. “The sun went down an hour ago. Everyone’s still up, waiting and wondering where you’ve got to.”

“I don’t get what the problem is,” said Rowan. “Why do you need to know the exact time I’ll be in? Is there something we should be worried about?”

Warwick clambered back into the Land Rover and lowered the window.

“You’re the one with the bedroom crammed full of fairy deterrents,” he answered.

Rowan averted her eyes. “That’s just because… because I like to make sure,” she said.

Warwick’s stony expression softened a little. “I can understand that. But the thing is,
I
like to make sure as well. So in future, if you tell us something, then stick to it. Now, go on. Inside with you.”

Rowan nodded, her head bowed. Warwick wound up the window and took the Land Rover around the side of the house to park.

They slunk inside. Tanya led the way to the kitchen, where Oberon bounded toward her. He
jumped up and knocked the air from her lungs, causing her to emit an undignified
oof!

Her grandmother, Nell, and Rose were seated at the table drinking mugs of warm, milky coffee.

“What are you still doing here?” Rowan asked Rose in surprise. “I thought you’d have gone by now.”

Rose got up. “Warwick offered to take me, but I wanted to stay until I knew you were all safely home,” she said. “He’s going to drive me back to Knook first thing in the morning.”

“We lost track of time,” said Rowan guiltily, but Tanya detected a hint of annoyance in her voice too.

“Young whippersnapper,” the General squawked. “Off with their heads!”

Nell sniffed haughtily in agreement. She got up and put her mug in the sink, then trotted over to the birdcage and threw a sheet over it for the night.

“Good night,” she said pointedly, wheeling the cage out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. The slap of her flip-flops against the quarry stone floor magnified the awkward silence in the kitchen. Rowan and Fabian each mumbled their good nights and skulked upstairs to bed.

Tanya lingered at the back door while Oberon sniffed around the back garden. She hoped to question her grandmother about Gredin’s strange admission but, annoyingly, Rose was still hanging around. When Warwick came into the kitchen from outside, prompting another pan of milk to be set on the stove, Tanya gave up. She called Oberon indoors,
then muttered good night and headed off up the stairs.

She lay in bed, the light off, but too much was going through her mind for her to be able to sleep. In addition to Gredin’s threats and comments about guardians, Jack’s mother and Suki’s tragic past both fought for space in her head. To top it all off, she’d discovered a chain of gnat bites dotted all the way up one of her shins as she undressed for bed, and they now itched horribly.

Tanya got out of bed and snapped the light on, scratching. Already her leg was swollen with ugly red lumps. Throwing on her bathrobe, she padded barefoot downstairs. The lamp on the telephone table lit the hallway. Someone was still up, and she hoped it was her grandmother so that they might discuss Gredin.

Voices carried from the kitchen: Warwick and Rose. As she went to push the door open, something about the manner in which they were speaking made Tanya hesitate.

Warwick’s voice was low. “I don’t know. She’s lived by her instincts for so long… maybe we should let her trust them.”

“But is it really instinct?” said Rose. “Or is she just so used to trouble that she’s paranoid? I hate to see her like this.”

“She didn’t seem too concerned about staying out late tonight,” said Warwick, thoughtfully. “If she lost track of time, it’s a good sign. Maybe she’s starting to relax, finally. She’s had more upheaval in her
life in the past couple of years than most people have in a lifetime. She needs time to adjust, time to start enjoying being young. I think Fabian and Tanya are good for her.”

“But was she always this scared?” Rose whispered. Tanya strained to hear her. “You got to know her in the fairy realm. You said she was tough.”

“She was,” said Warwick, pausing. “But something happened while we were captured by that woman—the Hedgewitch. Rowan asked me never to tell you or Florence about this, but I think you need to hear it in order to understand. When we escaped, there was another prisoner in the dungeon, a fey man called Eldritch. We had the chance to free him, but we found out that he was involved in taking James away. Rowan flew into a rage. She had the key to his manacles, but told him she was leaving him there as punishment for what he did. Before we left, Eldritch threatened her. He said he was going to hunt her down and make her pay.”

“My god,” said Rose. “Do you think… I mean, is there any chance…?”

Tanya held her breath. Her bare feet curled with cramp from the cold floor, but she did not dare to move.

“I don’t think there’s any way he could have made it out,” Warwick said grimly. “Not without help, and no one in their right mind would go to that cottage willingly. But just the memory of it is clearly haunting her. It’s haunted me too.”

“Why?”

“I’m as much to blame as she is. Probably more to blame, in fact. I could have got the key from her if I’d tried. If I’d really
wanted
to. But I knew if I challenged her she’d refuse to let me help her. And I needed to do that. So I let her decide whether to free him or not. She chose not to. Deep down, I think some part of me was glad, because I wanted him to suffer for what he’d done. Looking back, I see that he’d already suffered by being in that cellar for so long.”

“We all make mistakes,” said Rose softly. “If it weren’t for my mistake, she would never have believed she had a brother to lose.”

A long silence followed. Tanya waited for any sign that the conversation was set to continue, but there was none. She looked down at her leg, wondering if she should go back to bed and manage without anything to soothe it, but the bites wept and throbbed where she had scratched them so much.

She pushed the door open before the discussion resumed—and froze.

The silence in the kitchen was not merely due to a lull in conversation.

Warwick and Rose stood in front of the fireplace. His dark, work-roughened hands cupped her face. Hers were in his hair. They were kissing, and from what Tanya could tell, it wasn’t for the first time.

“Oh!”

The noise escaped Tanya’s lips in a hiccup of
surprise. She wasn’t able to hold it in—hadn’t even known it was coming.

Warwick and Rose broke apart, their faces etched with shock and guilt.

Tanya felt her own face flushing. She felt awkward and confused.

“I… I’ve got gnat bites,” she said lamely. “I came down to get something. For the itching.”

She could not decide who looked more horrified, Warwick or Rose.

“Vinegar,” Rose whispered, her face suddenly even paler than usual. Tanya could see every freckle on her skin. “Vinegar will stop them from itching.” She hurried to the cupboards and rummaged through them until she found the bottle. She moved toward Tanya, her hand outstretched. “You just need to dab it on. Here, do you want me to—”

“I can manage,” Tanya said, the heat in her cheeks flustering her. She couldn’t seem to gather her thoughts properly. The shock of what she had seen had caught her completely off guard.

“Of course.” Rose gave her the bottle and stepped back, her hands clasped together.

Warwick hadn’t moved. Tanya backed away, nearing the door. As she turned to go through it, he spoke.

“Tanya.”

She met his eyes, barely. “Don’t you think things are already complicated enough?” she asked him.

“You won’t… say anything, will you?” His voice was pleading.

“Don’t worry,” she said hollowly, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

She left them, shamefaced, in the kitchen and went back upstairs. In the bathroom she dabbed vinegar onto the bites and then stared at her reflection in the mirror for a long time.

“Another secret,” she whispered. She was fed up with them. Secrets everywhere. And now this was a huge one that she had to keep from her two best friends.

When had everything become such a mess?

A belch from the drain-dweller in the plughole made her jump.

“And you can be quiet as well,” she said crossly. She stuck the plug in the hole and left the bathroom, turning out the light behind her.

In the room next to Tanya’s, Rowan was also having problems sleeping. It took her a long time to fall into a doze, but then a
chit
of sound disturbed her. Her eyes opened.

Chit
.

She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. The third time it happened she recognized the noise. She threw back the bedclothes and went to the window. Pulling the curtains back, she made sure her line of salt was still in place on the sill before unlatching the window and leaning out. The scent of the roses in the court
yard below hit her nose, heavy and oversweet. A second later a small piece of gravel bounced off her forehead.

“Ouch!”

“Red?”

“Sparrow?” she said hesitantly. “Is that you?”

One of the rose bushes rustled and numerous winces and muttered curses drifted up to her.

“What are you doing down there?” she whispered.

“Trying to wake you up,” said Sparrow, finally disentangling himself from the bush. His figure was a silhouette in the dark gardens.

“You’ll wake the whole house up if you don’t keep it down,” Rowan hissed. “What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to make sure you’d got home safe, like.”

She was immediately alert. “Why?”

“No reason. Anyway, I’ll be off now—”

“Oh, no you don’t!” she whispered fiercely. “Go around the back. I’ll meet you at the kitchen door.”

She pulled the window closed, crept to the door, and opened it. The hallway was in darkness and the house was silent. She slipped down the stairs and through the house to the kitchen, easily quieting Oberon—who scrambled to his feet and began thumping his tail—with a scratch behind the ears and a biscuit.

She unhooked the key from the nail behind the
door and turned it in the lock. Sparrow stood awkwardly on the back step, his face half hidden in the shadow of the house. She pulled him inside and locked the door, pointing him to the table.

“What’s going on?”

“Told you,” said Sparrow. “Just wanted to check you got home.”

Rowan narrowed her eyes. “Since when do you check up on me? Since when does anyone check up on me? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

There was something different about him. Not only was he acting oddly, but he also looked different from the Sparrow she knew. His hair was shorter, neater. It showed his eyes more. Though it was dark—she hadn’t turned on the light for fear of waking anyone—his skin looked brighter. Cleaner, in fact. A scent of lemony soap or shampoo wafted toward her.

A stab of fear pierced her as she realized she hadn’t asked the vital question she should have.

“What are you?”

She saw him smile, his familiar chipped front tooth peeping at her.