Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2) (14 page)

Nikifor focused on the deep lines furrowing the bearded face. Reality. Clarity. The moment of madness had passed, he’d defeated it because now he knew. “He was using my key,” he said. “He was using it to follow me!”

Fitz winced. “You don’t have to shout.”

“I’m sorry,” Nikifor said in a much quieter voice. “It’s the curse.”

“What is this curse, exactly?”

“They, ah, cursed me bombastic.”

Fitz shook his head and made a funny snorting noise. Nikifor could have sworn he was laughing. “Trust the Freakin Fairies.”

Nikifor studied the rough circle of salt surrounding them. “What did you do?”

“A very basic protection.” Fitz wrapped a hand around his beard and gently tugged on it. “I’m surprised it worked so quickly. You seem quite recovered.”

“The Tormentor is gone.” Nikifor whispered the words, afraid to speak louder in case the shadow heard and returned. “He was angry with me for getting rid of my key. But he’ll be back.”

“This key,” Fitz said. “This is what you use to inspire humans?”

“It is our connection between Shadow and Dream, yes.”

“Then why did you get rid of it? How will you continue to be a muse?”

The shame flooded back. Nikifor buried his face in his hands. “I am the worst, most miserable, most destructive muse in Shadow.”

“Hardly.”

He looked at Fitz over his hands. The words he hadn’t spoken to anyone, not even Flower–even though she knew–tore from him. “I drove my writer insane because I could not stay off the vibe. He took a gun and he shot himself in the head. I murdered him.”

Fitz, for a moment, looked grey and old. The lines around his eyes deepened. “Then perhaps you were right to throw away this key.”

“The king will not understand. He will be angry.” Nikifor dropped his hands, amazed at himself. Flower had told him when they left Shadow City he couldn’t trust anyone, but there was something about Fitz he did trust, even with muse business.

“Forget the king.” Fitz stood up and left the circle, motioning for Nikifor to stay where he was. “Tell me about this Tormentor.”

“He is tall.” Nikifor closed his eyes. If talking summoned the spectre, he did not want to see. “And always in shadow, and-” he shuddered. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Then let’s talk about this.” Fitz turned away from him and shrugged off his shirt.

Nikifor stared. There on the man’s back was a huge tattoo: a black, sharp, thick, nine-pointed star. He looked from the tattoo to his wrist. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Fitz put his shirt back on and sat down. “Why would this Tormentor brand you with our symbol?”

“Our symbol? Whose symbol?”

Fitz regarded him steadily. “The Invisible Army. Surely you know who we are.”

“You are–you are–” Nikifor stiffened. “You are enemies of the king!”

“Exactly.” Fitz seemed unperturbed.

Nikifor felt just the opposite. He rose to his feet, panic welling. Flower had been right. They had to leave. “I must not be here! I must not listen to you!”

“Sit.”

He sat down again, but his hands trembled. Flower would want him to leave. The king would want him to leave, but the shadowed, troubled look in the forest person’s eyes held him as fast as his own curiosity. The Invisible Army might all be dissidents, rebels, disloyal troublemakers, but something about Fitz Falls was so much more.

“Things have changed,” Fitz said. “Shadow is in the grip of a tyrant and you are hunted. Dark times make for strange allies, Muse. I want to know why you were branded with the symbol of the Invisible Army.”

“Weakness is disloyalty.” The words dropped from his lips automatically, a mantra repeated so often it had been seared into his soul.

“What is that? You said it before.”

“It’s what he said when he branded me.” Nikifor looked at his wrist again, fearful, but the scar remained pale pink and lifeless. “The memories comes in flashes and then go. I did something–no. No, it wasn’t that. She did something, and I did not stop her. I was punished.”

“She?” the question was soft, intrigued.

“The fairy with the long hair.” Nikifor paused, lost in his own tangled thoughts. “Hippy Ishtar. She told me it was my destiny to kill the king. But she was wrong, wasn’t she? How could she say something like that?” He looked at Fitz. “I must be kept from the king. I must not go with Flower to find him.”

“She really intends to seek out the king?”

“She fears he has met with some ill fate, along with the other muses.” Nikifor shook his head. “I don’t understand what’s going on in Shadow. I don’t understand anything.”

“In time I think you will.” Fitz stood up. “Is the Tormentor here?”

“He is gone.”

“Good. Then sleep.” Fitz pointed at the bed. “I must send a message. Tomorrow we’ll talk with Flower about the Freakin Fairies.” With that, he left.

Nikifor walked out of the circle of salt and laid on the bed. His legs hung over the end, but he was asleep in seconds.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Flower awoke from a broken and troubled sleep to find herself alone in the spooky giant pumpkin. She stretched her aching joints and looked around with concern at the black curtains, the black rug on the floor, the black blankets. The bleached skull over the door was about as cheery as a three week old pile of ash, and the dead flowers stuffed into a cracked glass vase were frankly depressing.

She got up and did her best to comb her hair into some semblance of neatness using only her fingers before she ended up looking like a Bloomin Fairy herself, then brushed down the Freakin Fairy clothes she’d been living in. She looked ridiculous, but there was no help for it.

She ducked out of the doorway and squinted at the bright, sunny day outside. At least it was more cheerful than Mudface’s taste in decor. This was the first she’d seen of the village in daylight. The nearby giant pumpkin houses looked vastly more friendly than Mudface’s. The doors and windows were nice, predictable squares decorated with bright orange and pink flowers spilling out of overgrown pots.

Where the village ended, a sea of broad-leafed green crops started. Here and there a knot of hair bobbed above the leaves. The greenery shifted and trembled, a movement that could be followed by a wave of lighter green as the leaves flipped up and then settled. She followed the progress of the movement all the way to the edge, where a gaggle of Bloomin Fairies tumbled out, yelling at the tops of their voices.

All the fairies were in their teens or younger, and they were only yelling one word:
weirdo
. The taunts were directed at a figure walking slowly in their midst; Mudface was like a gloomy little streak of night amidst a pack of jumping fools, paying her persecutors not the least bit of attention. She had a book and a piece of charcoal in her hands and was thoroughly absorbed with both.

A red-headed fairy knocked the book out of her hands. “Weirdo weirdo weirdo!” he yelled. The rest of the pack renewed their shouts.

Mudface bent down to pick up the book. The redhead pushed her, sending her tumbling headlong into the grass.

That was just too much. Flower strode over there, picked up fairies by their knotted hair and lifted them aside until she reached the centre. She folded her arms and glared around. “What do you lot think you’re doing?”

The Bloomin Fairies stared back at her with wide, astonished eyes.

“Well?” Flower’s voice rose. “You should be ashamed of yourselves! Is this how you treat each other all the time?”

A few began to shuffle and sidle away, but the redhead kicked a rock and gave a sullen reply. “No. Only her.”

“Yeah,” said a dark-haired fairy next to him. “Cos she’s a weirdo! She was dead, just like you!”

There was a collective indrawn breath to begin the chant all over again.

“Oh really?” Flower scowled at all of them. “Well I’m also a giant freakin muse and if the lot of you don’t scat, I’m going to take to every single one of you with a comb and a pair of scissors and make you all look respectable!”

The fairies scattered in every direction.

Flower crouched down, picked up Mudface’s book and brushed the dirt off the binding, which was covered in thick, ragged patches of soft black fabric. The paper inside the book was thick and textured. She wondered if Mudface had cobbled it together from scraps on her own, like these fairies did with their clothes.

Mudface picked herself up off the ground. If she was upset, she didn’t show it. At least, her glower was no different this morning than it had been last night.

Flower held out the book. “Are you alright?”

Mudface snatched it from her hands and clutched it to her ribs. “I was just getting an idea,” she said. “They made me forget it.”

“Your writing is very important to you.” The idea puzzled Flower immensely. Humans wrote and drew and sang. Of course fairies did as well, but not with this kind of intensity. They were only fairies.

The scowl deepened. “So?”

“So I understand. I am a muse, after all.”
Flower brushed some of the dirt from the girl’s forehead and tried to sound practical about it all.

Mudface’s eyes widened. “I remember!” she burst out. Her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “I’m writing a subversive future of Shadow. One day everyone’s going to read my book and know the truth about everything.” She nodded once, then sat down on the spot, opened the book and scratched in there with her piece of charcoal.

“The truth? What does a Bloomin Fairy know about the truth?” The words escaped her before she could stop them. Flower pressed a guilty hand to her mouth, but Mudface was oblivious.

Flower got to her feet at the sound of someone clearing his throat and found Fitz standing watching them. She folded her arms across her chest. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” He jerked his head in the opposite direction. “Walk with me.”

Flower had no desire whatsoever to go walking with an enemy of the king, but Mudface was absorbed in her writing and frankly she had nothing else to do. She joined him and they walked slowly away from the village, following the line of the edge of the crops.

“I saw you stand up for Mudface,” Fitz said.

“Well of course I did, did you see what the rotten little creatures were doing to her?”

Fitz gave her a sidelong glance. “Don’t be too hard on them. There’s never been a Bloomin Fairy who wrote before. It’ll take them time to get used to it.”

“And you propose to allow them to bully her in the meantime?”

“I’m not here to tell them how to behave.”

Seeing they’d already walked far enough from the houses to not be overheard, Flower planted herself squarely in front of the man, hands on hips, and adopted her coldest tone, usually reserved for Guild bureaucrats and Moon Troopers. She only had an inch or two of height over him, but she used it to look down nonetheless. “Then why are you here?”

Fitz studied her. He looked older in the light of day, his face lined and scarred from years of fighting or who knew what kind of lifestyle. Flower had the distinct impression he was preparing himself to take a calculated risk.

“I’m here to evacuate them.”

“Evacuate them?” Flower glanced back at the village, where she could just see a fairy or two wandering about pulling up weeds. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly.” Fitz’s eyes never left her face. “The Guild is closing in on the village of Pumpkin, just like they did with Cauliflower and Daisy villages, where there is nothing left but scorch marks. They’ve cut off all roads in and out of Bloomin Fairy territory. Every day fetches sweep the skies looking for villages and every night Moon Troopers search new areas. It’s only a matter of time before they get here.”

Flower glanced up, but the sky was blue and empty. “Why? What do they want with them?”

“If we could answer that question, we’d know why so many fairies and muses are missing.”

“So what are you saying? You want them to up and leave everything they’ve ever known?” Flower started walking again to give herself time to think about why a self-professed enemy of the king would spend his time helping Bloomin Fairies.

Fitz followed her. “We’ve evacuated several groups of fairies successfully before the Guild could get to them.”

“Just fairies?” A spark of hope burned. “What about muses?”

“I’m sorry. Your arrival here is the first news I’ve had of muses going missing.”

Well that spark was short-lived. “How in Shadow has every single muse disappeared and nobody even noticed?” Flower clenched her fists and stopped again, causing Fitz to almost run into her.

“Maybe you should ask your king that, when you find him.”
              “Maybe I will!”

They glared at each other.

Fitz broke the deadlock first. He sighed and turned to look at the endless crops spreading away from them. “I didn’t come out here to argue about the king.”