The Lost Queen (2 page)

Tania pulled loose from her father and scrambled up the stairs. She tumbled onto her knees in front of her mother and buried her face in her lap. She felt her mother's hands trembling as she stroked her hair.

“Oh, Anita!” Her mother's voice was ragged with emotion. “Where have you been? Where have you
been
?”

 

Tania sat at the kitchen table, her eyes stinging from tears, her chest aching and her head numb. She felt as if she was floating in a bubble of frozen glass, as if
everything that was going on around her was happening to someone else. Questions came at her and she heard a voice that sounded like hers giving stumbling answers.

She could smell toast as her dad made her some scrambled eggs.

Her mother was sitting opposite her, her arms folded on the tabletop, her head thrust forward, watching her with bewildered eyes.

Tania was finding it even harder than she had imagined to hold up under her parents' questions. She knew what to say, but she found it desperately hard to repeat the invented story of a journey to Wales to find Edric. And even the strain of remembering to get his name right—to call him Evan—was making her head pound.

“You could have left a note,” her mother said. “Or phoned us, or…
something
.”

“I know,” Tania said quietly, her head throbbing with a growing thunder. “I wasn't thinking straight. All I could think about was that I had to find Evan.”

“But how did you manage?” her father asked. “How did you get all the way to north Wales? It's two hundred miles away.”

“Plenty of trains go there,” Tania murmured.

“You got a train from Paddington Station?” her father said.

She nodded.

“How did you pay for the ticket?”

“I had some money.”

Her father put the plate of scrambled eggs on toast in front of her.

“So what happened when you got to Wales?” her mother asked.

Tania picked up the fork and mechanically lifted some scrambled egg to her mouth. She wasn't hungry, but eating gave her a chance to gather her thoughts, to delay the lies.

It was horrible that her parents were so willing to believe her story. But why shouldn't they? They loved her and trusted her….

“I had an address,” she said, her eyes on her plate, her hands busy with the knife and fork as she cut the toast into small pieces. “People helped me. I caught another train.”
Lies! Lies! Lies!
“I don't really remember it all.”

“Where did you sleep?” asked her father. “How did you eat?”

“I slept in the railway stations,” Tania said. “I had enough money for food.”

“Where did you get these clothes?” her mother asked. “We took your own clothes away from the hospital. We were going to bring some fresh.”

“I…I found them,” Tania said.
That sounds so weak! What is wrong with you?

“In the hospital, you mean?”

Tania nodded and bought herself a few more seconds by putting more food into her mouth and chewing it slowly. She was aware of her parents looking at each other with baffled faces. It would almost have
been a relief for one of them to turn and say, “You're lying to us! Tell us the truth!”

She felt so ashamed. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to abandon this ridiculous pretense and tell them what had really happened to her, the wonders she had seen, the things she had discovered, the truth of who she really was.

No! Not now. Not yet. Not like this.

“So you managed to find the place where Evan's family live?” her father said.

“Yes.” She swallowed uncomfortably. “And I brought him back with me.”

“Where is he now?”

“He's gone to his hostel. I told him that he wouldn't get into trouble with the police.” She looked from her mother's face to her father's and back again. “The boat crash was an accident,” she said. “They won't prosecute him, will they? They mustn't.”

“No, I don't think he'll be prosecuted,” her father said. “But he was stupid to run away like that.”

Her mother reached out and rested her hand on Tania's arm. “You came back together, yes?”

Tania nodded.

“Have you told us everything that happened between you?”

Tania frowned. “Yes,” she said. “What do you mean?” She looked into her mother's anxious eyes and knew exactly what she meant. “Nothing else happened,” she promised. At least that was one question she could answer with complete honesty.

“How did you get back to London at this time in the morning?” her father asked. “Surely there aren't any overnight trains from Wales?”

“We got here late last night,” Tania said. “We didn't want to wake you so we walked the streets till it got light.”

“
Wake
us?” Her mother gasped. “Anita, you wouldn't have woken us up. Neither of us have had any proper sleep since you went missing.”

“Of course you haven't,” Tania agreed guiltily. “I'm so sorry for what I put you both through. I'll never ever do anything like that again—I promise.”

Her mother glanced at the wall clock. “There should be someone at the school by now. I'll phone and let them know you're all right.” She stood up and went into the living room.

Tania placed her knife and fork on the plate and pushed it away, still almost full. She looked apologetically at her father. “Sorry, I can't manage any more.”

“Don't worry about it,” he said. “Is there anything else you fancy?”

She smiled tiredly. “I don't think so. To be honest, I just want to curl up and sleep for a whole week.”

“You've had quite a time of it, haven't you, my girl?” he said, sitting beside her and cupping her cheek in his warm hand.

“I've caused so much trouble.” She sighed. “You must be sorry you ever had me.”

“That's right,” he said gently. “We're going to send you back and ask for a replacement. Someone who
would know better than to go chasing halfway across the country in search of some idiot boy!”

Exhaustion came down over her like a stifling blanket. “You mustn't blame Evan,” she murmured. “It wasn't his fault.”

“I'm not concerned with that right now,” her father said. “You're home safe and sound, and that's all that matters.” His fingers pressed against her cheek, turning her head to face him. His expression had grown serious. “You're an intelligent young woman and you're growing up fast,” he said. “But in some ways you still act like a child. Running away like that…” He shook his head. “There have to be consequences,” he said. “You know that, don't you?”

She nodded, already guessing what was coming next.

“I don't think you should see that boy anymore,” her father said. “He has too much influence over you, and it's time for it to stop.”

That was it. Right there. That was the axe she had been waiting to fall.

She nodded again without speaking.

A few moments later her mother came back into the room. “I spoke with the school secretary,” she said. “She's going to pass the message on to Mr. Cox. I said you're exhausted but you're safe and well. And I said that you'd be back in class tomorrow. Your dad can drive you over there in the morning and help you to explain things.”

“I've told her she's not to see Evan Thomas any
more,” her father said.

“Yes, that's for the best,” said her mother. “I won't ask you to make us any promises, Anita,” she added. “Promises are too easily broken, but we are trusting you to do as we ask.”

Tania gazed up at her, too tired to argue, and knowing that she was in no position to offer a convincing argument even if she tried. “What about the school play?” she said. “Am I banned from that as well?” She was playing Juliet to Edric's Romeo; they had been in rehearsals for weeks and it was due to be performed in just eight days' time. If her parents agreed to let her continue in the role, at least that would give her a legitimate reason for seeing Edric.

“You're obviously not going to be able to avoid bumping into him at school,” her mother said. “And after all the hard work you've put in, I don't think you can let everyone down by not carrying on with the play.”

“But if you have rehearsals outside normal school hours, I'll take you there and pick you up,” her father added.

“You know what we mean by not seeing him,” her mother warned. “Not seeing him as boyfriend and girlfriend, or whatever it is you call it these days. That's what has to stop. And I think you need a curfew, too.” She looked at Tania's father. “I think it should be eight o'clock school days and nine o'clock weekends.”

“That sounds fair,” he said.

Tania swallowed hard. “How long for?” she croaked.

“We'll see,” said her mother. “It's too soon to start thinking about things like that. Concentrate on your schoolwork for what's left of the term, and we'll have another talk about it in a month or so.”

A month or so.
Tania's spirits sank.

She couldn't possibly keep away from Edric for that long—not even if the only problem was the heartache of separation. But that wasn't her only concern, not by a long way.

The last thing she had promised King Oberon before she and Edric left Faerie was that they would seek out Titania, his lost Queen, who had gone through the mystical Oriole Glass in pursuit of her vanished daughter five hundred years ago and who had never returned.

The only clue they had to Titania's whereabouts was Tania's Soul Book. Someone in the Mortal World had sent it to her on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, and Tania was convinced it had come from Queen Titania, the mother of the Faerie half of her nature.

The parcel had been postmarked Richmond in southwest London. That's where the search must begin, but to keep her promise to Oberon, she would have to tell yet more lies to her parents.

I can't think about that now. Too tired. Must sleep.

“You look shattered, my girl.” Her father's voice broke into her thoughts. “Why don't you go and catch up on some sleep?”

She nodded. Sleep—that's what she wanted more than anything in the world. A whole day of deep, dreamless sleep.

She opened her bedroom door and frowned. Standing on the floor at the foot of her bed was a large box wrapped in gold paper and tied with red ribbon. There were other, smaller brightly wrapped boxes arranged around it. And a big pile of colored envelopes.

“Happy belated birthday, Anita,” came her mother's voice from behind her.

“Did you think you wouldn't get any presents?” her father added.

They had obviously followed her up the stairs.

“I'd totally forgotten!” Tania said, staring at the pile of gifts.

“Come on,” said her father. “Surely you've got the strength to open a few things before you crash out. I want to see what you got!”

Laughing through her exhaustion, Tania dropped to her knees on the carpet and reached for the pile of cards.

 

It was half an hour later. Tania lay fully clothed on her bed, so worn out that she didn't even have the energy to get undressed. Her birthday cards were lined up on shelves and furniture tops all around her. Her new computer stood on her desk. All her other gifts were laid out on her chest of drawers: a backpack from Nan
and Granddad, a necklace from Auntie Jenny and Uncle Steve. A CD from her cousin Helena, a couple of books, a red satin scarf. Gift vouchers and some cash.

She gazed drowsily around her room, looking at all her familiar things…remembering her bedchamber in the Royal Palace in Faerie, that enchanted room with its living tapestries and windows that overlooked the formal palace gardens.

It had been so different from her bedroom here. And yet she had felt at home there. At home there, at home here. At home in both worlds or neither?

What was it that Gabriel Drake had said to her only moments before Oberon had banished him?

Your spirit is split between the worlds. You shall never find peace!

Tania pushed away the memory of his voice. He was wrong. He had to be wrong.

Her canvas shoulder bag was propped against her bedside table. The last time she had seen it had been in the hospital—her parents must have picked it up for her.

She reached out and dragged the bag toward her. She fumbled into it and found her phone. When she pressed to turn it on, the screen lit up.

HI ANITA
!

Still some power left in the battery. Good.

She speed-dialed Evan's number—
Edric's
number—and put the phone to her ear. It was answered after a single tone.

“How did it go?” His voice was full of urgent concern. “I've been waiting ages for you to call. Are you all right?”

“I lied my head off,” she said miserably. “And they believed me.”

“That's good,” Edric said.

“Is it?” Tania replied, her eyes closed, her head swimming. “Is it really
good
? Listen, I'm sorry. I'm too tired to talk right now. We can talk tomorrow at school.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not really.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She pressed to disconnect. The phone dropped out of her hand and slipped off the side of the bed. She was vaguely aware of a soft thump as it hit the carpet.

Moments later she was asleep.

Tania and Edric were stumbling up a steeply sloping, night-dark valley, hand in hand and running for their lives. All around them, the splintered mountains shone like black glass under a deluge of icy rain. The storm clouds were as dense as lead, their swollen bellies torn open by the jagged rocks. Lightning leaped from crag to crag with a sound like the hissing of snakes.

In the gulping darkness at their heels Tania could hear harsh, heavy breathing. She glanced fearfully over her shoulder and felt sure that she saw two red eyes through the falling water.

“Come
on
!” Edric's voice cut through the tumult.

She scrambled along the rising valley floor, only just managing to keep to her feet as she clung to Edric's hand. Sheer black cliffs closed in around them, the shining stone so smooth and sharp-edged that an
unwary touch could draw blood. It was like climbing through a snare of broken glass—and all the time the rain beat down on them and the thunder boomed in their ears and the lightning was as fierce as acid in their eyes.

Her foot slipped and she fell onto her knee, crying out with the pain.

“Get up!” Edric shouted down. “It's closing in on us!”

“What is?” she wailed. “Edric? What is this place? How did we get here?”

“Don't you know?” he shouted. “This is Ynis Maw!”

The name sent a shudder through her. But why? She had never heard those strange words before.

“I'll have to let go of you,” Edric shouted down. “I need both hands to get up this next bit.” His wet hand slid out of hers and she watched as he scrambled up the rock face. She got to her feet. She was deadly cold and soaked to the skin. She clutched her arms around herself, staring up into the vicious rain, her face stinging from a thousand sharp impacts.

A loud, rumbling snort sounded behind her. She turned her head, staring down into the black gorge. She heard the scratch and scrape of huge claws on the stone. Two red points of light were moving upward through the rain.

“Tania!”

She snatched her head around. Edric was leaning over the high lip of rock, reaching his arm down
toward her. She threw herself up and caught hold of his hand. It was cold—much colder than before, and the grip of his fingers was fierce and harsh.

“I have you!” The voice sounded wrong.

“Edric?”

There was a snarl of triumphant laughter and at that same moment a blaze of lightning lit up the crouching figure above her.

She let out a scream. It wasn't Edric.

The wild-eyed face that leered down at her was the face of Gabriel Drake.

She tried to wrestle her hand free, but his fingers wouldn't loosen from hers. She stared at their joined hands and saw that they glowed with a dull amber light.

“Let go of me!” she shouted.

“That I shall never do, my lady,” he called down. “You will never be free of me! Did you not know? We are bonded for all time!”

His fingers dug into her hand and with a terrifying strength he began to haul her up the rock face. Explosions of lightning revealed the madness in his silver eyes. His laughter howled above the thunder. The rain threw needles into her upturned face.

“No!” Tania writhed helplessly, her feet coming clear of the rock, her legs kicking as he dragged her upward.

“No!”

Tania awoke with a jolt that shook the bed. She forced her eyes open, her heart pounding. She stared wildly around. The curtains were open and the room
was filled with daylight. Birthday cards danced brightly on the edge of sight.

She let out a relieved groan and ran her hands over her face. She was bathed in sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. She was lying fully clothed on her own bed in her bedroom in London.

It had been a nightmare. That was all.

She lay still for a few minutes. The crashes of thunder that filled her head gradually faded away and the red fire that rimmed her tightly shut eyes dwindled to nothing.

She took her hands away from her face and opened her eyes. She blew her cheeks out in a long breath and then sat up.

Her clothes were sticking uncomfortably to her. She looked around the room, needing to get a fix on reality for fear that she might be sucked back into the dream. She grabbed her shoulder bag and dug out her ID pass. She gazed at the small photo of herself. Long curling red hair framed her heart-shaped face with its wide mouth and high, slanted cheekbones. Smoky green eyes stared out at her.

Anita Palmer.

Princess Tania.

Two people with one face and one heart and only one life to lead.

But which life? And
where
?

Ynis Maw.

She shuddered at the memory of Gabriel Drake's face, his mouth twisted in a horrible smile, his eyes
stretched wide so that the whites showed all around the weird silver irises. She clutched her hand to herself, remembering the painfully tight grip of his fingers.

You will never be free of me! Did you not know? We are bonded for all time!
She remembered the Hand-Fasting Ceremony that she and Gabriel had gone through in the Hall of Light. It had been against her will—her sister Rathina had tricked her into going there. Gabriel had been waiting. He had poured the liquid amber over their two hands and she had seen him revealed in all his treachery and evil.

His plans had come to nothing. Oberon had come down on him like a thunderbolt; Tania could still remember the moment of Gabriel's banishment. The terror in his eyes as the King pronounced his doom. And then, a split second later, he had been gone, leaving only a thin snake of smoke that coiled for an instant before fading into nothingness.

She knew the Hand-Fasting Ceremony was only the first of many Faerie wedding rituals: The full ceremony took three whole days. She knew she wasn't married to Gabriel in any real sense of the word, but
something
had happened between them—a bond had been forged.

For the first time Tania wondered exactly what had happened to Gabriel. He had vanished but Oberon had not killed him. The punishment for his crimes had been banishment. But banishment to where?

Ynis Maw?

Was it a real place? A terrible land at the far
reaches of the world—a place of exile and torment and horror? Was Gabriel calling to her across the worlds from that place, reminding her of the unbreakable connection between them?

She stood up and walked rapidly to the window. She rested her forehead against the cool glass, staring down into the garden. “No. No. No.” she whispered, her breath misting the glass. “He was only able to find me here last time because I was wearing the amber pendant.” Her jaw set. “I won't let him do that to me again. I won't!”

But if Ynis Maw was a real place, could someone as powerful as Gabriel Drake find a way to escape?

“Oberon wouldn't let that happen,” she said. “He'd have made sure Gabriel could never come back.”

She became aware of how uncomfortable her borrowed clothes felt against her skin. She walked to the bed again and looked at the bedside clock.

It was three thirty. She spotted her phone lying on the carpet. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she retrieved it. She had one text message.

It was from her best friend, Jade.

YOU BAD GIRL
!
WE WANT ALL THE GORY DETAILS! COME TO THE PIZZA PLACE AS SOON AS SCHOOL FINISHES
!

Tania smiled. Typical Jade. Word must have gone around the school saying she was okay, and now Jade wanted the inside story.

Tania was suddenly eager to see her friends again, but…“Sorry, Jade,” she said aloud. “You don't get to
know the truth this time.” She texted back:
I'LL BE THERE
.

“What I really need right now is a shower,” she decided. As she stood up, she remembered the black amber stone. She fished it out of her pocket and walked to the desk. Sitting down, she took a sharp-pointed nail file out of a drawer. She held the thin stone between her finger and thumb on the desk and began to twist the nail file against its surface. After a few moments she saw that she had made a small circular dent. She worked for the next few minutes, drilling into the stone until she had made two small, neat holes, one at each end of the oval. Then she found a piece of lilac ribbon and threaded it through the holes.

She tied the ribbon firmly around her wrist. She shook her hand a couple of times, making sure that the makeshift bracelet was secure. She picked a metal ruler out of a drawer and held it in her fist. She was aware of the faintest of buzzing in her fingers, as if a tiny fly was trapped in her hand. But that was all. She was safe.

She got up and headed for the bathroom. She'd take a shower—and then it would be time to go and see Jade and the others.

 

Tania came back into her room, wrapped in a bath sheet and with her wet hair up in a towel turban.

Apart from the fact that this was a Thursday and she ought to be at school, everything else around her
was beginning to feel disarmingly ordinary. The posters on her walls, the pile of schoolbooks by the desk, her possessions spread out around her just like they always had been. Her bulletin board with magazine pictures and postcards and old cinema tickets tacked all over it. A picture of her and Jade crammed into a photo booth, pulling faces. A photo of her and Edric—Evan then, of course—in Hyde Park, standing on a bench and making daft theatrical gestures, being Romeo and Juliet for Jade's digital camera.

This was reality. Faerie was…what? An illusion? No, not that. But not real—not in the way that this room was real.

Except that she knew that it was.

Almost without thinking about it, Tania made the simple side step that opened the door between the worlds.

She let out a breath as her room melted silently away. Instead of the soft carpet, there were hard wooden boards under her bare feet. Instead of her bedroom she found herself staring at brown walls of smooth stonework. The room into which she had stepped was circular, with a low dark-beamed ceiling and a narrow, unglazed arched window that blazed with golden sunlight.

“You idiot!” she said aloud. “You were upstairs! You could have arrived here in midair!” She laughed at her good fortune: She had come into Faerie inside some kind of building, with a room on the same level as her bedroom in Camden.

She knew from past experience that Faerie and the Mortal World replicated one another—almost as if they were two photographic images one on top of the other, sharing the same space but in quite different worlds. For her, stepping from one world to the other was as simple as moving from one room to another; it was her gift, and no one else in Faerie could do it without the use of powerful and dangerous enchantments.

She padded over to the window. The scent of Faerie air filled her head, sweet as roses, strong as honeysuckle, mysterious as moonflower. Through a veil of slender leafy branches, she found herself gazing over the parkland that sloped gently down toward the Royal Palace.

Was it really only yesterday that she had walked these grassy downs with her sister Cordelia and a pack of racing hounds?

Far away to her left she saw turrets and gatehouses that she recognized, set behind wide formal gardens intertwined with yellow pathways and adorned with fountains and elegant white marble statuary. The tiny shapes of people could be seen walking, no bigger to her than pawns on a distant chessboard. These buildings were the Royal Apartments, home to King Oberon and his daughters. Somewhere in that mass of red-brick gothic buildings, with their steep gray slate roofs and cream-colored stone ornamentations, was her Faerie bedchamber.

The building she was in now was not part of the
main bulk of the palace; it was a small tower set on the hillside among a grove of aspen trees.

A stone spiral staircase clung to the curved wall opposite the window, winding up from the floor below and continuing to a wooden trap door in the ceiling. Part of Tania longed to follow the coiling steps to ground level and to run out into the open, to feel the grass under her naked feet and the warm breeze on her face.

She laughed. “In a towel?” she said. “I don't think so.”

Faerie would always be there for her. Just a small side step and she could come back whenever she wished.

She turned with one last wistful glance out the window and sidestepped into the Mortal World.

She came into her bedroom just as her mother was leaving.

Her mother gasped. “Where on earth did you pop up from?”

Tania swallowed hard.
Think!
She pointed behind the bed. “I was down there,” she said. “I lost a slipper under the bed.”

“Well, you might have said something—I did call.”

“Sorry, I didn't hear you.” Tania forced a smile. “Did you want something?”

Her mother gave her an odd look. “Just to tell you that I've spoken with the police officer who was in charge of your missing person case.”

Tania felt a pang of alarm. “I don't have to talk to
the police, do I? Dad said everything would be all right.”

“Everything
is
all right,” said her mother. “But I had to let them know you were back. The official line is they don't intend to take any further action.”

A wave of relief swept over her. “Thanks, Mum. You've been really good about this.”

Her mother gave a wry smile. “Yes, haven't I? I expect we'll all be able to laugh about this in ten years' time.”

“Let's hope,” Tania said. She looked thoughtfully at her mother; maybe it was time to drop another small bombshell. “Mum? How would you feel if I wanted to change my name?”

Her mother looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Tania took a steadying breath. “I'd like to be called Tania.”

Her mother stood silently in the doorway for several moments. It was impossible for Tania to tell what she was thinking from the expression on her face. Was she mad at her? Amused? Confused?