the mushrooms crowded into one corner, the roots that kept the ceiling from falling in. Some abandoned fox’s den or badger scrape in the depths of the thicket, so shallow that Richard had been forced to shrink himself and Ivy as small as he could just to fit.
And yet he’d done it. She’d told him to go, but he’d stayed, and when he saw her in trouble, he’d been ready. He’d flown to meet her, cast a spell to throw off her pursuers, transformed into faery-shape to catch her as she fell. And now he’d brought her back from the very gates of death, and what had she given him in return? A smack hard enough to rattle his teeth.
The worst of it was, Richard was still laughing. There was more than a hint of hysteria in it, and Ivy was beginning to think she might have to slap him again just to make him stop. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
He let out a last snort of hilarity, wiped his eyes with one filthy hand and sat up. ‘It’s just…there’s this delicious irony to you hitting me, that’s all. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.’
Which meant nothing to Ivy, but she didn’t really care. ‘You saved my life,’ she said, and her hand went automatically to her shoulder. It was stiff and tender, but the bones and muscles felt whole and even the skin was unbroken. ‘I don’t know how to…’ No, she wasn’t about to thank him, that would put her eternally in his debt. But she owed him a great deal, and it would take her a long time to repay it. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Then don’t say anything,’ said Richard. ‘You saved my life too, when you freed me from that dungeon. Now we’re even.’
His gaze held hers until Ivy began to feel self-conscious. She brushed the soil from her legs and backed away. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’re certainly evenly dirty.’
Richard climbed to his feet, one hand braced on the low ceiling. ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said. ‘I don’t think your brother saw you change out of your swift-form. But if we stay here much longer he’ll realise that you’re missing, and I really don’t want to be around when that happens. Especially not now that I’ve seen what he can do.’
The fevered energy that had filled Ivy since her healing drained away, leaving her shaken. ‘Mica,’ she whispered. ‘I knew he had a plan to catch you, but I never guessed…’ She looked up at him miserably. ‘Richard, I can’t go home.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve been gone too long. Even if Mica hasn’t guessed yet that I was the swift he shot, it won’t take him long to figure it out. I’ll be punished for going above — locked up, or put under guard at the very least — and then I’ll never get the chance-’
She broke off, pushing her fingertips against her eyes. The realisation of how badly she had miscalculated, what a disaster she had made for herself and everyone she loved, shook her to the core. ‘I can’t go back,’ she said. ‘Not until I find Cicely. And maybe not even then.’
Richard was quiet a moment, his face unreadable. At last he said, ‘It’s your choice. But if I were you, I’d talk to Marigold first. You’ll have a better chance of finding your sister with her help than you would on your own.’
Ivy wanted to agree, but at the same time she felt selfish for even considering it. She wanted to see Marigold so badly, to know the comfort that only a mother could give — but surely she didn’t deserve anything good after the way she’d failed Cicely? Especially now that she’d abandoned Mica and Flint as well?
And yet punishing herself wouldn’t help Cicely either. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘But…’ She moved her shoulder, wincing at the tug in her muscles. ‘I’m not up to flying yet. I’m not even sure I could hang on, if I were on your back.’ Especially since his bird-form was so tiny, she couldn’t believe he’d made the offer in the first place.
‘Well, we can’t go any farther by magic. I could take you into the wood because I knew you’d been there already, but after that it was back to running.’ Richard tapped his fingers along a root, frowning as he thought. ‘What if we make ourselves human size, and you turn both of us invisible? If we’ve got to walk, we’ll cover more ground that way.’
Ivy still felt wobbly after her near-death experience, and the thought of casting two spells at once made her head ache. But what choice did she have? They couldn’t stay here — the hunters of the Delve would be after them at any moment.
‘All right,’ she said, willing herself to sound confident. ‘Let’s go.’
On the far side of the wood the ground dropped away, sloping down into a little valley where a stream gurgled among the rocks. Richard set the pace, and Ivy did her best to keep up with him. But though nervous energy sustained her for a while, it wasn’t long before her strength began to falter. She’d been up most of the night, eaten nothing in hours, and her shoulder had begun aching again — first in occasional spasms, then with a steady throb that made her feel queasy.
‘So,’ said Richard as the path turned away from the riverbank and began to angle upward, ‘now that I’ve finally convinced you I’m not one, what exactly is a spriggan? Some kind of hideous creature, obviously — and I’m trying not to take that personally — but how are they different from other magical folk?’
‘I don’t know that much about them,’ Ivy said, focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Her chest was hurting as well now, and she found it hard to breathe. ‘Only that they’re thin and pale and ugly, and bring bad luck and bad weather wherever they go. They love only two things — food and treasure — and they steal piskey- women because they haven’t any women of their own.’
‘And they only live in Cornwall? Nowhere else?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she panted, wiping sweat from her brow. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve been to quite a few places, in my time,’ Richard replied. ‘I’ve travelled across England and Wales, and I even spent a few months in Scotland once. This isn’t the first time I’ve been to Cornwall, either. But I’ve never seen a single one of these so-called spriggans — look out! ’
Head down, eyes half-shut, Ivy didn’t even see the rock rolling towards her until she tripped over it. She lurched sideways, too startled to even cry out — but when Richard caught her arm, Ivy let out a swift’s shriek of agony. Hastily the faery switched his grip to her other side and helped her to safer ground.
‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ he said, as Ivy sank down on an outcropping. He crouched in front of her, seizing her chin and lifting her head up. ‘How long have you been in pain?’
She averted her eyes. ‘A while. I thought I was just tired.’
‘I put a lot of power into that healing.’ His fingers traced the purpling bruise on her shoulder, and Ivy flinched. ‘Why is it coming undone?’
‘I don’t know.’ She tried to get up, but her knees buckled and she fell back again. ‘But I can’t walk any farther. Just…go. Leave me here.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Richard. He slid one arm beneath her legs, lifted her from the ground and set off up the hill, carrying Ivy as though she weighed nothing at all.
Ivy wanted to tell him to stop, so she could make herself small and save him the trouble. But her head was already pounding with the effort of keeping them both invisible, and the pain in her arm was growing worse every minute. All she could do was hide her face against Richard’s neck, and try not to be sick down his collar.
Then she lost consciousness altogether, and dropped into a bottomless shaft of oblivion.
Ivy woke to a world of dusty golden light. Above her spread a ceiling braced by dark, square-cut beams, while around her rose walls of stone and mortar. A human building of some sort — a barn perhaps? But if so, how had Richard brought her in here? She’d always heard that faeries couldn’t enter human dwellings without permission.
There was an itch between her shoulders, right where her wings ought to be. Ivy squirmed and reached behind her with one arm and then the other, trying to get at the irritation. She was on her third attempt before she realised she’d twisted her injured shoulder to its limits, and hadn’t felt any pain at all. Wondering, she lowered her hand and touched the place below her collarbone where the swift’s beak had pierced her. There was no tenderness there, either.
So Richard had healed her again while she lay unconscious, and this time he’d succeeded. But it must have taken all his strength, because now he lay sprawled on the floor beside her, so deep in slumber that he didn’t even twitch when Ivy spoke his name.
Well, let him sleep; he’d earned it. Ivy rose, brushing dust from her breeches. The building was old but in good repair, a low rectangle with a broad corridor along one side and the rest divided by wood and metal partitions. An earthy, pungent smell mingled with the scent of dried grass — animals? Ivy stepped out of the doorway, avoiding a heap of suspicious-looking muck in the middle of the corridor, and went to investigate.
