“There’s something else about the Children you should know,” she said, and went on to tell him about the conversation she and Valerian had with Rob in the Oak-including what the Empress had done to gain power over all the faeries, and how the Stone of Naming was the only way to free them. “But these legends don’t say anything about the Stone,” she finished, looking down at the pages again. “I hope Rob wasn’t mistaken…”
“So do I,” Timothy said grimly.
A few minutes later Paul dropped them off at the station, pressed a wad of notes into Timothy’s hand, and roared off back down the road to Oakhaven. And now
Timothy stood on the platform with Linden in his backpack and Paul’s money in his wallet, watching the sign that read LONDON BRIDGE: 5 min.
He hadn’t wanted to go back to London at all, especially not to the same station they’d arrived at before, but the woman at the desk said there was no help for it. “Only way to get where you’re going at this hour, love,” she’d explained as she was printing off his tickets. “And you’ve got a long enough journey ahead of you as it is.”
It was early afternoon now, the commuter rush long past, and when Timothy boarded the train he found it more than half empty. Still, he had difficulty finding a seat where he could talk to Linden without being overheard.
“It’s going to take us until nightfall to get to Wales,” he told her when she emerged, disheveled and blinking, from the depths of the pack. “And the train only goes as far as Aberystwyth, so we’ll have to stop there overnight and take a coach to Cardigan in the morning. But before that we’re going to have to spend something like an hour in London, getting to the station where we’ll catch our next train. And that’s what I’m worried about.”
“Do you think the Blackwings will catch up with us?” Linden asked.
“I doubt they can fly that fast. But they’re not our only problem, remember? All the Empress’s faeries will be looking for us. Especially if the Blackwings tell them we’re coming.”
Linden sucked in her breath. “Can they really do that?”
“I don’t know. But just after I met Veronica the first time, I saw her talk into her hand as she was walking away. Back then I thought that she must be using a cell phone, and I’d just missed seeing her take it out of her purse…but now I think she was using magic. That must be how she arranged for that other faery to meet me at the Trans-National and give me that card for Sanctuary-”
He broke off to see the woman passenger on the other side of the aisle frowning at him: She obviously thought Timothy was talking to himself. Embarrassed, he bent over and pretended to be searching for something in his pack, lowering his voice to a whisper as he went on. “The point is, if they do have some way to talk to one another over a distance, then there’s a good chance the faeries in London know we’re coming, so we’ll have to be on our guard. Can you tell when another faery is around?”
Linden shook her small head. “Valerian has that power, I think, and obviously Rob does, too, but not me. I can smell them, though, if they’re close by. Will that be good enough?”
“It’ll have to be,” said Timothy.
“May I come out now?” said Linden as loudly as she dared, wondering if Timothy could even hear her amid all the noise of the station. “It’s hot in here.”
“Just wait until I’m through the turnstiles,” Timothy muttered over his shoulder. “Then I’ll find somewhere to let you out.”
Reminding herself to be patient, Linden drew a deep breath through her nose, concentrating on all the smells filtering in to her: sweat and skin, metal and rubber, coffee and spices, all heavily overlaid with the dusty canvas of the pack and the faint soap-and-musk that was Timothy. But in all of that, not a trace of the wild, tingling scent of her fellow faeries.
“All right, you can come out now,” said Timothy at last, and Linden wriggled out of the pack and dropped to the floor beside him, making herself human size again. By now she hardly had to concentrate at all to make herself grow, and being big felt almost as natural as being small. The spell didn’t even give her a headache anymore.
“I think Rob was right,” she confided to Timothy as she stepped out from the shadows. “The Empress’s people don’t like these places. Maybe they don’t even know we-”
Timothy caught her by the arm and jerked her back as a huge man in baggy clothes strode past. “Watch where you’re going,” he said. “In a crowd like this, you can’t count on other people to watch out for you.”
Linden blinked and looked around, noticing her surroundings for the first time. Behind her, a set of moving staircases rose and fell with mesmerizing smoothness. Beside her was the darkened alcove where Timothy had let her out of his pack. And stretching before her-a wide, windowless tunnel, swarming with more people than Linden had seen or even imagined in her life.
They came in every skin color, every possible size and shape. Their clothes and hair were such a riot of styles, textures, and hues that she felt hopelessly drab, like a wren among goldfinches. But strongest of all was the wave of sheer humanness that washed toward her, that thick, meaty smell pungent with chemicals and salt.
“Come on,” said Timothy, tugging at her, and Linden obeyed, gulping shallow breaths to calm her nausea. She clung tight to Timothy’s hand, and together they plunged through the crowd to the end of the tunnel.
They had just emerged onto a platform whose sign read NORTHERN LINE when the ground rumbled beneath her feet. Linden clapped her hands to her ears, her hair whipping in all directions, as a giant metal snake came crashing out of the darkness and hissed to a stop in front of them, disgorging more humans onto the platform. Linden’s knees wobbled, and she couldn’t move until Timothy took hold of her and practically dragged her inside.
“Sit down before you faint, will you?” he whispered as he led her to the back of the carriage. Linden sank into an empty seat and put her head in her hands. The human smell wasn’t quite as strong here, she realized with dim relief…but then a thread of winter-pine scent wafted toward her, and she sat up abruptly, dread prickling the back of her neck.
There was a faery on the train with them.
“We have to get off,” she started to tell Timothy. “It isn’t-”
But then time stopped, and she couldn’t say anything at all.
There was no sound, no movement, not even a breath of air. The passengers around Timothy were as still as photographs; outside, even the platform had ceased to bustle. Feeling as though he were swimming in wet cement, Timothy forced his head around to look at Linden and saw her frozen like all the others, one hand uplifted and her mouth open in a cry of warning that had come half a second too late.
And yet he could still move, however sluggishly. Why? He crept his hand into his front pocket, and as his fingers brushed past his train tickets and touched the iron key the heaviness in his muscles fell away. His first impulse was to jump up, leap out the door, and dash for the station exit-but Linden was still trapped, and how could he use the key to free her without robbing her of all her magic as well?
The faery rose from his seat at the far end of the carriage and walked toward them, teeth gleaming in a feral smile. A male, slight and wiry, with blond hair worn poet-length but no softness in his face at all. He stopped in front of Timothy, then raised his fingers as though touching a hidden earpiece and spoke into his palm:
“It’s Martin. I’ve found them-”
There was only one thing Timothy could think to do. He leaped out of his seat and tackled the faery, slamming him back against the carriage wall.
Martin went limp, slithering out of Timothy’s grasp. He dropped to the aisle, rolled away, and bounded to his feet again; then he snatched a pen from the pocket of a nearby passenger and, with a flash, it became a silver knife in his hand.
“Catch this, human boy,” he said silkily, and lunged forward. Timothy dodged, but not quite fast enough. The knife drew fire across his ribs, and he gasped-but at the same moment he flung out the hand that held the iron key, and the faery ran straight into it.
The iron jerked in his palm, flaring with sudden heat. Martin gave a harsh cry and dropped to the floor. At the same instant the carriage woke up, doors hissing shut and passengers settling into their seats as though nothing had happened. Quickly Timothy kicked the knife away from Martin’s limp hand-but it was a pen again now, harmless.
“Cleverly done,” panted the faery, getting up slowly and shaking the hair out of his eyes. “But what good will your secret weapon do you, now that it is no longer a secret?”
