Briar Queen_ A Night and Nothing Novel - Katherine Harbour Page 0,135
to go, Finn. Jane Emory did,” Christie pointed out.
“Christie, Jane gave me the Ghostlands key with Rowan Cruithnear’s permission. She knew I’d get there somehow—and she cared that Lily was a captive of Seth Lot. I trust her. Unless she’s an award-winning actress, she’s for real. How was your trip home?”
“Marvin—Dead Bird—took us onto the train and informed the three Fatas in the car that he would turn them inside out if we didn’t reach our destination. He told us what botched Sylvie’s and my entrance into the Spooklands—there was interference, he said, from the dead. He didn’t say the Black Scissors was an asshole, but I think we all silently reached that conclusion. Then Sylvie asked him if he was really a . . . Tengu?—and he got an attitude. With his help, we found our way back to StarDust Studios. We stepped through the door—and here we are.”
Sylvie’s eyes were shadowy. “Are the Fatas going to slay the Wolf?”
“They tried, once.” Jack sat down in the booth next to Finn. “It didn’t work. I believe Lot recruited some of the Fatas to his side and ate the rest.”
Finn finally set aside her sunglasses to look at Jack. He was all in black, the fake fur that lined his coat making his skin even paler. In the sunlight, his eyes ghosting silver, he scarcely looked human.
“Finn.” Christie’s voice sounded shaky and Sylvie was staring at her, a glass of milk halfway to her mouth. Jack somberly said, “Your eyes, Finn.”
Finn fumbled in her small backpack, pulled out the compact mirror Sylvie had given her, and opened it. Her brown eyes were sheened with silver.
Jack was calm. “It’s just more obvious in the daylight. It’ll fade.”
“If you say so.” Finn closed the compact and put the sunglasses back on. There was a slight tremor in her hands. “Where’s Moth?”
“At the counter, there—he seems to have developed an addiction to coffee.”
“Is that the walking stick strapped over his shoulder?” Christie tilted his head. “The sword the Black Scissors gave us? Who’s going to cut off the Wolf’s head—”
Crack! Something hit the window with such force it made all of them, except Jack, jump.
“A bird?” Sylvie rose to peer out.
“That’s not a bird.” Jack slid to his feet. “That’s a bat.”
When Finn saw the dark cloud of flying creatures descending from the sky, she whispered, “What—”
The bats began smashing into the window. Christie scrambled up as the glass cobwebbed beneath spatters of jellied blood. Someone screamed.
Jack and Finn ran out the door with Sylvie and Christie following. Moth strode after.
Outside, Finn looked away from the dead and dying bats in the snow. Sylvie knelt and whispered, “Poor things.”
Jack crouched down and, from the blood-speckled snow, lifted a ring of green metal set with rubies. “This was Ialtag Amhran.”
“BatSong?” Her heart slamming, Finn gazed around at the snowy street, expecting more horrors. Other people were coming out of the diner.
Jack rose. “Lot’s back. We need to get to Tirnagoth before the sun sets.”
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, Tirnagoth was a menacing silhouette rising from a wilderness of neglected landscaping. Even though she was now acquainted with what lived there, the sight of the boarded-up hotel still made Finn’s skin crawl.
Sylvie and Christie followed Jack, Moth, and Finn, as they approached the gates to the inner courtyard. The gates opened and Jack loped up the stairs to the entrance. He took a key—a regular, old-fashioned one—from his pocket.
“Lily Rose is mortal.” Sylvie spoke in a hushed voice as Tirnagoth’s doors swung inward and they stepped into the mildewed lobby. “How is she here, among the Fatas?”
“Lily Rose isn’t here.” Jack strode across the lobby to a wall of dusty shelves, where he twisted something. The wall slid open to reveal a hall and a stairway.
Christie walked forward. “A secret passage—so awesome, yet so cliché. Isn’t this the first place the Wolf is going to visit?”
“It’s the safest place for us to be.” Jack led them up the secret stairs to a mahogany door carved into the shapes of peacocks. “This is where we kept guests.”
“Guests?” Finn was wary.
“Guests.” Jack shoved open the door to reveal a long, windowed gallery stark with winter sunlight. At the far end was a chamber scattered with old furniture. There was a wall of books, a fireplace stacked with logs, and a wine rack filled with dusty bottles. Despite the rich hues of the drapes and oriental rugs, the room was dreary and artificial, as if someone unfamiliar with creature