A Hollow in the Hills Page 6

  ‘Izzy…’ he began and fell silent again. Awkward, worrying his fingers together. Not a good sign.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘I’m sorry about earlier. Like your mum said, I know you did the best you could.’

  Damned with faint praise. A sarcastic thanks was probably in order, but the word didn’t want to come out. It was an apology and their relationship was so confused right now, since Dad had become teacher and boss and everything in between … She didn’t know how to say thanks even when she didn’t mean it.

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘They aren’t happy. Their missing brother … well, he’s family to them. As well as a comrade in arms and an important piece in their plan.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is, Dad. I swear. Most of them left us at Smithfield, when Sorath was in control. It’s been months. I don’t … I don’t remember.’

  ‘I know, love. I believe you. They, on the other hand …’ He sighed and hung his head. ‘They don’t forget. They want us to find him.’

  ‘How are we supposed to do that when they can’t?’

  ‘There’s a magic book,’ he said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to say. Use a magic book to find a missing angel.

  ‘A magic book?’ Izzy wondered for a moment if he was winding her up. But he didn’t have that Dad-pulling-her-leg look. He rarely did these days. Still, she had to try. ‘Am I off to Hogwarts library now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, the word like a deadweight. ‘I mean, no, not Hogwarts. But it is a magic book. And you aren’t going to be doing anything, no matter what they say. I am. But you can come with me. It’s time you learned more on the ground. We have to fly under the radar a bit, that’s all. The angels are angry and they don’t think straight when they’re angry. They really won’t like this.’

  ‘This? They won’t like that you’re doing what they asked?’ Angel logic sucked.

  ‘No, the book. They won’t like that it even exists, let alone where it is. The book is special, a creation of the Aes Sídhe and one of their most powerful treasures. If the angels found out what it could do, they would try to seize it and then … well, we don’t want that to happen. It’s a delicate balance, the work of a Grigori, and none of them trust us entirely. No more than we can trust any of them. Perhaps the angels least of all. They always think they know better. They’ll try to follow us. Micromanagers to the core, that lot.’

  ‘The angels.’ She didn’t like the thought of annoying them any more than she had already done. But this was Dad asking her. It had to be okay. Didn’t it?

  ‘Yes. Although … any of them actually. The people of the other races. And some humans would be pretty negative about it too, your mum included. We’ll go now, okay?’

  Dylan had promised so many times that he wouldn’t go back to the Market. He always failed to keep his promise. He’d promised himself, Izzy, her father, Silver, even the ghost of his sister. It didn’t seem to matter. The Market always drew him back.

  No, another lie. Silver drew him back. Even if she wished it otherwise. Even if he didn’t want to see her.

  Silver was surrounded. He knew, even as he walked towards the centre of the Market ignoring everything else around him, he’d find it difficult to get time to talk to her alone. Perhaps it was for the best. She had secured a small private chamber off the main hall that reminded Dylan of her own hollow, now desecrated and destroyed. But any moment she put her nose so much as an inch outside her sanctuary, the hordes descended. Petitions, offerings, promises of service, pleas for intervention or clemency … all the things she never wanted. And though she denied all trappings of matriarchy, she couldn’t turn them away.

  Not Silver. Not when she was needed.

  Dylan alone seemed to realise that. He saw through her now. A surprise to him, but even more so to her. She didn’t like it either.

  He watched her in the heart of the Market, with a host of suitors moving like waves around her. She had become the fixed point, the thing around which all else revolved.

  ‘Well now, whatever are you doing out here?’ asked a fluid, female voice, ripe with amusement and seduction.

  A woman stood behind him, hair as golden as a summer cornfield trailing down her back. Threads of gold were woven through it, as thin and delicate as the shining strands of hair they touched. She had overly large violet eyes and skin like burnished copper. Her ears were long and elaborately pointed, like a fairytale version of an elf rather than the high Aes Sídhe he’d seen before, who liked to model themselves on the humans they despised. But this one, she didn’t even attempt to look human. But then again, why would she bother here, in the heart of the Market?

  ‘Can I help you?’ Dylan asked. It was long since he had been allowed the luxury of staring at one of the Aes Sídhe, beneath their notice. It was too dangerous. They saw him now – as a way to reach Silver, as a fascinating oddity in their midst, or maybe only as a source of magic. The magic that seethed through his body, writhed along his veins and knotted around his heart. The magic that was all Silver, through and through. Beneath his skin. Deep inside him.

  No matter what it was, they could no longer ignore him.

  And neither could Silver, no matter how she might pretend. Or wish to. He wasn’t prepared to be ignored any more.

  ‘Are you lost?’ Her voice was sleek and fluid, like silk between the fingertips, with an accent he couldn’t place – not Irish, not quite. And yet there was music there, hidden between her words, lurking in the lilt and cadence of even so mundane a phrase. Since Silver kissed him and her magic made him a touchstone, he could hear music in everything. The whirr of insect wings, the whine of a radiator, the wind in the leaves of a tree. Even in her voice. Or perhaps especially in voices like hers. ‘It is not usual for a mortal to wander here unattended.’

  Dylan shrugged and turned back his attention to the new uncrowned matriarch. Not that matriarchs wore crowns. Well, some of them did, Silver had told him – really shiny ones – but they didn’t need to. ‘I’m here to see Silver.’

  ‘Are you indeed?’ She raised one perfectly curved eyebrow. ‘My name is Meridian.’

  She moved closer still. He could feel the warmth emanating from her skin and her scent encircled him like an enchantment – lavender from Provence, hints of honey, rich and warm.

  ‘Look at me, Dylan.’

  He didn’t want to, but something compelled him. She was too close for comfort, her eyes so very bright and entirely enthralling.

  From very close by, Silver cleared her throat pointedly. ‘I think you’ll find that doesn’t work so well on Dylan anymore.’ Her voice sliced through the air between them. ‘Or if it did, you’d rather wish you’d never done it.’ Dylan flinched back nonetheless, because he wasn’t entirely sure she was right. He was much closer to Meridian than he’d thought. Far too close. Her lips hung no more than a breath away.

  Meridian smiled and glanced over her shoulder. ‘You can’t blame me for trying.’ She didn’t sound in any way alarmed or repentant. If anything she sounded amused. ‘I’ve heard so much about him, about both of you. I wanted to see what it was all about, this fuss. A human touchstone, no less. The entire Sídhe race is agog.’

  A cold hand closed on his wrist, pulling him back. ‘He’s nothing of the sort,’ Silver snapped. Far too quickly. She was irritated, perhaps even scared, which made her even more dangerous than usual. Her other hand rested on her slender hip, her grey eyes narrowed dangerously. Not a good situation.

  All the Market seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

  Magic stirred beneath Dylan’s skin, rising to meet her touch. Silver lifted her hand, moving it to his sleeve so they weren’t touching skin to skin anymore and it subsided a little, just enough so that it didn’t spill out of him.

  Meridian ignored her. ‘No one else has managed the like for over a thousand years, perhaps longer. And look at you – overthrowing matriarchs and achieving the impossible all in one day. I am impressed, siste
r.’

  Sister? Dylan looked at her again. There was no resemblance – neither to Silver nor Holly. But Silver didn’t deny or, or refute the word.

  ‘What do you want, Meridian?’ Silver stepped up beside Dylan, reaching out blindly to take his hand. He threaded his fingers through hers almost without thinking about it, willing her the calm and strength she clearly needed. It seemed to work, because she settled a little more comfortably at his side and her fingertips caressed his slowly. The minute trembling he detected in her grip faded.

  Meridian watched them with cunning eyes. For a moment she said nothing, but her gaze lingered on their joined hands.

  Sisters. He knew Silver had once had a sister called Belladonna – Jinx’s mother, who was now dead – but there could have been others. Holly, their mother, was old, even by fae standards. And they were hardly what one might call a close family. Not with Holly at the head.

  ‘What do I want?’ Meridian murmured. ‘What do you want, Silver? That’s the question everyone is asking. You overthrew Holly, shattered her touchstone with a fingertip and drove her from her own hollow. But now you do nothing. People need leaders, sister. Your people need a matriarch.’

  ‘A matriarch like you, I suppose?’

  ‘No,’ Meridian chided, as if she was talking to a child. ‘Like you.’

  Silver flushed. Oh, she hid it, but Dylan could feel it in her skin. ‘You well know that has never been my wish,’ she said at last.

  ‘Your wish? What does your wish matter? This is your duty.’

  ‘My tree was destroyed. My touchstone—’

  Meridian interrupted her with a laugh. ‘And now you have another. You are a Leanán Sídhe, Silver, as I am, first and always. And miracles of miracles, your human is your touchstone.’

  Silver surged towards her sister, tearing herself free from Dylan as if his touch burned. ‘I have said it is not my wish, Meridian,’ she yelled. ‘That is an end to it.’

  Power sparkled from her, anger making it manifest like lightning. Meridian’s eyes widened in shock. She took a step back and her confident mask slipped. Dylan felt a smile crack his lips. He couldn’t help himself. Having yet another relative of Silver suggest she suck him dry and cast his husk aside was getting old. Or that they would be happy to do it. That he was just a thing to be used. And he loved to see her kick ass. They all seemed to expect her to mutely accept their will as she might have done Holly’s. But her mother had been more terrifying that any of them.

  Except perhaps Silver herself.

  Her mother’s first daughter.

  Silver turned back to him and pursed her lips as she read the look of admiration on his face.

  ‘Come with me,’ she told him and swept back towards her private chambers. Servants and kith scurried around her, but she ignored them. At least here there was no one she didn’t trust with her life. And his.

  Dylan waited, watching her pace back and forth. But he knew in the end she would speak to him. This time.

  ‘They won’t stop unless I give in.’

  ‘Then why not give in? Be their matriarch. I can’t think of anyone else I’d trust.’ Trust and the Sídhe didn’t exactly go together. But strangely he did trust her – her and Jinx, just the two of them among all the Sídhe. ‘Would it be so different from keeping your own hollow anyway?’

  ‘I didn’t manage that too well in the end, did I?’ She shuddered. ‘I got most of them killed.’

  ‘That was Holly, not you.’

  ‘It was both of us. And Izzy and Jinx. All that mess with Sorath. You didn’t see it. You didn’t see what Holly did.’ He hadn’t seen it, nor had he felt it as she had when her tree was broken and burnt, the source of her magic, a part of herself.

  ‘It’s over.’

  ‘Holly’s still out there somewhere. Oh, they’re all so certain she’s gone. But I know her. I’ve always known her. She doesn’t just give up. Besides, if I were to use my magic it could destroy you, don’t you understand? The more I use the power of the Leanán Sídhe, the less of you will remain. You can’t be a touchstone for long. You won’t survive.’

  He’d known what he was getting into when he’d kissed her. The Leanán Sídhe’s kiss was a gift as much as a curse, no ordinary thing. It empowered her and opened him up to the font of creativity, to the music of the spheres. It would consume him eventually, drain him dry, drive him mad … Not for a moment would he take it back, any of it, even if he could.

  But becoming a touchstone changed everything. And neither of them knew how much. Silver didn’t like it one bit, which made him distinctly uncomfortable.

  Being a touchstone made him a target, he understood that. It also gave him power over her and it didn’t seem to matter. She fascinated him the way a flame enticed a moth. His world was so much bigger now. The music that poured out of him, the magic that allowed him to create it, he couldn’t bear to be without that.

  Life without Silver wasn’t a life.

  That was why he always ended up coming back to her. He needed her. Like an addict needed a fix, perhaps, but it was still need.

  ‘You don’t know that. No one does.’

  ‘Why are you here, Dylan?’ she sighed.

  ‘I saw my sister. Or her ghost. Or … or something. And Izzy said there were angels at her house, looking for one of their brothers. He’s missing. Silver, what is going on?’

  She stared at him for a moment, her gaze too intent, too lingering. Then she seized his hand and pulled him after her. Several of her people started towards them, disturbed by her sudden movement, looking for a way to be of service. Each one shied away at the last moment on seeing her expression, which told him everything he needed to know. She was royally pissed off now.

  They stepped into the one luxurious room she called her own and she pulled the curtained door closed behind them. ‘Tell me everything.’ She sat down on a low chaise longue, the one he remembered from her club. She must have brought it here. One last piece of her shattered home in the one place that was purely hers.

  She perched there like a queen on a throne.

  ‘What I said. Izzy said the angels came to her house, looking for one of their brothers who’s missing. I saw Mari outside the gates to the college on Westland Row, opposite the station. And then … then she was gone. A ghost?’

  Silver shook her head, frowning. ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Of course. Silver?’ She looked even paler than usual, sickened, as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

  ‘I fear that a door has been opened. A door that never should have been unlocked. That something got out. We have to tell Jinx.’

  ‘Why Jinx?’

  ‘Because something new is out there, stirring up ghosts like that. Or something very old indeed.’ She shuddred suddenly. ‘It’s not just Samhain. It can’t be. Amadán asked us to look into a murder, an impossible murder. And now missing angels? No. I need to talk to Jinx. He could be investigating the very same thing. They have to be connected. It can’t just be a coincidence.’

  There wasn’t a queue or anything. Not at this time of the evening. The guy at the desk gave them a funny look, probably because he was hoping to close up as soon as possible. But Dad didn’t bat an eyelid – just laid down the cash. When he took the tickets they headed on in through a narrow corridor lined with leprechaun memorabilia that made Izzy cringe with every glance.

  ‘Seriously?’ she said again, but Dad shushed her.

  They waited for the door to be opened. The man who stepped through to greet them was a giant, ducking his head as he did so. When he straightened, he recognised Dad. Izzy saw the alarm in his sunken eyes, instantly quelled by willpower alone. He tightened a jaw that could crack walnuts.

  ‘Mr Gregory, what are you doing here?’

  His deep and echoey voice rippled through Izzy’s chest in a disconcerting way. It wasn’t loud, not as such, but it ought to have been. It ought to have her covering her ears and cowering, she knew that instinctively, but it didn�
�t. As if it didn’t quite sound the same in her world as it would in his. Another one of those tell-tale signs she was learning so much about.

  ‘Just here with a few questions, Grim,’ said Dad with such an air of nonchalance, Izzy almost believed him. If he hadn’t been so worried about coming here. ‘Nothing to be concerned about. Will she see us?’

  Grim didn’t look too sure. He glared at them both, clearly wishing they’d just go away, and then bowed his head. ‘I’ll check. If you’ll kindly wait in the parlour?’

  They followed him through the door, along the narrow winding passage like a tunnel beneath the Giant’s Causeway, lined and capped with hexagonal columns. They emerged into a room with vastly oversized furniture.

  ‘The giant’s house,’ said Dad after Grim vanished again. ‘Cute, isn’t it?’

  It was kind of cute. Not tacky like she’d thought. But it made her feel like a child, and that vulnerability wasn’t exactly welcome. Dad on the other hand seemed to be in his element, like a kid himself, gleeful as he wandered around chair legs and under the table. He stood in the fireplace and made faces at her.

  So much for a serious situation.

  ‘What is Grim?’ she asked, walking over to the table, trying to see what was on top of it.

  ‘A bodach. A giant.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘Welcome to his house.’

  ‘He was tall, but not that tall.’

  ‘That isn’t his real height.’

  She rolled her eyes to heaven. Sometimes she was certain Dad liked making her feel out of her depth. She was a novice, compared to him, as Gran was so fond of pointing out. Gran wasn’t even a Grigori, but she’d been married to one for fifty years, as she liked to tell them, and ‘bred one too’, like they were pedigree dogs or something. It made Izzy grind her teeth. Her gran had always been aloof, when she was around, but now Izzy was seeing a whole new side to her, not a particularly charming one. Usually around that point in Gran’s rant, she found some really boring tome and made Izzy read it from start to finish. It wasn’t worth the argument.