Page 70 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Dian looked as if they were afraid a horde of bloodthirsty humans might burst through the open windows at any moment. Frida almost couldn’t believe their courage when they held out their hand to her. Giving them a brave smile, she reached down to lace her fingers through theirs just as the scent of growing things and summer rain surrounded her, and they submerged, suspended and weightless in a cool, calming rainstorm. Dian’s hand an anchor, stopping her from floating away. She marvelled at the intimacy of it, gooseflesh on her arms, as she let out a choking, awed laugh. Her heartbeat rubbed against Dian’s like a caress on a watery evening. The world was just there, just beyond the edge of the raindrop. She could see it. But here they were, safe.

Moth, somewhere, moaned dryly.

‘No one can see us?’ Frida asked, still not quite believing.

Dian bobbed their chin. Then they hesitated, the tips of their pointed ears heating, ‘I haven’t shared pathways like these with anyone but Moth for a long time. I want you to know that is why I found it – difficult – at first.’

Frida blinked up at them, raindrops dancing in her peripheral vision. She didn’t know what to say. ‘But you did it, for me?’

They glanced down at her, grousing, ‘Well, I didn’t have much choice.’

But what Frida heard was somewhat else altogether. Their tone was tender, and the way their fingers entwined with hers, so different to how it had been at the start, it made her heart hammer. For a moment, Dian seemed to be made of water, translucent in the twinkling of reflected droplets. She wondered if she looked like that too. Then Dian looked away, and the moment slipped like smoke, leaving her breathless, as their eyes landed on Forge House.

With wordless agreement, together they headed out from beneath the shelter of the shadows. Unseen by prying eyes, they approached the back of the house. The memory of an ornate banister under her hand, the click of her lace-up school shoes on the paving stones, the scent of dust and wood polish in her nose . . . it all came flooding back, even through the unreality of the raindrops.

Antony and Hamish had always found it baffling that she had a photographic memory for the feeding habits of some obscure race of dragons from the upper highlands of Mongolia and yet couldn’t remember to pay her rent on time. The layout of Forge House fell well within the sacred circle of things Frida Gave A Shit About, and she nodded with satisfaction when she found a small outdoor staircase, heading down to a door on basement level. If she was right, this would bring them out behind the kitchens, to the pantries and such like. What they’d do after that she wasn’t quite sure, but maybe they’d have a chance to do some reconnaissance.

She stood for a moment with her hand on the doorknob, listening to the vague crash of pans, and an occasional muffled shout, coming from behind the thick walls.

‘You’re sure?’ she whispered, glancing up at Dian. She could feel their entire body trembling, startling at each crash. Their expression flickered with emotion, the colours two tone – an eery blue, melting through the silver of the water. Stripped of all thorns, bleak terror was written in every beautiful line of their face. And yet their eyes met hers unyielding, giving her their answer.

She gave a helpless laugh and wrapped her fingers tighter through theirs. ‘Right then.’

‘Are we doing this or what?’ Moth complained. ‘Deathly adventures are no fun if we have to keep talking about them all the time.’

She didn’t miss the look of gratitude on Dian’s face when they touched a gentle finger to Moth’s furry legs and the spider scuttled across their shoulders. Her heart gave a twinge, thinking about how history had been so wrong about fairies. How she had been so wrong about fairies.

Then she opened the door, and together they stepped inside Forge House.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Straight into chaos.

She’d been right – they were in the servant’s quarters. She’d been wrong about the door leading to some quiet untended storeroom, however. They walked right into a huge bustling room, filled with hordes of sweaty, red-faced people cleaning, slicing, chopping, prepping, cursing, bellowing; the clattering of massive pots, the thunder of someone screaming, the deafening roar of a fireplace. In her shock, Frida forgot to stop the door from slamming. It made both of them jump out of their skins and Dian completely lost their grip on their magic, the light and bustle and boom of a house below stairs coming crashing down on them.

The next second, Dian had got the magic back, and the three of them sank behind a row of shelves, safe again within the raindrops.

‘Fuck, shit, devil’s arse,’ Frida muttered as Moth’s legs skittered, moving a thousand miles a minute, webs flying.

‘Fluff-for-brains cursed webless spinners!’ he shrieked in reply.

Frida might have laughed if she hadn’t been so horrified as she peeked out from behind the shelves. Thankfully everyone was so busy, it might be possible they’d all just missed two people and a spider emerging out of thin air.

‘Did they see us?’ Dian hissed.

She pulled back, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I think we’re ok.’ Then she did a double take. Dian was not, in fact, ok. Not at all. They looked like they’d just been thrown into a nuckelavee nest. Leaning so hard against the wall, it seemed as if they wanted to sink inside the very stones. Frida, knowing that might be entirely possible, winced. Anxiously, she peered again around the corner of the shelves, just in time too. A maid in a prim brown dress and dirty apron was beelining straight for them. She cursed and, flipping round, pushed Dian a few feet to the right, even further into the dusty corner. In sheer panic, she pressed the full length of her body against theirs in a desperate attempt to shield them.

Dian stared down at her, shock quivering over their face. She froze as the maid started rummaging for something, right where Frida had just been standing, before hoisting a sack of flour over her shoulder, humming to herself as she headed back into the fray. Frida went limp as she leaned her head against Dian’s collarbone. For a few moments, she could only close her eyes and breathe in their earthy scent. Their chest was heaving, but soon they both started breathing easier, and Frida thought that if she stayed like that forever, pressed against their warm body, she wouldn’t mind one bit. In the raindrops, there was that miraculous feeling of their heartbeats touching. When Frida opened her eyes again, Dian’s were already on her, vast, dark and endless as galaxies.

Suddenly, awareness crashed back, and she remembered herself and where they were. Stumbling backwards, her face burned. But she’d forgotten they were holding hands.

‘Shit, sorry,’ she exclaimed, too loudly, as they jerked her back. Dian’s pupils seemed even darker now, and the way they were looking at her, their breathing shallow, as if they were suddenly wondering what a not-quite-a-human looked like without their clothes on. Her face went even redder. Even her freckles were blushing.

Moth made a disgusted squeak. ‘Lest I remind you both, we are in a deeply perilous situation and now isn’t the time for casual flirtation!’ The silken threads of his voice betrayed him though, positively dripping with glee. ‘There’s enough moisture in these raindrops to send a young spider into a frenzy.’

A sharp involuntary sound escaped Frida’s lips as her traitorous mind recalled that terrible book in the library, with its woodcuts of the fairies orgying under a full moon. She saw Mr Botherington in her mind’s eye too, shaking his finger and proclaiming doom. DOOM! Desperately brushing some loose tendrils of hair off her face with the back of her sleeve, she cleared her throat to speak. What she might have said however, she had no clue. There was another shout from somewhere near the fireplace, and a bone-jarring clatter as a pot was dropped. Dian’s face quickly folded back into terror.

Frida willed her freckles to return to their normal colour. ‘Are you ok?’