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“You’re a fool,” Felicity scoffs.
I give her a shove. “You know so very much about how to run things; maybe you should be the one to hold all the magic!”
“I wish I were the one,” she growls through gritted teeth. “I’d make an alliance with Pip and my friends, not consort with the enemy.”
“Certain of Pip, are you? Where is she, then?”
Felicity’s slap is hard and sudden. I feel the sting to my toes. She’s cut my lip. I taste the blood with my tongue, and I’m flooded with magic. At once, Felicity’s hand is on her sword, and I fling it away like a toy.
“I’m not the enemy,” she says quietly.
My body trembles. It takes every bit of strength I have to push the magic down. It leaves me with a sick, shaking sensation, as if I haven’t slept for days. Fee and I stand facing each other, neither of us willing to apologize. My stomach lurches. I turn and vomit into a bush. Felicity marches ahead on the path to the Borderlands.
“You shouldn’t have said that about Pip,” Ann chides, offering me her handkerchief.
I push it away. “You shouldn’t tell me what to do.”
Ann’s wounded expression is only momentary. Her well-trained mask settles over her true feelings. I’ve won the round, but I hate myself for it.
“I believe I shall walk with Fee,” she says. Head down, she runs to Felicity, leaving me behind.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
PIPPA AND THE GIRLS ARE IN THE CASTLE’S OLD CHAPEL when we return. They’ve a basket of plump berries, which Pippa sorts through, dropping the fruit into a chalice she’s found. The girls seem more worn than usual. Their hair is terribly matted, and if I catch them in a certain slant of light, their complexions are a mottled yellow, like fruit gone bad.
Pippa hums a merry tune. Seeing our long faces, she stops. “What is the matter? What has happened?”
Felicity gives me a hard look but neither she nor Ann confesses what I’ve done. My head aches now, and I have to keep my hands tucked under my armpits to quiet the shaking.
“Creostus has been killed,” I say tersely.
“Oh, is that all?” she says. She returns to her berry picking. Mae and Bessie don’t even look up. Their indifference is enraging.
“The forest folk have shunned me.”
Pippa shrugs. “They don’t matter. Not really.”
“I might have thought that once, but I was wrong. I do need them.”
“Those horrid creatures? You said they used to come into our world and take playthings. Horrid!” Pippa removes a mealy berry with her fingertips and drops it onto a cloth with the other discarded fruit.
“Yes, it’s wrong. And I might not like it. I might tell them I don’t. But Philon has never lied to me. When I needed help, the creature was an ally. All they asked was to have a voice, to share in their own governance, and I have failed them.” I take a steadying breath, and the magic settles a bit.
“Well,” Pippa says, dusting off her skirts, “I still don’t see why you need them when you have us. Bessie, darling, will you put these aside?”
Bessie takes the basket of fruit. She looks longingly at it. “How come them folk turned their backs on you, eh?”
The room feels close. Felicity and Ann avoid my eyes.
“They believe the Untouchables and I had something to do with Creostus’s murder.”
“That’s queer, innit?” Bessie stares at me. “How come they fink that?”
“Gemma’s been having secret talks with Circe,” Felicity announces.
“Oh, Gemma,” Pippa scolds. Her violet eyes flash, and in that moment they lose their color and become the milky blue-white of the Winterlands. The stare sends a chill down my spine.
“’Oo’s Circe?” Mae asks.
