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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018
Published in this ebook edition in 2018
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text copyright © Katharine and Elizabeth Corr 2018
Cover thorns © Josef Mohyla & Andrew Unangst
Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com 2018
Katharine and Elizabeth Corr assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008264789
Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008264796
Version: 2018-03-23
For Rebecca and Sam, the two brightest stars in my universe
E.C.
For Neill, Georgina and Victoria, with all my love
K.C.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Books by Katharine and Elizabeth Corr
About the Publisher
A man’s voice. Leo could feel the weight of someone’s hand on his shoulder. But he stayed where he was, curled into a ball on his side, trying to remember. The pain in his chest was fading, but he was cold. Cold to the bone. And his mind was full of shadows, as if every minute of his life before this present moment had been walled off by a thick screen of smoked glass.
There was the sound of wood against stone, and sunlight hit his face. He blinked, half-opening his eyes.
‘Ronan?’ Leo reached up to touch his boyfriend’s face. They’d been at Ronan’s campsite together, and then they’d walked to the lake, and Ronan had lit a fire, and then …
And then.
Leo gasped and scrambled backwards, away from Ronan, to the edge of the room. ‘What did you do to me?’ He clawed at the pattern burnt into the skin of his chest, making it bleed.
‘Leo, don’t—’ Ronan took a step nearer.
‘No! Stay away!’ Leo remembered now. The figure of the King of Hearts, emerging from the water. The unbearable, suffocating pain as it took control of his body. And then his sister –
Merry. He’d tried to warn her. To scream at her to run. But the thing inside him had laughed. And Ronan had laughed. And then his sister and Ronan had started fighting, hurling spells at each other. ‘Merry?’
‘She’s alive. Safe.’
‘You tried to kill her.’
‘I didn’t—’ Ronan broke off and dropped into a wooden chair, crossing his legs. ‘I just couldn’t let her stop me, Leo. I had to get away. Even in our world, I’m not,’ his mouth twisted, ‘not normal.’ He meant the world of witches, and wizards, and half-remembered magic. ‘I needed the power that was trapped under the lake.’ Ronan looked up again, and Leo could see the hunger blazing in his eyes. ‘I still need it. And I needed you to act as,’ he waved a hand through the air, ‘a vessel, to transport that power. But even if I hadn’t, I would never have left you behind. I love you. I thought you loved me.’
‘Love?’ Leo shivered and took a deep breath, wincing as the skin across his chest stretched. ‘How can you even use that word after what you’ve done?’ He glanced around, taking in his surroundings for the first time: a stone room, like the inside of a castle; rushes on the floor; a low bed with furs strewn across it. Nowhere he recognised. Panic twisted his gut. ‘Where are we?’
Ronan shrugged slightly. ‘Somewhere safe. Another time. Another reality. Somewhere I can properly exist.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I couldn’t stay in our time, Leo. D’you think I liked stealing from other witches and wizards? Living on the dregs of their power? Knowing that I would always be despised, always hunted?’ He laughed; it was a hard, bitter sound. ‘I was a parasite! At least, that’s how they saw me. The King of Hearts has taken us to a place where I can use its power and the power of the shadow realm. Permanently. No more stealing. But there’s no way back, for either of us now.’
Leo swallowed hard. ‘The King of Hearts …’
Ronan leant forward, steepling his fingers. ‘It’s not inside you any more. I promise.’
Was he telling the truth? The King of Hearts was a creature of the shadow realm created by the evil wizard Gwydion – a malevolent, bodiless entity that needed a human host to exist. Leo remembered being sealed inside his own head at the lake, remembered the suffocating presence that had taken his limbs and mouth for its own. He felt as if he was in control of his body again. But was he truly free of the creature?
His abductor was watching him. ‘We can be together now, Leo, and no one can—’
‘She’ll come for me.’ Leo hugged his knees to his chest, digging his nails into the flesh of his arms, focusing on the pain to keep from screaming. ‘Merry will find me.’
Ronan shook his head.
‘No, she won’t. They won’t let her. The coven, I mean. Besides, she has Finn now.’
Finn, the wizard who’d shown up in Tillingham just after Gran had gone missing? It was true that he and Merry had been spending a lot of time together, but Leo couldn’t quite remember whether his sister had actually been dating the guy. Finn had been there too, hadn’t he? At the lake, that night. Ronan was still talking.
‘Finn will take her back to Ireland and she’ll forget all about her big brother. He’ll make sure of that.’ Ronan stood up, dragged one of the furs off the bed and tossed it to Leo. ‘That’s what you never understood about witches and wizards. We’re selfish. We might try to hide it with oaths about helping plebs and so on, but that’s just a veneer. Even for your precious sister. She has her power. And now she’s with Finn, she’ll have position and wealth as well – everything she could possibly want. To be sure, she’ll grieve for you, for a while. But then she’ll move on.’
‘No. You’re lying, you’re—’ Leo tried to force himself back through the wall as Ronan walked towards him. ‘Merry wouldn’t leave me here with you. She wouldn’t.’
Ronan crouched down in front of him. ‘We’ll see. But in the meantime, you need to trust me, Leo. You belong to me now, and I’m going to take care of you …’
Nearly five months had passed since they’d last stood face to face. But Merry would have known him anywhere. Sure, his hair was shorter. And his clothes were different. Gone were the princely garments with the rich embroidery and fur trimming. Instead, he was wearing coarse woollen trousers, a cloth shirt and a ragged leather tunic. His forearms were painted with patterns and symbols, dark blue lines swirling and interlocking. The only hint of luxury was a gold belt buckle, which gleamed with hints of red and green, despite the dull grey light. And he looked older. Wearier.
Still, she knew him.
He was the same boy she’d fallen in love with. The same cursed prince who had been put into an enchanted sleep fifteen hundred years ago and had woken in her own time, still possessed by a creature summoned from the shadow realm. Of course, he’d been a corpse the last time she’d seen him. Actually seen him, not just dreamt about him. His dead body had been lying on the floor of the wizard Gwydion’s chambers, beneath the Black Lake. She’d knelt by him, wept over him, kissed him –
The temptation to run to him now, to throw her arms round his neck, was almost too strong to resist.
But Jack – this Jack – was holding a long, angular knife to Finn’s throat. Finn was on his knees in the snow, panting, his face pale and rigid. Jack had hold of Finn’s hair, and as Merry stepped forward he yanked the wizard’s head further back, making the other boy cry out in pain. The blade was hard against Finn’s skin now, and Merry could see a bead of blood welling up against the dark metal.
Jack frowned at her. There was no recognition.
‘Who are you? And how do you know my name?’
She tried to read his feelings, to use that ability to pick up emotions that she’d gained a few months ago. But there was nothing. Either the people were different here – wherever here was – or the passage through the point of intersection had done something to her. She could sense her magic clearly, running like a current beneath her skin. But nothing else.
Finn whimpered as Jack pressed the knife further into his flesh.
‘Answer me!’
Jack had forgotten her. Or …
Or maybe, in this place, he and I have never actually met.
‘Jack, please—’ She stopped short, felt her eyes widen. The unfamiliar syllables of Old English felt strange in her mouth, just as they had done under the lake all those months ago when she’d confronted Gwydion. Her magic must have just taken over, and her brain switched language automatically. She didn’t know how it had happened, any more than she knew where she was, or why Finn – a powerful wizard himself – hadn’t disarmed Jack with a spell, or why Jack seemed so different from the gentle, sad prince that she remembered. Any more than she knew what to do next.
Merry pressed her hands to her eyes. The frost-laden air hurt her nose and throat. The dense forest that surrounded them breathed out a dark, velvet silence that seemed to suck at her eardrums. Still, with her eyes closed, she could almost imagine she was back home in her room in the middle of the night, Mum asleep at the other end of the corridor and Leo in the room opposite hers, even the cats quietly dreaming on top of the boiler in the kitchen …
‘Well?’
Jack’s voice jerked her back to the present. She had to get Finn away from him. Not through magic, though: whoever this Jack was, she didn’t want to hurt him.
‘We’re not enemies. We just need your help.’ Merry spread her hands wide, palms up. ‘Please, let him go.’
Jack didn’t release his grip on Finn’s hair. But he did shift the knife slightly, loosening the pressure on Finn’s neck.
‘You have not answered my question. How do you know me? And what manner of creature are you?’
‘I’m not a creature. I’m just a girl.’
Jack looked her up and down. ‘You are not clad as a girl.’
‘Well, I am a girl. You’re going to have to take my word for it. I’m not … I’m not from around here. And as to how I know you –’ Merry paused, thinking quickly – ‘I have a friend who knows you. She’s called Meredith.’ Meredith, her ancestor, the witch who had placed both Jack and Gwydion into the enchanted sleep. The witch who had sworn the oath that had got Merry involved with Jack in the first place. Merry peered into Jack’s eyes, looking in vain for a reaction. Perhaps in this reality he hadn’t met Meredith yet, or perhaps she didn’t even exist in this world. Or maybe he did know her, but he had a really excellent poker face. ‘Finn’s my friend too, so if you could just—’
‘What are you doing here? Were you following me? Spying on me?’
Merry pinched the bridge of her nose; she was starting to develop a headache.
‘No. We’re not spies. I’m looking for my brother. He was taken against his will, and I think he might have been brought here. Maybe a few days ago.’ She glanced at the brooding forest around them, hoping for some sign that she was right, that Leo had been here too. The daylight was fading quickly, and the darkness of the forest was nearly impenetrable. Merry shivered, wrapping her arms round herself; she had two jumpers and a long-sleeved T-shirt on, but still the chill was worming its way into her bones. ‘Please, Jack. I need your help.’
Jack gazed at her for a few seconds. Then he let go of Finn and stepped away. But he kept his knife drawn, his stance suggesting he could spring into action in the space of a breath. Finn sagged forward, clutching at his neck.
Merry edged closer. ‘Do you need help?’
Finn pushed himself upright and staggered over to stand next to her. He was trembling. She took his hand, peering up into his face, but he avoided her gaze. ‘Finn?’
‘Just, um … just give me a minute. I’ll be fine.’ Sliding down against the trunk of a tree, he dropped his head into his hands.
Merry turned back to Jack. ‘Leo, my brother – he’s blond, like you, and he’s wearing trousers, and has this strange mark on his chest …’ She winced, remembering the ugly scrawl that Ronan had burnt into Leo’s skin. ‘And he was with another guy who has dark, curly hair, and he calls himself Ronan, but—’
‘Ronan?’ Jack laughed, but there was no humour in it. The sound seemed dead in the cold air. ‘I know of Ronan. Everyone does. There’s neither a village nor a hamlet in the land that has been left untouched by him and his … creatures. He turns all to darkness and ruin. The kingdom was cursed from the moment he came here.’ He thrust the long knife back into the scabbard that hung at his waist. ‘I am sorry for you. Truly. But if Ronan has taken your brother …’ He shrugged. ‘There is nothing you can do. Apart from pray to whichever gods you serve that your brother is already dead.’ He brushed his fingers across marks tattooed on to the insides of his wrists. Runes of some sort, Merry thought, though she couldn’t see them clearly. ‘You should leave whilst you still can. The borders are closing fast as the black holly spreads.’ Jack turned and pulled something out of the undergrowth: Finn’s bag. ‘Here.’
Merry made no move to take the bag. Jack had to be mistaken. He was making it sound like Ronan had been here – wherever here was – for ages. But Ronan and Leo had only left Tillingham and their own world a few days ago …
‘You must go.’ Jack thrust the bag into her arms. ‘The king …’ Jack’s voice faltered for a moment, ‘King Aidan still holds Helmswick. But Helmswick has been under siege from Ronan and his forces these two months past. The citadel cannot hold out much longer.’
Two months?
‘But – but what about Edith?’ The Helmswick Merry knew of, the place Jack had told her about, had been ruled by a queen: by his mother, Edith, not by his father, Aidan.
There was a pause. Merry heard a shriek in the distance – some sort of animal, or bird. The first living sound she’d heard in this place apart from their own voices.
‘The queen is dead: Ronan murdered her. A few weeks before the siege began.’
Merry stood there, struggling to comprehend. Jack’s voice was flat, emotionless, almost as if he didn’t care. Didn’t he know that the queen was his blood mother? Or was he just as heartless as he seemed?
He swung away from her. ‘The road to the Kentish border lies there. I suggest you take it.’ Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, he began striding in the opposite direction.
‘But you’re wrong: the Ronan I’m talking about can’t possibly be the same person who’s attacking your lands,’ Merry cried out. ‘He isn’t that powerful.’ She’d fought with Ronan at the lake and had almost destroyed him – until Finn had got in her way. Finn had been trying to save his own brother’s life; she knew that now. But still, Ronan had escaped and he’d taken Leo with him. ‘And besides, Ronan would only have arrived here a few days ago. Days, not months.’
Jack didn’t respond – he just kept walking.
In desperation, Merry hurried after him. ‘Wait!’ She hooked the necklace out from beneath her T-shirt and opened the locket that was hanging from the chain. ‘This is my brother. Are you sure you haven’t seen him?’
Jack glanced at the photo in the locket. His eyes narrowed. ‘I have seen him. I saw him with Ronan.’ He ripped the chain from her neck and hurled it away from him. ‘Standing next to Ronan, as a free man.’
Merry raised her hands and started to back away.
‘No, it isn’t like that: my brother isn’t with Ronan through choice. He was kidnapped! Whatever you think you saw, you’ve got it wrong.’
‘You’re lying.’ Jack drew his knife again.
In the next instant Finn was at her side. He looked ill, and there was a streak of blood on his neck, but he held Leo’s sword – the one they’d brought with them – firmly in front of him.
‘Merry, I don’t understand whatever language he and you are speaking, but this … this isn’t the Jack you described to me. He isn’t kind, or compassionate. Hit him with a binding charm, quickly!’
Merry still hesitated.
‘But we need him to help us –’
‘He can’t! Or he won’t.’ Jack was circling them, looking for a way past Finn’s blade. ‘Hurry up!’
An unearthly wail split the stillness of the forest. Jack swung around, scanning the treetops. Finn grabbed Merry’s hand.
‘If I didn’t know better,’ he murmured, ‘I’d say that was a banshee.’
‘A banshee?’ Merry peered into the shadows around the edge of the clearing. ‘But they don’t exist.’
Another long, drawn-out shriek, nearer this time. Finn shifted so he was back to back with Merry.
‘Are you sure about that?’
As he finished speaking, a creature exploded out of a clump of dark fir trees. Merry gasped and flinched, raising her hands in defence even as her brain clamoured in denial. She recognised this creature. She’d seen it in a school library book about ancient Greek myths. Wide, bronze-feathered wings, monstrous sickle-shaped talons, and the head – the head of a woman, with feathers for hair. Its mouth was open, screaming, revealing razor-sharp, needle-like teeth.
Not a banshee. A harpy.
The creature swooped towards Jack. He threw his knife at it, but the blade missed. Screeching with rage the harpy banked and descended again, raking Jack’s up-flung arm with its claws, forcing him to his knees.
Finn grabbed Merry by the wrist. ‘Let’s go.’
‘No.’ She wrenched her hand free. ‘We can’t leave Jack. We need his help …’
Finn gritted his teeth, but he raised the sword again. ‘Fine. Go on, then. Help him.’
The harpy had started shredding Jack’s arms and neck, scattering dark red droplets of blood across the white snow. Merry summoned two balls of witch fire and launched them at the creature. The seething, coruscating violet strands encased the harpy and it screamed again – screamed in pain, this time. As it flapped around, trying to shake the magic from its wings, Finn leapt forward and brought the sword round in a great arc, slicing the creature’s head from its neck. Body and head tumbled to the ground.
Jack, still crouched on the snow, dragged his gaze away from the dismembered remains and the pool of blood that was rapidly sinking into the frozen earth, and stared at Merry and Finn.
‘You saved me.’
‘Yeah.’ Merry sighed. ‘We saved you.’
All three of them watched the dead harpy for a bit longer. Merry had no idea what to do next.
Finally, Finn bent down to clean the blade of the sword on a bit of moss that was sticking up out of the snow. Jack’s knife was lying nearby; Merry picked it up. ‘If I give you this back, will you promise not to attack us?’
Jack hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Merry handed him the blade. He pushed himself up off the ground and shoved the knife into its scabbard.
‘So,’ he looked at her, the hint of a smile on his lips, ‘just a girl?’
‘I am a girl.’ Merry shrugged. ‘But I’m also a witch.’ She glanced up: two large carrion crows had settled on the branch of a nearby tree, eyeing the bleeding carcass. They were probably just regular birds, but she hadn’t forgotten the crow that seemed to be following her and Leo through the woods a few weeks back.
‘We’re attracting attention.’ She nodded towards the harpy. ‘Let’s get rid of this thing.’
Twenty minutes later, Merry had magically incinerated the remains of the harpy and had healed the injury to Finn’s neck. She walked over to Jack, the pot of Gran’s healing salve still in her hand. ‘Here: this will help.’
Jack peered at the jar. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s an ointment my grandmother made. It will heal the cuts on your arms.’
He drew back. ‘How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?’
‘Poison you?’ Merry shook her head, slipping back into modern English as she exhaled sharply. ‘And why would I be trying to poison you?’
Finn was sitting beneath a tree nearby with his arms wrapped round his legs and Leo’s sword stuck into the ground next to him. He glanced up. ‘If she wanted you dead she’d have let the harpy kill you. Idiot pleb.’
Jack flushed. He couldn’t have understood Finn’s words – and it was doubtful he had ever heard the word pleb used the way wizards used it, as a dismissive term for a non-magical person – but he obviously recognised Finn’s tone of voice. Still, he held out his arms and allowed Merry to dab some of the ointment on to the gashes dealt out by the harpy’s claws. Almost immediately, Merry could see the wounds begin to heal as his skin puckered and pink scar tissue formed: Gran’s potion was working.
Jack winced, flinching from Merry’s touch.
‘The pain won’t last long,’ she reassured him.
He nodded and gritted his teeth. ‘Tell me: are you and Ronan kin? Is that why you speak the same strange language as him?’
Merry stiffened. ‘Can you understand what Finn and I are saying to each other?’
Jack shook his head. ‘I merely recognise some of the words. Ronan’s creatures speak the same way, and I have spent time around them.’ He shuddered, either with discomfort or remembrance – Merry wasn’t sure. ‘Too much time.’
‘Well, Ronan and I are definitely not kin. But we’re both witches.’