seen a faery like it in Bath, falling to ashes.
The moon was out like every night, and it shone through the branches, glinting on something in the clothes. Hettie knelt and shuffled about in the pile. Her fingers touched warmth. She jerked back, wiping her hand violently on her sleeve. Blood? Was it blood? But it couldn’t be. If there was frost, the blood would have gone cold by now. She leaned in again, brushing away the rest of the ashes with the hem of her nightgown. Her hand closed around the warmth. She brought it up to her eye, examining it … and found herself looking into another eye—a wet, brown eye with a black pupil.
Hettie let out a muffled shriek. She almost dropped it. But it was only a necklace. The eye was some sort of stone, set into a pendant, a pockmarked disk on a frail chain. The pendant lay heavily in her palm, the warmth seeping into her fingers.
She stared at it. She hadn’t felt anything warm in so long. She ran her thumb over the stone. It looked precisely like a human eye. There was even a spark in it, a knowing little light like the sort in a real person’s eye. She couldn’t tell what its expression was, because there were no eyebrows or face to go with it, but she thought it looked sad somehow. Lonely.
She peered even closer.
Behind her the faery butler shifted, white hands scraping over the snow. Somewhere in the woods, branches skittered.
Hettie tucked the pendant into the neck of her dress and darted back around the tree. She went to sleep then, and the eye kept her warm the whole night long.
The next morning, when she woke, the forest seemed to have lightened several shades, fading, like the pictures on coffee tins when they were left too long in the sun. The clouds no longer hung so low in the sky. The trees didn’t look so close together. The cottage was still a hundred strides away, but when Hettie and the faery butler took their first step toward it, it was quite distinctly only ninety-nine. A short while later they were halfway there.
No light burned in the window anymore. The door hung open on its hinges, showing blackness. The house appeared even emptier and more desolate than before.
When they were only a few steps away, Hettie glanced back over her shoulder. What she saw made her whirl all the way around and stare.
Their footprints extended back in a thin line into the woods. And then the forest floor became packed with them. Thousands upon thousands of prints, winding between the trees—her small ones, and the faery butler’s long, narrow ones—going back and forth and round and round, trampling one another and never arriving anywhere.
A tangle of footprints under the very same trees.
The goblins were breathing hard, gasping as much from the thick air as from excitement.
“Did you see their faces?” the shorter one exclaimed, in a sort of breathless chuckle. His skin was cracked and brown like the bark of a tree, and he wore a red leather jerkin with copper bottles clinking all along the belt. The bottles were labeled such things as Soldier Illusion, Needlewoman Illusion, Weeping Waifs Illusion. …
The other goblin grunted. He was gaunt and pointy, the precise opposite of the short one. “Made ’em scared right enough,” he said, leaping a tangle of wire. “It’s what we came for. If’n we get out of here before the servants come, it’ll all be a good night’s work.”
The short goblin chuckled again, then wheezed. “A good night’s work, he says. A good night’s work. I should say it was a good night’s work. All those puffed-up pigeons, all pinned up with bottle caps. Won’t be going off to battle so happily, will they be? Not so happily at all.”
The goblins skidded around a corner and pounded down a flight of steep, worm-eaten stairs. The walls went from brass and gleaming wood to damp, mossy stone. At the bottom of the stairs was a long, dripping cellar, disappearing into blackness.
The short goblin wouldn’t stop talking. “The Sly King’ll be very pleased with us, don’t you think? Don’t you, Nettles? Most all of London’s up there. All the important parts, at least. All frightened so bad the wax in their whiskers melted. Shouldn’t wonder if the Sly King pays us a small fortune when we get back. Shouldn’t wonder.”
The goblins dashed to the end of the cellar and into a vaulted room, footsteps echoing. Wine barrels lined the walls. Somewhere high above in the house, they could hear a commotion, banging and thuds and raised voices. Then screams.
“Oh, the Sly King, the Sly King, in his towers of ash and wind,” the short goblin sang under his breath. “How much d’you think he’ll pay, Nettles? How much d’you—”
The goblin named Nettles spun and knocked the shorter one firmly on the head. “Don’t count your frogs before they’re hatched. Nobody knows what the Sly King’ll do. Nobody sees. We’ll know what we get once we’re safe on our way. Milkblood?” His voice was suddenly loud, booming under the stone vault. “Milkblood, get us out of here!”
Slowly a small, hunched shape slid out of the shadows.
“Has all gone well?” it whispered. “Will he be pleased with us?”
Knuckly branches grew from its head instead of hair. At first it seemed to be a child, all bones and huge, hungry eyes. But as it approached, the lines became visible around its mouth, the grooves in its corpse-white skin. It was an old woman. An ancient Peculiar.
The short goblin shuddered in disgust. Even Nettles darkened, his brows pinching.
“Not if we’re caught,” he growled, and opened his mouth wide. One cheek was swollen, the inside pressing against the rows of teeth. A box had been mounted there, grown into the red flesh. Both his hands went for it, and he fiddled with it, coughing. A small glass bottle rolled onto his tongue and he spat it out. It was filled with a dark, luminous liquid. He sent it spinning through the air. “Drink. Fast. Get us away from here.”
The Peculiar’s hand shot out, snatching the bottle. Her fingers were filthy. All of her was filthy, slicked with a layer of grime. Her bare feet stuck out from under a ragged ball gown. Her arms were stamped with wriggling red lines, like tattoos.
“He’ll be pleased with me. Oh, he’ll be pleased with me.” She sounded as if she were begging.
She uncorked the bottle and gulped it down. Black liquid dribbled over her chin. When there was nothing left, she took a deep breath, dragging in the air. Then she smashed the bottle to pieces at her feet.
Nettles glanced over his shoulder, shifting from foot to foot. They would be searching soon—servants, lords, Englishers, leadfaces. They would search the house, corridor by corridor.
