R. Anderson - Wayfarer

“It’s Martin. I’ve found them-”

There was only one thing Timothy could think to do. He leaped out of his seat and tackled the faery, slamming him back against the carriage wall.

Martin went limp, slithering out of Timothy’s grasp. He dropped to the aisle, rolled away, and bounded to his feet again; then he snatched a pen from the pocket of a nearby passenger and, with a flash, it became a silver knife in his hand.

“Catch this, human boy,” he said silkily, and lunged forward. Timothy dodged, but not quite fast enough. The knife drew fire across his ribs, and he gasped-but at the same moment he flung out the hand that held the iron key, and the faery ran straight into it.

The iron jerked in his palm, flaring with sudden heat. Martin gave a harsh cry and dropped to the floor. At the same instant the carriage woke up, doors hissing shut and passengers settling into their seats as though nothing had happened. Quickly Timothy kicked the knife away from Martin’s limp hand-but it was a pen again now, harmless.

“Cleverly done,” panted the faery, getting up slowly and shaking the hair out of his eyes. “But what good will your secret weapon do you, now that it is no longer a secret?”

He had barely finished the sentence when the train jolted forward, throwing them both off balance. Martin lifted a hand as though to grasp the rail, then suddenly feinted and jabbed his fingers into Timothy’s wounded side. Timothy staggered, choking off a cry, and with a mocking slap on the back and a tug at his pocket the faery shoved him away and ran.

Timothy rebounded against the wall and crumpled into a seat, his ribs flaming with agony. He was scarcely aware of Linden’s hands fluttering over him, her panicked whisper as she begged him to forgive her, that it had all happened so fast and she hadn’t known what to do and she was so, so sorry….

“Here, you can’t do that!” bellowed a man farther up the carriage, and Timothy looked up dazedly to see Martin grab the doors and pry them apart with impossible strength. He braced them open with his feet as the train slowed, then sprang forward and landed on the very corner of the platform, surefooted as an antelope. Within seconds he had vanished into the crowd.

The train ground to a stop halfway out of the station. Grumbles and clucks of protest rose from the other passengers as a terse voice over the loudspeaker announced that there would be a delay. But no one appeared to have noticed that Timothy was injured, and through his haze of pain he wondered why-until he saw the look of concentration on Linden’s face.

“I’m trying to put a glamour around us,” she said between her teeth, “so I can look at your wound without anyone seeing. But it’s hard .”

Slowly Timothy opened his hand. He’d been gripping the key so tightly that it had left a red imprint on his palm; now he let it drop onto the seat beside them, and Linden relaxed.

“That’s better,” she said. She crouched in front of Timothy and pulled up his shirt. Her touch was feather light, but when her fingers probed the wound, he flinched.

“It’s messy,” she said after a moment, “but not too deep. Do you have anything we could use for a bandage?”

Several minutes passed while the underground train remained motionless, and Linden was beginning to despair when it finally shuddered to life again. She leaned into the circle of Timothy’s arm, pressing a crumpled rag against his side as the lights of the platform slid away and they plunged into the blackness ahead.

“You were so brave,” she said softly, trying to give him something to think about besides the pain. “It’s not your fault he escaped.”

“I don’t even care about that,” Timothy mumbled, his head lolling back against the window. “I just hope we don’t miss the train to Birmingham.”

“I thought we were going to Aber…somewhere in Wales.”

“We are, but we have to change trains at Birmingham New Street first.”

Linden’s heart began to thump. “How much time do we have?”

“I can’t remember,” said Timothy wearily. “Let me look at my tickets.” She moved aside as he straightened out one leg, slid his hand into his front pocket-and stiffened.

“What is it?” she asked.

Timothy didn’t answer; instead he leaned onto his other side with a pained grimace and felt in his back pocket. Then he said an ugly-sounding word she didn’t recognize and slumped down in the seat again.

“What?” Linden repeated, more alarmed than ever.

Timothy’s mouth twisted bitterly. “The tickets are there, all right. But my wallet, with my ID and my cards and all our money in it-it’s gone.”

They couldn’t turn back. They couldn’t call for help-even if they managed to beg or scrape together enough coins for a pay phone, what could Paul and Peri do? Besides, they had no time to spare; they had to keep moving if they wanted to catch the next train. Timothy just hoped they could make it out of the city before any more of the Empress’s servants found them.

Linden sat close to him, holding the cloth pad to his wounded side; she’d put on a brave face, but he could feel her trembling. She must realize, as he did, that having no money meant no food, no lodging, no coach fare to Cardigan the next morning-and no way to find the Children of Rhys before the Blackwings caught up with them. But if the only alternative was to give up and surrender to the Empress…

Timothy sat stiffly, every breath a stab of pain, while the minutes dragged by and the stations passed one by one. At last the recorded voice above them said kindly, “The next station is Euston,” and as the train began to slow Timothy steeled himself to get up.

“It’s still bleeding,” said Linden in a worried tone, lifting the rag away from his side and peering underneath.

“Never mind,” he said between his teeth. “Let’s just go.”

Together they limped off the train, skirting the edge of the fast-moving crowd as they followed the signs toward the overground part of the station. When they reached the foot of the escalators, they shuffled back into the shadows and Linden made herself small again-but this time instead of climbing into Timothy’s pack, she burrowed up under his jacket to keep holding his makeshift bandage in place. Grateful, he shifted the backpack to his good side and stepped gingerly onto the moving stairs.

They glided slowly out of the underground, up a second set of escalators and then a third, emerging at last onto a busy concourse lined with shops. Timothy feared to look at the monitors hanging on the wall, in case their train had already left-but no, it had been delayed; there was still time. He shoved his ticket through the turnstile to the aboveground trains and loped toward the platforms as fast as the pain in his side would let him.

“Wait!” cried a small voice from beneath his jacket, and Timothy stopped, blood pounding through his ears. That warning tone told him everything he needed to know: Linden had scented another faery nearby.

“Where?” he breathed, looking around wildly. Was it the too-sleek businesswoman striding up on his right? Or the boy leaning against the wall ahead, who looked about seventeen but was suspiciously acne free? Timothy inched the iron key out of his pocket and gripped it between his fingers, bracing himself for another fight.

An elusive floral scent teased his nostrils, and he twisted around- ouch -to see a young woman with glossy black hair and a face like a harvest moon regarding him thoughtfully.

His heart stopped.

“I have waited in this human place a long time,” the faery said in lilting tones as she walked a slow circle around him, “watching for you, as I was bidden. And yet…” Her fingers brushed his shoulder, warm even through the jacket he wore. “I never saw you.” And with that she gave a conspiratorial smile and vanished back into the crowd.