R. Anderson - Wayfarer

“That’s just the thing,” said Timothy reluctantly. “I don’t know if he can. I don’t even know if he and his followers are still alive. For all we know the Emp-I mean, Jasmine-could be coming here with an army to take over the Oak right now, and there’s not much any of us can do about it.”

Paul was silent, his fingers steepled against his lips. Then he said, “True. In which case maybe we should just call your parents and get you on a plane to Uganda before things get any worse.”

“Are you joking?” demanded Timothy. “I’m not going to run away and just leave you all here!”

“Why not? You’ve done everything you can to help the Oakenfolk, Tim, and a good deal more than anyone expected of you. Believe me, Peri and I appreciate all you’ve been through for Linden’s sake. But I’m still your guardian, and I’d be a pretty poor one if I let you hang about in the middle of a war zone.”

Timothy dropped his head into his hands, fingers furrowing up his hair. To be forced to confront his parents on such short notice, when he still hadn’t decided what to tell them, would be bad enough…but even worse was the thought of being thousands of miles from the Oakenwyld, not knowing if his friends there were dead or alive.

“I want to stay,” he said huskily.

Paul frowned, but then Peri’s voice echoed in from the corridor. “I seem to remember another young man who refused to run away when his life was in danger, too.”

She walked into the room and crouched beside Paul’s chair, laying both hands on his arm. “I know you feel responsible for Timothy, and so do I. But after all that’s happened, I think he’s got a right to choose where he wants to be.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Paul retorted. “Unless you’re volunteering to call his parents and tell them their only son is dead?”

“No,” replied Peri, “but you won’t have to do it either. If Jasmine comes to Oakhaven, she’s hardly going to stop at just killing Timothy.”

Paul threw up his hands. “Oh, well, in that case there’s nothing to worry about. Good news, Tim! We’re all going to die together!”

His tone was sarcastic, but Peri put her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek, and when she let him go his mouth had pulled into a resigned smile. Timothy grinned back, feeling his own tension lift a little.

“I can think of worse ways to go,” he said.

Linden gazed out the slit that was all that remained of her bedroom window-Rob had done that, she remembered, and the thought was laced with regret. He’d risked so much to help them, and she’d never had the chance to say good-bye. Was he even still alive?

The garden below was somber with rain, the flower beds buried in black mulch, and the rose hedge a withered skeleton. All seemed quiet, but surely that couldn’t last. The Empress had escaped the battle at Sanctuary, and by now she must have recovered her powers, just as Linden had done. And the faeries who’d seen Jasmine’s true face, with its telltale lines of age, were just a tiny fraction of the many under her command. How long would it be before she gathered her forces and came back to take her revenge?

Linden leaned heavily against the windowsill. It seemed so wrong that it should end this way. The Oakenfolk still squabbling over who should be their next Queen, most of them still blind to the greater danger; Knife trapped in the Oakenwyld, her fate bound to the faeries’ even though she was no longer one of them; and Paul and Timothy, condemned for no greater crime than being human….

Sunk in gloomy reverie, she barely noticed when the whispering wind changed its tune. A gust swirled through the Oakenwyld, scattering twigs and long-dead leaves across the grass-and when Linden looked out the window again, the Oak was surrounded.

A bone of terror lodged itself in her throat. She jumped off the cot and pelted out of the room, shouting up the Spiral Stair, “Your Majesty!”

“Queen Valerian’s busy,” came Thorn’s irritable reply from two landings above. “What’s the matter?”

“They’re here,” gasped Linden, and dashed off down the Stair. The window-slits were too narrow for her to climb through, but she might be able to sneak out through the hedge tunnel, fly to the House, and warn Knife and Timothy. Yet even as she ran, a pounding noise reverberated through the Oak, like a heavy fist demanding entrance, and she realized it was already too late. They’d found the door in spite of all the glamours she’d put around it, and now…

She skidded to a halt in front of another window-slit, squinted out again-and immediately her fears drained away. The faeries outside were far too big to be Oakenfolk, that was true. But they were still less than half human size. Linden galloped down the last flight of the Spiral Stair, dashed to the Queen’s Gate, and heaved up the bar to let their visitors in.

The first through the door was Garan-but now he stood only a little taller than herself, and when she threw herself into his arms her exuberance nearly knocked him over. “You came! You came after all!” she cried, and he let out a surprised laugh.

“Get off me, you mad girl,” he said, detaching himself and holding her at arm’s length. But his eyes twinkled as he added, “Mind, had I known to expect such a welcome, I might have come sooner.”

Linden blushed and stepped back as the other Children of Rhys came in. There was the guard Garan had called Llinos, and a few others whose faces she had seen at the great council, including- Broch ?

“But you-you were against us,” she stammered, looking up into that sharp, sardonic face. “You said-”

“I know what I said,” Broch cut in impatiently. “That it was for the Elders to decide how best to help you. But the Council is divided, and there have been nothing but arguments since you and the human boy left. And by the time Garan announced that he had given you the Stone of Naming and that the rest of us were cowards and traitors to our own kind, I’d heard enough shouting to last me the next two centuries, so I came.”

Linden looked at Garan in delight. “Did you really say that?”

“I am only sorry I could not say it earlier,” replied Garan, sounding a little gruff with embarrassment. “But I dared not draw attention to myself before I had safely given you the Stone. And I hoped that given time I might be able to persuade more of the Plant Rhys to support your cause-a hope that was not wholly in vain, as you can see.” He nodded respectfully to his companions. “We are only thirty-eight men, but we are yours to command.”

“What,” said Thorn’s flat voice from the Stair above, “in the name of all that’s green and growing-”

Linden whirled toward her, dancing with excitement. “The Children of Rhys, Thorn! They’ve come to help us!”

Thorn stalked around the last bend of the Stair and stopped, surveying Garan and his companions. Her gaze darted from one male faery to another, taking in their strong features and close-trimmed beards, the swords at their belts and the bows slung across their shoulders. Then she sat down slowly, her eyes glassy with disbelief, and for once she didn’t say anything at all.

“If we restore the magic Jasmine took from you,” said Garan as he and his followers stood before the Oakenfolk gathered in the Great Hall, “the task will cost us dearly of our own magical strength, and we will need several days to recover. We will never be as powerful as we once were, nor will your own magic be as great as that of the Empress and her followers-but yes, it can be done.”

Linden threw her arms around Wink and hugged her, and Thorn actually whooped before turning it into a cough. “We would be glad,” Valerian began-but Bluebell’s voice cut in: