R. Anderson - Swift

‘You tell me,’ she said, bolder now. She could see him well enough with her night vision, but to him she’d be nothing more than a ghostly shape — a tantalising hint of the light he yearned for. ‘Are you a murderer?’

The spriggan let out a shuddering breath. His head drooped, and he muttered, ‘ No. Yes. I am: Then fly… ’

If only she could. ‘I’m not here to play riddle-games,’ said Ivy. Had he lost his wits? ‘Did you or did you not kill Keeve?’

A long pause, while the spriggan watched her sidelong out of one grey eye. ‘ I am a villain,’ he said at last, then added quickly as Ivy tensed: ‘ Yet I lie. I am not. ’

‘Stop talking nonsense and tell me the truth, then!’

The spriggan leaned against the wall, his distorted mouth closing tight. He did not reply.

Had she been too harsh with him? Would he refuse to say any more? Ivy took a step forward — though not too close, since she had no desire to feel those fingers around her neck. Then she said gently, ‘You want light, don’t you?’

His breath caught, just the briefest hitch, but it was as good as an answer. ‘I’ll give it to you,’ Ivy said, ‘if you answer some questions for me.’

She waited, but the spriggan didn’t respond. Did he not believe her? Or was he too slurry-brained to understand?

Ivy increased her glow a little, hoping to tempt him. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I’ll give you more, if you’ll tell me what you did with Keeve. And even more than that, if you can tell me what happened to my mother. She was beautiful, with light brown hair, and her wings…’

What had Marigold’s wings been like? She couldn’t remember. Ivy cleared her throat and went on, ‘Anyway, she disappeared five years ago. Did you spriggans take her? Is she still alive?’

The prisoner raised his head to hers, lips parting as though to speak. But then his chin dropped and he looked away.

Ivy threw up her hands. ‘This is useless.’ The stench that hung around him was making her queasy, and she was tired of looking at those hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The spriggan was either delirious or mad or both, and she wished that she had never come. ‘I give up. You can stay here and rot for all I care.’ Defiantly flaring brighter so he’d never forget what he’d missed, she turned and strode away.

‘ Ivy.’

Startled, she looked back to find the spriggan stretching out his one good hand. ‘Don’t go,’ he said, and now his voice sounded ordinary, the formal cadences lost. ‘I didn’t know… I couldn’t be sure it was you, until now.’

Was he trying to make her pity him? If so, it wasn’t going to work. And she wasn’t going to ask again how he knew her name, either — he’d probably just overheard it, back at the Lighting. Ivy tapped her foot. ‘Well?’

‘I didn’t kill Keeve.’ He rubbed his temple, as though concentrating were an effort. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘But you were there, the night he disappeared,’ Ivy said. ‘Who else could have taken him?’

‘I have no idea. But it wasn’t me.’

‘Why didn’t you say that to the Joan, then?’ Ivy asked. ‘Did you think she wouldn’t believe you?’

‘I had to give her some reason to keep me alive,’ he said. ‘Until I could talk to you.’

‘Me?’ Ivy was startled. ‘Why?’

The spriggan straightened, brushing the sweat-darkened hair from his brow. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘your mother sent me to find you. She’s alive, and safe. And if you let me go…I’ll take you to her.’ four

Ivy stood still, wide green eyes fixed on the spriggan. For a moment there was no sound except the slow drip of water down the Great Shaft and the creature’s laboured breathing. Then she said in a strangled voice, ‘You’re lying.’ She didn’t even know if spriggans could lie, but what other explanation could there be?

‘I’m not lying.’

‘Yes, you are.’ She spoke quickly, almost gabbling in her panic. She had to stop this before it got out of hand — before she was tempted to believe him. ‘You heard me say I was looking for my mother, and now you’re using that to try and trick me-’

‘Her name is Marigold.’

His quiet certainty shook her, but Ivy wasn’t about to give in. There were any number of ways he could have learned her mother’s name — including under torture. ‘Why would she send you to me?’ she demanded. ‘If my mother was alive, if she wanted to see me so badly, she’d come and see me herself.’

‘I didn’t ask about her motives. Marigold asked me to deliver a message to you, and I agreed because I owed her a debt, nothing more. If you want an explanation, you’ll have to ask for one when you see her.’ His look turned sly. ‘Unless you don’t want to see her.’

Ivy barely resisted the urge to hit him. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘Or would, if I believed a single word of what you’ve told me. Where did you see my mother, then — in the bottom of your stewpot?’

‘Actually, it was in Truro.’ He paused and added with a hint of condescension, ‘That’s a human city and not a recipe, in case you were wondering. I don’t eat piskeys, even irritating ones.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ivy said, folding her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands shake. ‘My mother would never live with humans, not when she could be here with us. And even if she couldn’t come back to the Delve for some reason, she’d never make a bargain with a — a filthy, lying spriggan.’

She expected an angry retort, but the prisoner only pinched the bridge of his nose, as though she had given him a headache. Then he said with infinite weariness, ‘I don’t even know what a spriggan is.’

Ivy’s legs wobbled. ‘What? But then…what are you?’

‘A faery. What else?’

What else, indeed. Between the dirt and blood that smeared his body, the ragged clothes and unkempt hair, she would never have taken him for one of the so-called Fair Folk. Yet now that he mentioned it, he did look more like a faery than he ever had a spriggan…

‘Oh,’ she said faintly.

‘Marigold warned me to be careful about showing myself to anyone. She said your people had been living underground for a long time, and that they didn’t take kindly to strangers. But even so-’ He touched his injured arm and grimaced. ‘I wasn’t expecting quite this level of hostility.’

He sounded reasonable now, even sane. But Ivy wasn’t ready to let her guard down yet. ‘Is it broken?’ she asked.

‘Out of joint.’ He moved his hand, revealing the ugly swelling around the elbow. ‘Your brother seemed to think he could make me talk by trying to rip my arm off, but I can’t say it inspired me to much more than yelling.’

Ivy almost asked how he’d known Mica was her brother, but then she remembered: he’d seen the two of them arguing outside the Engine House. ‘So why didn’t you tell him you knew my mother?’ she asked.

‘Because I was too busy yelling, perhaps?’ He spoke mildly, but the words were tinged with sarcasm. ‘Not to mention fighting for my life.’

Even Ivy’s distrust couldn’t keep her from feeling a twinge of sympathy. Faeries might be deceitful and self-centred as the legends claimed, but the stranger was clearly in pain. Maybe that was why he’d been raving earlier.

‘Mica…doesn’t always think before he acts,’ she said, resisting a traitorous impulse to add, I’m sorry.

‘I got that impression, yes,’ said the faery dryly. ‘I don’t suppose you have some kind of magical healing elixir that would put my arm right?’

‘Not really,’ said Ivy. Yarrow’s herbs might ease the pain and bring down the swelling, but they wouldn’t solve the underlying problem. ‘And even if I did, don’t you think the Joan would notice that someone had healed you?’