The Wood Queen Read online

  “Wait, slow down,” Navin said. “Xan was at the hospital?”

  “Yes, I needed him to tell me if there was fey magic involved with Mom’s condition. With her sudden collapse, I mean.”

  Navin was nodding, but she couldn’t help noticing the line that had appeared between his brows. “Right, of course. So, what can we do about it?”

  And there it was: she’d only just vowed not to keep secrets from Navin, but now here she was, acting on the basis of a deal she’d struck with Aliette. A deal she hadn’t told him about. I’m not hiding it from him, Donna told herself. I’m protecting him—there’s a difference.

  If the explanation felt hollow, she did her best to ignore the nagging doubts. She’d been so obsessed with finding a way to help Mom, she hadn’t stopped to think about how Nav might feel about her spending time—by choice—with the Wood Queen. The same “woman” who had arranged his abduction and bargained with his life like it was nothing.

  She swallowed her fear. Maybe she could try being honest with him without actually spilling her guts right there and then. “Will you trust me if I can’t tell you everything right now?”

  “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “I can,” she said, quickly. “I will. When we’re out of here—but we can’t risk being found in Simon’s lab.”

  Navin watched her face carefully as Donna’s emotions swept across her features. He stepped forward and folded her into his arms again. Her head rested comfortably on his shoulder and she took in the familiar scent that she loved so much. The smell of his jacket, his hair gel, the faint aroma of Indian spices from his dad’s cooking.

  “I trust you, Underwood,” he whispered into her hair.

  “Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, Donna pushed away from him and met his eyes. “I can do this. Tell me I can get through the next couple of days—please?”

  He did the eyebrow thing again. “Of course you can. And, whatever it is, you don’t have to do it alone. You know that, right?”

  She nodded, even though she also knew that she wouldn’t allow Navin to be hurt by the fey again. She’d rather have him hate her. “I know.”

  He looked around them at the seemingly random piles of alchemical paraphernalia, his eyes wide. It was as though he was finally noticing their surroundings, and Donna was relieved at his shift in focus.

  “This place is different from Maker’s.” He made it a statement, but there was still the hint of a question behind the words.

  “Maker is a different sort of alchemist. He didn’t take the usual route—initiate, adept, alchemist, and then magus. He’s descended from a mythological line of men and women who were talented with … making stuff.” It was tough trying to explain something that she’d taken for granted all her life. “His magic comes from his ability to create almost anything from metal.”

  “Like your tattoos,” Navin touched her arm to punctuate his words. “They’re sort of alive, aren’t they?”

  “Sort of,” she echoed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable having his attention back on her. “Come on, Simon’s bound to be the one to find us.”

  “I think Simon’s probably too wrapped up plotting your downfall to care,” Navin said darkly, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, every time he opened his mouth yesterday I wanted to punch him.”

  Donna almost smiled at that. Nav didn’t really believe in violence, but she appreciated the sentiment. “Welcome to my world.”

  He laughed. “What the hell has that guy got against you, anyway?”

  “Oh, you mean apart from the fact that I lost his precious elixir?”

  Navin’s expression turned thoughtful as he leaned against the workbench behind him. “I know, but I don’t think that’s enough to explain the resentment he clearly has toward you. There’s more to it than that.”

  Donna frowned. “It must have to do with my parents, but I don’t know what it could be. Aunt Paige won’t say a word against Simon, and I can hardly ask my mom.”

  Navin’s face lit up. “Maybe not, but you might be able to find out from the journal that Quentin told you about.”

  “Maybe …” Donna’s voice trailed off and she stared at him. “Wait a minute—how do you know about that? I only just found out myself!”

  He smiled enigmatically. “You’re not the only one with special powers.”

  Donna mock-glared at him, wishing she could do the eyebrow-raise trick. Now would be the perfect time.

  Navin laughed, cutting her some slack. “I was listening outside the library door when Quentin was talking to you.”

  “You were? Didn’t Quentin see you when he left?”

  “I don’t think so. But I kind of got the feeling he wouldn’t care, even if he did.”

  Donna secretly agreed with him, especially the more she thought about her conversation with the Archmaster. Something about the way Quentin had looked at the clock before he left—and hadn’t he touched it?—made her wonder if he’d been giving her another opportunity to look around in the lab. But that was crazy … wasn’t it?

  Then again, he had left her alone in the Blue Room, and he knew that Donna wasn’t the sort of girl to just sit around waiting for the Order to summon her. She hated having to wait for things and, even more than that, she hated feeling powerless. It was a strange thing to feel when you had super-human strength, but there had been far too many times in her life when she’d been completely out of control and unable to make her own decisions.

  Being able to punch a hole in a door didn’t mean much when you had to follow orders all the time and your whole life was mapped out for you by people who thought they knew best.

  She nodded in the direction of Simon Gaunt’s main workbench, which was currently filled with jars of all shapes and sizes. The main feature was a long, narrow tube that wound around and around in half-circles, like a hollow glass snake.

  “I think coming here again—to the lab—has helped me to confirm something, I suppose.” Donna frowned, testing out the Wood Queen’s claim by speaking it aloud. “About Simon and why the alchemists have hidden the truth about him. I was always brought up to believe he was just the secretary of the Order of the Dragon. It’s an important role, but it’s still an administrative role. Definitely nonmagical. Quentin’s the Archmaster, so he should be the one with all the power, but I’ve seen his lab and it’s nothing like this. It’s more like … a hobby.”

  Navin frowned and looked at the equipment piled up on the bench. “So you think Simon’s the one with the power.”

  “I know it,” she said, not quite ready to admit to Nav that she’d had it confirmed by the Wood Queen. In person. “But it’s weird. I mean, it doesn’t make sense—why would Quentin go along with it? Why spend all these years pretending that Simon isn’t a magus?”

  “Maybe they only pretended for your benefit. It could be that the other alchemists know. Or, at least, the most important ones.”

  She bit her lip and thought for a moment. “That would make sense, except for the fact that Robert knows.”

  “Robert?”

  “You know, the young alchemist wearing a lot of black. He was sitting with the representative from the Order of the Crow.”

  “Oh, right. Guyliner Guy.”

  Donna smiled. “That would be him. Robert’s from London, which is where the central power of the Order of the Crow is based. He’s an adept, past the apprentice stage but he only just qualified. He’s hardly someone that I’d expect to be aware of the really big secrets within the four Orders.”

  Navin was nodding, a serious look on his face. He said, “I think Guyliner Guy liked me.”

  Thinking this was a strange thing to be talking about at a time like this—even for Nav—Donna decided to humor him. Sort of. “Really? That’s nice. Acceptance by the very people who call you a commoner and treat you like trash.”

  Surprise crossed Navin’s face, no doubt at the venom in her tone. “No, I mean … I think he liked me.” He slow-winked, and then grinned.

>   “I know, you already—” Donna stopped talking, finally getting it. “Oh! You mean he liked you.”

  “Definitely.” He looked almost proud. “I’m attractive to both sexes, baby! I’m a metrosexual.”

  She snorted. “That is so not the right word.” But she couldn’t help smiling back at him. Shaking her head, she gave up on trying to get her friend to talk sense. In all honesty, she was just glad to have him back by her side—they were a team, and she hoped they always would be.

  Navin, meanwhile, had crossed the laboratory and was rummaging through the paperwork on a cluttered workbench. “Maybe there’s something here that will tell you more about Simon.”

  “There’s bound to be lots of stuff that will tell me all kinds of things about him. The problem is, I don’t really know what I’m looking for.” And it’s not Simon I really want to find out about, she thought guiltily. She needed to find evidence—information—anything to support what Aliette had told her about opening the door to Faerie. Only she hadn’t actually told Nav about that. Yet.

  He stretched up on tiptoe to a wooden shelf high above the bench and ran his hand along it.

  Oh. Crap.

  She had a sickening feeling of déjà vu.

  Donna leapt toward Navin, cursing herself for letting him wander around and touch things without her sticking close by. It felt as if she was moving in slow motion; or maybe she was the one moving at regular speed and everything else around her had slowed down. Either way, it seemed to be taking forever for her to run from one side of the laboratory to the other.

  She could see Navin reaching, trying to see what was on the shelf above his head. She felt her legs move and her arms reach out, even as she watched her friend’s fingers touch the base of the bronze statue and move it to the very edge of the rough-hewn shelf.

  The statue toppled and began to fall—

  —and as it fell, it started screaming.

  Ten

  Donna had been here before, with Xan, but as the screaming bronze head tumbled toward Navin, she realized that the danger was even greater than being discovered: the lump of carved bronze was heavy enough to give Navin a concussion.

  She reached him as the statue hit his outstretched arms—despite his shock, he’d managed to deflect the thing—and grabbed him. There was a clash of bodies as she tackled him to the ground and the statue landed beside them with a solid thump of metal on stone.

  “Shit!” Navin gasped from his position sprawled on the cold floor, Donna on top of him. “Get off me, Underwood. You weigh a ton.”

  “Excuse me, I just saved your ass. Well, your head.”

  They both turned to look at the bronze carving. It was lying on its side on the stone floor beside them. It was staring right at them from hollow eyes. At least it had shut up when it hit the ground.

  “Ugh. That thing is so creepy.” Donna repressed a shudder.

  Navin was busy climbing to his feet, reaching down to pull her with him. “I take it you’ve met before,” he said dryly.

  “Sort of.” She dusted down her jeans and checked for damage. Apart from a faint throbbing coming from her hip, she was unhurt. “Are you okay?” It seemed Navin hadn’t been so lucky; he was holding his left arm awkwardly.

  “Smashed my elbow on the floor, but no permanent damage.” He moved it gingerly, showing her that nothing was broken.

  Donna gazed down at the statue. She remembered how they’d made it shut up before—Xan had stamped a heavily booted foot down on it, and that had seemed to do the trick.

  Edging closer, she nudged it with the toe of her sneaker.

  “Hey!” The voice sounded stretched thin somehow, like it was coming from somewhere far away. She remembered hearing it speak in answer to Simon’s commands, and it creeped her out now just as much as it did back then. “Get your stinking feet off me,” it said.

  Navin’s face drained of color. “Woah. Did that thing just say something?”

  Donna raised her eyebrows. “Why so surprised? You heard it scream on the way down.”

  He shook his head, gazing at the statue in horrified fascination. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really think the sound was coming from … it.” He met her gaze, his eyes glittering wildly. “It’s an ‘it,’ right? It kind of looks like a him.”

  Donna shook her head. “I honestly have no idea what it is, but I suppose it does look like a man’s face.”

  The statue had a hooked nose and a strong chin. Its head was carved with a strange hat—more like a skull-cap—that looked like it belonged in another century.

  And this time, the horrible thing was actually talking to them. It was beyond freaky.

  “What’s the matter,” the statue said. “Cat got your tongue?”

  Its mouth didn’t open when it spoke, but its strange voice was still coming from between the thin golden lips. Donna’s stomach turned over when she realized that the only part of the bronze head that did move was its eyes.

  She glared at it, refusing to be afraid of a lump of metal. “I’ve just never heard a statue speak before.” She felt vaguely ridiculous talking to a head on the floor, but this was the state of her life right now. She shouldn’t really be surprised at the whole new level of crazy she’d just achieved. Perhaps it was something to be proud of, she thought, more than a little hysterically.

  Navin crouched down next to the head. “Do you want me to put you back on the shelf?”

  “Touch me and I’ll scream for the Magus,” it retorted. “Leave me right where I am, and he’ll know his precious lab has been infiltrated.”

  Donna scowled. “Just pick it up, Nav.”

  “Oh, I like how it’s me that has to touch it. You’re the one wearing gloves …”

  “And you just asked the damn thing if it wanted to go back on the shelf. What, were you volunteering me for the job?”

  The statue cleared its throat. Or at least, Donna thought, if it had a throat that’s what it sounded like it was doing. “If you would kindly stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here and leave the laboratory, maybe I’ll tell the Magus that I fell on my own.”

  Navin snorted. “Yeah, like I believe that.”

  “Believe what you want, young man,” it said in an offended sort of tone. “I don’t care one way or the other.”

  Donna sighed and bent down to grab the statue. She didn’t give herself time to think; she just wanted the thing off the floor and back where it belonged. Even if it was going to tell Simon about his uninvited guests, there was something about the bronze head lying down there on its side that was sort of pathetic.

  She scooped it up, ignoring the spluttered protests, and placed it on one of the shelves. She couldn’t reach the top one, but managed to push it onto the wooden shelf below. Perhaps Simon wouldn’t notice his magical alarm system had been disturbed.

  Yeah, she could hope. Maybe she should brush the dust off the top shelf; there was bound to be a clean space where the head usually sat.

  Just as she was wondering this, the statue fixed her with its sinister eyes. The dark and hollow spaces had deep-set, carved eyeballs with black pupils that flickered, almost as though they were projected onto the bronze by a camera set up opposite the shelf. She almost wanted to look over her shoulder, just to check—to see if this was some sort of elaborate trick—but she knew it was pointless. The eyes had moved while the head was lying on the floor, too, so there was no way it was anything other than what it seemed to be: a living bronze statue.

  Of course, that didn’t mean that was what it actually was, but that’s certainly what it seemed like.

  “Do you have a name?” Navin asked. He was looking less pale, much to Donna’s relief.

  “Of course I have a name. All spirits have names.” There was no mistaking the offended tone of the statue’s voice.

  Donna couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “You’re a spirit?”

  “What did you think I was? A statue? A … living statue?” Spooky noises emitted from
the bronze head, almost as though the stupid thing was laughing at her.

  Donna scowled. “Well, you can hardly blame us. And last time we met, all you did was scream and bring Simon down here.”

  The statue sniffed. “That is my job. I’m the Magus’ personal protection system for all his ridiculous experiments. Do you have any idea how demeaning my life has become? The only company I have—apart from Gaunt—is Slow Henry over there.” The statue rolled its eyes. “And let me tell you, they don’t call him Slow Henry for nothing.”

  Donna thought her brain might explode with the weirdness, but she tried to keep it together. “So, are you going to tell us your name?”

  Navin’s shoulder touched hers as he stepped nearer. Donna figured he was trying to protect her, and although she didn’t exactly need his protection, she had to admit that it felt nice to have him close by.

  The statue’s eyes flicked between them, making a creepy clicking sound. “You may call me Newton.”

  “As in, Isaac Newton, the alchemist?” Donna almost laughed. “Please tell me you’re being ironic.”

  “It’s one of my best features,” Newton replied. “Of course it’s ironic, you stupid girl. I can’t just give out my true name, because then Gaunt could trap me here forever. At least this way I still have a chance.”

  Nav rubbed a hand across his face. “And you’re a spirit? What kind of spirit?”

  Newton opened his eyes wide. “A demon. Oooh, scary!” If he could grin, Donna was sure that’s what he’d be doing.

  She also wondered when she’d started thinking of it as a “he.”

  Navin went quiet and just stared at her. The expression on his face clearly said, Oh my God, what is going on, please tell me this is all a bad dream.

  Donna touched his arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. She addressed the statue, trying to figure this out. “You’re a demon? In a statue …” She didn’t know much about the demons—apart from the fact that they existed. But they were in their own realm, she’d been told, just as the majority of the fey were safely locked away in Faerie. That’s the way it worked. Humans in the Earth realm, the fey in Faerie, and demons in … Hell. There wasn’t really a human name for the demons’ true home, but sometimes Donna had seen it referred to in alchemical texts as the Otherworld—sort of a shamanic term, from what she understood, and many alchemists preferred that name to “Hell,” which had too many Christian connotations.