The Falconer (Elizabeth May) (5 page)

‘Her fears aren’t completely groundless. Your faery brethren do appear to enjoy consuming—’ I hesitate, not wanting to offend him. He’s small, but he can make quite a mess if he feels insulted.

‘Ugh! That’s disgusting. Human souls taste like porridge, you know.’ So much for offending him.

Lesser fae like Derrick don’t actively hunt humans. They could take energy if they wanted, but it would never be enough to kill or even seriously injure a person. If they were as powerful as the others, I wouldn’t have let Derrick live when I discovered him in the back garden a few nights after my mother died.

I incline my head towards the door. ‘Would you care to explain that?’

‘Wood panelling,’ he says. ‘Very solid. Smells nice.’

‘You know what I’m saying. Dona can hear you.’ He simply blinks at me, clearly not at all troubled by it. I groan. ‘I thought only men had the Sight. You told me that.’

Derrick shrugs. ‘She doesn’t have it. She’s just a wee bit perceptive, is all.’

‘I gathered that.’

‘No need to get huffy,’ he says. He brightens and the halo around him glimmers gold. ‘She can only sense me on occasion. Most other times, she’s as ignorant of my presence as the rest of your kind are.’

‘I don’t care. How long have you known?’

He picks up a loose cog from the table and examines it. ‘A sennight.’

‘Seven days! And you didn’t think to tell me?’

Derrick doesn’t look the least bit concerned, as though I’ve asked him why he didn’t bother to tell me about the fabric he uses to make his trousers.

I consider the worst possible situations. What if a faery ever follows me home? What if it realises my maid can occasionally sense the fae? Sensitive humans and Seers have more energy to take than a normal human. That lass is a walking target and she doesn’t even know it.

‘I didn’t think it was important,’ he murmurs, ‘since I surely won’t harm her.’ He slips the cog into his bag.

‘Put that back, thief,’ I say.

‘But—’

‘
And
all the others.’

Derrick reluctantly pulls the part from his bag and tosses it onto the table. And another. And another. ‘You won’t release Dona, will you?’

‘Of course I will,’ I say. ‘Good heavens, that poor girl should leave the country. I don’t think they have faeries in the West Indies, do they?’

Derrick eyes me, as if to say,
You bloody wish they don’t
. ‘She cleans my home the
best
,’ he whines, drawing from his bag a gold button that looks like it came from my father’s wardrobe. ‘She uses this rose-scented substance when she cleans. Makes me think of spring and waterfalls and lovely ladies.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Am I to understand that you want me to keep my oblivious maid in a position of danger because you enjoy the scent of her cleaning solution?’

‘Well.’ He looks rather embarrassed. ‘Aye.’

‘At least you’re honest about it.’ I open the dressing room door and groan. It’s a mess of frills and silk, skirts and petticoats strewn everywhere. ‘And no wonder you want to keep her here.
Someone
has to tidy this.’

Derrick’s wings buzz as he flies to my shoulder and perches there. ‘I’d prefer she didn’t. This is just the way I like it.’

‘It looks hideous.’

‘How dare you?’ His wings flick my ear. ‘That’s my home you’re insulting.’

His wings are starting to hurt me. ‘Behave yourself or you’ll get no honey from me today.’

Derrick calms and sits next to my neck. ‘Cruel.’

If he wanted, Derrick could steal from anywhere. But it’s my ready stock of honey and constant need of stitched clothing that keep him happiest. The small fae are menders, compulsively so. They’ve been known to steal worn clothing just to use their fingers – Derrick says it keeps his sword hand quick. Honey is simply what he requests for services rendered, even though I tend to provide it whether he sews or not. He adores it that much.

‘I’m perfectly wonderful to live with and you know it,’ I say. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow your home to undress.’

Derrick rises from my shoulder and flies back to the table. I assume he’ll steal more parts while I’m distracted.

I shut the dressing room door behind me and press the button for the light. Hardly any dresses remain on the shelves. The scent of roses clings to the air. I grudgingly admit that Derrick is right – it does smell rather heavenly.

Deftly, I untie the bow around my chest. Blood sticks to the fabric and I wince as I step out of the many layers of petticoats and undergarments that have constrained me all evening. The thigh holsters securing my pistol and
sgian dubh
go next.

My inspection reveals five superficial cuts and four deep others, running across the freckled skin just below my bosom. The deeper ones will require stitching.

I brush my fingers along the healed welts elsewhere across my ribs. No one knows that underneath my beautiful dresses I hide a body that is scarred and cut and bruised. Old injuries are scattered across my thighs, my stomach, my back. They’re my badges. My secret tokens of survival and victory. And vengeance. I can name the faeries that inflicted every scar, and I remember how I killed each one of them.

With a sigh, I pop open the lid of my trunk and pull out my stitcher kit. I lie amid my scattered dresses and twist the key at the bottom of the box. The tiny mechanical spiders crawl across my chest and abdomen, mending my torn flesh.

I close my eyes. I listen to their bodies move, the whisper of wee mechanical pieces interworking as tiny legs creep across my skin. They puncture me over and over, cauterising and threading gossamer tendon through my sensitive flesh. Finally I feel them finish and crawl back into the box.

The dressing room is silent when I open my eyes and place the kit back in the trunk. My midsection is smeared with blood around four stitched wounds that will become new badges.

I reach for fabric to wipe the blood away and draw an old, tattered tartan from beneath the dresses.

Then I can’t breathe. My eyes are wet and my chest aches.

I shove the tartan inside the trunk and shut it with a loud thump, gasping for breath.

Derrick must have dug out the tartan from the back of the dressing room. I wish I could burn it, even if it is the last memento I have of my mother. I managed to salvage it before my father ordered her most personal belongings removed from the house. He said he couldn’t look at them any more, as though their presence gave him some hope that she’d return.

I understood. Even this last reminder of my mother’s life just makes her absence all the more glaring. So the tartan stays hidden, where I won’t be tempted to hug it or sleep with it or wear it in a poor attempt to pretend she’s still alive. The pretending would only make reality all the more painful.

I snatch a small handkerchief off the floor and dip it into the bowl of water Derrick leaves out for me next to my rows of slippers. He always anticipates that I’ll come home with an injury that requires cleaning. He’s always right.

I gently mop the blood from my skin and change into my nightdress. When I step out of the dressing room, Derrick is sitting cross-legged on my work table, sifting through metal pieces, no doubt choosing which to steal next.

‘Get away from there,’ I say, flipping the switch for the fireplace. A spark under the coals sends flames bursting upwards. I toss the bloodied fabric into the fire.

Derrick flies to perch on the back of the pink muckle chair near the settee. ‘But they’re just sitting there, all shiny and unused.’

‘How about another project to keep your fingers busy?’ I hold up my ravaged ball gown. ‘See? It’s completely destroyed, just the way you like.’

Light explodes around him. ‘What the hell happened?’ Derrick bursts out.

‘Revenant,’ I say. I toss him the dress and Derrick catches it easily by the sleeve. I know pixies are stronger than they look, but his effortless strength still surprises me. ‘You’re welcome to work on it.’

I’ve finally learned never to say thank you when he mends my dresses. Faeries take heavy offence to gratitude.

Derrick drops the dress onto the settee and inspects the damage. ‘Almost had you, didn’t he?’ he murmurs.

‘Almost.’

I press my fingers against my new badges. They all tell stories, each distinct and significant. One of them – the longest scar, the one that spans the length of my spine – is the first I ever earned. It tells the tale of a girl who had just lost her mother and nearly died when she went out into the world armed with iron. The girl who was later remade into a killer.

I sit in my work chair and pick up an old watch fob lying amongst the metal scraps. ‘I shot it, of course,’ I murmur.

‘Well done,’ Derrick says. He holds up my dress to inspect it and his wings flutter once. ‘Did you take its head?’

He sounds hopeful. Small faeries truly loathe the larger fae for being so pathetic as to live off the energy of less powerful creatures. They consider it a weakness.

‘Of course not. What on earth am I going to do with a revenant’s head?’

He brightens more, skin glowing golden. ‘Take it as a trophy, put it on a stake and display it in the back garden where everyone can appreciate it.’

‘Derrick, that’s disgusting.’ I’m amused despite myself.

‘Do you think so?’ He removes a needle and thread from his bag. ‘When I was young we showed off our trophies, danced around them and gorged ourselves on fruits.’

‘I don’t know how to respond to that.’

Derrick merely grins and begins to sew my dress. ‘Ah, happy memories.’ I shake my head, and as I lean to pluck the turnscrew off the table, he adds, ‘I have news.’

I go still, my breath catching in my throat.
News
. When Derrick has something to share, it’s always to do with the faery who killed my mother, her latest murders. He has a network of tiny faeries – brownies and will-o’-the-wisps and
buachailleen
, to name a few – who chatter, always willing to share information in exchange for honey. Lately, her kills have become more frequent, once every few days.

‘Aye?’ I try to sound calm, try to keep the ache of vengeance from rising. Every night, I hunt in the hope that the next faery I find will be her. It never is. The fae I kill are merely substitutes for the one I want most.

‘Stirling, this time.’

‘How many?’ My voice shakes.

‘One.’

I rise from the chair so hastily that it wobbles and nearly falls. I stride to the back of the room and stand in front of the mounted schooner helm. Embedded in the wood is a small, barely noticeable button which I press gently, fingers shaking. A portion of the wall presses outwards and twists to show a hidden map of Scotland on the reverse side.

Aberdeen. Oban. Lamlash. Tobermory. Dundee. Inverness. Portree. Dozens of places around the country, into the islands and the Outer Hebrides. I’ve marked each of them with a pin and tied crimson ribbons around them to count the kills at each location.

As far as I know, she is the last
baobhan sìth
in existence. The murder pattern is always the same for her – no more than three victims in the same place. She never stays anywhere for too long. She finds her prey on a road at night – lured there either by her strong mental influence or her unearthly beauty. Once there, she tears open their throats and drains their blood. There is one exception to her pattern: my mother. She ripped out my mother’s heart.

I screw shut my eyes against the memory.
Don’t think about it
, I tell myself.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t
—

‘Aileana?’ Derrick asks hesitantly.

Clearing my throat, I open my eyes and grab a pin and ribbon out of the leather bag hanging next to the map. ‘I’m all right.’

I jab the pin into the map and knot the ribbon around it.

The map is awash with pins and crimson bows; so little land is left unaffected by her spree. One hundred and eighty-four kills in the last year. She’s been busier than I have. I began tracking her a fortnight after my mother’s murder. I could never catch up with her or find her before she moved to another place. I can’t prevent any of her kills. So I’ve been biding my time, preparing for her, training for the day when I’ll meet her again.

She’s been toiling away in the Highlands for the last fortnight, moving closer and closer to the city. It’s only a matter of time now. And I have become very patient.

Derrick lands on my shoulder, wings gently brushing my cheek. ‘They tell me she’s on her way here.’

‘She is indeed.’ I smile and press the button to hide the map from view.

I sit at my work table again and unscrew the fob’s back casing. Once removed, I carefully lift out the middle section, with its tiny wheels and wires still intact.

Frowning, I study the three separate sections of the fob, how each part works and how they fit together. I slowly dismantle the mechanism, memorising the position of each component as I remove it. Some parts are so wee that I have to wear my brass magnifying spectacles to see them better.

Nearly every night I find a new project. When my mother was alive, she used to help me build little contraptions for the house. Lanterns that turn on and off with the snap of my fingers, a self-delivering tea service, a floating metal hand to grasp the books on the highest shelf in the drawing room.

I destroyed all of them when she died. I stopped making frivolous things. Now my scraps are turned into weapons, all from my own designs. Whenever one is destroyed, I build another.

I never know in advance what I’ll create. Sometimes I sit down with little more than a notion and build through the night to turn it into something real. Anything to keep me from sleep for as long as possible. This time, it’s in preparation for the
baobhan sìth
.

I reach inside a drawer and take out my journal. When inspiration strikes, I sketch until my fingers are black with charcoal, and soon I have designed the fob’s parts and the additions necessary to turn it into a weapon. I do some calculations and write the quantities for sulphur, charcoal, saltpetre and
seilgflùr
on the corner of the sheet.