Flower glanced behind, but the path was empty. Maybe he was trying to suppress another outburst. She was wondering if she had anything to gag him with if he got too loud, when he stopped so suddenly she ran into him.

"Look." He pointed upward. "What's that?"

On a blackened tree trunk was a sigil etched in silver. Oh! She'd read about these. "It's a pictogram. The Freakin Fairies use them to communicate between tribes." She could barely suppress her delight. "Nikifor do you realise we may be the only non-fairies to see one of these in centuries? Even the accounts I read were third-hand." She went closer and reached up to touch the hardened silver.

"What does it say?" Nikifor didn't sound like he shared her delight at all.

She studied it, trying to recall the scratchy old texts she'd found buried in the library at Muse College all those years ago. All the fairy tribes used much the same set of figures, with different nuances, of course, inflections, flourishes, all of that. "Well, it says-" She stopped and studied it again. "It doesn't make any sense. That top bit-"

"The bit that looks like a stick man with an axe in his head?"

"Yes that one, that means danger. But right underneath it here, this running stick man seems to say keep going."

"Keep going into danger? Only a fairy could be so magnificently foolhardy!"

Flower winced. The echoes of Nikifor's shout died away into a suddenly silent forest.

"Sorry," he whispered.

A single frog whooped in the undergrowth.

Flower sighed and moved to the next tree, searching for more pictograms. "You know as well as I do fairies are always spoiling for a fight, but that message makes no sense at all, unless the danger sign was added on later. Look, here's another-" she stopped. Really, this was getting ridiculous, even for Freakin Fairies.

Nikifor studied the hacked off ends of the trunk. "What does that one say?"

"It says someone lives up this tree." Flower turned on her heel and strode on up the path, pointedly ignoring the pictograms that crowded almost every trunk now. Really, fairies were the most frustrating, ridiculous creatures, and what she was doing lost in their territory was completely beyond her. Maybe she should have just stayed home and beaten any Moon Troopers that came knocking over the head with the remains of her dignity.

Nikifor put a hand on her shoulder to halt her progress. "Look."

Flower walked slowly to where the trees ended and the path continued into a village. She wasn't sure what she'd expected. Smoking ruins, perhaps. Bodies.

The village that lay before them looked perfectly peaceful. Too peaceful; no smoke curled from the chimney holes. No voices called out. No children played in the grass. "Do you think this is the right one?"

"It has a feel of impending doom." Nikifor's answering whisper was loud enough to dislodge the single dead leaf that still clung to the tree he stood under.

Flower looked at him sidelong. "You think it's inhabited, then."

There was only one way to find out. She stepped out of the trees and strode into the village, Nikifor following at her heels. He might have been a madman or an idiot, but right then she was more than glad to have him at her back. Those houses could have been full of vampires or fetches or even bearflies, for all she knew.

The village was three times the size of that of the Quicksilvers. Small, sturdy huts marched in complex lines from a deep circular pit, where the wind stirred the cold ashes of a long-dead bonfire. A huge, badly dented copper cooking pot lay on its side nearby.

Flower motioned for silence. Nikifor nodded and pressed his lips together hard. Apparently quiet was going to be a tall order.

The door of the nearest hut opened under her fingers. Flower peered around it.

The single room was empty. Daylight gleamed through dusty windows on shelves of silver ornaments, a tunic edged in intricate silver patterns thrown carelessly over a chair, a table where a silver goblet lay on its side.

She tip-toed into the hut to look closer. By the goblet, a sticky substance stuck to the table. A few tiny ants ran around the edges.

Nikifor reached for something under the window. "There's something written-" He knocked a vase and sent it crashing into a miniature silver statue of a bearfly, which in turn crashed into a pile of ceramic plates, which fell off the shelf and smashed on the stone floor.

Both muses froze where they were. The sound lasted only a second, but the echoes rolled right through the town.

"Nikifor!" she hissed. "Will you keep your great clumsy hands to yourself!"

"I'm sorry!" he backed away from the wreckage.

Flower went to the door and looked out. A few raindrops spattered from heavy clouds overhead. The roads were empty. "Come on." She ventured out into the drizzle.

They went from hut to hut, peering inside, always with the same result. Empty rooms, empty dishes, discarded possessions.

"It's as though everyone just up and left," Flower said after the fourth hut.

"Perhaps not everyone." Nikifor sounded uncharacteristically subdued. He grabbed her by the tunic and yanked her into the shadow of a door.

Flower peered out to see what had spooked him, then swore under her breath. "I really hate those things!" She shrank against the door frame.

A creature about the size of a boot loped down the stone road. It had leathery wings, a wickedly curved beak and talons and beady little eyes so red they glowed. Its scales were intense blue and shone brightly enough to emit a halo of light around its body.

"Fangs." A frown knitted Nikifor's brow.

"What?"

"I don't know. She-"

"Remembering something?"

He shook his head.

Of course he was remembering something, but now was hardly the time. Flower watched the creature pause outside the hut they hid in and look from side to side. Its eyes burned at her. Then it continued on its way. "That my friend," she said under her breath, "is a fetch."

"I know," Nikifor said. "I hate them!"

Flower clapped a hand over his mouth before his voice could rise any higher, but it was too late. The fetch turned its head, then loped back toward them. They retreated into the hut.

Inside was cool and dark and almost devoid of weapons, except for a silver-handled straw broom. Flower yanked it from the cobwebs holding it to the wall and thrust it at Nikifor. "Here."

Nikifor seized the broom from her and brandished it in front of him. Outside, claws scratched on stone.

The door creaked open and the creature made an awkward lope into the hut. It looked from one to the other of them, hissed and stretched its wings out.

Nikifor raised the broom over his head and thumped it down. The creature moved aside. He raised the broom and thumped again.

"Oh for Shadow's sake Nikifor just kill it!" Flower yelled.

The creature's eyes fixed on her.

"It won't stay still!" Nikifor thumped again.

The fetch ignored him and darted across the few feet of floor space between it and Flower.

Oh, really. Attack her would it? That was just lovely, after the morning she'd already had. Flower glared at the loathsome creature. "Alright you disgusting little ball of scales, bring it on." She spread her hands wide.

It reared up at her, then sprang.

Flower raised a foot and booted it into the air. "Now Nikifor!" she yelled.

Nikifor squeezed his eyes shut, swung wildly with the broom and whacked the fetch into the opposite wall. It exploded into a green cloud of the foulest smelling vapour known to Shadow.

They both ran from the hut, gagging.

Flower gulped fresh air outside. "Where there are fetches, there are usually Moon Troopers not far away." She hurried through the village, all thought of stealth gone. "We have to get out of here!"

"That was a magnificent kick!" Nikifor hurried after her.

"Focus, Nikifor!" Flower skidded to an abrupt halt at a road leading out of the village. The silver squiggle on the oak tree at the corner was clear enough to understand: there was a quicksilver mine ahead.

"What is it?" Nikifor almost ran into her.

"Maybe we should just have a look at the mine." Flower started down the road, trying to look as brave as she'd managed to sound.

"Why do I feel such a course could lead us to a ghastly and imminent doom?"

"Because you've been cursed bombastic is why. Now shut up and walk." Flower stormed ahead, buried in her own thoughts. She had an especial hatred for fetches, and seeing one here was no coincidence. It wasn't hard to convince herself the Silver clan might not be so hard to find after all, but the implications were dire, so she tried not to think about them. Instead she kept an eye out for more fetches.

Horrid things. Nobody was sure when the plague started, or how they'd evolved into what they were, but it wasn't the least bit natural. Once fetches had been harmless, rare creatures who lived in mountain country and kept away from inhabited areas. Then suddenly it all changed. Swarms of them plagued settlements all over Shadow, poisoning anyone they happened to bite or scratch. Some of the Bloomin Fairies who'd reported disappearances had insisted the fetches always came first, but she'd dismissed the idea back then. They were wild animals, not part of some conspiracy.

She supposed even she could be wrong. Not very often, of course, but certainly every now and again.

They left the path when it went steeply downhill to a yawning cave mouth blocked up by a huge stone door, and crept instead through the sparse cover of the surrounding trees.

Only when they were very close did Flower see that what had looked like a bundle of small rocks at the base of the doors was a pack of fetches at rest, their eyes closed and their scales dull and grey.

She and Nikifor flattened themselves under a hollowed-out stump. The forest around them was silent. The creatures guarding the mine had probably frightened all other wildlife away. There were sounds, though. Distant voices drifted from behind those stone doors.

She didn't want to put the fear that had so suddenly gripped her into words, but she didn't think it would do any good to ignore it, either. She had to try saying it, just in case. "Nikifor, could it be possible there are Moon Troopers keeping all those Freakin Fairies prisoner in the mines?"

"That would be a grave and cruel injustice." His sober words reflected her wealth of unspoken fears.

"And if they are," she continued, "Does that not mean the Guild have ordered it?"

"Fiends!" His voice rose above a whisper.

Flower nudged him. "Quiet!"

They watched around the stump for another few minutes. The fetches stayed at rest. One, at one point, roused itself, turned bright red, walked in a circle, settled and went grey again.

"How do we get in there?" she whispered.

"Get in?" Nikifor went white. "Are you crazy?"

"No, but I'm not sure I can stand you under this bombastic curse for much longer, and the only way they'll lift it is if we rescue these fairies!"

Nikifor was about to reply, but no words came out of his mouth. A look of consternation crossed his face. Then Flower felt a sharp blow to the back of her head.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Tall. Emaciated. Hungry. The Tormentor hunched over the table like a malevolent locust. Long, thin fingers wrapped around a crystal flask filled with sparkling green liquid.

Nikifor could not tear his eyes from that flask, or from the huge ruby ring that glittered on the index finger. The Tormentor was in shadow, always in shadow, but that ring. He knew that ring. More than that he knew that green, the vivid colour of vibe. Sudden, violent thirst raged through his body. He wanted it. He wanted it more than freedom, more than life, more than an end to his torment. He would crawl naked through flames for just one more intoxicating taste.

But vibe was madness. Impossible madness. He was done with it. The Freakin Fairies had given him his life back, who was he to throw away such a gift?

The Tormentor poured the drug with agonising slowness into a tall crystal glass. The shadows thickened and shifted like living creatures. "Drink," he said.

"No." Nikifor's whisper was ragged but stubborn. The urge to know who tormented him so, to remember, to see the face, gripped him like a fever.

"Drink!" The Tormentor's fist slammed onto the table.

He flinched. "I will not."

The Tormentor paced around the table, bent over Nikifor's shoulder and lifted the glass to his lips. "You know this is all you desire. This is all you are."

The intoxicating fragrance enveloped his senses like moss on a forest floor, like a woman's perfume, like bottled darkness. He closed his eyes. The glass touched his lips.

The Tormentor laughed low in his ear. "You were a fool to think you could escape me."

Nikifor wrapped his fingers around the cold, hard crystal. Oblivion. No longer a path he could choose. Never again. His fingers trembled. The anger that always lurked so far beneath flared like magma from a volcano and he dashed the vessel into the Tormentor's face. Crystal shattered on skin, tinkled to the ground. The Tormentor uttered a hoarse cry of pain and clutched his eyes. Blood welled from fine cuts.

The bloodied hands dropped. "What was that? You're not supposed to be able to do that. Tell me what that was!" He grabbed Nikifor's shoulders and threw him so hard he struck the wall. "Tell me how can you possibly defy me?"

Nikifor threw up his hands to shield his face. "I will not submit!" he roared.

The stone room melted away into sweating darkness, an aching skull and the smell of wet sackcloth.

Nikifor gulped fresh cold air when the rough cloth was snatched from his face. His heart hammered and his blood raced through his veins as though he had just won a mortal battle. He could taste victory, but had no idea what he'd won. He cringed when a flaming brand blinded him. "Tell me where your king is!"

Nikifor recoiled, but could not get far. His hands were bound behind his back and any amount of movement threatened to injure them. The brittle, angry female voice made his head pound.

She brandished the fire so close his hair singed and curled. "Tell me where your king is, Muse, or so help me I'll cover you in fairy dust and play kick with your petrified remains!"

His nerve broke. "I don't know! I don't know where he is!"