No, turn his back to Tobias and remark lightly to his mother—
No, no: return to his ruined manor house, and perhaps say something witty and intelligent to—
To whom? To Bramble?
He was missing the moment. Already Maud was furrowing her brows as she took in his expression, and he was a man standing on a cliff above the ocean on the edge of a deadly fall onto razor rocks, arm in arm with a girl with more courage than sense. Tobias was looking on with Heaven alone knew what expression in the dark, and the moon was shining on the water, and there was a soft sighing of the wind, rustling in the leaves of a drowned forest, filling all the air.
And then, with a sense that did not belong to an ordinary mortal, Silver was aware of something bent and strange in that chilly murmuring air; as if the night were doubled over on itself, and a hole torn through it.
“Good God,” he said, “there really is a road.”
Maud stiffened. Silver grabbed ahold of her hand before she drew it away entirely. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have doubted you. Don’t— You need me, I swear you do.” It was true; it was the Wood that was calling that strange path into being. He was sure of it; he could feel it. But he needed her as well. Something marvellous had left its mark on her, and it was at her feet that the shining road began. “Your name first,” he reminded her. “When we publish.”
Maud’s lips pressed tight together. “My name first,” she agreed, and hoisted her canvas pack a little more firmly on her shoulders.
“Silver!”
Tobias’s voice was hoarse. Silver had somehow, for the first time since he had come to Rothport, genuinely forgotten that he was there. He turned now to give Tobias a brilliant smile, unforced, uncalculated, entirely sincere. It was not that it no longer hurt to look at him. The queer ache endured, as it had continuously from the moment he’d set eyes on Tobias again and found him larger than memory, sterner and kinder and more ordinary and entirely himself. By God, how Silver had loved the man! He had loved him to the tune of fourteen months spent pitying himself in a thorn-girt fortress. But there was no use dwelling now: Silver was even able to admit to himself, here, at last, that the whole mess had in the end been entirely and predictably his own fault.
“Once again, my dear sir,” he said, “I am going to have to ask you to explain matters to my mother.”
Perhaps he should not have made a joke of it. The last time Silver had asked him that favour, he had been on the point of getting eaten alive by an ancient and evil parasite power in the beautiful, appalling form of Fabian Rafela.
Oh well. It didn’t matter now.
Silver stepped off the cliff and onto the road to Fairyland. Maud came with him. She was clinging to his arm a little, though her expression was set. Fearless, yes: but she had not been totally oblivious to the potential of those dreadful knife-edged rocks.
“Silver, for God’s sake!”
Tobias moved fast for such a big man. But the road was not there for him, and the edge of the Rothling headland was less forgiving of his heavy tread than it had been of slim Maud and light-footed Silver. Not pebbles but whole clods of earth skidded away from under his boots. Silver saw it happen, saw his balance fail, saw him begin to fall.
No, he thought or said; and Time itself shifted around him in answer.
Down they went all together, Maud with a shrill cry and Tobias with a shout and Silver himself concentrating too hard to make a sound. Down they went, breaking branches of protesting trees as they went, gathering bruises and cuts aplenty; down to a half-forgiving landing in a dim and wild wood that had vanished under the rising waves ten thousand years before.
II: The Fairy Queen
Two years ago
ON A MARCH MORNING around dawn, after a night of honest conversation—conversation, with Tobias Finch!—Silver made a joke, and Tobias blinked once and put his big hand on Silver’s jaw and kissed him.
What a shock it was, after months of flirtation that might as well have been aimed at an amiable wall. What an astounding, delightful shock, to find oneself sincerely admired, and wanted, and liked—and by such a sober and immovable rock of a man as Tobias Finch!
March was casting off her chills; the twigs of the hawthorn budding; the bluebells coming into carpeting bloom as spring breathed out over the wood. Silver, enchanted, even found himself in charity with his mother. She was pleased to see him well, she said; and in that stiff little sentence he heard more human feeling than he had ever known her to express before. Her eyes were wet, and she dabbed at them aggressively with a handkerchief, as if daring him to say anything. Silver, quite overcome, embraced her. When she squawked in surprise, he laughed. The laughter rolled up out of him like the bubbles of the rushing Haller Brook.
(Later Silver wondered if the air of spring had been a part of it. Perhaps he had been drunk on the season. Perhaps he should never have expected such a budding green joyfulness to last.)
Mrs Silver lingered at Greenhollow Hall for most of a month, and Silver only fought with her twice. Both times they cut themselves off before the squabble could really get going; both times they each glanced at Tobias, big and quiet and trying not to look unhappy, and thought the better of their disagreement. Silver’s mother liked Tobias. Silver had never seen her like anyone half so much. She liked his solidness, she liked his practicality, she liked his tidy habits and his gruff manners and his excellent aim with a pistol. “I am so very pleased,” she said to Silver once, “that you seem to have developed some good sense in your personal affairs at last.”
This was by far the most approving thing Mrs Silver had ever said about any of Silver’s entanglements. She had an eagle eye for spotting them, and a scathing tongue for the failings of each. In the high good humour that possessed him near every moment of that glorious spring, Silver grinned at her and said, “I admit, madam, that I have done much worse.”
“Hmph!” said Mrs Silver.
A week later she departed. It was almost May; bumblebees bumped and rolled through the air around the lavender bushes like drunken sailors, and Mrs Silver had her own business to attend to. She announced it briskly at dinner on a Tuesday night and was gone by Thursday morning.
“I’ll tarry a while yet,” Tobias said the night before she went. He sat on the edge of the bed and passed Silver a cup of water. His manner was abrupt. Silver realised, delighted, that he was being shy.
But it was only then that it occurred to him, for the first time, that Tobias might leave.
“My dear fellow,” Silver said, trying not to sound panicked, “more than a while, surely. You cannot mean to leave me to Bramble’s tender mercies.” He forced anxiety out of his expression and stretched out, luxurious, smiling, on the white bedsheets. “It’s odd—I thought she liked me—but she seems to have grown less approving of late. Do you think she might be jealous?”
Tobias ducked his head. “Foolishness,” he muttered, but there was a smile lurking on his face.
“In her position,” Silver said, with growing relief, “I would certainly be jealous.” There, let him forget about it. Tobias enjoyed being teased; Silver was happy to tease him.
But Tobias shook his head. “I’ll tarry a while,” he repeated. “For the summer, maybe.”