‘Tam,’ I say.
He folds his arms against his chest. The pose is all Tam and even though he’s wearing Finn’s face – Finn’s whole body – he’s nothing like Finn at all.
I’m so stupid. How could I forget that Emily changed Tam? Every day the mask will wear off a little further until you wear your own face again, she said to him. I was there. It was only a few hours ago!
Matilda told me not to let my fairy boyfriend into the house. She told me.
Well, I guess I haven’t. Technically.
Oh God, he’s going to kill me.
‘Where is she?’ he says again.
‘Tam,’ I say, ‘how about you sit down? I was just making some tea. I’ll bring you some. We can sit, and we can talk, and –’
‘Where is she?’
‘Okay, fine, I guess we’re doing this here.’ I curl the fingers of my left hand into a fist and dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand, trying to use the edge of pain to drive away the fog in my mind. ‘I understand that you’re upset about Emily, but I’m not going to tell you where she is.’
‘Yes, you will,’ he snarls. ‘You are going to tell me what you have done with the Silver Lady, or –’
‘Or what, Tam? Or you’ll kill me? You’ll torture me? You’ll shout at me some more? Because if you’re going to do any of those things, you might as well get started. People have tried all of them on me about forty-five times tonight. You’re not very original.’
‘Pearl,’ he says, his voice low and dangerous, ‘you will tell me where she is. Right now.’
‘Or, you know, I won’t. Because I don’t know where she is. Maybe you were a bit distracted, but I wasn’t the one on Emily-hiding duty.’
‘Don’t insult me. If there was a plan, I know you were the one behind it. Where did Holly-Anne take her?’
‘Look, I’ve got two options here,’ I say, mimicking his position and folding my arms as best as I can. I lean back against the door jamb, trying to communicate that I’m tough and nonchalant although really I’m trying to get something else to carry as much of my weight as possible. ‘I tell you where Emily is, you go and free her, she’s like, “Oh, Tam, my beautiful darling boy, I knew you would save me”, and then you turn into the human version of the heart eyes emoji while she murders me and Cardy and Holly for taking her down, and probably half the town as well for good measure. Or I don’t tell you where Emily is, and you kill me now, and hey, maybe you kill Cardy and Holly and a few other people as well, but I still have the satisfaction of knowing that you never found where we hid her.’
‘Where’s the Valentine?’
I blink. ‘What?’
‘Maybe you think you have nothing left to lose, but I doubt he would see it the same way. Where is he?’
‘Not here.’
‘Where?’
That’s the moment when, at long last, I faint.
I’m dressed in gold.
It should be scratchy against my skin, but it’s liquid, fluid, like it’s been poured onto me.
I feel naked. I feel exposed.
‘Eat, Valentine,’ the girl urges.
‘No.’
I push the plate away. It’s gold too. Everything is gold. It should look tacky, but it doesn’t.
‘I am sure this is difficult,’ she says, her voice smooth, honeyed. ‘It is always so, for those who have been changelings. But know that that world will fade in time. You have come home, sweet prince. You have come home to us.’
‘Sweet prince?’ I demand. ‘Seriously?’
‘For almost eighteen years, every one of us in the Summerland has dreamt of you, Valentine,’ she says. ‘We have craved your return like we crave the sun and the moon. And now you have returned to us.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ I say. ‘I haven’t returned. I was stolen. I –’
I stop. The thunder crashes outside.
‘Where are they?’
‘Where are who?’
‘I’m not the only one who was stolen,’ I say. ‘Eighteen years ago, when the Seelie king –’
‘Your father.’
‘– when he ditched me in Haylesford, he stole Tam, and he stole three other kids too,’ I say, talking over the top of her. ‘Kids for Cardy and Marie – and Pearl’s twin. He stole all of them.’
‘To keep you safe, Valentine,’ she says, a mollifying note in her voice. ‘So that none would know who you were.’
‘He stole them!’ I exclaim. ‘Right out of their homes, right away from their parents, he stole them. Where are they?’
‘Valentine,’ she says. ‘You must eat.’
‘No!’ I explode. ‘I’m not eating. I’m not drinking. I’m not doing anything until you tell me where they are.’
‘Your brother will be offended if you do not eat.’
‘I don’t care about my brother!’
‘You will not be the one who pays the price.’
I look at her. There are leaves growing in her hair, the ripple of bark in her skin, and fear in her eyes, dark amber as sap.
‘I want to see them,’ I say. ‘I want to see the rest of the kids my father stole on Valentine’s Day.’
She shakes her head. ‘I cannot.’
‘Tell me where to find them,’ I say, ‘and I’ll –’
The thread jerking tight through my skin rips me awake. I instinctively try and curl around the pain, but something heavy is holding me down.
‘Stay still,’ Tam says, and shifts his weight so more of it is pressing me into the ground.
I’m on the living room floor, and he’s kneeling – no, almost lying over me, his fingers dancing like spiders’ legs over my shoulder, his face so close to mine that I can feel his breath. ‘Get off.’
He draws back, looks at me coolly with Finn’s eyes. ‘You need stitches. You needed stitches in the wound hours ago, because you’ve made what was quite a simple stab wound –’
‘Oh yes, your basic run of the mill stabbing, I get one every Tuesday.’
‘– into something worse. You could lose the use of this arm if you’re not careful. And I’m almost finished in any case.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ he repeats, pinching the edges of the wound in my shoulder together and pulling another stitch through. The feeling of the thread being yanked through my skin makes my gorge rise, and I have to keep from gagging.
‘You were threatening to kill me ten minutes ago and now you’re all, “Keep still while I heal you, little lady”. Why?’
‘I never threatened to kill you.’ Another stitch, yanked tight.
‘I don’t have the time or the energy for your mind games, Tam.’
‘Why I am doing this –’ pinch, stab, pull, yank, ‘is not important.’
If a) I had even the slightest amount of energy and b) he wasn’t trained in eighty-seven ways to kill me with his toes alone and c) he wasn’t on top of me right now, I would roll my eyes. ‘Maybe some girls are into the whole “Oooh, I’m so mysterious and tormented, spend your life worrying about my secret pain” thing, but not me.’