I smile artificially, wrap myself in a dressing gown, and pad down the stairs, Bram at my heels.
I check the morning room first; it would be the most logical place to put a present. There’s nothing in there but a startled maid stoking the fire.
Bram frowns. “She was in here the last time I saw her.”
“Her?” I ask, blood thrumming. “My mother?”
“No.” Bram’s voice lilts as he teases me.
“Lydia?” I gasp.
Bram’s handsome face contorts into anger in a flash. “No. Not Lydia. When will you move on from that, it’s been months. Really, Ivy, sometimes you’re such a child.”
I recoil. “She’s my sister,” I say quietly. I shouldn’t say anything at all, but I can’t help it.
Bram pushes past me and stomps through the foyer, then wrenches open the front door. “Ethel?” he calls.
“Ethel?” I gasp. She’s so old it can’t be safe for her to come all the way to Bath. She should be in bed recovering from her journey. I’ll need to ask the cook to make soup and the maids to bring extra blankets and a hot brick for her feet.
Bram looks up and down the street, then turns to me and frowns. “She was right here, I swear it.”
The Royal Crescent is quiet this morning, but from around the corner comes peals of rabid laughter. Faerie laughter.
Dread sinks like an icy stone in my stomach and I chase the sound, running outside in my bare feet with Bram behind me.
Two faerie men, one with dark hair and a cleft chin, the other lanky with a sickly complexion, are on the ground, clutching their stomachs with glee.
“Have you seen an old woman?” I jut my hand out at the height of my heart. “About yea high?”
This makes them laugh harder. They’re doubled over, their eyes bulging.
A fat raindrop lands on my head. Then another down my nose. I wipe it away, but my fingers come away red.
No.I look up and there she is. Her fragile, elderly body tangled up in the branches of a tree.
“She was so excited.” The sickly one chokes out through his giggles. “She wanted to make a bargain.”
No.No, no, no, Ethel.
My friend. One of the only true friends I’ve ever had.
I never told her not to come to Bath. I never considered the journey would even be a possibility for her.
But I should have known she’d be unable to resist the siren song of a faerie bargain. Or maybe she just wanted to see me. She didn’t often complain of loneliness in her letters, she was too cheery for that, but I could tell how much she missed me. For every letter of mine, I received three back. I meant to write her more. I should have been writing her more.
My knees give out. “No, please.” Her blood splatters like dew on the grass.
“Asked us to make her fly,” the dark-haired faerie explains through his laughter. “Didn’t look up for branches. They ran her right through before the old broad had any idea what was happening.”
“Get her down,” I wail.
Bram doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s just staring at her body, high up in the tree.
“Get her down now!” I scream.
Bram sighs, like I’m a child who has asked him to rescue a toy.
“Fine.”
