“So how come you asked me? You forgetting your good manners, kid?”
I swear at him, telling him where to go to.
“Whites have strange ideas of what’s polite, that’s for sure. And you’re a lot like them. Half White, brought up by them . . .”
Nesbitt is just pushing buttons, trying to find one that gets me going. Everything he says is some kind of niggle or angle or joke.
“So?” he asks. “Have you found your Gift?”
I don’t answer. I’m too tired. I just turn and walk away. I know I’m nothing like any White Witch I’ve ever met, neither the good ones nor the bad. And Nesbitt is not like anyone I’ve ever met before.
*
The night’s cool. It’s late July and, although the days are hot, we’re high in the mountains and there are pockets of snow in the gullies on the north-facing valley wall. As I trek away from Nesbitt I try to work out how much of what he said is true.
It sounds like Gabriel was shot by Hunters as he tried to lure them away from me. He saved my life and risked his own in the process. And Van and Nesbitt rescued him but I don’t understand why. Surely they didn’t go to all that trouble just for some letters. It sounds like Van and Nesbitt came to Geneva at the same time as the Hunters. Could they have come for me? Could they be working with the Hunters in some way? Gabriel did tell me that Hunters use Half Bloods as informants. For all I know, Victoria van Dal doesn’t exist and Nesbitt has been sent by Hunters. But that doesn’t feel right. Why wouldn’t they just come themselves?
And, if Victoria van Dal does exist, what does she really want? Me? The tin of letters? Gabriel told me that in the letters is something special—a recipe for a potion or instructions for a spell is what I’d always assumed. Whatever it is, Gabriel was going to give it to Mercury if she succeeded in helping him turn from a fain back into a witch. But Mercury never seemed in any rush to do that. If this thing was so amazing, wouldn’t she have been more keen to get her hands on it?
Then there’s the biggest question of them all: is Gabriel really alive? He must have told Van about the cave but who knows what’s happened to him since?
There’s no way for me to know the truth of any of this. All my life I’ve been told how untrustworthy Black Witches are but so far they seem just about as trustworthy as anyone else. All I can do is go with Nesbitt and hope he’ll take me to Gabriel. I don’t have any other options.
On the positive side (and positivity is my middle name) Nesbitt says Van has the Fairborn. We went through so much to get that knife, to steal it from Clay, and I want it back. If I do ever get the chance to return it to my father I will.
I find a sheltered spot on a steep hillside and curl up between the roots of a fir tree. I take a deep breath, exhale slowly. I need to sleep, I need to rest. Tomorrow I’ll see Gabriel.
*
I jump awake. It’s still dark. I’ve no idea how long I’ve slept. A few hours, maybe. I listen out for any noise, scan for any movement in the dark shadows of the trees.
Nothing.
I lie back down and close my eyes but I’m wide awake. I don’t want to sleep anymore. I want to go to Gabriel.
I’m fully dressed and I always sleep with my arm through one loop of my rucksack so all I have to do is stand and I’m ready to go. I set off, eager to see Nesbitt, eager to get going.
The forest is silent and still. Nothing moving except me. But something is different. I stop and listen.
Silence.
The sky is lightening now, pale blue, not much more than white. I stop by a tiny spring. I know the water tastes good: I’ve been here many times before. There’s moss on the jagged stones, the water seeps and dribbles rather than flows, and the life it brings is lime-green, plump moss. I hold my hand against the rock and let it fill with water.
That’s when I hear it.
c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h c h It’s not buzzing. I don’t know why I think of it as buzzing—that doesn’t describe it at all. It’s static. The only way to put it into words is to say it’s the sound of electricity. The sound of a mobile phone.
Nesbitt didn’t have a mobile with him earlier.
Fains do, and so do Hunters.
Has Nesbitt betrayed me already?