“You’re not using me to get to Ramya.”
I feel like growling at the mention of my name. I’m slowly wondering if Marley was right. Perhaps Freddy is untrustworthy. Then again, he is the only thing standing between me and Portia right now and he’s giving nothing away to her.
“You think the little witch is your friend, but she hates us,” Portia tells him softly. I frown at the words.
I hate her, not Freddy. “She won’t ever forgive what you are.”
I look to Freddy, but I can’t see his face through the gap in the wood.
“That’s my problem, not yours.”
“She was quite the little surprise all of those years ago,” Portia muses. “Stubborn.”
“She still is.”
“I didn’t really give her a moment’s thought until Lavrentiy sent me that letter. He may have botched all of that up, but he worked out what she was. What she’s going to be.”
“Mum,” Freddy says. I brace myself, waiting for him to give me up.
“Yes?”
“Please leave my friends alone. I don’t know what all of this is for, but—”
“It’s for you.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is!” She gets to her feet, glaring at his back with an expression that reminds me of my own mother. “The world was slipping. Is slipping. Soon, it’s going to be very unfriendly for boys like you.”
“You don’t know me, Mum. Please don’t pretend that any of this is for me. You want power. You’ve been fidgeting about in London for years, while I rot up here, and now that I finally have a life—”
“Rot? Is that what you call a beautiful house and a world-class education? Do you know how many prime ministers were educated at your school? One more when you graduate.”
“I’m not going to be your political puppet; you’ve had enough of those.”
“And what a bore they all were. So unimaginative. It’s not even fun after a while. Of course, you would know that if you ever—”
“I don’t like what we are,” Freddy says sadly. “I don’t like what you do. What’s the plan then, Mum? Keep them all scared and locked up like cattle?”
“Precisely. They behave, they stay hidden, they buy lots of things. It’s perfect. Darling, the rules aren’t for you, don’t get so worked up. You’re free to do—”
“And the Hidden Folk?”
Freddy glances at me, almost imperceptibly. I realise that he’s making her talk for my benefit. Portia’s mask slips as he says the words and something ugly enters her expression.
“They’re all due for extinction,” she finally murmurs. “Vampires in libraries, Hulders still cleaning hearths, only this time in some Grassmarket pub. Sprites curled up in bookshops. They’ve outstayed their evolutionary welcome, Freddy. They’re useless. Cosying up to humans in the hopes that one day they can release their Glamour and be accepted. It’s obscene.”
I lean back within the snug, as far as I can go. My back presses gently against the wall and my knees feel cramped, all pressed up against the door. I’m finding it difficult to process what I am hearing.
“Freddy, I had to work and practice to get to this point,” Portia tells him, and I can see that her eyes are shining. “You have so much more of a gift. I’ve seen your influence over people, you’re beyond me now, let alone when I was your age.”
I’m angered at how human she seems. I’ve kept her in my head all these years; the perfect nightmare of a person who has no positive qualities. Seeing her with Freddy, it shakes that image, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to believe that, deep down in the dungeons of their souls, people I have labelled as ‘bad’ can have damp raindrops of good.
“I don’t want this curse,” Freddy says, and it’s so quiet, I barely hear him. “I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want this.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Portia says it with resignation, and it makes the electricity in my hands spark and pulse. “I used to feel that way.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. Freddy.” She is imploring him, her guard down and her eyes wide. “I wanted to help everyone. Every person I met, I tried to influence them for good. I tried to steer them onto the path that would serve them. But these people? They don’t want what’s best for them, Freddy. They want to be ordered. They don’t want to choose.”
“You’re not even lying to yourself, you’re just lying to me,” Freddy says dejectedly. “You know what you’re saying is complete tar, but you think I’m stupid enough to let you lay it all over me.”
Her face hardens. “It’s the truth. They want someone telling them what to do.”
“Maybe. If it’s in their best interests.”
“And what’s that?” I watch Portia cross the room, until she is standing right in front of Freddy. “Want to hear a story?”
Her voice is soft and feathery, but it makes Freddy alert. He stares into her face and says nothing.
“The very first Siren to walk out of the sea lived in the woods,” she says. She sounds melodic and gentle, but I can see Freddy is just as unnerved as I am. “She lived in a cottage, not too far from two others. Both humans, in their own little houses. One human noticed a chicken was missing from his garden. He asked the Siren. She told him that she had seen the second man with the first’s chicken. He had locked it in his shed. The first man demanded the second man hand over the key. He refused. They fought and the first man killed the second. He found no key, though.”
“I don’t want to hear this story,” Freddy utters, his face and knuckles whitening.
“A new neighbour moved in, and the first man grew jealous of his bountiful garden,” Portia goes on, unfazed. “He cried out at night, ‘How should he have such a garden and not I?’. Well, the Siren told him that the second man chained himself to his front door each morning. A beautiful golden chain that brought prosperity and good luck. The first man hungrily demanded a chain for himself. Why should the other man have a beautiful chain when he had none at all?”
I can feel my breathing getting a little more frantic and I no longer force myself to quieten. I’m glaring at her through the crack in the door and shaking with the force of the adrenaline.
