The word ‘you’ has a lifetime of stories buried in it and suddenly things click into place. I cling to the unchanging tree, wishing the Dryad who once lived inside of it could come back like Aunt Opal and see this bizarre little scene.
Opal’s smile becomes sad. None of the frosty bravado she exhibited on Inchkeith is present now. She does not look at this Siren the way she looked at Ren.
“You always take things too far, Portia,” she says, too quietly for people at the back of the great hall to hear. “We’re not playing this game anymore.”
Aunt Leanna and Gran suddenly set off towards the different antechambers, followed by a handful of Hidden Folk. Leanna’s vines continue to bind the Fae and the warlock, but Portia does not look away from Opal. She seems either oblivious or uncaring to what is going on around her.
“The Druid claims to have killed you.”
Opal nods once. “He did.”
Portia looks as torn about this as I feel. “You always were one for surprises.”
“An old friend owed me a favour.”
“Speaking of old friends—”
“You know you have to stop all of this, right?” Opal interrupts Portia, her jovial tone edging into a more serious expression. She looks at Portia, and I’m suddenly reminded of the photograph in Grandpa’s office. Her face looks similar now. They’re looking at each other, and there is a connection there that is filled with things the rest of the room will never know. A familiarity that is visible with every movement and gesture. “Let us take the Hidden Folk out of here
and you can surrender. Stand trial. We can do this
with honour.”
Portia laughs shrilly. “Nah, not for me, Opal. That’s not going to happen.”
I hear a gasp of pain and spin around. Freddy emerges from the antechamber I was being kept in; his arm slung around an exhausted Murrey. The Vampire is leaning against the Siren, letting the latter take most of his weight. Not that he could be heavy, he looks completely emaciated.
“Freddy,” Portia says, in a broken little voice. “What are you doing?”
My friend stares at his mother, with a touch of both misery and disgust. “Something I should’ve done already. Something we’re supposed to do.”
“You’re on their side then?”
“There are no sides!” shouts Freddy, and the entire hall is gravely silent. His voice, equally as powerful as her own, perhaps even more so, echoes and bounces off the stone walls. “You know that, Mum. You create the sides. You draw the line, you make the divide. I’ve wracked my brain trying to work out why, I don’t understand it. Why you get such pleasure from everyone being at each other’s throats, or stuck in a cycle of mindless obedience, I don’t know. I’ll never know. But not me. It will never be me.”
Freddy looks over at the large collective of Hidden Folk and a decision is made in his eyes.
“Do not obey this woman’s instructions if you do not want to,” he calls, projecting his voice over to the back of the large room. He points to Portia as he speaks. “Do not harm yourselves or your friends for her.”
A few whoops of approval meet his pronouncement.
“What a waste,” Portia breathes, staring at Freddy. “This won’t last, you know. This bright-eyed optimism. Your faith in these lesser beings. What about when that one wants nothing to do with you anymore?”
She jerks her chin towards me. I cling onto Alona and glower at her.
“I don’t think,” Portia goes on, staring at her son, “you realise how lonely this life is, Freddy. How hard it will be.”
Freddy’s face is more emotional than I’ve ever seen it. “I’ve already been lonely, Mum. It’s all I’ve ever been. Until now. Now, I have friends. And I don’t need to order them to like me, they just do. Well,” he glances at my cousin, “sometimes they do.”
Marley grins, despite the gravity of everything. Freddy helps Murrey over to where Erica and some Trolls are standing by. They instantly leap into action, helping to tend to the Vampire.
“I’m never going to be what you want, Mum,” Freddy concludes, glancing back at Portia. “And I’m not sorry for it. I wish you were.”
He is now stood with his chosen side. As we all
stare at one another, Aunt Leanna calls out to the Hidden Folk.
“Do as we discussed: empty the cells. Set everyone free.”
“Bring me the Druid,” Opal adds, and Freddy is the one who nods and sets to it. Malachi grimaces against his bindings and some of the Fae who are on our side step forward.
“We will punish our own accordingly,” one says, his face as earnest as a member of the Fae’s can be. “We swear it.”
Opal looks to Gran, who nods. Then Opal does, too. The Fae pull their own kind free from their trappings and walk out, trying to appear dignified. I watch their backs, never fully relaxed.
“There’s a dragon outside,” Aunt Opal says coolly, just before they are gone from sight. “So don’t try anything funny.”
Her words have the intended effect. They fearfully nod and then are gone. Hidden Folk disperse into all of the antechambers to fetch their comrades and set them free. Portia still stares at Opal, as if she cannot believe she is there.
“Let’s speak, just us two?” she finally volunteers.
Opal shakes her head gently “No, Sha. Had plenty of time to speak. This mess, everything you’ve done to this city, it’s done all the speaking for you.”
Portia’s eyes are glistening and her voice catches as she responds. “You know… all I ever did, everything I ever did, it was just to make you look.”
I can feel my jaw slipping open. Aunt Opal does not visibly react. “I’ve prepared something for you. If you’re not willing to surrender.”
“No!” Portia cries, slamming her foot against the ground as she staggers closer. “This isn’t how it’s meant to go. You—you wouldn’t do this to an old friend, Opal. Not when you know I’m right.”
