The Hidden Princess by Katy Moran

Author:Katy Moran [Moran, Katy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781406355536
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2014-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

19

Lissy

Night creeps closer and Larkspur and I stand alone on the lawn, watching the sun bleed red light into the sky behind the Reach. Fury and grief still seep from him like liquor from rotten meat. I’m about to go home, home at last, but in the back of my mind, all I can hear is our father saying, Lissy, please, over and over again. He was so desperate to die, for it all to be over. So why do I feel so numb? I killed him. I’m a murderer, taken in by another Hidden trick. By Iris – the only one I trusted. The only one apart from Larkspur who’d tried to help poor Tippy all those hundreds of years ago. And I’d felt so sorry for her.

“I don’t want to go in,” Larkspur says, quietly. “I’ve never trusted the mortals.”

I shiver beneath my cloak of feathers, a warm soft weight hanging from my shoulders. It’s part of me, feather shafts protruding from my shoulders, growing out of my flesh as if they’ve always been there. “I’m just as scared as you are. The Hidden are everywhere, Larkspur. I haven’t seen Iris since we came through the Gateway – I don’t know what she’s planning – and so many others are unaccounted for. We should have sent everyone back to the Halls and sealed the Gateway. I need to make sure Connie’s OK, then somehow get a message to the Fontevrault, or to my – to Adam Harker.”

I’d nearly said, my dad. But Adam Harker has never been my true father. He’s Fontevrault, though, and if anyone can help us now it’s him. We need to negotiate.

Larkspur just gives me a long look I can’t read the meaning of.

“I didn’t want this, you know,” I snap. “I didn’t ask to be Queen. They got Iris to trick me. You know as well as I do she’s got her own reasons for wanting to get out of the Halls, that she was the only one I’d trust, because of Tippy.”

“Then let us hope that the mothers of Hopesay Edge close every window tonight, Lissy.” Larkspur’s voice is like glass. “Let us hope that they bolt every door.”

“Are you coming or not?” I stalk towards the house, guilt giving way to anger. How could he possibly think I wanted this?

The front door opens before we even reach it. Joe stands there waiting, light pouring out from behind him, and another wave of pure guilt rolls over me. How much of his life has he wasted pining over me? I’m poison. I destroy everything I touch.

I swallow, hard. “Where’s my mum?” At last, at last.

Joe shakes his head. “They’re away.”

Cold disappointment rolls over me, crushing. I’ve waited so long to see Mum – so long – and now she’s not even here.

“Where’s Connie? I need to see her.” I can’t forget my terror the first time I touched the world of the Hidden, years ago, that early-summer night at a lonely countryside railway station, getting off at the wrong stop and finding Larkspur waiting for me.

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