Read Online Swift by R. J. Anderson - Free Book Online Page A

were any number of ways he could have learned her mother’s name – including under torture. ‘Why would she send you to me?’ she demanded. ‘If my mother was alive, if she wanted to see me so badly, she’d come and see me herself.’
    ‘I didn’t ask about her motives. Marigold asked me to deliver a message to you, and I agreed because I owed her a debt, nothing more. If you want an explanation, you’ll have to ask for one when you see her.’ His look turned sly. ‘Unless you don’t want to see her.’
    Ivy barely resisted the urge to hit him. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘Or would, if I believed a single word of what you’ve told me. Where did you see my mother, then – in the bottom of your stewpot?’
    ‘Actually, it was in Truro.’ He paused and added with a hint of condescension, ‘That’s a human city and not a recipe, in case you were wondering. I don’t eat piskeys, even irritating ones.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ivy said, folding her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands shake. ‘My mother would never live with humans, not when she could be here with us. And even if she couldn’t come back to the Delve for some reason, she’d never make a bargain with a – a filthy, lying spriggan .’
    She expected an angry retort, but the prisoner only pinched the bridge of his nose, as though she had given him a headache. Then he said with infinite weariness, ‘I don’t even know what a spriggan is.’
    Ivy’s legs wobbled. ‘What? But then…what are you?’
    ‘A faery. What else?’
    What else, indeed. Between the dirt and blood that smeared his body, the ragged clothes and unkempt hair, she would never have taken him for one of the so-called Fair Folk. Yet now that he mentioned it, he did look more like a faery than he ever had a spriggan…
    ‘Oh,’ she said faintly.
    ‘Marigold warned me to be careful about showing myself to anyone. She said your people had been living underground for a long time, and that they didn’t take kindly to strangers. But even so—’ He touched his injured arm and grimaced. ‘I wasn’t expecting quite this level of hostility.’
    He sounded reasonable now, even sane. But Ivy wasn’t ready to let her guard down yet. ‘Is it broken?’ she asked.
    ‘Out of joint.’ He moved his hand, revealing the ugly swelling around the elbow. ‘Your brother seemed to think he could make me talk by trying to rip my arm off, but I can’t say it inspired me to much more than yelling.’
    Ivy almost asked how he’d known Mica was her brother, but then she remembered: he’d seen the two of them arguing outside the Engine House. ‘So why didn’t you tell him you knew my mother?’ she asked.
    ‘Because I was too busy yelling, perhaps?’ He spoke mildly, but the words were tinged with sarcasm. ‘Not to mention fighting for my life.’
    Even Ivy’s distrust couldn’t keep her from feeling a twinge of sympathy. Faeries might be deceitful and self-centred as the legends claimed, but the stranger was clearly in pain. Maybe that was why he’d been raving earlier.
    ‘Mica…doesn’t always think before he acts,’ she said, resisting a traitorous impulse to add, I’m sorry.
    ‘I got that impression, yes,’ said the faery dryly. ‘I don’t suppose you have some kind of magical healing elixir that would put my arm right?’
    ‘Not really,’ said Ivy. Yarrow’s herbs might ease the pain and bring down the swelling, but they wouldn’t solve the underlying problem. ‘And even if I did, don’t you think the Joan would notice that someone had healed you?’
    ‘I doubt it, unless she can see through rock.’ He jerked his head at the ceiling-high wall of rubble behind him. ‘She hasn’t bothered to look at me once since I woke up in here. And it seems she’s not planning to give me any food or water either, unless I start talking.’
    Ivy was silent, troubled by the revelation. Did Betony really mean to starve the spriggan – or faery – until he