I ground my teeth. ‘Hester…’ Shaking my head, I addressed Eloise again. ‘I’m not going to hurt anyone,’ I said. ‘Although I might hide all the chocolate brownies as punishment.’
‘Don’t you bloody dare, Daisy.’
I ignored Hester’s hiss. ‘That’s not how we do things around here,’ I said. I watched Eloise carefully. She was still trembling; it was next to impossible to fake that sort of physical reaction.
‘Why are you here, Eloise?’ Hugo asked. ‘Why did you break in?’
‘He told me to,’ she said in a small voice.
Cumbubbling bollocks. I already knew the answer but I asked the question anyway. ‘Who?’
‘His name is Athair.’
‘I knew it!’ Hester crowed. ‘I knew she was evil the moment I saw her!’
Eloise flinched while Otis gazed at her in horror. ‘You work forhim?’
‘I’m bound to him,’ she whispered. ‘He is my master.’
‘The vampires outside aren’t enough for him? He has to send you to spy on us too?’ I asked sourly.
It was Eloise’s turn to be surprised. ‘Oh,’ she said, her eyes widening. ‘I’m not a spy, I’m a messenger. I would have given you the message last night but I was afraid that you’d be angry when you realised I’d broken in, so I thought I’d wait until everyone calmed down. But then you disappeared into that room over there, and I couldn’t follow you. I didn’t want to call out in case the troll heard me. I only broke the window at the back so I could stay away from her.’ She shuddered. ‘Trolls are scary and my master told me to avoid her if I could.’
Probably because Duchess would squash the likes of Eloise in a heartbeat without thinking to ask any questions first. I curled my hands into fists and felt the bite of my fingernails in the fleshy part of my palms. ‘What message?’ I growled. ‘What message did Athair give you?’
Eloise drew in a breath. ‘He said that there’s a lot more he can show you besides magic.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua.’
Huh?
Hugo translated for us. ‘“Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee”.’
‘More violence,’ I said flatly. Surely Athair had realised by now that such threats of blood loss and war were of no use?
‘It’s a biblical quote,’ Hugo explained.
I shrugged; that didn’t make any difference to me.
‘Not all the gold was found,’ Eloise said softly. Her eyes remained closed. ‘“They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure, gold under gravel, gone to earth, as useless to men now as it ever was”.’ Then she repeated,‘Not all the gold was found because some of it had already been taken and moved elsewhere.’
Hugo’s body stiffened beside me and I suddenly knew that he understood what she was talking about even though it remained complete gobbledegook to me. But then I’d been a treasure hunter for less than a year and my knowledge of ancestral treasures was considerably less than his.
Hester’s knowledge was apparently even less than mine. ‘So, Eloise,’ she said, ticking off her fingers. ‘You’re evil, you’re clumsy, you’re a spy and you’re crazy.’ She sniffed. ‘Not bad going.’
Otis rounded on his sister. ‘That’s enough!’ he yelled. ‘Stop being so mean! She needs our help, Hes, and you can’t stop being a bitch! You need to leave poor Eloise alone. She can’t help who she has to serve – we might have ended up with Athair if Daisy hadn’t found us first. We might have been in her position. You can’t blame her for what’s happened.’
‘She’s bewitched you,’ Hester sneered. ‘That didn’t take long. One pretty face is all it takes to fool you, Otis. I thought you were better than that.’
‘Fuck off!’ I’d never seen Otis so furious with his sister before.
From his expression, he was ready to smack her down but Hester wasn’t prepared to back off. ‘She’s with Athair, you nincompoop! Doesn’t that meananythingto you?’
‘But she’s not a fiend, Hester! She’s a brownie, she’s one of us!’
I suddenly knew that this scene was exactly what Athair had been hoping for. He’d known for thirty years that Hester and Otis were my loyal companions. I wondered how long it had taken him to find a brownie to bind to his side. I also wondered how he’d achieved it and how deep that binding went. Hester and Otis had been forced into a similar bond with me when I’d opened the locket into which they’d been ensorcelled decades before, and they had told me that brownies lived to serve. Of course I’d released them almost immediately – but they had stuck around regardless. I didn’t know if that was through choice or obligation, though they promised me it was the former. However, in my darker moments I suspected the latter.
I looked at Eloise again; she was still huddled on the side of the sink, pure misery etched onto her face and the tips of her little wings drooping as if with shame. Hugo nudged me and we exchanged glances. I nodded and he cleared his throat. ‘Stay with us,’ he said to her. ‘You’re safe here. We’ll keep Athair away from you.’
If anything, the little brownie looked even more miserable. ‘I can’t stay,’ she whispered. ‘I have to return to him.’
