“I thought I smelled something good,” she says. The breeze becomes warm now. Humid and heavy. “Nathan. At last.”

Her voice almost doesn’t belong to her but to the weather; it’s as if it’s coming out of the breeze that’s passing around her body to mine. She walks to the back of the cottage. It’s built into the hillside so that the roof is only a foot from the ground on that side. She holds her hand out to me, beckoning me with her fingers. The wind picks up and is now swirling round me, pulling me to my feet and jostling me down the roof toward Mercury.

I reach for her.

At last!

It’s like holding hands with a skeleton.

PART SIX: TURNING SEVENTEEN

The Favors

I blink my eyes open. It’s still night. Gabriel is asleep near me. We’re in the forest above Mercury’s cottage. The cottage is special; I can sleep inside it, but I’ve only tried it twice. I’m too claustrophobic in there at night, though I don’t get sick. Anyway, I prefer it here in the trees. Rose sleeps in the cottage. I don’t know where Mercury sleeps, if Mercury sleeps.

The first night Gabriel said, “The cottage is the guest house. I think Mercury’s real home is far away.”

“A stone castle on top of a craggy outcrop?”

“That is more her sort of thing. I’ve seen her walking up toward the glacier. I guess there is another cut up there that leads to her real home. I’ve seen Rose go in that direction a few times as well.”

Rose is Mercury’s assistant and is in her early twenties. She is dark and curvaceous and beautiful but she is not a Black. She is a Shite—her name for White Witches—but she has been brought up by Mercury. Rose has the Gift of being a forgettable mist, according to Gabriel, which makes no sense to me, and he says it is best experienced rather than explained. Rose uses her Gift to acquire things for Mercury.

I’ve hardly spoken to Mercury. I’ve been here over a week and she hasn’t been back to the cottage since the day I arrived.

I told her that I needed her help. I explained that my seventeenth birthday was just over two weeks away. I was polite. And all I got in return was nothing.

Nothing.

Gabriel says she will see me in time.

But every day . . . nothing.

I know it’s some kind of game she’s playing. And—

“You awake?” Gabriel mumbles.

“Mmm.”

“Stop worrying about Mercury. She will give you three gifts.”

Gabriel always seems to know what I’m thinking, and I always try not to let him know he’s right.

“I’m not worrying. I was thinking about what I’ll do after I get my Gift.”

“And what will you do?”

Look for my father. If he wants to be found, I’m sure I can find him. And then I will somehow prove to him that I won’t ever kill him. But I don’t think he wants me to find him, and I don’t see how I can prove anything.

“Well?”

I haven’t told Gabriel anything more about myself: not more about the tattoos, not about my father’s vision or about the Fairborn.

I say, “I’ll develop my Gift. I don’t want to get stuck as a dog.”

“Yeah, being a fain is bad enough. And what else?”

“What makes you think there’s something else?”

“The way you go all . . . there’s an English word—mopey? Yes, I think that’s it. You are mopey sometimes.”

Mopey!

“I think you’ve got the wrong word. Thoughtful is more like it.”

“No, I think the right word is mopey.”

I shake my head. “There’s a girl I like.”

“And?”

“And it’s probably really stupid of me. She’s a White Witch.”

I’m expecting him to say it is really stupid and I’ll get killed and probably get her killed, but he doesn’t say anything.

The next morning we’re sitting on the grass by the splintered dead tree trunk in the meadow below Mercury’s cottage. The sun’s warmth seems magnified here.

“We could go for a hike,” I say, squinting up the valley.

“Okay.”

We don’t move.

“Or we could go climbing,” Gabriel suggests, and takes the long piece of grass out of his mouth but does nothing more.

We hike and climb every day.

“A swim?” he asks.

There’s a small lake, but today I don’t want to hike, climb, or swim. I want Mercury to come and tell me that she will give me three gifts.

“You know it’s only just over a week until my birthday.”

“You know, I may have said this before: ‘Stop worrying.’”

“And if I don’t get three . . .” I stop speaking as Rose has appeared from the woods below and is walking toward us, taking long, slow strides. Her thin dress clings to her curves. When she reaches us she drops on to the grass close to me.

She says, “Hi.”

“Hello, Rose.”

Rose giggles. She doesn’t seem to be the giggly type, but she does it a lot. She blushes a lot as well, and she doesn’t seem the blushing type either. It’s a bit baffling.

Rose looks at Gabriel. “You have to go to Geneva, see Pilot, assess how many Hunters there are, and report back to Mercury tonight.” That’s more the type Rose is.

She then plucks at some grass and says, “Nathan, Mercury says that she would be delighted to give you three gifts on your birthday.”

At last.

“She says it would be an honor.”

An honor!

“Will she expect some kind of payment in return? Or is the honor enough?”

“Not a payment,” Rose replies. “A favor. A mark of thanks and respect. It’s only natural to thank the giver. It’s polite.”

“And what favor does she want from me?”

Rose grins and blushes. “She wants two favors from you.”

So the honor definitely isn’t enough.

“What two favors does Mercury want?”

“She will tell you this evening.”

“Will she want the favors first? Or after the Giving?”

“She said one should be given before the ceremony.”

So one must be relatively easy, but I don’t know what it could be. I don’t have anything I can give her.

“The other is to be given afterward, as soon as you can provide it.”

“And what if I don’t ever provide it?”

Rose giggles but draws a finger across her throat.

Gabriel goes back to Geneva through the cut, and I go for a long hike to keep myself occupied. When we meet up again at the cottage in the evening, I have got myself psyched up. This is Mercury I’m going to meet. I have to be a Black Witch. I have to be the son of Marcus.

Mercury greets me formally with three kisses, but she gives them so slowly it’s as if she is inhaling me rather than kissing me. Her lips don’t touch me, but I can feel the chill off them. She says, “You always smell so good, Nathan.” Then she ignores me and asks Gabriel what he has seen in Geneva.

The Hunters seem to be using Geneva as a base, and Pilot says they are scouting the area, looking for clues, looking for the son of Marcus. Mercury seems satisfied that the cottage is far enough from them and the apartment is still safe.

After we eat she says, “You see my eyes differently, Nathan?”

“I’ve never seen eyes like yours before.” Looking into her eyes is like looking into hollowed-out sockets, completely black but with distant lightning flashing occasionally.

“You haven’t met many Blacks?”

“No.” I turn to Rose. “I’ve met White Witches, though.”

“Yes, Rose is a rare White Witch. Unusually talented and very able.”

Rose blushes on cue.

Mercury continues. “By birth Rose is a White Witch, but she is like a daughter to me now. She is at heart a true Black Witch. You, though, Nathan, are physically very much a Black Witch but I wonder about your heart. Is it that of a true Black Witch?”

“How can I judge? As I said, I haven’t met any Black Witches before.”

Mercury shudders and makes one wild laugh that sounds like an echo in a cavern. “We are a good mix here tonight.”