The church itself smelt musty, like a mixture of ancient brick and layers of dust. Elegant rafters loomed overhead, sweeping across plaster and emptiness. The whole place was pokier than she expected, with pristine white box pews blocking so much of the space that allowed other churches to breathe. Frankie edged over, running a finger across the top of one. Each pew was a little gated compartment. In fact, she’d seen something like this in one of the film adaptations of Emma that Viv had sat her through before she’d dropped her. She hadn’t realised places like this actually existed. A heavy feeling tugged at her chest for a moment – Viv would’ve been so excited about this kind of thing, would’ve loved a picture, and maybe if she sent one it’d be the thing that would get a reply –

“I think it’s the font.” Meg’s voice snapped her out of it. Her friend’s footsteps echoed as her boots struck the parquet.

Frankie blinked, the pang for the past fading in a moment, and she rushed to her side as she knelt by the blocky stone font. It sat before a window that offered little light in the twilight, below the stubby tower that rose above them. Meg was running her fingers over the plain stone. Beside her, on a patch of smooth granite that could well have been an old grave slab, her phone was glowing up the roughly hewn rock above it. The map had an annotation, something about a button that would only react to demonhunter blood. Leaving Meg to the stem, she turned her attention to the font’s bowl.

This again was plain, nothing like the ornate fonts she’d seen in other church buildings, that were covered in angels and apostles. She let her fingers run over the rim, dust clinging to her skin. Hundreds of years of fingers had smoothed this bowl before her, and she could sense it, could almost feel the spectre of dozens upon dozens of priests dipping their fingers into the cool waters. Except now it was bone dry and dusty.

Her finger rubbed against the centre of the bowl. A dull clunk, a gravelly scraping sound.

“You got it.”

Frankie glanced down at her friend. She was pulling a narrow wooden box from the stem of the font where a small stone door had shifted open. “What’s in it? What’ve we got?” She peered over Meg’s shoulder as her fingers pried at the dried wood, a smile forcing its way onto her face with the thrill of their very first stash.

It opened with a dull pop and the contents clattered onto the parquet. A couple of stiletto knives, a snapped shortsword, a few empty scabbards, and other miscellaneous muck. Frankie’s eyebrows shot up, lips sliding into a pout – was that it?

“Huh. Bit of a let-down.” Meg was scowling in the growing dimness, her fingers running over some of the rusted steel.

That was one way of putting it. Frankie knelt beside Meg and started to sift through. “Well, I guess it is in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s just not been restocked in a while?” A thought drifted through her mind, of her friend Emyr, gallivanting around London, his demon kills probably in double figures by now, never having to worry about a shortage of weapons. Her teeth clamped down on her lip and she shoved her hands into the clutter. Her fingers found a strange scroll, stiff, soft to the touch, and bleached white. She started to gently unwind it.

Meg snorted. “Y’know that’s the first thing we’ll have to do on our next patrol. Carting a bunch of runed silverware across these marshes is going to be such a pisstake.” Something thudded onto the floor beside her. “There you go, a scabbard. Maybe we should even leave your old one here for someone to be disappointed by?”

But Frankie’s eyes were on the scroll. The inside was a warm shade of buttermilk, and it rustled in her hands as she teased it open. Faded lines of ink criss-crossed the page like a spiderweb, drawing a path through unfamiliar territory. At the top, in peeling gilt lettering, something in a recognisably Celtic language. Except she’d only done one term on the Celtic languages in first year. Her heartbeat picked up under her leather breastplate. “Hey, Meg.”

“What?”

A glance up told her that her friend was busying herself with sweeping the disappointing odds and ends back into the wooden case, her back turned.

“It’s a map.”

Her friend paused for a moment. “What are you on about?” She turned, and Frankie held out the flattened scroll. It still curled at the edges. “What, that was in with this crap?”

Frankie nodded. “Yeah, but look at it.” She gestured with the map, letting it rustle in a slight breeze. Meg snatched it, holding it up to her nose.

“To find the treasure, enter the thickets under the full moon’s glow. That’s in Faerietongue, Frank.” She lowered the page, turning her gaze back to Frankie and biting at her lip. “What’s a faerie map doing in a demonhunter stash?”

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That was the kind of million-dollar question Meg always ruined mysteries with. “Well, maybe we follow it and find out? There’s a full moon tonight and it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do, there’s hardly likely to be any more demons or monsters or whatever about tonight. I mean, by the angels, Meg, we waited long enough for the last one! We’re meant to be doing shit on this placement, not just learning the bus routes and refilling ancient stashes.” Her voice halted in her throat as her next thought tried to pass her lips – what if when they went back in September, she couldn’t keep up?

But Meg’s forehead was furrowing into a frown. “Frankie, be reasonable, you know the faeries can be tricky. The angels know how it got in here, but it could be a prank – or worse, you know that.” She shoved the map back at her.

Frankie snatched it, peering back at the faded ink. Ending up the butt of a faerie joke wasn’t that appealing, but if it was a prank, this stash wasn’t the best place to set it. “But then surely it’d be in a mortal language? Not Faerietongue? Especially since it feels so old – it must be an incredible long shot to hope a demonhunter that can understand the labels would show.”

“Well, maybe.” Her friend had resumed piling the rusted old weapons away.

Another thought occurred to her. “And we have steel on us. If they do get funny, we’re prepared.” Iron alloys were uncomfortable enough to handle for demonhunters with faerie blood, like her friend Emyr, but for a faerie living in Faerieland? It’d give them more than enough time to make an escape.

Meg snapped the box shut with a sigh. “You’re set on this, aren’t you?”

She realised she was worrying at her lip, and forced herself to stop. “I mean, how often are we gonna get to do something like this? It’s not like they’re gonna let us do this back at Hetchworth in September.” By September, it might already be too late.

Another great sigh. “Well, if I can’t stop you, I s’pose I’d better go with you.”

Frankie’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t stop the grin flashing across her face from ear to ear. “It’ll be the best fun. You and me, out on a treasure hunt? Just think what we can tell the guys when we see them next!” And they might be able to make something of this damp squib of a placement. In her mind’s eye she could see herself back at Hetchworth, top of the class, showing off some fancy faerie trinket to her friends, maybe even to the faculty, drinking in some hard-earned admiration. Fighting back the smile, she hauled herself to her feet, scabbard and map in her grasp, and started to fiddle with the straps of her sword belt.

“Hopefully nothing too embarrassing,” came Meg’s mutter. Frankie rolled her eyes.

The hidden door shut with a clunk, and then her friend’s weapons were clinking against the parquet as she straightened up. Around them, the church was already dimming in the furthering twilight, the looming rafters fading into darkness above their heads. Beyond the windows, too, the last of the sunlight was beginning to fade from the long grasses. It wouldn’t be long now until moonrise.

Fresh scabbard secure, Frankie turned her attention back to the fragile leaf of paper in her hands. Ink swirled here and there, marking intricate leaf patterns around the edges, but there, at the bottom, a recognisable steeple inked onto a small box, and a mortal word she could recognise: Fairfield. And from there, a path spiralled through a thicket, past a giant oak, through a sparkling brook.

“Maybe I should take it? Since you can’t tell your Welsh from your Faerietongue?” The words snapped her out of her reverie. Meg was standing beside her, pale hand outstretched, ginger eyebrow askew.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

The map was rolled up and stuck into a slot in Meg’s belt, and then the two of them were easing the creaky door of the church open to step back into the twilight. Above them, the sky was steadily turning a deep blue, with some of the brightest stars starting to twinkle through like glitter. Behind them, as they trudged back to the bridge, dodging bundles of fluffy sheep, the moon was inching its way above the horizon. Unusually huge, as it always was at moonrise, and tinted a golden yellow, Frankie could almost believe that a full moon could be mistaken for some godly wheel of cheese. While Hetchworth liked to hammer home the value of all myths and stories, she was sure they didn’t quite mean that, but it was a fun thought.

“Frank.”

She realised Meg had stopped dead, face pale under the ghostly moonlight. “What is it?”

Her friend was staring at something ahead. “You don’t think…?” She pointed, her silver ring glinting under the starlight. “By the road?”

Frankie followed her gaze to where the old town of Fairfield was cut in two by the largely unused tarmac strip. Just beyond it, perhaps at the corner of two fields, there was a small copse of trees. Rather, a small copse of glowing trees. A gentle emerald light was ebbing into the darkness, shining from behind the trunks, beckoning them onwards. Usually entrances to Faerieland were a bit more subtle than your average rave, but it wasn’t like there would be regular witnesses.

“’Enter the thickets under the full moon’s glow’, right?” She sloshed a couple of steps through the sludgy peat. “Must be it?”

A couple of splashing footsteps, and Meg was beside her. “I guess. Must be a short opening time, if it’s that obvious?”

“All the more reason to get a move on.”

The two of them took off, clattering and clanking over the boardwalks. Frankie’s swords banged awkwardly against her thighs as she hustled, the metal clinking and slapping, and she could hear Meg’s weapons behind her making the exact same racket. Hopefully the nearest farmhouse was empty, or that the occupants were watching a film. Preferably one with surround sound.

At the road, Frankie clambered over a wire fence, checked both ways for a rogue mortal motorist, and then darted for the thicket. Up close, the soft green light had an almost glittery property, less a single source and more a hundred fireflies gleaming around them, swirling through the air.

She heard heavy breathing – Meg must’ve caught up. A quick glance back told her she was winded, her cheeks flushed, but her long fingers were already tugging the map from her belt. “Ready to go?”

Her friend forced a pained smile. “No time like the present.”

So Frankie dived in.