A gaping silence settled over the two of them as they scrambled up the path. The sweet scents of flowers still wafted over them with every step, new blooms sprouting a rainbow around them. Some of them Frankie recognised from Professor Alnwick’s bizarre Potions and Botany lectures, like the white trumpets of bindweed twisting above them, and the drops of lavender petals snaring at her feet that must be ground-ivy. Somewhere, beyond the sheets of leaves, there was a delicate tinkling sound, not unlike a tittering bell, but Frankie ignored its call, focusing on the trail. The moss was draped over steps of stone, forming a cushioning layer that would turn slick with a few drops of rain. She could feel Meg a few paces behind her, unspeaking as her boots sunk into the blanket of moss. Maybe it was best to leave her to her own thoughts for a while, before she decided to turn around and make her way back to the thicket, taking the map with her. Frankie knew her words hadn’t always helped in the past.

The path rounded a towering, shadowy hedgerow edged with sprouts of tiny white bells, and then it wound into a clearing. Grass sprung under their feet, stretching upwards to where moonlight filtered through the canopy above. Frankie glanced up – huge boughs cast them into shadow, twisting back towards a massive trunk that drilled into the earth. The roots spread everywhere, inching out to the border of brightly coloured bushes. Up in the swishing leaves, if she squinted, she was sure she could see tiny figures jumping between the twigs.

“Guess that’s the oak,” came Meg’s dour voice from behind her.

Frankie glanced back at her. Her friend’s mouth was pulled into a hard line in the dappled moonlight as she unfolded the map. “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty sizeable, huh.” She halted. More exquisite trills echoed from above, the jangle of a soft bell accompanied by a flurry of rustling. A quick peek showed the figures dancing about amongst the leaves above their heads. Were they more of the puppet-like faeries? She took a deep breath. “So – uh – which way was it, you said?”

Her friend was still bent over the page. “Left.” A short silence. “Well, it’s less an accurate representation and more of an artist’s impression, but the path bends left.” Her tone was still sullen, but at least she was talking.

“Well, okay. Left it is.” The sooner they weren’t stood under that disconcerting rustling, the better. One more divebombing faerie might be the end of it. Frankie set off, leading the way across the clearing, sinking into the mixture of grass and spongy soil. There was a break in the border of bushes, bending away into the darkness. Her hand reached for her belt, for where her Dark-Sight Specs were wrapped up tightly in a pouch.

Something drifted down from above, brushing against her cheek. Frankie glanced up. A glittery substance danced on the breeze, glinting silver in a band of moonlight, spiralling into her face.

It itched. The powder tickled at her cheeks, prickled in her nostrils, stung in her throat. She was suddenly overcome by the overwhelming need to sneeze, to blink, to shed the strange powder, and tried to do all those things at once.

“Uh, bless you?” came Meg’s unsure voice from behind her.

Frankie rubbed the back of her hand against her nose. “Some sort of dust – pollen, maybe? I just walked into it.”

“Dust?” Meg was picking at something in her dark hair. Her fingers came away smeared in a silvery substance, almost like a child playing about in their mother’s eyeshadow palette. “Uh – you’re covered. Not gonna lie, you look like you’ve gone a bit grey.”

Oh. Frankie shook her hair out, shedding more of the powder and puffing clouds of it back into the air – she caught Meg stepping back smartly. “Huh. Well, this is Faerieland, and they do have some whacky plants here.”

A shadow crossed Meg’s face as she glanced upwards. Something carried downwards on the breeze, a tiny tinkling that almost sounded like a giggle. “Let’s get moving before we run into any more,” she said darkly. “And I’m going first. I don’t need my common sense sigil to tell me that.” And with that, she marched onwards, already pulling her own spectacles free.

Frankie sighed, and then followed her friend’s swinging plait into the darkness. A quick fumble had the Dark-Sight Specs free. The frames were based on typical mortal glasses, fashioned from steel and inlaid with silver to provide some protection against any paranormals who might try to steal them, but the true difference lay in the bridge that sat atop the nose. It was formed of two triangles pressed together at their points, the daylight sigil dagaz smelted from silvery metal harvested under the instruction of the legendary angels, and when Frankie slid them on, the magic flickered for a moment before allowing her to see a good few metres ahead as if the sun beat down upon them, even in the moonlit gloom of the oppressive tree-lined trails.

The path took them up an incline littered with jagged stone steps and tree roots that twitched as they stepped over them. Frankie’s nostrils still smarted with a low burn that wouldn’t shift no matter how much she rubbed, and her cheeks tingled, but the need to sneeze the powder away had passed. It must have been a particularly astringent type of faerie pollen that she’d reacted to badly, she decided. Hay fever often bothered her in normal times, and getting a face full of tree pollen would itch and burn and make her eyes run whether she was in the depths of Faerieland or on a patrol of the Medway Saltmarshes.

But the roots at their feet were starting to wriggle, twisting over each other as they tried to snare her ankles. Meg was passing through them effortlessly, head held high and darting about, sending her ginger plait bouncing, but Frankie didn’t understand how. They writhed like a nest of adders, catching at her boots and twining up her ankles. She yanked herself free, heart thudding loudly in her ears. Her chest tightened. There was nowhere to put her feet, the sneering snake-like roots slithering everywhere. Somewhere to her left, beyond the reach of the dagaz, footsteps trampled through the undergrowth, unseen as they crashed through ferns and snapped twigs. Something was watching them. Her breath started to catch in her throat as they clattered closer and closer.

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“Frank?”

Ahead, Meg’s figure was retreating towards her, passing through the swirling roots with eerie ease. “Are you okay?”

Her friend’s forehead was furrowed, but when she raised her hand to touch her, the fingers were elongated, nails twisting into horn-like appendages that were sharpened to a deadly point. The hands of a malicious faerie.

Frankie screamed and groped for the hilt at her hip. The iron would cast it out of Meg. It would have to.

“Hey!” A blade clanged against hers mid-swing, metal gleaming in the light from the dagaz. Meg’s own sword parried the blow, her friend at the other end of the blade, forehead crumpled with confusion. “Frank, what –”

Oh no. Tendrils of creepers and climbers inched down from above, wrapping around her blade, brushing against her cheek, twirling into her hair. The footsteps were an all-encompassing roar, thudding through her brain. And above it all, a cackle shrieked.

She had to get away.

She barrelled past Meg, banging into her shoulder, and then the path ahead was clear. Swiping aimlessly with the sword to keep the tendrils and vines and roots away, she forced herself onwards. Her legs burnt. Her heart hammered in her head, almost drowning out the cacophony. Her tongue twisted with the taste of metal. In front of her, the steps stretched onwards, beyond the dagaz, and she had to keep going, and going, and –

The ground levelled out. She stumbled onto damp soil, soaking her leggings, but she dragged herself to her feet. The noise was less now, the trampling behind her, and she could hear the babbling of rushing waters.

Water. The burn in her nostrils flared, begging to be soothed.

She took off towards it, eyes watering, tears streaming. The woods swirled and twisted in her vision, boughs bowing to touch her hair, but the gurgling stream was close, its gushing waters nearer with every step. Half-blinded by her tears, she rounded a blurry tree, and her boots slid out from underneath her.

With a sudden thud, she landed hard on what felt like pebbles. Hard, smooth stones, a hundred of them beneath her, all slick with fresh, cool water. The brook!

Frankie scrabbled to her knees, her elbows and the heels of her hands stinging from the fall, and stared downwards. Through her muddled eyes, the water looked like a smear of colour, a rainbow of pebbles underneath blurred and distorted by the clear ripples that raced overtop. Without another thought, she ripped the Dark-Sight Specs off and dunked her face into the stream.

The fire was doused. Cool liquid cupped her skin, flushed up her nostrils, and, when she opened them, washed the tears and grit free from her eyes. It flowed off downstream in a silver surge, the glitter dancing on the current. Some pollen…

A voice echoed above the torrent rushing past her, but she couldn’t quite catch it as she dunked her hands in too, teasing the dust from her hair in the flow. Her lungs started to ache, but the cool water caressed her, keeping her scrunched over the stream that promised relief –

Something kicked her in the stomach – hard.

She felt herself flying backwards, landing sprawled on a mixture of mulch and something solid. A familiar grunt told her that was probably Meg.

“Get your filthy face out of my brook!”

It was a voice obscured by the gurgle of bubbles. Frankie blinked a couple of times, her eyes adjusting to the darkness without her Specs.

Before her, rising from the waters of the brook to tower over them, was the completely transparent figure of a woman. Formed entirely of the rushing waters that swirled and twisted to fill her shape, she was as dainty as a glass sculpture, and her face was pulled into an infuriated scowl.

“Huh?” It was the only thing Frankie could articulate.

The figure swished about, spraying water around as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You demonhunters are all the same, born amongst the mortals. Thinking you can shove yourselves anywhere, covered in Faeriedust and humanoid beauty concoctions and microscopic beings from the outside – you never think about what that leaves behind! It isn’t easy, maintaining an ecosystem, you know!” Another spray, water swirling out as she jabbed a finger down at her. “The last thing we spirits need is demonhunter children coming and contaminating all our hard work!”

Frankie blinked up in confusion. “I-I – uh – sorry.”

“And that’ll fix it, will it?” The figure’s see-through lips were pulled tight into a line. “Get out of here. And don’t you dare even put a toe in my stream again, you cheeky minx! Or believe me, the Queen will be hearing about this!”

And with that, the waters crashed back into the streams, swelling over the banks and soaking the two of them. The figure was gone.

Frankie stared for another couple of seconds before she felt Meg starting to wriggle beneath her. “D’you mind moving? My leg’s going a bit dead.”

“Oh.” She rolled to the side, crushing some ferns under her legs. A light breeze played with her sodden hair, making her shiver. “Uh – I didn’t mean to make them – her – mad?”

Meg was already pushing herself to her feet, brushing soil off her clothes and adjusting her Dark-Sight Specs. “Eh, it’s a water spirit. Y’know what Emyr always says about them.” She was holding something out to Frankie – a closed pair of glasses, her own Specs she’d thrown aside into the gloom. “She was right about the Faeriedust, though, I think. You okay? You were screaming back there, but I couldn’t see anything…”

She slid the glasses onto her face, and the world blinked back into colour. Meg was looking down at her, bright baby hairs forming a halo around her face, and her forehead creased into a concerned frown. She gulped. “Yeah, uh, I – everything went a bit weird, and I could hear footsteps everywhere, I – sorry.” She found herself bowing her head, staring at her soggy boots. So none of it had been real? She, a trained demonhunter, had been so easily fooled by faerie magic… “Uh – thanks for coming after me.”

There was a short pause, the wind rustling through the leaves overhead. “That’s what we do, Frank. You and me.” Frankie glanced back up at her friend – one pale hand sat on her hip, the other was reaching out for her. She had a strange smile on her lips. “C’mon, it’s not far to that treasure you wanted so bad. Reckon you’re still up for it?”

Frankie couldn’t help returning the smile. “Sure.” Something warm buzzed inside her as she slid her hand into Meg’s, letting her grip steady her as she got to her feet, offsetting the sodden chill of the breeze. It’d been silly to think Meg would turn on her – she and Viv, they were different people. “It’d better be good after all this.”

Meg patted her shoulder. “Tell me about it. Lots of free faerie gold, please.” Frankie couldn’t help snorting a laugh at that, and then the two of them were carefully clambering across the stream, to the clear path on the other bank.