Page 54 of The Neverfear

‘Your father would change his mind, if he was here!’ said Christopher. ‘You know he would! It’s for Irian.’

She turned it over again in her hand. Then she lifted it to her lips. ‘I think my mother would want me to.’

‘How does you makes it work?’ asked Ratwin.

‘I have to cry.’

Anya had been keeping tears down, down out of reach. She had faced each day with every ounce of fervour and energy she possessed; but her small body was stiff with pain and labour, and her heart was battered and it was easy to weep. Anya looked down at her hands, in which Koo should rest, and her lips formed the words ‘father’ and ‘Irian’. Her shoulders began to heave. She held up the disc to her face, and allowed twelve tears to fall on the curved surface.

There was a crack, and a burst of white light. The loquillan shone in her face like a searchlight, and she looked suddenly far older than she was, alien and ghostly and beautiful.

A moment later it was gone, and Anya was blinking.

‘What did it show?’ said Christopher.

She looked uneasily at him. ‘I don’t know. It was confused. It showed … a race.’

‘A running race?’

‘No. A race on the backs of creatures. I saw people preparing – a starting line, and crowds cheering.’

‘What else?’

‘It was a blur. I saw knives, and fire. And teeth and blood.’

‘Teeth?’

‘And on a plinth, under guard, there was the prize. It was a sack of money. And—’

‘And?’

‘And a golden apple.’

‘Did you see where it was? How do we get there?’

But Anya was looking at Ratwin, for the ratatoska’s eyes were bright with sudden elation. ‘The Race of Thieves!’

‘What’s that?’

‘A races for steed and rider! Each years, the prize is a piece of treasures – though it is betters not to be enquiring how it was come by. I wents one year with Nighthands, on the Islands of Ceren!’

‘And can we enter? Are we in time?’ said Anya. She had taken hold of Christopher’s wrist and her fingernails were digging into his skin.

‘The Race of Thieves,’ said Jacques, ‘is, as you might have guessed from the title, not an event that involves paperwork. Anyone can enter, until the last minute.’

‘But when?’ If the date had already passed, they were lost.

‘It is on the nights of Midsummers Duodecim,’ said Ratwin.

‘The twelfth day after Midsummer,’ said Jacques.

Anya’s face was riven with sudden joy, as bright as the light of the loquillan. ‘Two days from now!’

The Neverfear

Anya looked radiant. She had embraced Christopher, clashing their heads together, laughing and rubbing her forehead and whooping for joy.

‘You seem very sure we’re going to win it,’ he said.