Free Emily Feather and the Secret Mirror by Holly Webb Page B

window seat, and the faintest shimmer of silver uncoiled itself and stood in front of her.
    â€œAre we in one of the other places?” the river fairy asked, her voice breaking and squeaking a little. She sounded terrified.
    â€œI’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it,” Emily whispered. “I couldn’t see what else to do. You were so frightened, and so tired. I didn’t want them to catch you. Or me either,” she added honestly. “I was dreaming, but it felt properly real. It felt like those hounds could have sniffed me out too.” She reached out shyly to take the girl’s hand again. “I’m so sorry.”
    But the river fairy knelt down in front of her, and her skin shone silvery in the dark, so that Emily could see she was smiling. She caught Emily’s hands.
    â€œI’m not angry. Please don’t think that! You were right; I couldn’t have run for much longer. It feels strange to be here –” she shivered a little “ – but better here than thrown to the hounds.”
    â€œUuurgh! They’d let the hounds eat. … Oh no!” Emily pressed her hand to her mouth, disgusted.
    â€œYou really don’t know?” The fairy girl stared at her, and then smiled, seeming to find her innocence truly funny. “They only eat what they catch. That’s why they’re always hungry, and they never give up on a quarry.”
    Emily put both hands over her face now, her shoulders shaking. “How could they? And Ash and Eva come from there! My parents! They would never let anything like that happen.”
    The girl looked at her in surprise. “I suppose Lord Ash left to guard the ways before the Ladies began to grow so strong. The king stays shut away in the palace so much now – perhaps your parents don’t know what it’s like any more.” She frowned. “But our world is a hard place. Cruel, sometimes.”
    Emily nodded. She’d had a glimpse of that, when her father told her so firmly that the worlds must be kept apart. “What are we going to do?” she asked in a small, tired voice. “If I tell my family you’re here, I don’t think they’ll be happy. No one is supposed to come through the doors without them knowing.”
    The girl glanced up at her. “They’ll have seen us, then, the Lady Eva and Lord Ash.” She looked round at the door anxiously, as though she expected someone to come storming through it, to send her back to the hounds.
    Emily shook her head. “I don’t think so… My mother made a spell, but it didn’t work, because I cheated.” She glanced down at her hands. “She laid it on my bed. It was to stop me dreaming – that’s why I slept here by the window, and then dreamed my way through the window glass to the woods, and you.”
    â€œYou cheated one of her spells?” the girl asked, her eyes widening.
    â€œI think so,” Emily admitted. “Do you know her, my mother?”
    â€œOf course. She’s one of the great Ladies. There are stories about her. And Lord Ash is a prince – one of the king’s highest courtiers.”
    â€œReally?” Emily blinked in surprise. Her dad spent most of his time shut up in his study under the stairs, typing and occasionally throwing things when work wasn’t going as it should. He didn’t seem princely at all. Although – she remembered his fairy form, the soft ash-grey of his skin and hair, the diamond blackness of his eyes. Perhaps he was.
    â€œIf you twisted your way out of her spell, there must be strong magic inside you,” the girl said, squeezing Emily’s hands. But it didn’t make Emily feel much better.
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” she asked again. When she’d set off on her daring rescue, she hadn’t imagined bringing the girl back with her. She was just going to help, somehow, and that was