Page 94 of The Other Side

“Did Matthew Green hide here?” Drum asked, finding his voice. “Did someone in Sparlow keep him?”

“Matthew did not hide here. Sparlow protects its own, but it doesn’t take prisoners. And the murders are not of our doing. I can promise you that.” He looked at Drum and frowned. “You puzzle me.”

Drum kept his mouth shut. Mikkel stood up, the movement fluid and somehow unnaturally graceful. “I suggest you take your leave before the sun sets, PCSO Drummond and your faery. The roads out of Sparlow get notoriously difficult to navigate in the dark. Especially for those who are still deciding which world they belong to.”

Drum looked at his phone. How could it be late afternoon already? He stood up, his legs a bit shaky. “I’ll have to report I came here.” He had to say he was somewhere for this length of time.

“Report what?” Mikkel asked, a faint, sad smile touching his lips. “That you met a demon in a village? Good luck with the psychological evaluation.”

Mikkel walked away. Osian caught hold of Drum’s hand. “Let’s go.”

It was Osian who led the way. Pulled him. Tugged him. Drum’s feet felt as though they were encased in mud. Why was he finding it so hard to walk? The light had turned to a bruised, twilight purple, casting long shadows across their path and Osian urged him on.

“We need to hurry,” Osian said.

Drum’s newly opened eyes were mesmerised by shadows that seemed to be moving a bit too independently. He wanted to stop, wanted to…

Osian dragged him on. “So, CC, CD…what comes next, Drum? How many kisses?”

Drum blinked hard. “D. Five hundred.”

“What’s DCCC?”

“Er…” Drum’s brain was foggy. “Eight hundred.”

“Not enough kisses for me. What’s a thousand?”

“M.”

“What did they do when they ran out of letters?”

“What?”

“Concentrate, Drum. What did the Romans do when they ran out of letters? What was the largest number they could make?”

“Without special modifiers, the largest Roman numeral is 3,999. That’s… MMMCMXCIX. But they used a horizontal overline, a vinculum to multiply values by a thou—why am I talking about Roman numerals?”

“Because your brain was fogged. Can you remember what we just did?”

“We met a demon. I found out there’s a whole shitload of things that exist that I thought were made up. Are we on the right path?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I had my flashlight. It’s got dark very fast.”

Almost as he said that, lights came on in the sky just above them. Osian stopped and pulled Drum into his arms.

“What are they?” Drum whispered.

The lights were pale blue, bobbing and weaving.

“Little faeries dancing where the Veil is thin.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“They look like dragonflies but bigger.”