The Red Queen by Isobelle Carmody Page A

in the fields, to enable Speci to make their way to night work, that I would need to avoid.
    Swallow and Dameon rose from a narrow bench under the window in front of the hut, and as they came to us, they passed close enough to the tube lights that I could see they looked little different from my last clear memory of them coming to greet me in the valley of the Skylake. Dameon’s hair had grown just long enough for it to be bound back in the same way as Swallow’s.
    ‘Here,’ the gypsy said, stepping smoothly forward to take Ana’s place at my side. Then Dragon relinquished her place to Dameon. Both men were tall enough that after I had passed an arm around their shoulders and they straightened, my feet did not touch the ground. I protested that this would deprive me of any benefit from the walk, and they adjusted their grip so that my feet just touched the ground. Then Ana came closer and looked searchingly into my face. We had moved closer to one of the dim blue nightlights, and for the first time I could see her face. I was reassured to see that she was the same tall, wiry woman with bright yellow hair who had prevented her father’s soldierguard from beating me long years past. Like Dameon, her hair had grown slightly and the cloud of pale buttery waves and coils had been tightly braided at the top into a sort of intricate cap.
    ‘Elspeth are you well enough for this?’ Ana asked sternly. Without waiting for an answer, she glared at Swallow. ‘See how pale she is. You should have waited until she had got used to –’
    ‘No,’ I croaked, cutting off her accusation. ‘Too much time . . . wasted already . . .’
    Dameon squeezed my waist and gave me a warning prod of empathy and I wondered irritably if he really imagined that some device was listening to us outside the hut. Then Dragon drew closer. I was relieved to see that all evidence of the violence done to her by Moss had long since healed and that she had put on much-needed flesh. There were other, subtler changes but the one thing that had not changed was her extraordinary beauty. Despite the quelled hair and long, drab tunic she wore, all but identical to Ana’s, I experienced the same wonderment I always felt at the perfection of her features, the deep lovely clarity of her eyes accentuated by thick, long dark lashes and arching brows, the astonishing wealth of hair.
    ‘I am . . . glad to see you . . . safe,’ I said.
    ‘Oh Elspeth, I was so afraid I would never see you again!’ Her eyes shone with tears and she rushed at me with such force that I would have fallen flat on my back without the two men to brace me. As it was they staggered a little and we all laughed and suddenly the constraint between us was gone. I had no arms free to return Dragon’s exuberant embrace, so I kissed her hair and laid my cheek on her head, vowing fiercely to myself that I would get her free of Habitat untouched and unharmed, for it was my fault that she was here. Dameon must have sensed something of my oath from the surge of my emotions and once again I felt the insistent pressure of an empathised warning.
    I repressed the urge to snap at him that I understood I was to be careful, and asked brightly, ‘Where will we walk?’
    ‘Elspeth, it may truly be better to wait until you are stronger,’ Ana said. ‘You are only just resurrected and none of us moved about so soon.’
    ‘I am a fast healer,’ I said pointedly, willing her to remember that my body had the capacity to heal itself. Yet even as her eyes widened in comprehension, I wondered if she might not be right. I was aware of a light nausea and a pressure behind my eyes that might turn into a headache.
    ‘We will only go to the common and Elspeth can lie and rest for a time there before we bring her back,’ Swallow said persuasively to Ana, but he flicked a pointed look at me and something in it made my heart quicken.
    ‘Yes,’ I said, adding that I was truly sick of lying abed. Ana