The Hidden Princess by Katy Moran

magic in the Reach won’t stop them. They could come through the Gateway any time they liked, swarming through the tunnels like rats, stalking down each and every one of us. All your father needs to do is give the Fontevrault a reason to attack, and they will.”
    She hasn’t forgotten, then.
    “Lissy,” Iris hisses, “if the mortals are meddling with the Gateway again, just as Miles did twenty years ago, then we’re far too close to danger. Far too close. The Hidden long for their freedom but we can’t risk the Gateway being opened whilst your father still lives.” Iris sounds collected and reasonable again – it’s so disconcerting, this constant shift between a girl lost in time, a prisoner of her own terrible memories, and Iris’s real self, the girl she was before my father broke her mind. “Listen – if the Swan King releases his plague, the Fontevrault will show us no mercy. We’ll
all
die.” I hear nothing but the panicked and rag-torn rhythm of her breath. “His time is up, Lissy, and you know it. He must die – with the Swan King gone, you’d be free to open the Gateway at last. You’ll see your mortal family again and the Fontevrault might show mercy to the rest of us if you can persuade them we mean no harm. There’s a chance they might leave us in peace.”
    We both stare down at the penknife resting in the palm of my hand, Iris recoiling a little. She’s right. I have to kill him. I have to be a murderer. Connie won’t have a clue. In her eyes, the Swan King is only a wild and beautiful young man, with an otherworldly air that will make her skin crawl, and yet she still won’t be able to resist him. She won’t be the first mortal to fall for one of the Hidden. I feel so helpless, torn between committing murder or waiting for disaster.

12
Joe
    The second I parked the van outside the Reach Connie was off and running down the drive, slamming the passenger door after her.
Thanks a lot, Dad. Cheers, Miriam
. Connie was trouble, pure and simple – I felt like someone had just handed me a live hand grenade with the pin out, ready to blow at any second. Why couldn’t they have got someone else to look after her for a week? From what Dad had told me, that uptight bitch Adam had married refused to have Connie in the house, but was his bloody job really so important that he couldn’t have come down here, or at least kicked Elena out for a few days? Connie was his kid, not mine.
    It was obvious that neither of her parents gave that much of a crap about what happened to her. It was all about Lissy, everyone all torn up inside with grief. It was no surprise that Connie had turned out a screw-up. She wasn’t stupid: she must’ve known that after Lissy went, her parents just weren’t that bothered about anyone else. Which was pretty unnatural, really, from where I was standing. Connie was still their kid, after all. But she’d just blamed herself. And all that about dreams and Lissy. A wave of sick fear rolled over me. Everyone had lied to Connie about Lissy, protecting her from the Fontevrault. But wouldn’t it have been better – safer – if she’d known the truth?
    I slumped in my seat, watching my liability of a stepsister shove open the huge, arched front door, blonde hair spilling down the back of her navy school jumper. The door swung shut behind her and I was left alone, just sitting in the van on the drive outside the Reach. How long was it since I’d been here? Six years at least. Dad and I never really talked about this unspoken arrangement. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t even mind Miriam. It was just I couldn’t believe they’d stayed here. Not after what happened. I intended to die knowing I could count my visits to Hopesay Reach on one hand. It was a bad place.
    And it had changed, the Reach. Not the house – that was the same as always: a great sprawling, rambling mess of a place with a hundred glittering windows tucked away in odd corners, and that