The Fire King Read Free

pointedly. “That is our charter.”
    Emily was about to ask about this charter when an odd sound distracted her. It was like a sheet, billowing and rippling in the wind. She looked up to where the noise was coming from and took a fearful step back.
    The sound wasn’t a sheet rippling in the wind. It was the sound of wings. White ravens, hundreds of them, were descending from the sky to settle on the roofs of the dilapidated structures all around them. As soon as they landed, they furled their wings and gazed at the confrontation taking place below them, their blue eyes alert.
    Katerina followed Emily’s gaze. As soon as the girl spotted the ravens (and as soon as the ravens had seen her spot them), they started snapping their beaks as the first one had done when trying to get Emily’s pastry. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click.
    Emily shivered. It was an unsettling experience, to say the least. The white ravens staring down at them while the clicking and snapping eddied through the ranks of the birds like a wave in the ocean.
    â€œOh, that can’t bode well,” said Corrigan, staring up at the birds.
    Katerina whirled back to face her gang. “The enemy is upon us!” she shouted. “Ready yourselves.”
    The order was hardly necessary. As soon as the birds had been spotted, Katerina’s gang broke away from the circle they held around Emily and the others to find positions that weren’t so exposed. And while they readied themselves, the click-click sound rained down on them from above, getting louder and louder as more and more white ravens descended from the sky.
    â€œI don’t know what’s going on here,” Jack said, “but now would be the perfect time to leave, don’t you think?”
    Emily nodded. Jack pointed to a gap between two of the old sheds and was just about to cross the dusty lane when the clacking noise suddenly stopped. The abrupt silence seemed to echo around them, the absence of sound louder than anything that had come before.
    Emily looked up at the ravens.
    They had all turned to stare toward the end of the avenue, where the lane turned aside and followed the muddy banks of the Thames.
    Slowly, ever so slowly, Emily followed their gaze.
    A dark figure was rising from the water, a figure draped in a black, sodden cloak. The figure rose to its full height and pulled the hood back to reveal the wrinkled face of an old crone, her eyes the cold, uncaring black of the deep ocean.
    The murky river water dribbled from her mouth and nose as a second figure rose up behind her, its slimy, lank hair framing a skeletal, pale green face.
    Emily felt her breath catch in her throat.
    Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth.

C HAPTER T WO
    In which Emily discovers that the enemy of her enemy is not necessarily her friend. Enemies old and enemies new.
    B lack Annis and Jenny Greenteeth waded slowly out of the Thames, the brackish water dripping from their rotting clothing. Jenny smiled, baring her sharp black teeth as she stared hungrily at Katerina’s gang.
    Strangely, the sight of them gave Emily a brief surge of hope. How had they managed to follow her here from 1861? Was there another way besides the Faerie Gate in Hyde Park? And more important, did that mean she could use the same method to get them all back home?
    But her hope was short-lived. Black Annis carefully patted down the slimy, decaying hood of her cloak, her oily black eyes passing over Emily without a hint of recognition. That was when Emily realized that this Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth belonged here, in 1666. They hadn’t evenmet her yet.
    â€œHello, my poppets,” called Annis.
    Emily turned to see Katerina’s response. There was no surprise in the girl’s face. Fear, yes. But no surprise. Which meant Katerina had seen Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth before. None of this was new to her.
    Yet another puzzle to add to an already long list.
    The street children