The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey)

by Julie Kagawa

  “I know.” Annwyl looked like someone getting ready to march out to the gallows. “But we have to do this. I don’t know of any local trods to New Orleans, and I don’t dare go back to Leanansidhe’s. I can endure two hours of iron sickness if it gets us closer to Keirran.”

  The desperate hope in her voice made my stomach tighten. Turning away, I opened the bedroom door a crack and peered into the hallway. The rest of the house was dark; both parents were still sleeping. Guilt and fear raised goose bumps on my skin; I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t let Dad drive me to New Orleans. He didn’t understand the fey, and I refused to drag my family into the hidden world. This was something I had to do myself.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Annwyl. “Stay close,” I warned in a whisper. “It’ll be most dangerous when we go outside. Creepy Thin Man shouldn’t be able to get past the wards, and once we’re in the truck, we should be safe. Still, let’s do this quickly and quietly.”

  “I’m ready,” Annwyl whispered, and we stepped into the hall.

  Tiptoeing through the silent house, I paused in the kitchen just long enough to grab a soda and leave a quick note on the counter.

  Mom, Dad, I’ve gone ahead to New Orleans. I’m sorry, but I have to do this alone. Will call you this afternoon from the hotel. Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Back in a couple days.

  —Ethan

  They would be pissed at me for certain, and I’d probably get an angry phone call from Mom as soon as she found the note, but I couldn’t wait. Annwyl needed help, and I didn’t trust Creepy Thin Man to stay on the other side of the wards. Even if he did, I certainly didn’t want him hanging around my house, watching us, waiting for someone to step outside.

  Outside.

  The front door creaked softly as I eased it open, peering around the front lawn and my old truck parked in the driveway. Annwyl pressed close behind me, her warmth and the smell of new leaves at my back.

  “I don’t see him,” she whispered.

  I didn’t, either, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching us. “Hurry,” I growled and slipped onto the steps, jogging lightly down the walk toward the driveway. Annwyl followed, making absolutely no sound, as graceful as a deer bounding through the trees.

  And then he was there at the end of the driveway, turning suddenly into existence, pale eye gleaming with wicked intent. Annwyl gasped, and I snarled a curse, drawing my sword in one smooth motion. He didn’t step forward, couldn’t cross the driveway, but his mouth opened impossibly wide, like a snake unhinging its jaws, revealing a gaping black hole within. I felt a faint pull in the air, a cold, sluggish feeling in my limbs, and my heart shrank with fear. Not for me; I’d felt this before and knew it couldn’t hurt mortals. But Annwyl stumbled like she was fighting a sudden typhoon, falling to her knees on the pavement. She flickered, nearly blinking out of existence, as the thin Forgotten sucked away her glamour, magic and everything she was.

  Snarling, I leaped across the driveway and slashed at the Thin Man, stabbing my blade toward his wizened chest. He darted backward shockingly fast and turned again, vanishing from sight.

  Panting, I raised my sword and glanced around. I’d always been able to see the fey; that this sneaky bastard could get around my Sight made me nervous and a little angry.

  “Ethan!” cried Annwyl somewhere behind me, “to your left!”

  I spun, lashing out with my blade, just as a long arm appeared out of nothing, reaching for me. I felt fingers catch my duffel bag with a tearing sound and slashed the empty air beneath the arm, feeling the very tip of my blade strike something solid. A pale ribbon of blood coiled through the air like mist, followed by a thin wail.

  I ran back to Annwyl, pulling her upright as a light came on in my parent’s bedroom. Biting down curses, I half carried the Summer faery over to my truck, wrenched the door open and pushed her into the cab. Slamming the door, I turned to see the Thin Man in the center of the road, silvery blood writhing into the air from a gash in his side. He was no longer smiling.

  “You cannot hide from me, Ethan Chase,” he called as I hurried to the driver’s side of the truck. “No matter where you take the Summer girl, no matter how far you run, I will find you both.”

  I ignored him as I tossed my bag onto the floor and leaped behind the wheel, slamming the door behind me. Annwyl was hunched on the seat with her eyes closed, leaning away from the door, but I couldn’t worry about her now. Jamming the key into the ignition, I cranked the truck to life as another light gleamed in the windows of my house—the kitchen this time. Throwing the truck into Reverse, I backed out of the driveway, hoping to hit Creepy Thin Man with a few tons of iron and steel as I did. Sadly, that didn’t happen, but nothing attacked us as I yanked the shaft into Drive, hit the gas pedal and sped off down the street.

  * * *

  “Well,” Annwyl said after a moment of letting our heartbeats return to normal, “that was...exciting.”

  I glanced at her. She sat as far as she could get from the door of the cab, arms around her stomach, leaning forward. Her jaw was set, her moss-green eyes slightly glazed. She looked like she was experiencing the world’s worst hangover and was about to hurl all over the floor of my truck.

  “Annwyl,” I said urgently. “Can you do this? Will you be all right?”

  The Summer faery gave a tight, painful nod. “It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced the iron sickness,” she murmured, not looking up. “I’d forgotten...how unpleasant it is.” She sat up carefully, as if checking to see whether she was all there. “I’m all right,” she breathed, as though trying to convince herself. “I’m not gone yet.”

  Two minutes later, my phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket, checking the number, and my stomach dropped.

  “You’re in big trouble, young man” was Dad’s greeting when I answered. I winced.

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “Care to tell me what was so important that you had to lie to me last night?”

  I sneaked another glance at Annwyl. She gazed back apologetically, as if she knew who was on the line and what we were talking about. I thought of the Thin Man, skulking around the yard, and how Mom would react if I told her what had happened. “No,” I said, feeling Dad’s disapproval all the way from the house. “But I’ll explain everything when I get home.”

  “Ethan!” Mom’s voice crackled in my ear; it sounded like she had been crying. “Come home, do you hear me? Come back right now.”

  A lump caught in my throat. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I’ll be back in a couple days, I promise.”

  No answer, just a muffled sob, and then Dad took over again. “Call us as soon as you get to New Orleans,” he ordered, his voice stern and controlled, trying to mask his anger. “And every few hours after that, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You be careful out there, Ethan.” Almost a warning. I swallowed hard.

  “I will.”

  I pressed End Call and lowered the phone, wishing it didn’t have to be this way. I almost regretted telling them the truth, but no, it was better that they finally realize what I had to deal with. At least this way they would know what had happened to me...if I never came home.

  The drive to New Orleans was mostly silent. Annwyl huddled in the passenger seat and gazed out the side window, her eyes glassy with discomfort and pain. I flipped on the radio and searched until I found a classical music station, trying to make the ride more bearable for her. Every so often, she would flicker and blur from the corner of my eye, making my skin crawl and my head snap over to make sure she was still there.

  We took a break at a rest stop, and I followed her to a stand of trees, watching in concern as she pressed her forehead to the trunk, breathing hard.

  “You gonna be okay?” I asked again, just to get her talking, to hear her voice. The farther we went, the more it felt like I was sitting next to a ghost, slowing dissolving in the sun
light.

  Annwyl nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, looking back with a brave smile. “I can make it. I’ll be all right. How far is it to...to...” Her forehead creased. “Where are we going again?”

  I ignored the stab of fear. “New Orleans,” I replied. “The goblin market.”

  “That’s right.” Annwyl leaned a shoulder against the tree, where strands of bright green ivy were slowly creeping up toward the branches, rustling softly as they coiled around the trunk. I swallowed and hoped no one would look this way. “Keirran,” Annwyl mused, her quiet voice colored with longing. “Will he be there?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I hope so. We’re really just grasping at straws, and I still have to find where this month’s goblin market is being held.” Luckily, I had a pretty good idea of who to ask for that information. The local dryads of City Park were rumored to be some of the oldest faeries in New Orleans and knew almost all there was to know about the city’s secret life. I just hoped the price for that information wasn’t too high.

  “The full moon is tonight,” I went on as Annwyl absently brushed a dead branch. It came to life again beneath her fingers. “Once we find out where the market is, we’ll head over and have a look around. Even if Keirran doesn’t show up, there has to be someone there who might know where he is and where he’ll be.”

  Annwyl nodded again. “I hope so,” she whispered. “I don’t know how long I have left.”

  The sense of foreboding grew. “Come on,” I said, starting back toward my truck. “I’ll tell you the whole story on the road. But we should get going.” And let’s hope that when we find Keirran, Annwyl will still know who he is and why she wants to see him.

  * * *

  It was still morning when we cruised past the New Orleans city limits and into the urban sprawl of one of the most heavily populated faery cities in the human world. New Orleans was a place of voodoo and magic, mystery and superstition, and it drew countless fey to its haunted corners and near-mythical streets. I’d never been to New Orleans before; it was in the top five of my Places to Avoid Due to Faeries list. Of course the irony that, not only was I here, I was here looking for the biggest goblin market in the country, a place where thousands of fey would converge to bargain and make deals, wasn’t lost on me.

  The highway went right through City Park, and I had Annwyl read me the directions I’d copied from MapQuest, until we finally pulled into a near-empty lot at the edge of the lawn. It was quiet when I got out of the truck, the serene stillness of early morning, and almost no one else was out. As we entered the park, a woman and a frizzy terrier jogged past us down the sidewalk, and the dog took a moment to yap hysterically at Annwyl, much to the woman’s embarrassment. Apologizing to me and scolding the dog at the same time, she pulled it away around a bend, and then we were alone.

  “I like it here,” Annwyl mused, gazing around the park in quiet awe. Since leaving the truck, she looked better, not quite as pale and insubstantial. “I can breathe more easily—my mind doesn’t feel like it’s in a fog. Magic is still strong here.”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t feel the magic and glamour in the air, not like she could, but I could certainly See the evidence all around us. A piskie buzzed by my head like a mutant wasp, leaving high-pitched laughter in its wake. An undine, pale blue and piranha-toothed, glanced up from the edge of a pond before sliding noiselessly into the water. A huge black dog glided through a patch of mist between trees, looking like someone’s pet that had slipped its collar—until you saw its eyes glowing with blue fire and noticed that it walked on top of the grass instead of crushing the blades beneath its paws. It blinked solemnly and trotted into the mist again, leaving behind no evidence that it had been there at all.

  I suddenly wished I hadn’t left my kali blades under the seat of my truck, hidden and locked away. Wandering around a public park with a pair of swords was risky and could get me into real trouble, but if we were jumped by a redcap motley or a hungry Nevernever beast, I would almost rather take the chance.

  Thankfully, the park fey seemed indifferent to us as we made our way toward a cluster of massive oak trees in the center of the lawn. Huge and gnarled and draped in Spanish moss, the ancient trees were home to several dryads who inhabited the park. At one point, the park had also been home to the Elder Dryad, a very old tree spirit who had helped Meghan defeat the Iron King more than thirteen years ago. Over the years, I’d heard enough snippets of this very popular legend among the fey to piece together what had happened. When I was kidnapped by the Iron fey and taken into the Nevernever, Meghan had come here to ask for help in defeating the supposedly invincible Iron King. The Elder Dryad had given my sister something called a Witchwood arrow, a splinter of pure Summer magic that was like kryptonite to the Iron fey. But the Witchwood was also the heart of the Elder Dryad’s oak, and giving it to Meghan essentially killed the tree and the dryad it was attached to.

  I sobered, thinking of Meghan as we stepped into the shade beneath the enormous boughs. She had risked so much for me, all those years ago. Left home, gone into the Nevernever, made bargains with faeries and endangered her life, all to rescue me. Why couldn’t she be here, right now, when I needed her most? Why was she keeping secrets when so much was at stake?

  “Ethan?” Annwyl’s quiet voice broke me out of my dark thoughts. The Summer faery cocked her head at me, green eyes inquiring. “Are you all right? Has something upset you?”

  Only the same person for the past thirteen years. “No.” I shrugged. “Why?”

  “Your glamour aura changed just then,” Annwyl said solemnly. “It became very dark and...sad. Confused.” She blinked, and I suddenly felt exposed, like all my secrets had been dragged into the open. I’d forgotten that the fey could sense strong emotion. Fear, anger, grief—they could read it like a rain cloud over someone’s head. Some theorized that was what made humans so fascinating to the Good Neighbors, that the fey had no true emotions, so they experienced them through human contact. I didn’t know if that was true, but Annwyl didn’t need to know my family problems and, being fey, wouldn’t understand them if she did.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, waving it off. “I was just...thinking of someone, that’s all.” She blinked, puzzled, and I turned away. “It’s a human thing—you wouldn’t understand.”

  “You were thinking about your sister,” Annwyl said and offered a faint smile when I turned on her, frowning.“I have been around a long time, Ethan Chase,” she said, and her voice wasn’t smug or proud or unkind; it was just a statement. “I may not be human, but I have observed them throughout the years. I have seen them born, and I have watched them live, and love, and die. It does not matter the age or the time or the season—human emotions have remained ever the same. And in the past, your particular glamour aura only shifts that way when you have spoken about the Iron Queen.” She blinked again, tilting her head, looking genuinely puzzled now. “You...miss her, then?”

  I wanted to snap that it was none of her business but caught myself. It wasn’t Annwyl’s fault that I was so transparent, though she had surprised me again with how insightful she really was. It was hard to see slight, beautiful Annwyl as some ancient, all-knowing sidhe, though with the fey, looks were forever deceiving. For all I knew, she could be as old as Titania.

  She was still watching me, her head cocked like she was trying to understand. “Don’t worry about it, Annwyl,” I said, not wanting to talk about Meghan, especially not with a faery. “We’re not here for me.”

  She nodded and let the subject drop, which surprised me a bit. Maybe I’d been around Kenzie too long; I was used to her not letting anything go. But we’d reached the center of a cluster of huge oak trees, swathes of Spanish moss dangling from the branches like lace, and I could suddenly feel eyes on me. A blanket of mist hung in the air and pooled between tree roots, and the air beneath the canopy was damp and still.

  Movement caught my attention. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a face, young and solemn
, watching me from the center of one of the gnarled trunks, but when I turned my head, it was gone.

  “Annwyl,” I whispered, knowing we were being watched from every angle. “Dryads are part of the Summer Court, right? How do you get them to talk to you?”

  Annwyl gave me a puzzled look, as if the question was ridiculous. “It isn’t difficult,” she replied, perfectly at ease in the center of the tree stand. “You just ask.”

  “Politely, if possible,” said a new voice, as a slender, bark-covered figure melted halfway out of the trunk, regarding me with dark, beady eyes. “We’re usually very reasonable, Ethan Chase.”

  “Oh, great,” I remarked as two more dryads slipped from the oaks to stare at me. They were very tall, their limbs long and graceful, with hair like the ribbons of Spanish moss hanging from the trees. “You already know who I am.”

  “The wind told us you were coming, mortal,” said the dryad who had first spoken. “Years ago, your sister came to the Elder Dryad for help. To rescue you and to save the Nevernever from the Iron King. We will do the same for any of her kin, and we will ask for no price in return.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. First time for everything, I guess. “That’s...good, then.”

  The dyrads continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “We have heard whispers of your plight against the Fading Ones,” the second dryad said. “Rumors circling the wind. Of you, and the Iron Prince, and the shadows creeping ever closer. The wind is full of dark tidings these days.”

  I gave a start at the mention of the Iron Prince, and Annwyl gasped.

  “Keirran?” I asked, stepping forward. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” The dryad shook her head, and a large green beetle buzzed out of her hair, landing on the trunk. “There have been...snatches of where he is, where he’s been,” the faery continued. “Brief glimpses. Then he is simply not there anymore. And not even the wind knows where he has gone.”