by Julie Kagawa
“We’re going to see Titania,” Keirran answered. “We came to Arcadia to seek an audience with the Summer Queen, to request a favor. I would use the regular channels, but Oberon isn’t at court right now and...”
“And our lovely Summer monarch might deny you entrance to the court,” Puck finished, nodding thoughtfully. “So, you’re planning to sneak in, I take it. That’s why Furball is here.”
Grimalkin looked up from washing his paws on a nearby rock, where nothing had been a moment before. “Please. As if they could have found a way in themselves.”
Puck rolled his eyes, then turned a serious gaze on Keirran. “Why do you want to see Titania?” he asked, his tone suspicious beneath the cheerful demeanor. “No offense, princeling, but the only other person she dislikes more than you is...well, me. And maybe Mab. If you’re going to be requesting any kind of favor, it’s not going to go well for you.”
“I know,” Keirran replied.
“And you’d be putting the queen’s brother in danger,” Puck went on relentlessly. “Meghan’s not going to be happy if Scowly over there gets turned into a gerbil.”
“I’m right here,” I announced, tired of being ignored, “listening to everything you say. You can talk to me like I’m a real person, you know.”
Puck’s amused gaze flicked to me, though I still saw the shadow of concern in his eyes. “Why are you here, Ethan Chase?” he asked, his emerald stare suddenly piercing. “You should go home—there’s no need for you to be tromping all over the Nevernever with the princeling. I can take him to Arcadia from here.”
My skin prickled. That secret again. The one about me and Keirran. The reason Meghan had disappeared, cut herself off from our family and never told us she had a son. The vision of me dead on the ground, a horrified Keirran standing over my body, came back in a rush, and I shivered. Everyone in Faery had known, it seemed. Everyone...except Keirran and me.
Kenzie spoke up before I could answer, putting her hands on her hips and frowning up at the Summer prankster. “Why are you so eager to ship us home?” she demanded, and Puck’s eyebrows rose. “We’re fine. We’re here to help Keirran and we’re not going back until it’s finished. So everyone can stop telling us to stay out of it.”
Puck grinned at her. “Wow, don’t you remind me of someone I know,” he exclaimed, and Kenzie blinked. “Okay, fine. You’re not going back to the safe, boring mortal world where you belong. Point taken. That doesn’t really answer my question, princeling.” He eyed Keirran again. “Why are you trying to get an audience with the Harpy Queen? You might as well tear out your heart and offer it to her on a silver platter. With sprinkles.”
“It’s for Annwyl,” Keirran said firmly. “She’s Fading, and the only way to stop it is if she returns to the Summer Court. I want to ask Titania to raise her exile. It wasn’t fair, how she was banished. I just want to be able to send her home.”
“Ah.” Puck sighed, shaking his head. “I was afraid it was something like that. Well, then.” He straightened on the branch, briskly rubbing his hands together. “I guess I’ll just have to come with you.”
Startled, I gave him a wary look. “What? You’re not going to tell Ash or Meghan where we are?”
“What can I say?” Puck shrugged and walked along the branch, balanced perfectly on the slender limb. “I’m a sucker for forbidden love. Besides, you’ll need someone watching your back when you’re talking with our lovely Summer Queen. Spread the loathing around a little bit... Whoa.”
At that moment, the ground vibrated, making the limbs of the trees rustle and shake. Puck jerked, catching himself on the branch as a single apple fell from a cluster above him, bounced off his head and dropped with a thump to the grass.
“Uh-oh,” Razor commented, and Grimalkin vanished.
The ground shook again, this time accompanied by an angry rumble that seemed to echo through the orchard. Puck grimaced and raised his hands.
“Oh, come on! I wasn’t even trying this time.”
The rumble turned into a roar as a few yards away, one of the trees shook violently, shedding apples everywhere, then began to rise from the ground. Dirt and apples tumbled away as a huge gnarled face pushed itself up from the grass, glaring at us with glowing yellow eyes. With a creaking and groaning of massive limbs, the creature stood up, towering forty feet in the air: a tangled giant of roots, moss and tree branches, its arms dangling past its stumpy legs to brush the ground. The apple tree was perched on its head, still shedding fruit that bounced off its massive body, and it would’ve been comical if it wasn’t completely terrifying.
Puck groaned and leaped from the branch, pulling two daggers as he landed beside us. “You know, you guys have got to learn to share!” he called up to the monster looming over us. “I bet it would really cut down on those ugly stress wrinkles!”
The giant roared. Stepping forward, it smashed down with a huge, bristling fist, and we all dived aside. The limb struck the earth like a wrecking ball, sending dirt and apples flying and making the ground shake.
Scrambling for shelter, I pulled Kenzie around a tree and pressed back into the rough bark, panting. She squeezed close, hands clutched in my shirt, shaking. “What now?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” I drew one of my swords, though I wasn’t sure what I could do with it. Hack at the giant’s ankles, maybe? It would be like trying to cut down an oak with a pocketknife. If the oak was dancing around. And trying to step on you.
The giant rumbled and stepped closer. We sidled around the trunk, watching as the creature moved between the tree aisles, crouching and peering over the branches as it searched for us. At one point, it passed right by the trunk we were hiding behind, making the ground shake as it stepped close. Kenzie hid her face in my shirt, and I wrapped my arms around her, feeling her heart pound until the giant moved away.
“Ethan! Kenzie!”
Keirran’s hiss caught our attention. The prince crouched behind another tree, sword drawn, beckoning to us. With a quick glance at the giant to make sure its back was turned, we bolted from our hiding place, crossed the open aisle and dived behind the trunk with Keirran.
The giant spun, creaking and groaning, as if it sensed we were close. With heavy, laborious steps, it began trudging toward us.
“I hope you have a plan,” I growled at Keirran, feeling the earth tremble as the thing behind us got closer. “Right now, ‘run like hell’ is looking pretty appealing.”
Keirran nodded. “On my signal,” he said, his blue eyes hard as he watched the giant’s progress. “Puck will provide the distraction. When it comes, run as fast as you can and don’t look back. And let’s hope it hasn’t called its friend.”
“Oh, great. There are more of them.”
A massive foot smashed down a few yards from the trunk, and the tree rustled and hissed, dropping apples everywhere, as the giant parted the branches overhead and spotted us.
It roared in triumph. But at that moment, a screaming flock of ravens erupted from the branches, flying in the giant’s face. With a bellow, the monster lurched back, swatting at the birds, which swooped around him, pecking and cawing. Keirran leaped to his feet.
“Go!” he yelled, and we didn’t need encouragement. Bolting from our hiding place, we tore across the field, hearing the giant’s angry bellows grow fainter as we ran.
Of course, nothing was ever that easy.
About two hundred yards or so from the first giant, I was just thinking of slowing my all-out run to a jog, when we went up a little hill and the enormous bulk of a second giant rose up out of nowhere, howling as it saw us.
Dammit.
We changed direction and kept running, but instead of lashing out at us, the giant plunged its thorny claws into the ground as we passed. The ground shook, and gnarled roots erupted from the earth, curved and wickedly barbed like the giant’s fingers. They shot out of the grass in a shower of dirt, trapping Kenzie between them, a cage of spiky wood and thorns. She screamed as the
fingers began to close around her, like a fist crushing an egg.
“Kenzie!” I whirled, swords flashing, sinking one blade into the tough wood. The edge bit deep, but didn’t cut through, and I yanked it out to hack at it again. Kenzie had fallen to her knees as the roots closed around her, thorny talons stabbing in, ready to crush the life from her. I could barely see her through the cage of branches now, and desperation flared up to suffocate me.
“No!” I screamed, and at that moment, the claws stopped moving. They trembled, shaking and groaning, as if straining against a force that held them back. I didn’t pause to wonder about it. Raising my arm, I slashed down with all my strength, shearing through one of the talons, snapping it off. A few more hacks, and there was a space just large enough for Kenzie to squeeze through. I could see her, lying on the ground, curled up to escape the wicked points of death stabbing in from all sides.
“Kenzie,” I gasped, dropping to my knees and reaching an arm through the space. The cage shuddered, the talons moving a few inches, as if ready to crush the barrier holding it back. She crawled forward, wincing as the thorns snagged her hair and clothes, then reached out and grabbed my wrist.
I yanked her to me, through the space, as the cage gave a tremendous groan and curled in on itself, crushing anything that might’ve been inside. Gasping, we scrambled away from it as the fist sank into the earth again and disappeared, leaving a giant hole behind.
Keirran, standing a few yards away, collapsed to the ground.
Panting, we crawled over to him. He was still breathing, his chest rising and falling in shallow waves, and his blue eyes were closed. His skin was pale, his hair damp with sweat as if he’d run several miles. The color had faded out of him once more, the silver in his hair leached to white, an ominous gray pallor settling over the rest of him. Razor buzzed in alarm and bounced on his chest, tugging at his shirt.
“Master!” the gremlin howled, sounding distressed. “Master, wake up!”
“Keirran.” Shooing off the gremlin, Kenzie took his hand, and his eyes fluttered open. For a moment, the pupils were colorless, but he blinked, and they returned to their normal piercing blue once more.
“Kenzie, you’re all right.” Keirran’s voice was faint, but he offered a relieved smile, struggling into a sit. “Thank goodness. I tried to hold the roots back, but the giant was strong. I’m glad Ethan was able to get you out in time.”
“So that was you.” I remembered the way the fist had stopped moving, straining to close. It had been Keirran’s Summer glamour holding it back. “Dammit, Keirran. You can’t keep using glamour like that. You’re going to kill yourself.”
“Would you rather I’d let Kenzie be crushed to death?”
An angry roar jerked us upright. The giant had apparently opened his fist and found it empty, instead of the broken body it was expecting.
“Humans.” Grimalkin appeared in the long grass, tail lashing, glaring at us in exasperation. “Stop your infernal talking and run.”
A raven swooped overhead with an impatient caw, seeming to agree with the cat. Scrambling to our feet, we did.
Zigzagging between trees, we ran until we reached the other side of the field, marked by the inconspicuous wooden fence. With the giants still bellowing behind us, I flung myself over the railings, tumbling to the other side in the grass. Kenzie and Keirran were right behind me, and we staggered a safe distance away from the fence as the giants glowered menacingly from inside the field, before turning away and lumbering back over the hill.
I collapsed to the grass, panting, while Keirran stood with his hands on his knees, breathing hard, and Razor gibbered and bounced on his back, throwing insults at the retreating giants. Kenzie plopped down beside me, and I pulled her into my arms, listening to her heartbeat as our breath caught up to us. She leaned back against my chest, closing her eyes and wrapping one arm around my neck.
“I don’t think...I’ll look at apples the same way...ever again,” she panted.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be tired now.” Puck appeared from the long grass, shaking feathers from his hair. Tossing an apple in one hand, he crunched into it with a grin and winked at us. “The party’s just getting started.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BESEECHING THE SUMMER QUEEN
“Well, there’s the Summer Court,” Puck remarked sometime later, nodding to a gap between the trees. In the distance, rising above a ring of brambles and thorns, an enormous grassy hill could be seen through the trunks. A pair of figures on horses trotted out of the bramble wall, which parted for them like a huge, thorny gate, and cantered away into the forest. “Home sweet home,” Puck said.
“All the entrances will be well guarded,” Keirran said, narrowed blue eyes sweeping over the landscape and the huge mound in the center. “And Titania isn’t expecting me. Even if you’re with us, Puck, they’re not going to just let us walk into court.”
“Walk in?” Puck snorted, giving Keirran a smirk. “Please. What fun would that be?”
“This way.” Grimalkin sighed, turning deeper into the woods. “Follow me. I will get you into the Summer Court without the trouble we are certain to run into if you follow Goodfellow.”
“Trouble? Me?” Puck gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look as we started after the cat. “I’m hurt, Furball. It’s like you don’t trust me or something.”
“Imagine that,” I muttered, and Keirran choked back a laugh. Puck frowned at us both as we trailed Grimalkin deeper into the forest.
“Here,” Grimalkin said a few minutes later, stopping at the bottom of a hillock. I blinked and stared down where the cat was sitting. A tiny burrow, just big enough for a rabbit or fox—or cat—to squeeze through snaked into the darkness. “This will take you where you wish to go.”
Kenzie crouched down to peer into the narrow hole, then looked back at me. “Um...so we’re all going to turn into weasels to get through this, I guess?”
“I could turn you into a mouse if you want,” Puck offered. “Don’t really know when you’d turn back, but hey, it would be an experience, right? I’d watch out for Furball, though. He might think he’s smarter than anyone else, but like he says, he’s still a cat.”
“Do not be ridiculous, Goodfellow,” Grimalkin said with an offended air. “There is no question that I am smarter than all of you.” And he slipped into the dark hole without a backward glance or any hint of how we were supposed to fit down a freaking rabbit hole after him.
In desperation, I looked at Keirran, who gave me an encouraging smile. “It’s all right,” he reassured me, nodding to the hole. “Don’t think that you won’t fit. You will. It’s much bigger than it looks. Try it.”
Dubiously, I looked down at the hole. I would’ve said something about the impossibility of it all, but I reminded myself that we were in Faery, and nothing ever made sense here. Slowly, I bent down, peering cautiously into the darkness in case something with large teeth came lunging out at my face. Weirdly enough, the closer I got to the hole, the bigger it seemed. When I was just a foot or so away from the embankment, crouched all the way on my hands and knees, the burrow seemed just wide enough for my head to fit through. Trying not to think of how stupid I’d look if my head got stuck while my ass poked out the end, I inched forward and leaned into the opening.
My head did not get stuck. In fact, I discovered I could wiggle my shoulders through and slide all the way into the tunnel. Cold dirt pressed against my jeans, and feathery roots tickled the back of my neck as I crawled in farther. The tunnel stank of mud, leaves and some kind of potent animal musk, making me wrinkle my nose. I hoped we wouldn’t run into the owner of this burrow on our way to the Seelie Court. I didn’t think I’d have a great advantage waving my swords around in such a tight space. Hopefully, nothing would come up on us from behind, either, because there was no way I could turn around.
I could still hear Keirran and Kenzie at the mouth of the burrow, and glanced back to see that the hole looked the same size as it did befor
e, tiny and rabbit-size. Kenzie’s face abruptly peered through the opening, eyes wide, and I wondered if I had shrunk while trying to wiggle into the burrow. Or did the tunnel somehow conform to my presence, expanding to allow me to slip inside? Or was this all some kind of illusion?
Ugh, stop thinking about that, Ethan. Logic doesn’t apply here and you’re going to make your brain explode.
“Human.” Grimalkin’s disembodied voice drifted out of the dark. A pair of glowing yellow eyes floated ahead in the shadows, though I couldn’t see the rest of the cat. “Are you going to move, or are you going to sit there like a lump and block the opening of the tunnel?”
Oh, right. I crawled forward, giving Kenzie and Keirran room to slide in behind me. It was weird; I watched them both crawl into the tunnel, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell if they shrank or if the hole got bigger or if I was going completely batty or what. It just happened, and a few seconds later, they were behind me, Razor’s neon blue grin lightening the walls of the burrow.
“Funny!” He cackled, and I had to agree. Not the funny-ha-ha kind, though.
“Oof,” Puck muttered as he joined us, bringing up the rear. “Oh yeah, I forgot about this,” he mused, peering up the burrow. “Been a while since I’ve used this shortcut, though. Hey, Furball, where does this lead, again?”
The floating eyes ignored that question. “This way,” Grimalkin said and turned away, padding down the tunnel. “And do try to keep up.”
It wasn’t a straight shot, we discovered. Almost immediately, the tunnel branched out in several directions, twisting off into the unknown. I concentrated on the bobbing yellow eyes as we navigated this labyrinth on our hands and knees, feeling my skin crawl every time we passed another dark tunnel. Except for the blueish glow of Razor’s teeth, it was pitch-black down here, and the earthen walls seemed to press in on me the farther we went. I tried not to imagine the tunnel collapsing around us, or Grimalkin vanishing without a trace, leaving us behind in the dark. If there was ever a time to be thankful I wasn’t claustrophobic, this would be it.