by Julie Kagawa
I felt Ironhorse’s indignant snort as we entered the tunnel, and I pressed closer to Puck as the shadows closed in on us like grasping fingers. Around us, the corridor pulsed with life, slithering, creaking, unfurling with faint hissing sounds. Whispers and strange voices drifted down the hallway, murmuring words I couldn’t quite understand. As we stepped in farther, the hole behind us shut with a quiet hiss, trapping us within the Briars.
“This way,” came Grimalkin’s disembodied voice up ahead. “Try to stay close.”
The bristly walls of the corridor seemed to press in on us. Puck didn’t release my hand, but we had to walk single file through the tunnel to avoid behind scratched. A couple times, I thought I saw a thorn or creeper actually move toward me, as if to prick my skin or catch my clothes. Once, I glanced back at Ironhorse to see how he was faring, but the thorns, much like the rest of the Nevernever, seemed loath to touch the great Iron fey, curling back from him as he passed.
The tunnel finally opened up into a small hollow with tunnels and paths twisting off in all directions. Overhead, the canopy of bramble shut out the light, so thick you couldn’t see the sky through the cracks. Bones lay here and there among the thorns, bleached white and gleaming in the darkness. A skull grinned at me from a tangle of brambles, empty eye sockets crawling with worms. I shuddered and turned my face into Puck’s shoulder.
“Where’s Grim?” I whispered.
“Here,” Grimalkin said, appearing out of nowhere. The cat leaped atop a large skull and regarded each of us in turn. “We are going deep into the Briars now,” he stated in a calm, very soft voice. “I would tell you what we might face, but perhaps it is better that I do not. Try to be silent. Do not separate. Do not go down another path. And stay away from any doors you come across. Many of the gates here are a one-way trip; go through one and you might not be able to go back. Are you ready?”
I raised my hand. “How do you know your way around this place, Grim?”
Grimalkin blinked. “I am a cat,” he said, and vanished down one of the tunnels.
WHEN I WAS TWELVE, my school took a field trip to a “haunted” corn maze on the outskirts of town, a week or so before Halloween. Sitting on the bus, listening to the boys brag about who would find his way out first, and the girls giggling in their own little groups, I made my own vow that I would do just as well. I remember walking down the rows of corn all by myself, feeling a thrill of both fear and excitement as I tried finding my way to the center and back again. And I remembered the sinking feeling in my gut when I knew I was lost, when I realized no one would help me, that I was alone.
This was ten thousand times worse.
The Briars were never still. They were always moving, slithering, reaching for you out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes, if you listened just right, you could almost hear them whisper your name. Deep within the tangled darkness, twigs snapped and branches rustled as things moved through the brambles. I never got a clear look, just glimpsed dark shapes shuffling away into the undergrowth. It creeped me out. Big-time.
The Briars went on, an endless maze of twisted thorns and gnarled branches, shifting, creaking and reaching out for us. As we ventured ever deeper, doors, frames and archways began appearing at odd intervals in completely random places. A faded red door hung perilously from an overhead branch, a tarnished 216 glimmering in the dim light. A filthy restroom stall, cracked and shedding green paint, stood near the edge of the path, so wrapped in thorns that it would be impossible to push the door open. Something lean and black slithered across our path and vanished through an open closet. As it creaked shut, I caught a glimpse of a child’s bedroom through the frame, and a crib outlined in moonlight, before thorny vines curled around the door and pulled it back into the Briars.
Grimalkin never hesitated, leading us on without a backward glance, passing gates and doors and strange, random things stuck in the tangled web of thorns. A mirror, a doll and an empty golf bag dangled from the branches as we walked by, as well as the countless bones and sometimes full skeletons that littered the trail. Strange creatures watched us from the shadows, mostly unseen, just their eyes glowing in the dark. Black birds with human faces perched in the branches, observing us silently as we passed, like waiting vultures. At one point, Grimalkin pulled us all into a side tunnel, hissing at us to be quiet and not move. Moments later, a massive spider, easily the size of a car, crawled over the brambles directly overhead, and I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood. Huge and shiny, with a splash of red across its bloated abdomen, it paused a moment, as if sensing warm blood and fluids were very close, waiting for the slightest tremor to betray its quarry.
We held our breath and pretended to be stone.
For several heart-pounding seconds, we crouched in the tunnel, feeling our muscles cramp and our hearts thud too loud in our chests. Above us, the spider sat perfectly still as well, patiently waiting for its prey to grow bored, to assume it was safe and make the first move that would be its last. Eventually, something rustled in the branches ahead, and it darted away, frighteningly quick for something that huge. The scream of some unfortunate creature pierced the air, and then silence.
For a few moments after the spider left, no one dared to move. Eventually, Grimalkin crept forward, poking his head out warily, scanning the thorns.
“Wait here,” he told us. “I will see if it is safe.” Slipping into the shadows like a ghost, he disappeared.
I sagged to my knees as the adrenaline wore off and my muscles started to shake, leaving me weak and nearly hyperventilating. I could handle goblins and bogeymen and evil, flesh-eating horses, but giant freaking spiders? That’s where I drew the line.
Puck knelt and put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, Princess?”
I nodded, ready to make some snarky comment about the pest problem around here. But then, one of the thorns moved.
Frowning, I bent closer, squinting my eyes. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the three-inch barb shivered and unfurled into a pair of pointed black wings, attached to a tiny faery with glittering eyes that glared with insectlike menace. Its spindly body was covered by a shiny black carapace. Spikes grew from its elbows and shoulders, and it clutched a thorn-tipped spear in one tiny claw. As we stared at each other, the faery curled its lip, revealing teeth as sharp as needles, and flew at my face.
I jerked back, swatting wildly, and hit Puck, causing us both to tumble back. The faery dodged my flailing hands, buzzing around us like an angry wasp. I saw it pause, hovering in the air like an evil hummingbird, then streak forward with a raspy cry.
A gout of flame seared the air in front of me. I felt the blast of heat on my face, bringing tears to my eyes, and the faery disappeared into the fire. Its tiny, charred body dropped like a stone to the earth, curling in on itself, the delicate black wings seared away. It gave an insectlike twitch, then was still.
Ironhorse tossed his head and snorted, looking pleased as smoke curled from his nostrils. Puck grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to help me up.
“You know, I’m really starting to hate the insect life around here,” he muttered. “Next time, remind me to bring a can of Off!”
“You didn’t have to kill it,” I told Ironhorse, dusting off my pants. “It was like three inches tall!”
“IT ATTACKED YOU.” Ironhorse sounded puzzled, cocking his head at me. “IT CLEARLY HAD AGGRESSIVE INTENT. MY MISSION IS TO PROTECT YOU UNTIL WE RETRIEVE THE SCEPTER. I WILL ALLOW NOTHING TO BRING YOU HARM. THAT IS MY SOLEMN VOW.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need a machine gun to kill a fly.”
“Human!” Grimalkin appeared, bounding up with his ears flattened to his head. “You are making too much noise. All of you are. We must leave this area, quickly.” He glanced about, and the fur on his back started to rise. “It might already be too late.”
“Ironhorse killed this teensy little faery—” I began, but Grimalkin hissed at me.
“Idiot human! Do you think that was the only one? Look
around you!”
I did, and my heart nearly stopped. The thorns around us were moving, hundreds upon hundreds of them, unfurling into tiny faeries with pointed, gnashing teeth. The air filled with the sound of buzzing, and thousands of tiny black eyes glimmered through the thorns.
“Oh, this isn’t good,” Puck murmured as the buzz grew louder, more frantic. “I really, really wish I had that Off!”
“Run!” spit Grimalkin, and we ran.
The faeries swarmed around us, the hum of their wings vibrating the air, their high-pitched voices shrieking in my ears. I felt the weight of their tiny bodies on my skin, an instant before the stings, and flailed wildly, trying to dislodge them. Puck snarled something unintelligible, swiping at them with his knives, and Ironhorse blasted flame from his mouth and nostrils, roaring. Charred, dismembered faeries dropped shrieking from the air, but dozens more buzzed in to take their place. Grimalkin, of course, had vanished. We charged blindly down a tunnel of thorns, through swarms of furious killer wasp-fey, with no clue of where we were going.
As I rounded a corner, a body appeared right in front of me. I had no time to react before I crashed into it, and we both went sprawling.
“Ow! What the hell!” someone yelped.
Swatting faeries, I looked into the face of a girl a year or two younger than me. She was tiny and Asian, with hair that looked as if she’d taken a machete to it, wearing a ratty sweater two sizes too big. For a second, my mind went blank with the shock at seeing another human, until I saw the furry ears peeking out of her hair.
We blinked at each other for a second, before the sting from a killer-wasp faerie snapped me out of my daze. Flailing, I scrambled to my feet as the swarm buzzed around the strange girl as well. She yelped and swatted wildly, backing away.
“What is this?” she hissed, as Puck came up behind me and Ironhorse charged in, blowing flame. “Who the hell are you people? Oh, never mind! Run!” She darted past us, looking back once to shout “Hurry up, Nelson!” over her shoulder. I barely had time to wonder who Nelson was when a kid built like a linebacker barreled through us, somehow dodging Puck and Ironhorse, and pounded after the girl. I caught a glimpse of gorillalike shoulders, muddy blond hair, and skin as green as swamp water. He clutched a backpack in his arms like a football and charged down the trail without a backward glance.
“Who were they?” I asked, over the buzzing of the swarm and my own frantic flailing.
“No time,” Puck said, slapping at a faery on his neck. “Ow! Dammit, we have to get out of here! Come on!”
We had started down the path again when a roar shook the air ahead of us, causing the swarm of killer fey to freeze in midair. It came again, guttural and savage, as something rattled the wall of thorns, coming toward us with the sound of snapping wood. I sensed hundreds of creatures in the brambles fleeing for their lives.
The faeries scattered. Buzzing in terror, they vanished into the hedge, through cracks and tiny spaces between the thorns. In seconds, the whole swarm had disappeared. I peered through the branches and saw something coming down the trail, ripping through the wall of thorns like it wasn’t there. Something black and scaly, and much, much bigger than the spider.
Is that what I think it is?
“Thiiiief!” roared a deep, inhuman voice, before a gout of flame burst through the hedge, setting an entire section on fire, making the air explode with heat. Ironhorse bugled, rearing up in alarm. Puck cursed, grabbed my arm, and yanked me back the way we came.
We fled down the trail after the strange girl and her muscle-necked companion, feeling the heat from the monster’s fire at our backs. “Thieves!” the terrible voice snarled, staying right on our heels. “I can smell you! I can feel your breath and hear your hearts. Give me back what is mine!”
“Great,” Puck panted, as Ironhorse cantered beside us, bellowing that he would shield me from the flames. “Just great. I hate spiders. I hate wasps. But, you know what I hate even more than that?”
The thing behind us roared, and another blast of flame seared the branches overhead. I winced as we ran beneath a rain of cinders and flaming twigs. “Dragons?” I gasped.
“Remind me to kill Grimalkin next time we see him.”
The trail narrowed, then shrank down to a tight, thorny tunnel that twisted off into the darkness. Bending down and peering into it, I could just make out a door at the end of the burrow. And, I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the door shut.
“I think I see a door!” I called, looking over my shoulder. Puck nodded impatiently.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Princess! Go!”
“What about Ironhorse?”
“He’ll have to squeeze!” Puck pushed me toward the mouth, but I resisted. “Come on, Princess. We don’t want to be in the middle of that if Deathbreath decides to sneeze on us.”
“We can’t leave him behind!”
“WORRY NOT, PRINCESS,” Ironhorse said, and I gaped at him, not believing my eyes. Where a horse had been, now a man stood before me, dark and massive, with a square jaw and fists the size of hams. He wore jeans and a black shirt that bulged with all the muscles underneath, the skin stretched tight over steely tendons. Dreadlocks spilled from his scalp like a mane, and his eyes still burned with that intense red glow. “YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH A FEW TRICKS UP YOUR SLEEVE, GOODFELLOW,” he said, a faint smirk beneath his voice. “NOW, GO. I WILL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”
With a horrible cracking sound, the dragon’s head rose above the briars on a long, snaking neck, looming to an impossible height. It was bigger than I’d imagined, a long toothy maw covered in black-green scales, ivory horns curling back from its skull to frame the sky. Alien, red-gold eyes scanned the ground impassively, gleaming with cunning and intelligence. “I see you, little thieves.”
Puck gave me a shove, and I tumbled into the burrow, scratching my hands and knees and jabbing myself on the thorns. Cursing, I looked up and saw two familiar golden eyes floating before me in the dark.
“Hurry, human,” Grimalkin hissed, and fled down the burrow.
The tunnel seemed to shrink the farther I went, scraping my back and catching my hair and clothes as I followed Grimalkin, bent over like a crab. I heard Puck and Ironhorse behind me, felt the glare of the dragon’s eye at my back, and cursed as my sleeve caught on a thorn. We were going too slow! The red door loomed at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of light and safety, so far away. But as I got closer, I saw Grimalkin standing in front of it, ears flattened against his skull, hissing and baring his teeth.
“Saint-John’s-wort,” he snarled, and I saw a cluster of dried yellow flowers hanging on the door like tiny sunbursts. “The fey cannot enter with that on the door. Take it down, quickly, human!”
“Burn, little thieves!”
Fire exploded down the tunnel, writhing and twisting in a maelstrom of heat and fury, shooting toward us. I ripped the flowers off the door and dove through, Puck and Ironhorse toppling in after me. Flames shot over my head, singeing my back as I lay gasping on a cold cement floor. Then, the door slammed shut, cutting off the fire, and we were plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Leanansidhe
For a few moments, I lay there on the concrete, my body curiously hot and cold at the same time. My neck, my shoulders, and the backs of my legs burned from the fire that had come way too close for comfort. But my cheek and stomach pressed into the cold cement, making me shiver. To either side of me, Puck and Ironhorse struggled to their feet with muffled curses and groans.
“Well, that was fun,” Puck muttered, helping me stand. “I swear, if I ever see those two kids again, we’re going to have a little chat. If you’re going to steal from a fifty-foot, fire-breathing lizard with the memory of an elephant, you’d better have a damn impressive riddle, or you wait until it isn’t home. And who the hell put Saint-John’s-wort over the door? I’m feeling very unwelcome right now.”
A flashlight clicked on in the shadows, blinding me.
Shielding my eyes, I counted three silhouettes at the end of the beam. Two I recognized; the tiny girl with furry ears and the green-skinned boy we’d met in the Briars. The last, the one holding the flashlight, was tall and skinny, with thick dark hair, a scraggly goatee, and two ridged horns curling up from his brow. He held a cross in the other hand, raised in front of his face like he was warding off a vampire.
Puck laughed. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but unless you’re a priest, that isn’t going to work. Neither is the salt you have poured across the floor. I’m not your average bogey.”
“Damn faeries,” spit goatee boy, looking pale. “How did you get in here? You’d better leave right now, if you know what’s good for you. She’ll tear your guts out and make harp strings with them.”
“Well, there’s a problem with that,” Puck continued with mock regret. “See, right outside that door is a very pissed off reptile who is eager to turn us into shish kebab, because you three were stupid enough to steal from a dragon.” He sighed and shook his head in a disappointed manner. “You know dragons never forget a thief, don’t you? So, what’d you take?”
“None of your business, faery,” goat boy shot back. “And maybe I wasn’t clear when I said you’re not welcome here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out three iron nails, holding them between white, shaking knuckles. “Maybe a faceful of iron will convince you otherwise.”
I stepped forward, shooting Puck a warning glare before he could rise to the challenge. “Take it easy,” I soothed, holding up my hands. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just trying to get through the Briars, that’s all.”
“Warren!” gasped the girl, staring at me wide-eyed. “It’s her!”
All eyes flashed to me.
“It is you,” Warren breathed. “You’re her, aren’t you? Oberon’s half-blood. The Summer princess.”
Ironhorse growled and pressed closer, causing the trio to shrink back. I put a hand on his chest. “How do you know me?”