by Julie Kagawa
“Oh, and the fuzzy coward returns. Fabulous.” I rolled my eyes. “At least we know that monster isn’t coming back.”
The cait sith made a point of yawning, seemingly unfazed by my hostility. “The creature is not coming back,” he agreed, “because it has achieved its goal. I would be worrying about the repercussions of that, were I you.” He gave me a stare of bored disdain that only a cat could accomplish, then twitched his tail. “You do not even know what I speak of, do you? The reason why the creature came here, to Phaed specifically?”
“No, but I can’t wait for you to impart your wisdom upon us poor unknowing slobs.”
“Phaed exists in the Between,” Grimalkin went on, unruffled by my sarcasm, “but from time to time, its edges also touch the borders of the Nevernever. That is how you and the Winter prince were able to find it the first time you came here.”
“Uh, you were there, too, Furball. Don’t forget that part.”
“I never forget, Goodfellow.” He tilted his head, regarding me with superior cat eyes. “But you continue to miss the point. If you were able to travel into Phaed through the wyldwood, then it stands to reason that the opposite is also true.”
“Which means...” Keirran jerked up with a gasp. “That thing is loose in the Nevernever,” he said darkly. “That’s probably the entire reason it was here, in Phaed. Once it crossed the river, it reached the wyldwood, and from there it could go anywhere it wanted.”
“Indeed,” Grimalkin said. “At least one of you is aware of the situation.”
Nyx, who had been watching the conversation in silence, turned her attention to Keirran. “What do we do now, Your Majesty?”
Keirran raked a hand through his hair. “I think we need help,” he said reluctantly. “Whatever this monster is, it’s too powerful to take on by ourselves. The rulers of the other courts have to know about this new threat. If it can change someone like Puck just by touching him...” His worried gaze went to me, and I smirked in reply.
“Don’t worry about me, princeling. This isn’t the first time I’ve been slapped with a curse. You think this is bad?” I made a dismissive gesture. “Try having carrots for fingers. Bunnies become the most terrifying things in the world.”
“The other courts must be warned,” Grimalkin agreed, ignoring me. “The rulers of Summer, Winter, and Iron are perhaps the only ones with the power to defeat this creature, as your glamour seemed to have little effect. I will go to Arcadia and warn Oberon. The Seelie King will listen to me, as he seems to be rather annoyed with you right now, Goodfellow. It appears Titania is pressuring him to exile you from the Nevernever again, and if you show up looking like that, you will remind him of everything you have ever done as Robin Goodfellow. I would avoid them both, were I you.”
I shrugged. “Don’t need to tell me twice, Furball. I was planning to do that, anyway. I guess I could sneak into Winter and try to warn Mab. That’s always a fun time.”
“No,” Keirran said. “I need you and Nyx to go to Mag Tuiredh and warn the Iron Queen. I’m still banished from the Nevernever,” the Forgotten King went on at my surprised look. “I can’t go into Faery myself, but my parents need to know what’s happening. Go to the Iron Realm. Find the queen and tell her what you saw here. She’ll know what to do, or at least, she has more resources to deal with this threat. But she needs to be made aware of it first.”
Nyx’s golden eyes narrowed. “I am your hidden blade,” she told the Forgotten King in a quiet voice. “I am sworn to protect you, as I did the Lady long ago.”
“I’m perfectly fine in the Between, Nyx,” Keirran answered. “You won’t help anyone by staying here with me. Go with Puck. Watch his back. If that monster attacks again, one of you needs to make it to the Iron Realm.”
The Forgotten thinned her lips, obviously not relishing the idea of leaving Keirran alone. Or traveling with me. But she gave a stiff nod and a bow. “As you say, my king. It will be done.”
“Uh, that’s great and all,” I broke in. “But there is one teensy problem.”
Reaching into my shirt, I pulled out an amulet on a silver chain, holding it up for all to see. It was a stylized metal raven, wings spread in flight, its eyes tiny green gems that glinted as the bird spun on its chain. “She doesn’t have one of these,” I announced, as Nyx flinched back from the pendant like it was a poisonous snake. “And without one, it’s going to be a very short, unpleasant trip that will probably end with someone’s face melting off.”
“That talisman...” The Forgotten’s voice was caught between horror and wonder as she stared at it. “It’s made of iron. How is it not burning you?”
“It is a protection amulet.” This from Grimalkin, sounding bored even as his gaze followed the pendant as it swayed back and forth. “The Iron Queen desired a way for traditional faeries to be able to survive the Iron Realm without harm. There was already a technique in place to craft such amulets, but that method was deemed undesirable.”
“Because for it to work, you had to kill an Iron faery and seal their essence within the amulet,” Keirran broke in, sounding angry. “That technique has been forbidden for years. I’m told Mab slaughtered dozens of gremlins to make the first protection talismans. Obviously, that didn’t sit well with the rulers of the Iron Realm. So, the queen had her smiths and inventors figure out another way, one that didn’t involve killing.”
“Yep, and guess who was the first faery to get their hands on one.” I grinned and tucked the pendant back into my shirt. “But these babies are rarer than hens’ teeth. You can’t just order them off Amazon. If you’re going to be traveling through the Iron Realm, you’re going to need your own shiny to survive. Lucky for you...” I grinned as Nyx’s face darkened “...I happen to know where to get one.”
The Forgotten regarded me for a moment, gold eyes assessing. “And what is the price for such knowledge, Goodfellow?” she asked. “What would you have me do?”
Typical faery response; nothing was free, and everything came with a price. I was about to shock her entire world. “Nothing.”
Her brows arched, but she did a fair job of hiding her amazement. “Nothing?”
“Nothing, tra-la-la.” I smirked at the impatient glare Keirran was shooting me. He wanted us to get moving, but first I had to convince this deadly, beautiful killer I wasn’t pulling her chain. “I’m not like Furball,” I told the Forgotten. “I’ve made enough deals and bargains to last me several lifetimes, and the novelty has sort of faded. I figure I could make you sing and dance and jump through hoops, but that would take forever, and we don’t have a lot of time. So, here’s the deal—I get you one of these babies...” I hooked the chain under my shirt “...and you help us send that monster back to whatever hole it crawled out of. Deal?”
Which she was already going to do, so it wasn’t much of a bargain. But it did make her nod in agreement. “Yes. Agreed.”
Keirran nodded as well. “I’ll return to Touchstone and rally the Forgotten,” he said, referring to his own capital in the Between. His gaze flickered to me. “Maybe one of them will know what this creature actually is, and how to reverse whatever happened to you.”
“Doubtful.” I shrugged. “If Furball doesn’t even know what we’re dealing with, none of the courts will, either. But I do agree with one thing—that monster needs to die. No one makes me shaggy and horny without my permission.”
7
IN THE HEALER’S HOUSE
Well, today sucked on all kinds of levels.
“Goblins,” Nyx muttered as we peeked around a tree, watching the not-tiny group of green, bat-eared fey squabble and laugh around a campfire. “I guess some things never change. If it is all the same to you, I’d rather avoid them.”
“What? And miss out on their lovely welcoming tactics, like biting off your kneecaps and trying to shove a spear up your ass? No trip through the wyldwood is complete without it
.” I made a grand gesture toward the goblins, being sure to keep out of their line of sight. “And hey, if we hang around long enough, they might start singing about dismembered babies—that’s always an experience.”
“I’ve heard it.” Nyx wrinkled her nose. “It’s comforting to know some things never change.” She turned away, but not fast enough to hide a grimace of pain. “But I’m not feeling up to taking on a whole tribe of goblins at the moment, so I suggest we go around if we can.”
“Yeah.” Truthfully, I wasn’t feeling the greatest, either. My everything ached, and the spot where those tentacles had stabbed me burned with an icy cold that still hadn’t faded. I felt like a used punching bag, and was grimly aware that, if the thing hadn’t left on its own, we might all be dead. Add the sudden acquisition of hooves and goat horns to the mix, and I was feeling...very not right. Tainted would be a good word for it. Pissed off and vengeful would be a few more. Normally, I didn’t hold grudges, but if that thing wanted to bring out the old Robin Goodfellow, then so be it. It was going to see exactly what that meant.
And who knew? Maybe if I focused all my thoughts on anger, revenge, and bringing the monster down, I could forget that, for the first time in centuries, something had scared the crap out of me.
Sneaking past the goblins was easy; most of them were drunk, the others were too busy fighting among themselves to notice anything. Nyx moved like a shadow, blending so seamlessly into the background that I felt I would lose her if I blinked. Once we were past the goblins, I took the lead and turned us in the direction of Mag Tuiredh.
The Iron Court. At the end of this road were the rulers of Iron: the former Winter prince and the extremely powerful Iron Queen. Well, to everyone else, anyway. To me, they were my good friends Meghan Chase and Ash-also-known-as-ice-boy. Hopefully they weren’t in the middle of a crisis with Summer or Winter and could be convinced to leave their kingdom long enough to help track down a terrifying abomination that didn’t seem phased by glamour or stab wounds or anything, really.
But it didn’t matter if the monster was invincible. I didn’t care how strong or special or unstoppable something was; when the three of us were together, we could take down anything.
“The wyldwood hasn’t changed much, at least,” Nyx mused, her voice barely a murmur in the eternal twilight. Around us, the tangle of trees and branches were decked out in shades of gray, except for a few shocking bursts of color among the gloom. Neon blue flowers and poison green toadstools glowed against the otherwise colorless landscape. “Though it does seem a little less dangerous than I remember.”
“How is that possible?” I wondered.
The massive forest sprawled between the courts of Faery, and there were a few things to remember about it. One: it was alive. Literally. Though not exactly sentient, like a dragon sitting in a lair scheming against you, the wyldwood had its own quirks, foibles, and personality. Take your eyes off the path for a second, and it could disappear. That nice dry cave you found earlier in the day? Probably gone when you returned. Or if it wasn’t, you shouldn’t count on it being empty. In fact, best to avoid poking your head into strange caves in the wyldwood in the first place if you didn’t want it bitten off. What did you expect? It was part of Faery, after all.
Luckily, I’d been around almost as long as the wyldwood, so we were very well acquainted. I knew all of its tricks, which berries to avoid eating (all of them), which ponds to give a wide berth, what seemingly peaceful meadows would sprout flesh-eating butterflies that tried to eat your face off. After so many years of playing, hunting, and tramping through and beneath the tangled canopy, there was nothing about the wyldwood that could surprise me.
Or so I thought.
Nyx gave me a sidelong glance, then turned her gaze to the forest around us. “It feels...tamer,” she mused. “Not quite as malicious as before. Venturing into the wyldwood used to mean faeries just vanished sometimes. Without a trace.” Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “That doesn’t happen anymore, I suppose.”
“Only if someone is being careless and not paying attention,” I scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s still plenty dangerous out here if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fortunately, I’m an expert.”
Nyx raised a skeptical eyebrow and seemed about to say something, but clenched her jaw instead, sinking to a knee in the grass.
Alarm made my stomach jump. “Hey, you okay?”
“I’ll live.” Her words were tight, but she raised her head, schooling her expression into a blank mask. “It’s just a scratch. I’ve suffered worse.”
Abruptly, I remembered the monster’s claws smacking her from the air, the sick feeling in my gut when she crashed into a tree. We hadn’t had time to bind wounds and properly heal before plunging headlong into Faery; she might be bleeding out beneath that cloak, and I wouldn’t know until it was too late.
“Here,” I said, taking a step toward her and earning a wary look. “Let me see.” Her eyes narrowed, and I smirked. “I don’t bite. Hard.”
She glared a moment more, then sighed and turned her head away. I took that as agreement not to stab me and knelt beside her, carefully brushing the cloak aside to see how badly she was wounded.
My stomach dropped. Beneath the cloth, her black armor conformed snugly to her body, but three long, nasty-looking gouges had torn their way across her ribs, ripping through the material like it wasn’t there. The dark armor hid it well, but the area around the wounds was slick with blood.
I blew out a breath and looked at Nyx, who continued to stare into the distance, giving no indication that there were four giant holes in her body. “Okay, clearly we need to define ‘just a scratch,’” I said in disbelief. “Backing a car into a mailbox? Just a scratch. Angry kitten, just a scratch.” My voice shook. I didn’t know why I was suddenly angry. “This is not ‘just a scratch,’ Miss Stoic Assassin. We need to take care of this now.”
“No.” Nyx stubbornly shook her head, attempting to pull away from me. “There’s no time,” she argued. “We have to get to the Iron Queen as soon as we can. That monster could be anywhere now.”
I grabbed her arm. “And if we trip over it in this condition, it’s going to stomp us into pudding for sure,” I countered. “Not to mention, you’re bleeding. In the wyldwood. And it’s almost night.”
She winced. Tramping through the wyldwood while wounded, announcing that you were easy prey to anything that wanted a quick snack, was a bad idea. Pushing on through the night, when all the really nasty things came out, was a surefire way to get yourself eaten or dead.
“Look, we’re in pretty bad shape,” I admitted with a shrug. “I have bruises on top of bruises in places I didn’t know could bruise. Trust me, I’m all for finding and kicking this thing back to the hole it crawled out of, but if it came at us right now, I don’t think I could stop it. At the moment, I’m not sure I could stop an irritated piskie.”
That earned the hint of a smile from Nyx, which somehow made things a bit better.
“So yeah, we want to reach the Iron Queen as soon as we can, but we have to get to Mag Tuiredh first. Preferably alive. We’re not helping anyone if we get ourselves torn apart by a Grendel in the middle of the wyldwood.”
“What do you propose we do?”
I gazed around to get my bearings, then nodded. “There’s a healer not far from here.” I gestured through the trees in the general direction of the Summer Court. “She owes me a favor. Or, do I owe her a favor? One of those is true. Maybe they both are. Anyway, if we go now, we can get there before nightfall. Her bedside manner is awful, but her potions work miracles. With any luck, we’ll be on the road to Mag Tuiredh before dawn.”
Nyx sighed. “I suppose it would be reckless to continue like this,” she muttered, gingerly touching the wound beneath her cloak. The barest flicker of pain went through her eyes, almost too fast to be seen. “And the king is countin
g on us. I can’t fail.” She gave a decisive nod and glanced up at me, her expression resolved. “All right then, Goodfellow, I’ll trust you for now. Where is this healer of yours?”
I held out a hand. After a moment, she took it and let me gently draw her upright. I gazed down at her, smiling faintly, and she stared right back, unafraid of me, my name, or my reputation. I could see my reflection in her gaze, the horns jutting out of my hair, the slightly feral look that seemed normal for me now, but Nyx’s expression didn’t falter. My heartbeat picked up, and my mouth went dry as this deadly, confident, beautiful assassin held my gaze without fear.
Clearing my throat, I turned away, breaking eye contact. “Come on,” I said, feeling her gaze on me as I stepped back. If she noticed the flush on my face, I hoped she wouldn’t mention it. “As the great and impatient Furball would say, we’re not getting anywhere standing around. And if we wake the healer up, we’ll certainly be in for an earful.”
* * *
“Do you have any idea what time of night it is?”
I put on my most contrite, charming smile as the wrinkled face of a gnome glared at me through the crack in the cottage door. Beady eyes flashed behind her gold spectacles, and the white bun atop her head bounced indignantly as she shook her head. “No, Robin!” she snapped. “Not this time. You cannot simply show up in the middle of the night needing aid from one of your fool pranks and expect me to drop everything to heal you.”
“Aw, Miss Stacey, that’s what you said last time. You know you don’t mean it. I’m your favorite customer.”
“Out!” the gnome demanded, trying to shove the door shut again, though I had my fingers jammed into the space. “Unless you are on Death’s doorstep, which I can see you are clearly not, I am not getting involved in whatever scrape you have gotten yourself into now.”
The door pinched my fingers, sending a brief but sharp pain through my hand, and deep inside, something flared. Something...not nice. “Really?” I sneered. “Is that what you believe?” Crouching down to the gnome’s level, I brought my face to the crack and bared my teeth in a vicious smile. “Take a good look now and tell me what you think.”