by Julie Kagawa
“Payment?” Though I wasn’t really surprised, part of me winced, anyway.
The Tinkerer glanced my way with a raised eyebrow. “Well, of course, Goodfellow. You did not think you were going to get it for free, did you?”
“I was kind of hoping, yeah.”
“Last time the queen herself commissioned the amulet. You do not have that luxury. However...” The Tinkerer paused, then sighed. “There is something wrong within Faery,” he went on in a grave voice. “Not just in the Iron Realm, but the entire Nevernever itself. I cannot say what it is, but I sense a malignance in my clients, in the fey passing me on the streets. I hear whispers that chill me to my bones.” He shivered, then turned his loupe on me fully, peering at me with an enormous, magnified eye. “Something is coming, Goodfellow. Something that might threaten us all. And the Iron Queen will need allies in the coming days, those she can trust with her life. I want your promise that you will aid her however you can, that when the time comes, you will be at her side. That is my price for the amulet. Swear this to me, and the talisman is yours.”
“What?” I frowned, going over the deal in my head, word for word. It didn’t sound nefarious or raise the usual red flags, but... “That’s all? Help Meghan if she needs it? I mean, I was planning to do that, anyway. What’s the catch?”
“You are Robin Goodfellow,” the Tinkerer said. “The Puck. The infamous trickster, and one of the most well-known faeries in existence. You, the cait sith, and the Winter prince are the guardians, the trio of power that surrounds the Iron Queen. I do not want you to forget. I want your promise that if the Iron Queen ever needs you, or if she ever calls on you for aid, you will be there.”
“I’ve known Meghan a long time,” I said. “I was looking out for her before she ever became the Iron Queen. You don’t have to wrestle a promise out of me. I swear that if she’s in trouble and needs my help, for any reason, I’d show up in Mag Tuiredh, talisman or no.”
The old faery bobbed his head. “That will have to be sufficient.” He drew back, one long arm moving to the door behind the counter and pushing it open with a creak. A couple sparks zipped out with high-pitched buzzes, making me wince, but the Tinkerer ignored them. “Give me a few minutes,” the faery told us. “I have not crafted an amulet using a Token before. I will have to experiment with how to make this work. But it will be an enjoyable challenge, I am certain. I will call for you when it is ready.”
He slipped out of the room, and the door closed behind him with a creak, leaving Nyx and me alone except for a few sparks buzzing around near the ceiling.
I glanced at the Forgotten and winced at how pale she looked. “I say we wait outside.”
“I second that,” Nyx agreed, and we fled the room, back to the stone bench beneath the willow tree, away from the stink of metal and the corruption of the Iron faery’s domain.
I leaned back on the bench, breathing in the clean, untainted air. Nyx perched beside me, a bit of color returning to her cheeks now that we were in the open. “That was...an experience,” she mused, gazing down at her hands as if she expected her skin to be peeling off. “Is this tingling sensation normal?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” I shrugged. “That’s just the first physical sign of iron poisoning. The burning, sickness, and wanting to die comes later.”
“Oh good.” Nyx lowered her hands. “Something to look forward to.”
I chuckled. “Ah, it’s not so bad, really. Once you get past the sickness and the dying and the puking-your-guts-out part, some regions of the Iron Realm are actually quite nice. Mag Tuiredh is pretty impressive. And now that I can move through the realm freely, I get to really explore the place. Last time I was there, I stumbled onto this forest that had mirrors everywhere, growing right out of the ground or hanging from the trees, as far as the eye could see.” I snorted and wrinkled my nose. “Trust me, that was the most confusing place to get out of, and the locals were no help at all. You’d try to talk to one, and the second it noticed its reflection, it would forget all about you and preen.”
Nyx smiled, but the smile had a wistful edge to it. “Sounds like you’ve been a lot of places.”
“A few. I definitely have stories. What about you?” I asked, curious now. “With how long you’ve lived, I’m sure you’ve seen all the crazy the Nevernever has to offer.”
But the Forgotten shook her head. “I never left the wyldwood,” she said solemnly. “The Summer and Winter courts didn’t exist back then, and the mortal world was closer to Faery than it is today. There was no reason for me to venture beyond the Lady’s domain, and she didn’t like us to leave her unprotected, so I stayed.”
“What? You’ve never been out of the wyldwood?” The thought was mind-boggling. The wyldwood was huge, and you could certainly spend your whole life there without seeing it all, but who would want to? There were so many other places in the Nevernever, not to mention the human world, that begged you to visit and get into trouble. “Okay, we are going to fix that,” I told Nyx. “When this is over, I’m going to take you on a tour of the Nevernever. Keirran certainly doesn’t need you to hang around him twenty-four-seven. He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself. And after this many centuries, I say you’ve earned a vacation.”
A wry smile played over the Forgotten’s lips. “Just the two of us?”
I ignored the weird turning of my stomach and shrugged. “Well, I’d ask ice-boy to join us, but he’s so busy now, what with ruling the Iron Realm with Meghan. He rarely gets to go on adventures anymore. Pity, really. Those were the days.” For a second, I felt a twinge of nostalgia, regret, and the tiniest bit of resentment. Once upon a time, the Winter prince of the Unseelie Court and Robin Goodfellow were the dynamic duo of the Nevernever, seeking out adventure and getting into more trouble than we had a right to get out of alive. I’d even gone to the End of the World with him, helped him earn a soul so he could be with Meghan in the Iron Realm. Now, Ash had no time for anything but his queen. The queen he had stolen away from me.
Whoa, where’d that come from, Goodfellow? Obsessive much? It’s been years. We are way past that, remember?
Faeries don’t forget, a deeper, more malicious side of me whispered. Or forgive. Maybe we’re not.
I shuddered and pushed that voice away. “So, yeah.” I turned to Nyx. “Just the two of us. First up, we head to Arcadia. The politics are ugly, but if we stay away from the court and the queen, we should be fine. For some reason, Titania is always so cranky when I come home.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Nyx commented, still with that faint smile.
“It’s a mystery,” I agreed. “But this time of year, I think we should first pay a visit to the Orchard. Best apples in all the Nevernever, and I’m an expert on the subject. Totally worth the experience, if you don’t mind dodging a couple greedy giants that refuse to share. But if you go when the sun is directly overhead, they’re usually asleep...”
I trailed off. For just a moment, a flicker of alarm passed over Nyx’s face, making me stumble to a halt. “Or maybe not,” I said. “I guess not everyone likes apples. Or giants.”
“No, it’s not that.” The hint of alarm was replaced by confusion; her brows drew together, frustration coloring her voice. “Something you said,” she muttered, “something about that scene, it felt wrong. I didn’t want to be there. Not because of the giants or Titania or anything about the Seelie Court. But for just a moment, I felt deeply unsettled, and I don’t remember why.”
A buzzing sound interrupted us. I looked up and saw a trio of the Tinkerer’s killer bee piskies hovering a few feet away, their large black eyes and copper skin glittering in the moonlight as they stared at me.
Between them, something dangled from a silver chain, throwing off shimmers of light as it swayed and twisted in the air. Glamour pulsed from it, an aura of hazy color and emotion, throbbing like a real heartbeat.
“Huh, that was fast,” I commented. “You know, if you guys opened up a sandwich shop, you’d be the most popular place in the Nevernever.”
The piskies ignored me. Buzzing, they floated closer and dropped the amulet into Nyx’s hands, where it flickered like a lost firefly. Carefully, she rose and draped the amulet around her neck. It gleamed brightly against the darkness of her leather armor, a silver heart with a crescent moon-shaped hole in the center. Pretty fitting, I thought.
The third piskie zipped up, closer to my face than I was comfortable with, and thrust a folded bit of paper at me, shaking it rapidly. I snatched it from the air before I suffered a paper cut to my eyeballs and flipped it open.
It was, as far as I could tell, a receipt for services rendered, with a large Paid in Full message scrawled near the bottom in red ink. I didn’t know if I was supposed to keep it, or if it was simply a formality, but I crumpled it and stuck it in my hoodie pocket. I’d worry about what the Tinkerer had said, and what I’d promised him, later. For now, we had what we came for.
Finally.
“Well,” I said brightly, glancing at Nyx. “Now that that’s out of the way, and we don’t have to worry about your skin melting off in the Iron Realm, are you ready to meet the queen?”
Nyx smoothly tucked the pendant beneath her armor and drew her cloak around herself as she rose. A breeze tossed her hair, making it flutter in the wind, and the moon emerging from behind a cloud cast a hazy circle of light around her as she gazed at me with a smile. “I believe the correct expression for the times is yesterday.”
I chuckled, feeling that odd twisting sensation in my gut again. “You know, for someone as ancient as you are, you certainly don’t sound like any Wise Old One I ever met,” I said as we started walking toward the bridge once more. “Shouldn’t you have more thees and thous in your vocabulary?”
Nyx offered a smirk that was entirely too familiar and pulled up her hood. “I’m a fast learner.”
Part Two
THE SUMMER COURT
Several years ago
I was in the middle of an elaborate scheme involving Titania and a dozen porcupines when the summons came.
“Message from His Majesty, King Oberon,” a nervous-looking satyr announced, handing me a rolled-up scroll. “He requests that you meet him in the throne room as soon as you receive this. You are required to stop whatever prank, plan, or plot you are currently involved in and obey the summons now. Any delay will be punished, as will any retaliation against the messenger.”
The satyr stiffened as a porcupine shuffled forward, curiously sniffing his hooves. “His M-Majesty cordially awaits your response,” the satyr went on, backing away as the rest waddled toward him with jumbled squeaking sounds. “If you do not respond by the time the sun sets this evening, Lord Oberon will assume you have deliberately disobeyed him and will take appropriate actions. Have a pleasant day, Robin Goodfellow.”
The satyr fled, causing the porcupine horde to chirp disappointedly and return to chewing on twigs.
I let out a sigh, feeling both amused and annoyed with the Seelie King. We had done this dance many times before, and his summonses had gradually become more and more specific as I continuously found loopholes to avoid having to do whatever he commanded. I peeked at the scroll and found that it basically said the same thing, with even more specifics and threats of retribution if I did not answer.
With a snort, I crumpled the scroll into a ball and gave it to the nearest porcupine, who happily began nibbling it to nothing. If I thought about it, I could probably find a way to get around the summons, but truth be told, I was looking for a reason to leave the Summer Court for a while. Lately, tensions had been high, as rumors surrounding Oberon’s recent trip to the mortal world had swirled through the court, incensing Titania and causing her to be even more unbearable. I hadn’t seen the queen so worked up in a long time, not since the famous Nick Bottom incident, and several of the common fey had already suffered her wrath and infamous petty temper.
Naturally I, being the good little Summer Court jester, had been planning something special to take her mind off her husband’s actions and turn her ire directly on me. This wasn’t for Oberon’s benefit; Titania could do nothing to him, but if she had another target for her loathing (and boy, did she loathe me with the passion of a thousand suns), she wouldn’t be such a terror to the rest of the court. Including those unfortunate enough to serve her directly.
I also suspected the Seelie King knew I was about to do something. Being one of the Erlking’s favorite lackeys, I was somewhat shielded from the queen’s retribution, but constantly explaining that he would not exile me for yet another fiasco was probably becoming tiring. Though, if the rumors flying around the court were true, Oberon had brought this on himself. Titania was famous for being a jealous shrew, but Oberon wasn’t exactly pure like the new fallen snow, either. This time, her anger might be justified.
Fair enough; I would go see what the Summer King wanted. Maybe this assignment would take me out of Faery for a bit, into the mortal realm. It had been a while since I’d seen the real world; a trip to the Alps or to a sun-drenched island across the sea sounded enticing.
Oberon was in the throne room, sitting on one of the living thrones growing from the center of the grove. Unsurprisingly, the identical seat beside him was empty. The Summer Queen was not speaking to Oberon at the moment, and while some might think this would be a pleasant thing, faeries did not take well to being ignored. The Seelie King would tolerate his wife’s cold shoulder for a little while, but he was even worse than Titania when it came to his wife paying more attention to things other than him. Eventually, he would become offended and force a confrontation, and that would not end well for anyone.
And yeah, it was super hypocritical, but try explaining that to a faery lord. They didn’t do irony.
The Erlking sat rigidly on his throne, observing the court scattered before him. He looked tired, I thought, passing through a cluster of Summer gentry gossiping among themselves. They gave a start when they realized who it was, and I felt their suspicious gazes on my back as I continued across the grove. I ignored them; typical day in the Seelie Court, when Robin Goodfellow arrives, everyone gets nervous.
I reached the foot of the throne and paused, gazing up at the Summer King. I didn’t bow or kneel or do anything deferential, and he didn’t rebuke me for it. We knew each other too well for any of that.
“Goodfellow.” Oberon’s voice was impassive. “I see you’ve actually decided to heed my call for once. Has the court become boring?”
“Oh extremely,” I replied, grinning up at him. “In fact, I was just in the middle of making things a bit more exciting around here. Although, I don’t think a career in porcupine herding is in my future, sadly enough. So, if you’ve got something for me to do, my wandering king, I’d love to hear it.”
He winced before he could catch himself, which showed just how stressed he was feeling. Rising, he gazed past my head, at the rest of the court spread before him, and narrowed his eyes.
“Leave us,” he commanded, his voice booming above all other noise and conversations. Some of the nobles jumped, their expressions startled, and he swept a hand toward the exit. “Depart my presence, all of you,” he ordered. “I wish to speak to the court jester alone.”
They gave him, and me, knowing looks, but immediately turned and left the throne room, slipping out through the tunnel of briars that marked the entrance to the grove.
Oberon sat down again, rubbing his forehead as if he found all of us wearisome. “I have a task for you, Goodfellow,” he began, lowering his arm to stare me down with ancient green eyes. “It is one I would not ask anyone but you to undertake. Of all my subjects in Summer, you know the most about the mortal realm. You travel there more often than anyone in the Seelie Court.”
“Ooh, so I’m going to the human world, then.” I grinned,
rubbing my hands together. “Sounds like fun. So, is it to spy on a servant of Winter, remind a disobedient faery why he shouldn’t defy his king, or fetch something ancient and fun from one of those human collectors?”
“None of those,” said Oberon. “And I would not get too excited yet, Goodfellow. You see...” He paused, steepling his fingers under his pointed chin. “This task will require you not only to go to the mortal realm, but to live there.”
I blinked at him. “What?” I exclaimed. “Are you exiling me, then? I haven’t even done anything yet.”
“No.” Oberon shook his head. “This is not a punishment, Robin,” he assured me. “You are not being exiled or banished from Faery. But I do require you to go to the human world and not return to the Nevernever for...a while.”
“How long?”
“I do not know. Possibly years.” The Seelie King sighed, either oblivious or uncaring of my dismay. “I need you to find a particular mortal,” he went on. “A human child. If my enemies discover her, they will use her against me. You must go to the mortal realm, find this girl, and protect her from the danger around her. You must also keep her oblivious to the world of the fey—she must never learn of her heritage, and she must never cross the Veil into Faery. Do you understand?”
“Uggghhh,” I groaned. Suddenly everything made sense. So, the rumors surrounding the Seelie King’s trip to the mortal world were entirely true. “You want me to become a glorified babysitter for this human?” I asked, watching Oberon’s gaze narrow. “How long is she going to need someone watching over her?”
“Until I deem otherwise,” the Seelie King said in that final, uncompromising way of his. “At the very least, until I believe she is in no danger and is not a threat herself.”