The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey) (21 page)

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 before, 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.

Finally, after a much longer time than I thought it would take, I followed the eyes around a corner and found a door sitting at the end of the tunnel. Not a regular, full-size door; this one was short and square, looking like the entrance to a cupboard or cabinet. It was halfway open, and a sliver of yellow light peeked through the crack.

Crawling forward, I pushed it open and looked down.

Yep, I was in a cupboard, apparently. Right below me was a stone sink, and next to that, a long counter with piles of chopped vegetables and bloody bits of meat and bone. Were we in...a kitchen of some sort? The thought made me very nervous; of all the places to end up in the world of Faery, kitchens were not at the top of my list. All those stories about people getting stuffed into ovens or baked into pies? They didn’t happen in the living room.

“Are you ever going to come down?” Grimalkin wondered, now sitting across the room on top of a shelf. “Or are you going to sit there and gape until the cook opens the door and finds you?”

I carefully eased out of the cupboard, using the sink to balance myself until I could step down. Kenzie followed me and I helped her to the stone floor, where she looked around eagerly.

“Are we in a kitchen?” she asked, voicing my own question earlier. Looking up at the cabinet, where Keirran slid out and hopped gracefully to the floor, she frowned. “And...did we just crawl through a cupboard to get here? How...?”

“Don’t ask,” I said. “Trust me, it’s better if you don’t wonder about it.”

Puck joined us, dropping to the ground, dusting off his hands as he rose. Taking a swift glance at our surroundings, his eyebrows arched.

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh?” Keirran gave him a weary look as Razor buzzed with alarm. “We’re not going to like what you’re going to tell us next, are we?”

“Well...” Puck scratched the side of his neck. “I just remembered why I stopped using that shortcut—”

Footsteps echoed outside the hall. Loud, ponderous footsteps, made by something large and heavy. Atop the shelf, Grimalkin disappeared.

Puck grimaced. “Maybe you should hide now.”

We scrambled for a nearby closet, crowding in among brooms, mops and bags of potatoes. As Keirran pulled the door mostly shut, leaving a crack to peer through, a shadow darkened the door, and a massive green troll filled the frame. It—she?—wore a once-white apron, now stained with red, and carried a meat cleaver in one thick claw. A brown braid was tossed over a shoulder, and two long tusks curled up from her jaw as she stared at Puck, her lips curling back in revulsion.

“Robin Goodfellow?” the troll bellowed as Puck gave her a cheeky wave. “You are not supposed to be here—you were banned from this kitchen for life!”

“Aw, come on, Sarah,” Puck answered as the troll stalked into the room. “You’ve missed me. Admit it.”

“Out!” roared the troll, swinging her knife, which he instantly dodged. “Get out, you miserable thief! I’ll have no more pies stolen by the likes of you! Out, out!”

Laughing, Puck ducked, rolled and finally scrambled out the door, the troll stomping after him waving her meat cleaver. Keirran shook his head as Razor cackled with glee and bounced on his shoulder.

Grimalkin was waiting on the top shelf as we emerged from the closet, looking as though nothing had happened. “Are we quite finished?” he asked, as if a giant troll storming into the room and chasing after Puck was
our
fault, somehow. “Are you ready to go find the queen?”

“What about Puck?” Kenzie asked.

“I am sure Goodfellow will rejoin us when he is done playing with the cook,” the cat said, leaping to the floor. “Now, shall we move on before anything else can happen?”

* * *

Following Grimalkin, we left the kitchens, opened a large wooden door and found ourselves in a brambly tunnel. Once the door was shut and we were a good distance away, no longer able to hear the furious bellows still echoing through the branches, the cat paused and turned to face us.

“That is the way to the throne room, where Titania is holding court,” he said, nodding to where another bramble tunnel twisted off into the thorns. “I assume you can find your way from here, Prince?”

“Yes,” Keirran said as Razor hissed at the cat from beneath his hair. “I take it you’re not coming with us to see the queen?”

“I have no business with the court.” Grimalkin yawned. “I brought you into the Seelie Court, as I said I would, and though it would be amusing to see how you fare with the queen, I have other things to do. Fear not, humans.” He turned and trotted off, tail held up like a flag behind him. “I am certain we will meet again soon.”

Slipping beneath the thick hedge, he vanished.

The walk to the end of the tunnel wasn’t far. Several dozen steps down the brambly corridor, around a bend, and then it opened into a large clearing, thorny walls still surrounding it on every side.

A pair of thrones sat in the center of the glade, shafts of sunlight streaming down on them from above. They seemed to have grown right out of the forest floor, as they were covered in vines and blooming flowers, with birds perched on the arms and back and insects floating around them. The throne on the left was empty and probably Oberon’s, the absent Summer King. But sitting in the chair on the right...

“Oh boy,” Keirran whispered, and Razor hid beneath his hair.

Titania, Queen of the Summer Court, lounged on her throne like a lazy cat, a tiny, amused smile on her full lips as she observed her subjects. She was tall and slender with golden hair cascading down her shoulders, her face that of a goddess, perfect and frightening. I was beginning to reach a point where the inhuman beauty of the gentry didn’t affect me as much anymore, but still, the Seelie Queen took my breath away.

I swallowed and reminded myself that this was the second-most powerful faery in the Summer Court, that one wrong move or word on our part could get us turned into rabbits or harts or mice, or whatever struck the faery queen’s fancy. And judging by the pack of whip-thin moss-green hounds roaming about the clearing, being turned into any sort of small animal would end very badly for us.

“Razor, wait here,” Keirran said, putting the gremlin on a branch. Razor buzzed and shook his head in protest, and Keirran frowned. “Titania hates Iron fey. I can’t have you with me when I’m bargaining with her. It will be too much of a distraction.”

“No!” Razor buzzed, looking desperate. “No leave Razor! No!”

“Here, Razor,” Kenzie said and held out her arm. “You can stay with me if you’re quiet. I won’t be talking to the queen, either.” She shot me a quick glance, letting me know she hadn’t forgotten her promise. “We’ll be quiet together.”

The gremlin let out a happy cackle and leaped to her shoulder. She shushed him, and he bobbed his head earnestly. Burrowing into her hair, the spindly fey vanished except for his glowing green eyes, peering out from behind the dark curtain.

“Kenzie,” Keirran murmured as the gremlin muttered nonsense beneath Kenzie’s hair, “I’m grateful for your support, but you don’t have to do this. You can still leave, or wait here while I talk with the queen. You and Ethan both.”

“Oh, shut up,” I whispered back and took a determined step toward the throne. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Fey stared at us as we crossed the clearing, Summer gentry in ridiculous finery that defied the laws of nature. Cloaks of leaves, gowns of petals still in bloom, a cape made of thousands of butterflies, gently fanning their wings in the sun. The gentry eyed us with cold amusement, curiosity and alarm, especially as their gazes fell on Keirran and they realized exactly who had crashed their little party. Whispers and muttering trailed us through the meadow. The lyrical music ground to an inelegant halt, and someone in the crowd gasped.

Keirran kept walking, not looking at any of the Summer fey as we strode forward, his gaze only for the queen. On her throne, Titania straightened, her crystal-blue eyes narrowing to dangerous slits as they fell on us.

“Prince Keirran,” Titania said as we reached the foot of the throne. Keirran bowed, and Kenzie and I followed his example, though the queen barely flicked a glance at us. The Summer Queen’s voice, though as smooth as honey over velvet, was not pleasant. “I don’t recall giving you permission to be in Arcadia.”