The Iron Legends: Winter's Passage\Summer's Crossing\Iron's Prophecy (2 page)

“It wasn’t like this before,” Ash murmured behind me. I gazed
at the dying tree and felt an incomprehensible sadness, as if I were seeing an
old friend about to die. Shaking it off, I looked around for a doorway or gate,
but the tree was the only thing here.

“Will it still work?” I wondered as he urged the horse into the
clearing, toward the ancient tree. “The trod, I mean. Will it open?”

“We’ll see.” Ash dismounted and led the horse up to the trunk.
When it stopped, I slid out of the saddle and joined him.

“So, how does the trod work?” I asked, peering at the trunk for
a door of some kind. Doors in trees were not unusual in the Nevernever. In fact,
during my first time to Faeryland, I’d spent the night in a wood sprite’s tree,
somehow shrinking down to the size of a bug to fit through his door. “I don’t
see a gate. How do you get it to open?”

“Easy,” Ash replied. “We just ask.”

Ignoring my scowl, he faced the trunk and put a hand on the
rough bark. “This is Ash,” he said clearly, “third son of the Unseelie Court,
requesting passage to the mortal realm and the clearing of the Elder.”

“Please,” I added.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a loud groaning and
creaking, one of the massive roots snaked out of the ground, shedding dirt and
twigs. Rising into the air, it formed an archway between itself and the ground,
and the space between shimmered with magic.

“There’s your trod,” Ash murmured, as my heart beat faster in
my chest. Puck was through that gateway. If he was still alive.

Clutching Ash’s hand, almost pulling him along in my
impatience, I ducked through the arch.

I tripped over a root on the other side and stumbled forward,
barely catching myself. Straightening, I gazed around the moonlit grove of New
Orleans City Park, recognizing the huge mossy oaks from our last visit. The air
was humid, warm and peaceful. Crickets buzzed, leaves rustled and moonlight
shimmered off the nearby lake. Nothing had changed. It had been this peaceful
the last time we were here, though my world had been falling apart.

Ash touched my arm and nodded at a tree, where a willowy girl
with moss-green skin watched us from the shadow of an oak, her dark eyes wide
and startled.

“Meghan Chase?” The dryad swayed toward us, moving like a
wind-blown branch. “What are you doing here?” I blinked at the fear in her
voice. “You must not stay!” she hissed as she drew close. “It is not safe. There
is something dangerous following you.”

“We know,” Ash said beside me, calm and unflustered as always.
The dryad blinked and shifted her gaze to him. “But we came through the Elder
gate, so hopefully she won’t let whatever is hunting us into this world.”

Elder gate? I glanced behind me, and my stomach twisted so hard
I felt nauseous.

It was the Elder Dryad’s tree, the great oak that once stood
tall and proud, looming over the others. Now, like its twin in the clearing, it
was dying. Its branches were bare of leaves, the shaggy moss that covered it
brown and dead.

A lump rose to my throat. I remembered the Elder Dryad from our
first visit here: an old, grandmotherly fey with a soft voice and kind eyes who
had given the very heart of her tree to make sure I could rescue my brother. And
kill the faery who’d kidnapped him. The Elder had known she would die if she
helped me. But she gave us the weapon we needed to take down the enemy fey and
get Ethan back.

The dryad girl stepped beside me, gazing at the dying oak. “She
lives still,” she murmured, her voice like the whisper of leaves. “Dying, yes.
Too weak to leave her tree, she sleeps now, dreaming of her youth. But not gone,
not yet. It will take a long time for her to fade completely.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“No, Meghan Chase.” The dryad shook her head with a faint
rustling sound, and a shiny beetle crawled across her face to burrow into her
hair. “She knew. She knew all along what was going to happen. The wind tells us
these things. Just as it tells us you are in terrible danger now.” She suddenly
fixed me with piercing black eyes. “You should not be here,” she said firmly.
“It is very close. Why have you come?”

My skin prickled, but I shook off the feeling of trepidation
and held her gaze. “I’m here for Puck. I need to see him.”

The dryad’s expression softened. “Ah. Yes, of course. I will
take you to him, but I fear you will be disappointed.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I felt cold, even in the warm summer
night. “I just want to see him.”

The dryad nodded and shuffled back, swaying in the breeze.
“This way.”

Chapter Two

THE HEART OF THE OAK

Puck, or the infamous Robin Goodfellow, as he was known
in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
had another name,
once. A human name, belonging to a lanky, red-haired boy, who had been the
neighbor of a shy farm girl in the Louisiana bayou. Robbie Goodfell, as he
called himself back then, had been my classmate, confidant and best friend.
Always looking out for me, like an older brother. Goofy, sarcastic and somewhat
overprotective, Robbie was…different. When he wasn’t around, people barely
remembered him, who he was, what he looked like. It was like he simply faded
from their memories, despite the fact that whenever anything went wrong in
school—mice in desks, superglue on chairs, an alligator in the bathrooms one
day—Robbie was somehow involved. No one ever suspected him, but I always
knew.

Still, it came as a shock when I discovered who he really was:
King Oberon’s servant, charged with keeping an eye on me in the mortal world. To
keep me safe from those who would harm a half-human daughter of Oberon. But
also, to keep me blind to the world of Faery, ignorant and unaware of my true
nature, and all the danger that came with it.

When Ethan was kidnapped and taken into the Nevernever,
Robbie’s plans to keep me blind and ignorant unraveled. Defying Oberon’s direct
orders, he agreed to help me rescue my brother, but his loyalty came at a huge
cost. During a battle with an Iron faery, a brand-new species of fey born from
technology and progress, he was shot and very nearly killed. Ash and I brought
him here, to City Park, and the dryads took him into one of their trees to sleep
and heal from his wounds. Suspended in stasis, the dryads kept him alive, but
they didn’t know when he would wake up. If he woke up at all. We had to leave
him behind when we left to rescue Ethan, and the guilt of that decision had
haunted me ever since.

I pressed my palm against the mossy trunk, wondering if I could
feel his heartbeat within the tree, a vibration, a sigh. Something,
anything,
that told me he was still there. But I felt
nothing except sap, moss and the rough edges of the bark. Puck, if he still
lived, was far from my reach.

“Are you sure he’s in there?” I asked the dryad, not taking my
eyes from the trunk. I didn’t know what to expect: his head to pop out of the
wood and grin at me, perhaps? But I felt that if I took my eyes away for a
second, I would miss something.

The dryad girl nodded. “Yes. He lives still. Nothing has
changed. Robin Goodfellow sleeps his dreamless slumber, waiting for the day he
will rejoin the world.”

“When will that be?” I asked, running my fingers down the
trunk.

“We do not know. Perhaps days. Perhaps centuries. Perhaps he
does not want to wake up.” The dryad placed her hand on the trunk and closed her
eyes. “He is resting comfortably, in no pain. There is nothing you can do for
him but wait, and be patient.”

Unsatisfied with her answer, I pressed my palm against the tree
and closed my eyes. Summer glamour swirled around me, the magic of my father,
Oberon, and the Summer court, the glamour of heat and earth and living things. I
prodded the tree gently, feeling the sun-warmed leaves and the life running
through their emerald veins. I felt thousands of tiny insects swarming over and
burrowing into the trunk, the rapid heartbeat of birds, dreaming in the
branches.

I pressed deeper, past the surface, past the softer,
still-growing wood, deep into the heart of the tree.

And there he was. I couldn’t physically see him, of course, but
I could sense him, feel his presence in front of me, a bright spot of life
against the heartwood. I felt the wood cradling his thin, lanky frame,
protecting it, and heard the faintest
thump-thump
of
a beating heart. Puck hovered limply, his chin on his chest and his eyes closed.
He seemed much smaller in sleep, fragile and ghostlike, as if a breath could
blow him away.

I drifted closer, reaching out to touch him, brushing
insubstantial fingers over his cheek, pushing back unruly red bangs. He didn’t
stir. If I didn’t hear his heartbeat, vibrating faintly through the tree, I
would’ve thought he was already dead.

“I’m so sorry, Puck,”
I whispered,
or maybe I just thought it, deep inside the giant oak.
“I
wish you were here with me now. I’m scared, and I don’t know what’s going to
happen. I really need you to come back.”

If he heard me, he didn’t show it. There was no flicker of
eyelids, no twitch of his head responding to my voice. Puck remained limp and
motionless, his heartbeat calm and steady, echoing through the wood. My best
friend was far from me, beyond my reach, and I couldn’t bring him back.

Depressed, feeling strangely sick, I pulled out of the tree,
returning to my own body. As the sounds of the world returned, I found myself
fighting back tears. So close. So close to Puck, and still so far away.

Ash’s expression was grave as I met his eyes; he knew what I’d
done, and could guess the outcome.

“He’s still alive,” he told me. “That’s all you can hope for.”
I sniffed, turning away, and Ash sighed. “Don’t worry too much about him,
Meghan. Robin Goodfellow has always been extraordinarily difficult to kill.” His
voice hovered between irritation and amusement, as if he spoke from experience.
“I can almost guarantee Goodfellow will pop up one day when you least expect it,
just be patient.”

“Patience,” said an amused voice somewhere over my head, “has
never been the girl’s strong suit.”

Startled, I looked up, into the branches of the oak. A pair of
familiar golden eyes peered down at me, attached to nothing else, and my heart
leaped.

“Grimalkin?”

The eyes blinked slowly, and the body of a large gray cat
appeared, crouched on one of the lower branches. It
was
Grimalkin, the faery cat I met on my last journey to Faery. Grim
had helped me out a few times in the past…but his help always came with a price.
The cat loved collecting favors and did nothing for free, but I was still happy
to see him, even if I still owed him a debt or two from our last adventure.

“What are you doing here, Grim?” I asked as the feline yawned
and stretched, arching his fluffy tail over his back. True to form, Grimalkin
finished stretching, sat down and gave his fur several licks before deigning to
reply.

“I had business with the Elder Dryad,” he replied in a bored
voice. “I needed to know if she’d heard anything about the whereabouts of a
certain individual.” Grim scratched behind an ear, examined his back toes and
gave them a lick. “Then I heard that you were on your way here, so I thought I
would wait, to see if it was true. You have always proved most
entertaining.”

“But…the Elder Dryad is asleep,” I said, frowning. “They told
me she’s too weak to even come out of her tree.”

“What is your point, human?”

“Never mind.” I shook my head. Grimalkin was exasperating and
secretive, and I learned long ago he wouldn’t share anything until he was ready.
“It’s still good to see you, Grim. Wish we could stay and talk awhile, but we’re
in sort of a hurry right now.”

“Mmm, yes. Your ill-contrived deal with the Winter prince.”
Grimalkin’s eyes shifted to Ash and back to me, blinking slowly. “Hasty and
reckless, just like a human.” He sniffed, staring straight at Ash, now. “But…I
would have thought that you knew better, Prince.”

Before I could ask what he meant by
that,
I felt a hand on my arm and turned to meet Ash’s solemn gaze.
“We should go,” he murmured, and though his voice was firm, his expression was
apologetic. “If something is chasing us, we should try to make it to Tir Na Nog
as soon as we can. It won’t be able to follow us, then. And I can protect you
better in my own territory than the wyldwood or the mortal realm.”

“One moment.” Grimalkin yawned and sidled down from the tree,
landing noiselessly on the roots. “If you are leaving now, I believe I will come
with you. At least part of the way.”

“Really?” I stared at him, surprised. “You’re going to Tir Na
Nog? Why?”

“I told you before. I am looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“You ask a wearying amount of questions, human.” Grimalkin
hopped down from the roots and trotted off, tail in the air. Several yards away,
he glanced back over his shoulder, twitching an ear. “Well? Are you coming or
not? If you say there is something after you, it would make sense not to be here
when it comes to call, yes?”

Ash and I shared a bemused look and trailed after him.

The Elder Gate loomed before us, tall and imposing even though
the tree was dying. As we approached, the entire trunk suddenly shifted with a
groan. A face pushed its way out of the bark, old and wrinkled, part of the tree
come to life. The Elder Dryad opened her eyes, squinting as though it was
difficult to focus, and her gaze fastened on me.

“Nooooooooo,” she breathed, barely a whisper in the darkness.
“You must not go back this way.
He
waits for you on
the other side. He will…” Her voice trailed off, and her face sank back into the
wood, vanishing from sight. “Run,” was the last thing I heard.

I shivered all the way down to my toes. Ash immediately took my
hand and drew me away, striding in the opposite direction, his body tense like a
coiled wire. Grimalkin slipped after us, a gray ghost in the shadows, the fur on
his tail standing on end. It would’ve been funny if I didn’t feel eyes on the
back of my neck, old, savage and patient, watching us flee into the night.

Ash paused beneath the limbs of another oak, put his fingers to
his lips and let out a piercing whistle. Moments later, the fey horse trotted
out of the shadows, snorting and tossing its head, skidding to a stop before
us.

“Where are we going now?” I asked, as Ash helped me into the
saddle.

“We can’t use the Elder Gate to get back,” the prince replied,
swinging up behind me. “We’ll have to find another way into the Nevernever. And
quickly.” He gathered the reins in one hand and snaked an arm around my waist.
“I know of another trod that will take us close to Tir Na Nog, but it’s in a
part of the city that’s…dangerous for Summer fey.”

“You are speaking of the Dungeon, are you not?” Grimalkin said,
appearing suddenly in my lap, curled up like he belonged. I blinked in surprise.
“Are you sure you want to take the girl there?”

“Not much choice, now.” Tightening his grip on my waist, Ash
kicked the horse forward, and we galloped into the streets of New Orleans.

* * *

I’d forgotten what it was like to be a half faery in the
real world, or at least in the company of a powerful, full-blooded fey. The
horse trotted down brightly lit streets, weaving through cars and alleyways and
people, and no one saw us. No one even glanced our way. Regular humans couldn’t
see the faery world, though it was all around them. Like the two goblins sifting
through a spilled Dumpster in an alley, gnawing on bones and other things I
didn’t want to dwell on. Or the dragonfly-winged sylph perched atop a telephone
pole, watching the streets with the intensity of an eagle observing her
territory. We nearly ran into a group of dwarves leaving one of the many pubs on
Bourbon Street. The short, bearded men shouted drunken curses as the horse
swerved, barely missing them, and galloped away down the sidewalk.

We were deep in the French Quarter when Ash stopped in front of
a wall of stone buildings, old black shutters and doors lining the sidewalk. A
sign swinging above a thick black door read: Ye Olde Original Dungeon, and there
was red paint spattered against the frame in what was supposed to be blood, I
guessed. At least, I hoped it was paint. Ash pushed open the door, revealing a
very long, narrow alleyway, and turned to me.

“This is Unseelie territory,” he murmured close to my ear.
“There’s a rough crowd that frequents this place. Don’t talk to anyone, and stay
close to me.”

I nodded and peered down the closed-in space, which was barely
wide enough to walk through. “What about the horse?”

Ash removed the horse’s pack and pulled off its bridle, tossing
it into the shadows. “It’ll find its own way home,” he murmured, swinging the
pack over one shoulder. “Let’s go.”

We slipped down the narrow corridor, Ash in front, Grim
trailing behind. The alley ended in a small courtyard, where a scraggly
waterfall trickled into a moat at the front of the building. We crossed the
footbridge, passed a bored-looking human bouncer who paid us no attention and
entered a dark, red-tinged room.

From the shadows along the wall rose something huge and green,
crimson eyes glaring out of the monstrous, toothy face of a female troll. I
squeaked and took a step back.

“I smell me a Summer whelp,” she growled, blocking our way. Up
close, she stood nearly eight feet, with swamp-green skin and long, taloned
fingers. Beady red eyes glared at me from her impressive height. “You’re either
really brave or really stupid, whelp. Lost a bet with a phouka or something? No
Summer fey allowed in here, so get lost.”

“She’s with me,” Ash said, stepping up to block the troll’s
line of sight. “And you’re going to step aside now. We need to use the hidden
trod.”

“Prince Ash.” The troll took a step back but didn’t move aside
completely. Facing a prince of the Unseelie Court, she turned almost sniveling.
“Your Highness, of course I would let you in, but…” She glanced over Ash’s
shoulder at me. “The boss says absolutely no Summer blood in here unless we’re
going to drink it.”

“We’re just passing through,” Ash replied, still in that same
calm, cool voice. “We’ll be gone before anyone notices us.”

“Your Highness, I can’t,” the troll protested, sounding more
and more unsure. She glanced back over her shoulder, lowering her voice. “I
could lose my job if I let her through.”