The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey) (14 page)

I met Keirran’s gaze. He stared back, eyes glittering, reminding me of that night in the Lady’s throne room. When the Queen of the Forgotten asked Keirran if he would return, if he would promise to come back to her of his own free will, and he agreed. I’d tried to stop him then, too. But once Keirran’s mind was set, there was no talking him down. I didn’t think Keirran would stoop so low as to stab us in the back, but I couldn’t get that night, the night he’d almost betrayed me, out of my head.

Don’t you dare sell us out, Keirran,
I thought, holding his stare.
I will never forgive you, and if we have to fight our way out of this, you’ll be the first one I’m going through.

“Keirran,” Annwyl whispered, taking his arm, “please...don’t.”

Keirran closed his eyes and turned to face Mr. Dust.

“No,” he said firmly, and my insides uncoiled with relief. “No deal. That’s the one thing I can’t give you. This bargain is off.” His icy glare stabbed into me for the briefest of seconds before he turned back to the fey dealer. “I’m sorry we’ve wasted your time. We’ll show ourselves out.”

“That,” Mr. Dust said, withdrawing the leather pouch, “is very unfortunate. But I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”

The redcaps and ogre pressed forward, grinning eagerly. Keirran instantly drew his sword, about the same instant as I pulled my mine. The screech of weapons echoed through the small room as we stepped in front of the girls. The redcaps hooted, baring their fangs, and the ogre rumbled a challenge.

Keirran looked around calmly. “You don’t want to do this,” he warned.

Mr. Dust clasped his hands in front of him again, seemingly unconcerned. “When I said the price would jump substantially if you refused, I was not making idle threats,” he hissed. “The price has just gotten much higher. Now we bargain for something new. Your lives.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve reached my shopping limit for the day,” I said, backing toward the exit, keeping myself between Annwyl, Kenzie and the advancing redcaps. The door behind us banged open, and several more of the evil fey spilled into the room, trapping us between them. I cursed and spared a glance at the prince beside me, feeling the air chill around him. “Great. Tell me you saw this coming, Prince.”

Keirran gave a small, humorless smile. “From a mile away,” he said and raised his free arm.

Glamour swirled around him, invisible, but I could feel the icy cold radiating from the prince, the magic of Winter and the Unseelie Court. It tossed his silver hair, making his eyes glow blue-white. I shivered as frost crept over the walls and floor, making my breath hang in front of my face. The redcaps paused, and Keirran turned a deadly cold glare on Mr. Dust.

“Tell your minions to back off, or none of them will see another day.”

His voice was soft but as lethal as the icicles forming on the ceiling, making sharp, crinkling sounds as they grew into wicked points. Mr. Dust gave a soft hiss, staring at Keirran with new eyes.

“Let us go.” Keirran didn’t move, but the temperature in the room was getting colder. The redcaps looked uncomfortable, and the ribbons of drool hanging from the ogre’s tusks had frozen solid. I resisted the urge to rub my arms, keeping my swords raised and myself close to Kenzie and Annwyl. “Let us walk away,” Keirran insisted in an icy voice, “or everyone in this room will die, including you.”

“You don’t want to do that, boy,” Mr. Dust whispered, his voice soothing again. “If I am gone, there will be no more dust, no way to stop the Fading of exiles and Forgotten. You don’t want to be responsible for that, now, do you?” When Keirran hesitated, the faery smiled. “All you have to do is leave me the two mortals, and we can avoid this unpleasantness. You will have your dust, and the Summer girl will be saved. Surely you can see the wisdom in this? What are two humans to the Iron Prince? The world is crawling with them. Just promise me these two, and our bargain will be complete.”

I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t Keirran’s laughter, quiet and mocking, as he shook his head at the faery dealer. “That’s quite an offer,” he said, lowering his arm. “But I think you’re forgetting something.”

“Oh? And what is that, boy?”

Keirran dropped to one knee, driving his fist into the wooden floor. There was a blinding flash of blue-white, and I flinched, turning away, as roars and screams erupted around us. But a second later, they cut out as if someone had flipped a switch. My skin burned with cold, and I opened my eyes with a gasp.

The room now resembled the interior of an icebox. Everything was frozen, buried under several inches of solid ice. The redcaps and the lone ogre stood in the same spots, arms thrown up and mouths gaping, encased in a layer of frozen crystal.

In the center of the room, Mr. Dust blinked at us, unharmed. Keirran rose, panting, and gave the faery dealer a hard smile.

“I don’t sell out my family.”

I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open as Keirran calmly turned to me and jerked his head at the door. “Come on,” he said, sounding tired. “Let’s get out of here.”

No one argued, and no one tried to stop us. We walked past the frozen ogre and redcaps, trying not to look at the once-living fey, following Keirran as he strode across the room and pushed open the door...

...to face a horde of Forgotten on the other side.

I tensed, gripping my swords. Great, out of the frying pan, into the fire. And here I’d thought we were home free. But the Forgotten didn’t move, watching us with glowing yellow eyes, and Keirran, standing in the doorway, gazed calmly back.

And then the crowd of Forgotten parted, bowing their heads and moving aside. Keirran took Annwyl’s hand and stepped through the door, moving steadily across the room. Warily, the rest of us followed, and the horde of Forgotten watched us leave, standing to either side like an army of shadows, silent and unmoving.

It gave me the creeps.

Keirran didn’t stop until we were out the door, through the twisted alleyway that was far shorter than I remembered and across the street. Pulling Annwyl into the dark space between two buildings, he turned on me with a bright, desperate look in his eyes.

“All right,” he began, staring me down, “I did what you asked. I refused the deal that would suppress the Fade, and I think I’ve burned all bridges with Mr. Dust. Please tell me you have something else, Ethan. Something that will stop this.”

I swallowed. “I do. Or, at least, my Guro does. You met him before, remember?” Keirran nodded, and I went on. “He’s a
tuhon,
a faith healer of his people, and he’s also skilled in the magic arts. He said if we were to find you, to come to him. He might be able to help.”

“Might?” Keirran asked and shook his head. “What if he can’t? What will happen then?” He glanced at Annwyl, his expression tormented. “If this doesn’t work, what am I supposed to do?”

The Summer faery’s eyes were gentle as she touched the side of his face. “You could let me go, my prince. Sometimes, that is the only choice.”

Keirran’s gaze turned defiant, but before he could reply, another voice pierced the darkness above us.

“Master!”

A spindly, bat-eared creature with huge green eyes scuttled down the wall like a huge spider and leaped at Keirran, landing on his chest. “Master!” the gremlin cried again, tugging on his shirt. “Master, he is coming! He is coming!” His head swiveled around then, catching sight of Kenzie, and he flung himself at her with a joyful cry. “Pretty girl! Pretty girl is here!”

“Hey, Razor.” Kenzie grinned as she caught him. The gremlin buzzed and scrambled to her shoulders, flashing his blue-white smile. “I was wondering where you were.”

“Who is coming?” Keirran asked, and the gremlin’s ears pressed flat to his skull.

“Dark elf,” he almost whispered. “Dark elf coming. Now.”

Dark elf?
Oh no.
That could only mean one person. And by the way Keirran went pale, he was thinking the same thing.

Cautiously, we edged up to the wall and peeked around the corner.

A silhouette was striding down the center of the road, heading for the alley we’d just vacated. Lean, tall, a long black coat rippling behind him, he was instantly recognizable. Even from this distance, I could see the glow of his sword, blue-black and deadly, and the glint of a cold silver eye.

Keirran lunged back from the edge.

“This way!” he whispered and grabbed Annwyl’s hand. “Hurry, before he sees us!”

“Keirran, wait!” I hurried after them, Kenzie right behind us, still holding Razor. “Why are you hiding from your parents?” I demanded as we ducked out of the alley into the goblin market, Keirran looking around wildly. “Are you in trouble? What have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything,” Keirran replied and seemed to pick a direction, jogging toward it with us hurrying to catch up.

“Right. That’s why we’re running away from the freaking Prince Consort of the Iron Court!”

“Keirran!”

The deep, booming voice made me wince. I glanced over my shoulder...to see Ash on the rooftops across the street, the full moon at his back, staring right at us.

Keirran took off, weaving through the groups of fey, dodging unearthly vendors and shoppers and trying to melt into the crowd. The rest of us scrambled after him, and I didn’t dare to look back to see how close Ash was.

“This way!” Keirran urged, ducking into a small, deserted side street. No fey walked the sidewalks, and the road seemed eerily abandoned. Worse, a tall fence stood at the end of the street, preventing us from going any farther.

I panted and glared at Keirran. “Dead end. Looks like we’ll have to face him after all.”

“No, we won’t.” Keirran ran his fingers along the wall, his gaze narrowed. “Where is it?” he murmured. “The Veil is thin here. I can feel it. Where...”

A tall silhouette appeared at the end of the street, just as Keirran pushed his hand
into
the wall and moved it aside, parting it like a curtain. Beyond the sudden crack was darkness and mist, and the prince gestured to us impatiently. “Hurry! Through here!”

Annwyl and Kenzie vanished through the tear, Razor jabbering on Kenzie’s shoulder. Keirran glanced at me and jerked his head as Ash came steadily closer. “Come on, Ethan!”

I muttered a curse, ducked my head and plunged into the once-solid brick wall, feeling like I was passing through a film of cobwebs. Keirran was right behind me, dropping the curtain as he did, giving me a split-second glance of the street through the gap. Then the opening swooshed shut, closing the tear between realities, and the real world vanished behind us.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE BETWEEN

“Where are we?”

My voice echoed in the vast emptiness surrounding us. I gazed around in shock; when we’d gone through the gash, I’d fully expected to appear in the Nevernever. Probably in some lonely corner of the wyldwood. But upon reflection, I realized how unlikely that was. Only the fey rulers—the kings and queens of Faery—could create trods between the Nevernever and the real world. I knew Keirran was strong and all, but he didn’t have that kind of power. At least, I didn’t
think
he did. Maybe I was wrong. But more important, Annwyl had been banished from Faery, so she couldn’t go back to the Nevernever; the trods had been sealed off to her by Titania. And yet, here she was, standing beside Keirran and gazing around in awe like the rest of us.

So, logical conclusion: we weren’t in the Nevernever.

Where
were
we?

The ground under my feet was hard, though I couldn’t see what I stood on due to the thick gray mist coiling around my legs. In fact, I couldn’t see anything except mist and fog, swirling around us in eerie patterns. There were no lights, no shadows, no glimpses of trees or buildings or anything through the writhing blanket of gray. There was no sound, either. Except for the four of us and one gremlin perched on Kenzie’s shoulder, there didn’t seem to be anything alive out there at all. I felt like I’d been dropped into a vacuum.

I looked to Keirran for an answer, and he sighed.

“This,” he stated, his voice echoing weirdly in the gloom, “is the Between.”

I stared at him. “Care to say that again? The Between? We’re between Faery and the real world right now. How is that possible?”

“It’s not difficult,” Keirran said quietly. “The knowledge of going Between has been lost over centuries, but...the Forgotten know how to do it. Leanansidhe, too, though she keeps to her mansion most of the time.” He rubbed an arm, looking embarrassed. “I...sort of picked it up when I was with the Lady.”

I nodded. “That’s why no one has been able to find you,” I guessed. “Because you haven’t been in the Nevernever or the real world. You’ve been here, in the Between.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Keirran said, holding my gaze. “When this is all over, when Annwyl is safe, I’ll explain everything. I’ll go back to Mag Tuiredh and face whatever punishment the courts want to throw at me. But I can’t stop now. And I can’t let anyone else know where I am or what I’ve been doing. Promise you won’t tell my parents, Ethan. Not now.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I’ve spoken to Meghan—she just wants to talk to you. You’re not in trouble, unless you’ve done something we don’t know about.”

“It’s not that.” Keirran raked a hand through his silver hair. “My parents are the rulers of the Iron Court, and what I’m trying to do now is forbidden. The other courts would only see me and Annwyl breaking the ancient law, and they’d call for my exile or something similar. I don’t want to put my parents through that, even if they wanted to help. This has to be all on me.” He looked away. “Besides, by the time they could figure something out, it would be too late. Annwyl would be gone.”

“I am standing right here, Keirran,” Annwyl said, sounding angrier than I’d ever heard before. Her green eyes flashed as she stared the prince down. “And I did not ask you to save me if it meant bargaining at the goblin market, making deals that could get you killed and running away from the Prince Consort of Mag Tuiredh. You did not ask me what I felt about this plan—you just disappeared without telling anyone.”

“Kind of like another jackass I know,” Kenzie added, making me start.

“What? Hey, this isn’t about me,” I protested, holding up my hands. Kenzie, however, wasn’t listening. Her arms were crossed, and even Razor, watching me from her shoulder, looked peeved. My heart sank. In all the excitement and running for our lives, I’d forgotten that Kenzie and I were fighting. It appeared she had not.

“You’re no better than Keirran, you know that, Ethan?” Kenzie stated, causing the prince to blink at her, too. “Taking off with Annwyl, leaving me behind? And after we made all those plans to do this together. Did you think I’d be okay with that?”

“Kenzie, you were sick!” I argued. “You just got out of the
hospital.
There was something after us and...” I trailed off. By the look on Kenzie’s face, she was seriously unimpressed. “I just wanted you to be safe,” I finished quietly.

“
You
don’t get to decide that, Ethan,” Kenzie said. “God, you sound just like my parents, my teachers, my doctors, everyone! What have I been saying all this time? If I’m going to die, I want to do it on my terms. I don’t want people constantly protecting me, telling me what I can and cannot do, ‘for my own good.’” Her eyes narrowed. “I trusted you. I thought that
you,
at least, would get me.” She swiped a hand across her eyes. “You promised me you’d stay, that you wouldn’t leave just because They were out there. What happened to that?”

A noise, somewhere out in the mist, interrupted us.

Everyone stopped talking and became very, very still. Even Razor, buzzing in distress on Kenzie’s shoulder, froze, his huge ears pricked and alert.

The noise came again, a soft crying sound, accompanied by a faint slither that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Keirran motioned us to stay silent, and we listened as the thing, whatever it was, dragged itself over the ground, crying and babbling in a low, raspy voice. I never saw it through the mist and coiling fog, and I really didn’t want to. After countless seconds, the thing moved on, its voice growing fainter and fainter, until the fog swallowed both the creature and the noises, and we were alone once more.

I took a deep, steadying breath, realizing my hands were shaking, and glared at Keirran. “What the hell was that?” I whispered.

“Someone, or something, who’s become lost in the Between,” Keirran replied in an equally low voice as Razor gave a weak, garbled buzz and leaped to his shoulders. “Time and space don’t really exist here, and sometimes fey or humans become stuck between the worlds and can’t find their way out again. So...they wander. For eternity.”

I shuddered. “Then maybe we should get out of here.”

He nodded. “Follow me.”

The eerie landscape continued, an endless plateau of mist and fog, shrouding everything in gray. It never let up enough to see the surroundings, but one time I nearly walked into a stone archway that loomed out of the mist. Frowning, I peered around and could just make out the ruins of some strange castle, crumbling and ancient. It seemed out of place, surrounded by complete nothingness. I mentioned this to Keirran.

“It’s an anchor,” he replied, glancing back at the towers as they vanished from sight behind curtains of fog. “Abandoned, by the looks of it, but was once tied to the mortal realm. The Between is constantly shifting, but if you have a tie to the real world, something that exists in both places, you can shape the spaces Between into whatever you want.”

“Like Leanansidhe’s mansion,” I guessed. Keirran nodded.

“Or you can use the Between to slip between the mortal realm and the Nevernever, without a trod. No one does it, because they don’t know how to part the Veil, and because if they become lost for even a moment, they’ll wander the empty spaces forever.”

“How do you know all this?” Kenzie asked, surprising us. She’d been unusually quiet up until now, barely looking at me. I figured she was still furious at my abandonment but was trying to focus on the larger problem at hand. Keirran hesitated, then said in a quiet voice:

“The Lady told me.”

Annwyl flinched and drew away from him. Razor hissed, and I glared at the back of his neck. Keirran noticed all our reactions and sighed, looking out into the mist.

“I know,” he murmured. “And I know what you’re thinking. You have every right to be angry. That night in the throne room...” He closed his eyes. “Ethan, I never apologized to you. My actions that night were inexcusable. I don’t know why you’d even come for me, after what I did.”

Annwyl frowned, looking at him strangely, and he shrank even further. “What happened when you were with the Lady?” she asked. “What did you do, Keirran?”

“Nothing.” I broke in before he could reply. “It was a misunderstanding. I barged into the throne room, the Lady’s guards attacked and I got kicked around a bit. Keirran stepped in right before they would’ve killed me.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, of course. I left out the part where, when the four heavily armored knights had attacked, I’d yelled at Keirran to help me out, and...he hadn’t. He’d just stood there beside the Forgotten Queen, watching me get my ass kicked. Watching as they almost killed me. I remembered the look on his face as I’d fought for my life—cold, blank, impassive—and it made me very nervous. I’d seen that same look tonight, in Mr. Dust’s back room. That dark, icy stranger hadn’t gone away; he was still here.

I didn’t know why I was defending him now.

But the look Keirran gave me was neither cold nor impassive; it was just relieved. Suddenly, he paused, gazing thoughtfully at a portion of mist that looked identical to everything else in this place. “The Veil is thin here,” he announced, running a hand through the air, like he could push it aside. “And I don’t sense my father anymore. I think we’re safe.”

He lifted a curtain of mist away, and I could abruptly see the real world through the gash: a New Orleans street and a familiar building on the corner, orange lamplight flickering beside the doorway. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop.

The sidewalk was deserted as we stepped out of the Between into the real world again, the streets empty and still. I checked my watch, frozen at 12:12 a.m., waiting as the numbers flickered and reappeared as 3:48 a.m. Better than I could’ve hoped. With the screwy time differences between Faery and the real world, we were lucky this whole crazy adventure happened in the same night.

“Where to now?” Keirran asked, looking at me. I rubbed tired eyes and tried to get my brain to function.

“Home,” I said. “Back to my town. Guro is the one who can help us.”

“The human we met before,” Keirran said. “Your master. Are you certain he can help?”

“He said he’d be willing to try. And he’s the only one I can think of.”

The Iron Prince nodded, looking weary. “I’ll try anything. I hope you know what you’re doing, Ethan. All right...” He glanced at the spot where we’d walked out of thin air, then raised a hand again. “Let’s go.”

I blinked. “Through the Between?”

“Of course.” Keirran looked back, confused. “How did you think we would get there?”

“Uh, with my truck?”

“It’s much faster to go through the Between,” Keirran explained. “Just like Faery and the trods, it doesn’t conform to normal space. You can walk from one end of the country to the other in a few minutes, if you know where you’re going and if you can find a place where the Veil is almost transparent.” A faintly horrified look crossed his face then. “You didn’t...
drive
Annwyl up, did you? In a car?”

“How did you expect us to get here?”

Keirran shuddered, then slipped his hand into the air again and parted reality like a pair of drapes. I shivered, too. Call it what you wanted, that was just creepy. “Fine,” I muttered, bracing myself for more shadowy Between and coiling nothingness. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Wait,” Kenzie said.

We all turned to her. “Before we go anywhere,” she began, gazing especially at me and Keirran, “I have to go back to my dad. I want to tell him where I’ll be this time—not that he cares, but I don’t want to worry Alex or my stepmom.” She gestured to the buildings around us. “I can’t just vanish in a strange city, with them having no idea where I am. Even Dad will freak out.” She pushed back her hair, suddenly nervous. “So, can we make one quick stop at my hotel before we head out? It won’t take long, I promise.”

I held my tongue. I knew, by the stiff set of Kenzie’s shoulders, the tension lining her jaw, that she was waiting for me to protest, to tell her to stay behind. She was gearing up for a fight, and I...had no desire to argue with her anymore. I still wanted to keep her safe, but her last accusation had shaken me up pretty bad. Kenzie had gotten the Sight knowing exactly what it meant. She wasn’t afraid, though she knew the dangers just as well as I did. And I had shut her out, trying to keep her safe. As if I hadn’t heard everything she’d told me about wanting to live, and people treating her differently, and not having time to be safe. She’d told me all that before; I just hadn’t listened.

God, I was a jackass.

I looked at Keirran, nodded, and he sighed. “All right,” he agreed, and Kenzie relaxed. “One more stop, but then we really should go. Ethan, what about your family? Do you need to tell them what’s going on?”

I shook my head. “They already know. Well, they know I’m here and that I won’t be back for a couple days.” I just hoped we could figure this thing out quickly, that Guro would be able to help and that we could avoid crossing the Veil into Faery. I couldn’t keep this part of my life from my parents anymore. And if I had to vanish into the Nevernever again, I was
not
looking forward to that conversation.

Not surprisingly, Kenzie had been staying at one of the nicer hotels close to Bourbon Street, a luxurious old building so far out of my price range, I felt scruffy just walking through the front doors. The receptionist behind the desk eyed me suspiciously as I followed Kenzie into the lobby, not seeing the two fey at our back. Keirran had glamoured himself invisible, and Annwyl seemed more spirit than flesh now, so no one even looked at them. Or Razor, jabbering nervously from Keirran’s shoulder, his teeth flashing blue-white in the dimly lit room. Me, however—a teenage thug stalking into a nice hotel in the dead of night—they definitely noticed. Kenzie gave the receptionist a bright smile and received a nod in return, but I continued to get the evil eye all the way down the hall.

At the elevators, I sneaked a glance at Kenzie, knowing that if I had to do this—explain to her father what was going on—I would be far less calm. “Do you want us to wait here?” I asked, making her frown. I continued quickly, wanting her to understand I wasn’t abandoning her this time. “It might not be a great idea if you show up at four in morning with...me, and have to explain that I’m driving you home.” I was going to say
your boyfriend,
but I wasn’t certain where I stood with her now. “We could wait outside, if you need to talk to them alone.”