“Humans.”
Grimalkin’s bored voice cut through the silence. I drew back, rolling my eyes, as the cat appeared on the saddle of a nearby horse. “I would say we are wasting time,” he said, thumping his tail against the peeling paint, “but it never appears to sink in. Shall we go, before the Between starts manifesting hearts and balloons and other nauseating things?” The cat rose and leaped gracefully off the carousel horse, giving us a revolted look as he landed. “I shudder to think of the reality that might spring up around the pair of you. I believe it would be even more frightening than the carnival.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
VANISHED REALITIES
More wandering the Between. Okay, maybe wandering wasn’t the right word, as the Thin Man seemed to know where he was going. But it sure felt like wandering, walking in endless circles through a creepy landscape that was always more of the same. I ached, from various wounds caused by throwing knives, tiger claws and unicorn horns. And now I was paranoid about stumbling into another pocket of reality, another whacked-out world that had sprung from the head of a bat-shit crazy fey. The carnival had been terrifying enough; I did not want to find myself suddenly trapped in an abandoned asylum, running from nightmares in long white coats wanting to “cure” me.
“Stop that,” the Thin Man told me, as a stretcher rolled out of the fog, wheels creaking in the silence. It continued past us and disappeared into the mist, and I shuddered. “You’re doing it again.”
“Yeah, pardon me for being a little freaked-out by the whole evil carnival thing,” I growled. “I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t a mermaid or selkie that found the anchor and that the carnival wasn’t underwater. You could’ve mentioned that we might run into something like that before we started.”
“I did not think it likely we would find one,” the Thin Man replied. “Anchors are very few and far between. They are not simply lying around for anyone to attach a world to. You could wander the Between for a lifetime, a millennium, and not run across one.” He gave me a look from the corner of one pale eye. “I was just as unpleasantly shocked as you when we stumbled upon that reality, but I am discovering that you have an uncanny ability to attract trouble, Ethan Chase. It is almost a talent.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Welcome to my world.”
And of course, at that moment, we walked through some invisible barrier in the mist and fog...and the world changed.
“Dammit, not again,” I groaned, wondering what kind of nightmare we’d gotten into now. It was not, at least, another carnival. Or creepy abandoned asylum. We stood at the edge of sleepy meadow, a huge yellow moon hanging overhead, so close you could almost see its cratered surface. Forest surrounded us, dark and tangled, and a narrow stream wound along the edges of the trees. Though it looked perfectly still and normal, there was something about the whole scene that bothered me. Not in the this is straight out of a horror movie way, just a faint feeling of disquiet.
In the center of the grove stood an enormous Victorian mansion. Towers and turrets soared into the air, spearing the night sky. Windows and balconies rose above us, archways and pillars were scattered around the stone walls, and a pair of huge stone lions guarded the end of the walkway.
“Wow,” Kenzie remarked, craning her neck up to stare at the huge house. “Well, whoever owns this crazy reality, at least they have good taste.”
Grimalkin sauntered up and leaped onto a nearby rock. “That,” he stated imperiously, waving his tail, “is Leanansidhe’s mansion.”
I exhaled in relief. Never had I been so glad to see the lair of a dangerous, impossibly fickle faery queen in my life. Of course, I’d never seen the outside of her mansion, but I’d take Grimalkin’s word that this was it. “Let’s go,” I said, and started toward the mansion. “The sooner we find Annwyl, the sooner we can get out of here.”
“Hold a moment, Ethan Chase,” the Thin Man said. I gave him a puzzled look, and he folded his hands before him. “I believe it best if you see the Exile Queen without me,” he went on with a somewhat pained smile. “I do not think Leanansidhe would take kindly to having a Forgotten inside her home. And the Summer girl might react poorly if she saw me with you. I would not want to frighten her away.” He nodded at the mansion. “You go on, meet with the Exile Queen. I shall wait until you return with the girl.”
“Where will you be?” Kenzie asked.
The Thin Man waved an airy hand.
“I will be close,” he said, gesturing back to the meadow. “Do not worry, I sense no danger in this pocket of reality. Leanansidhe, it appears, has a firm grasp on her territory. So, you go ahead, and when you are ready to leave, I will rejoin you.”
He turned away, and as he did, vanished from sight.
Walking up the long gravel path to the steps, I figured out what was bothering me before. The meadow made no sound. There was a breeze; I could see grass stalks and branches waving in the wind, but there was no sound whatsoever. Not even the stream running along the edge of the forest made any noise. Staring at the grove was like looking at a very surreal, lifelike painting or a movie with the sound on mute. It was eerie, but then again, I’d take creepy quiet meadow over creepy killer carnival any day.
But that was still no reason to lower my guard.
With Grimalkin ambling behind us and Razor perched on Kenzie’s shoulder, we walked up the large marble steps to the huge double doors waiting for us at the top, and Kenzie rapped on the wood with the brass lion knockers in the center.
No answer.
“Try again,” I told Kenzie, after a few minutes had passed in silence. She did, knocking a little harder this time, the raps echoing sharply in the complete stillness. Still, there was no answer.
“Well, that’s not very encouraging,” Kenzie said, staring at the mansion. “Do you think something’s happened to her, or that she’s just ignoring us?”
I frowned. No, something was definitely wrong. Leanansidhe might’ve been fickle, dramatic, unpredictable and prone to turning people into guitars when they annoyed her, but she’d always welcomed exiles and runaways into her home. Granted, she used them for cheap labor and to further her own ends, but she wasn’t known for turning people away. Especially if she thought she could gain from them. “Let me try,” I said, and walked up to the door as Kenzie stepped aside. But instead of using the knocker, I raised my sword and banged the hilt against the wood, making a hollow booming that vibrated up my arm.
This time, the door swung back with a whoosh, making me blink and step back. And Leanansidhe herself, the Dark Muse, Queen of the Exiles, towered over us. She wore a sparkly black gown and elbow-length gloves, and a bright mane of copper hair floated around her head. She stood in the door frame, regal, beautiful and looking dangerously pissed off.
“Well,” she announced, her cold blue eyes fixed on me. “Ethan Chase. Haven’t you made a mess of everything.”
* * *
Uh-oh. Now what had happened?
“Well, don’t just stand there, darlings,” Leanansidhe snapped. “If you’re going to come in, come in. I have better things to do than watch you gape at me like frightened deer. Chop chop, doves. Move.”
Kenzie and I shared a confused look, then stepped into the foyer and gazed around warily. At first glance, it looked the same—tile floors, marble columns, a huge fireplace against one wall and a baby grand piano in the corner. But there was something different about it, too. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on...
Leanansidhe shut the door with a bang that made me jump. She turned to face us, beaming a bright, brittle smile in my direction. “Ethan, darling,” she said in a voice that made my insides shrink. “How good of you to stop by. I was just thinking about you.”
Well, that was all kinds of ominous. I shared another glance with Kenzie and saw that she still looked just as baffled as me. I also not
iced that Grimalkin had conveniently disappeared, and that Razor was hiding down Kenzie’s shirt and making no noise whatsoever.
“Uh.” I faced the Exile Queen again. “Something wrong, Leanansidhe?” I asked, trying to be diplomatic.
“Oh, why don’t you tell me, darling?” Leanansidhe raised her arms, indicating the whole room. “You’re a smart boy. Why don’t you take a look around and see if anything comes to mind? Does anything seem wrong to you?”
I scanned the foyer again, trying to figure it out. Everything looked fine to me; nothing was broken, cracked, burned or damaged in any way. But Kenzie suddenly drew in a sharp breath and glanced at the Exile Queen.
“It’s too quiet,” she said. “Where is everyone?”
Of course. That was the thing that was bugging me. Leanansidhe’s mansion was a haven for outcasts, and they were usually here in droves. Exiles, half-breeds and runaways alike, this was a last resort for those who had nowhere else to go, and the mansion was always teeming with fey. Not to mention a number of gifted humans Leanansidhe had “collected” over the years. All brilliant, musical or artistic in some fashion, and all completely nuts from living in the Between so long. The mansion seemed empty, devoid of life. Now that I thought about it, it was weird that Leanansidhe herself had opened the door; she usually had servants do that sort of thing for her.
“Where indeed?” Leanansidhe said, smiling down at us. “That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? You’ll have to forgive me, doves, if I seem distracted. I’ve been rather busy of late. You see—” she fixed me with a piercing stare “—not long ago, I was out and about in the mortal world—on a business trip, mind—when there was this...oh, how should I put it...this pulse that went through the air like an electrical charge. It nearly knocked me down, it was so strong. Naturally, I was startled and started to ask this nice young lady if she had felt it, too.
“Do you know what she did, darling?” Leanansidhe asked, though she obviously had no intention of waiting for an answer. “She screamed. In my face. Right in the middle of a busy street. I had no idea what she was going on about at first, but you can imagine my surprise when I realized she could see me. Really see me. In fact—and here is the hilarious part, darling—all of them could see me, the entire squealing, bumbling human crowd. The barbarians surrounded me, talking all at once, screaming, taking pictures, attempting to touch me.” Leanansidhe gave a dramatic sigh. “It was a rather trying afternoon.”
I grimaced. “What did you do to them?”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know, darling?” The Exile Queen gave me an evil smile. “But that is not the important bit of this story. Would you like to know the climax? After I...dealt with the mortals, I returned home. Or, I tried to return home. And do you know what I found, Ethan Chase?”
Her eyes were almost glowing now, an icy, dangerous blue, making my insides shrink. “Nothing?” I guessed in a small voice.
“Bravo, Ethan Chase!” Leanansidhe applauded. I jumped, and the lights around us flickered. “Nothing is exactly what I found. The Between was gone. My home, gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Vanished, like it never existed.”
“But...it eventually came back,” Kenzie ventured, and Leanansidhe turned her piercing gaze on her. “I mean, it’s here now.”
“Noticed that, did you, darling?” The faery’s voice was cutting. “Yes, the Veil eventually re-formed, and I was able to return to the Between. But you know what didn’t magically re-form?” She waved her hands around the room again. “This. My home. The center of my kingdom. That’s why I’ve been so busy of late, my dove. I’ve had to rebuild from scratch. And all my humans, my artists and musicians and composers I’ve grown rather fond of all these years?” She fluttered a hand at the ceiling. “Gone. Lost. Ran off into the mortal realm when the Veil went down, and I haven’t seen them since. I’m still rather perturbed about that.”
Oh, crap. This wasn’t going well. We’d escaped one dragon’s nest only to land in an even bigger, nastier one. The Exile Queen stopped staring at Kenzie and smiled at me again, and I felt my insides shrink.
“And then, I start to hear things about you, Ethan darling. Rumors trickled in, from all corners of the Nevernever and the mortal realm. Such interesting stories, my dove. About you, and the Iron Prince, and how you both were responsible for the destruction of the Veil.” She clasped her hands in front of her, giving me a mock inquisitive look. “Would you care to elaborate on that, darling? You see, I’m a little annoyed with you and the prince right now, and an explanation might make me less inclined to rip your intestines out through your nose and string my harps with them.”
“Keirran stabbed me,” I said, as Kenzie moved protectively to my side. I didn’t know what she could do against the insanely powerful Exile Queen, but I did know she would try to do something if Leanansidhe made good on her threat. I had to get a handle on this situation—now. “We went to see the Forgotten Queen,” I went on, “and she told him he could destroy the Veil and save all the exiles if he sacrificed someone whose blood tied him to all three courts. And then he ran me through and left me to die.” Leanansidhe raised an eyebrow, and I made a hopeless gesture. “I didn’t mean to destroy the Veil and make your kingdom vanish,” I said seriously. “I would have tried to stop it, but I was kind of dead at the time.”
She looked unappeased. “I’m afraid that is not much of an excuse, darling,” she said, making my stomach drop to the floor. “It was your blood that destroyed the Veil, your life that caused this disaster. Intentional or not, the fault still lies with you.”
“What about Keirran?” Kenzie demanded angrily. “He’s the one who stabbed Ethan. He sacrificed him, knowing it would destroy the Veil. If you want to point fingers, Keirran is the one who made the choice, not Ethan.”
“Oh, the Iron Prince has much to answer for,” Leanansidhe agreed in a scary voice. “And he will feel my retribution before this is over, I assure you. But...” Her gaze sharpened, glaring at me. “He is not here. And he is only half of the equation. Everything that has happened, everything he has done up until this point, was made possible only with your help, Ethan Chase.” She tilted her head, raising both brows. “Can you deny this, darling?”
Numbly, I shook my head. “No,” I rasped, “but I’m trying to make it right.”
“Make it right?” Leanansidhe let out a short bark of laughter. “Forgive me, darling, but it’s far too late for that. Can you return all my humans to me? Can you make the Forgotten disappear? Can you undo the prophecy, now that it has been set into motion?” The Exile Queen shook her head. “This is a war, Ethan Chase. And you are not like your sister. You do not command the power of Summer and Iron. You do not have the son of Mab and the infamous Robin Goodfellow at your side. You are a mere mortal with no power of your own, a girl who is dying and a gremlin. How do you expect to ‘make things right,’ Ethan Chase? How do you expect to stand against the Forgotten and their queen?”
“I don’t,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired. “I’m not trying to stop a war. I don’t plan to take on the Lady and the Forgotten by myself. I’m just... I’m trying to save my family. What’s left of it, anyway.” I felt Kenzie press closer, and her fingers briefly brushed mine, letting me know she was there. I squeezed her hand in return. “If you want to kill me for that,” I went on, making Kenzie stiffen, “turn me into a harp or a guitar or whatever, go ahead. But I’m the only one who can stop Keirran now. The prophecy wasn’t about the Lady, it was about him. And me. One way or another, we’re going to have to face each other again.”
“You can’t take this out on Ethan,” Kenzie broke in, now squeezing my fingers in a death grip. “This wasn’t his choice. He did everything he could to help Keirran save Annwyl, and Keirran repaid him by stabbing him in the back. And if you think I’m going to let you turn him into a guitar—”
“Oh, darling, don’t be ridiculou
s,” Leanansidhe snapped, rolling her eyes. “And I thought I was the dramatic one. Do you honestly think I would turn the Iron Queen’s precious baby brother into a guitar? Permanently, anyway? No, dove.” She gave me a look of disgust. “If I wanted revenge, I would not be so crass and obvious as that. Not when there are a thousand other, more creative ways, to ruin someone’s life. So you can stop glaring at me, darling,” she went on, looking at Kenzie. “And Grimalkin can stop hiding. I am not turning anyone into anything today.”
“Please,” sniffed a familiar voice. Grimalkin’s, from the piano bench. The cat looked up from washing his tail, like he’d been sitting there all this time. “As if I have anything to fear from the lot of you,” he stated, and went back to grooming himself. I felt Kenzie slump in relief.
“Though, I am curious, darlings,” Leanansidhe went on, after a brief glare at the cat, who seemed oblivious. “What are you planning to do about the Iron Prince? Last I heard, he had declared war on all the courts, even his own Iron Realm, in front of every king and queen of Faery. Quite the treasonous offense, you know. Punishable by death. It seems our darling Iron Prince is entirely serious about destroying us all.” She shook her head. “Stupid, brazen boy. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“He doesn’t,” I said, making her blink. “He’s...not entirely himself. There’s this amulet that...uh...sort of sucked out his soul.”
The Exile Queen regarded me with those scary blue eyes, and the air around us went very still. “This amulet,” she said in a quiet voice, “is it around the neck of a certain Summer faery?”
I swallowed. “I take it you’ve seen Annwyl.”
“Not in a long time, darling.” Leanansidhe straightened with a sniff. “Nor do I ever want to see the girl again. That little harlot has caused me no end of trouble.” Reaching over her head, she pulled a cigarette flute out of thin air, stuck one end in her mouth and puffed out clouds of violet smoke. “I never should have agreed to take the girl in the first place,” she grumbled, “but you know our darling prince. Bats his eyes and gives you that wounded puppy-dog look, and it’s nearly impossible to tell him no. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll just pester you constantly until you give in. Impossible child.”