We fell silent. Through the trees, faint at first but growing steadily louder, voices rose into the air—shouts and curses, mixed with the clang of weapons.
“Sounds like a fight,” Ash stated calmly, and I exhaled. Of course it was. This was the Nevernever, where nothing was ever simple.
“Come on,” I muttered, drawing my sword, “we’d better see what’s happening. I swear though, if I catch any more Winter knights this close to the border, Mab is going to get an earful.”
* * *
We headed into the trees, which quickly grew dark and tangled as the Iron Realm faded into the uniform murk of the wyldwood. The sounds of battle grew louder, more consistent, until we finally broke through the trees and stood at the edge of the wyldwood proper. A large chasm ran the length of the perimeter, separating the wyldwood from the Iron Realm, and a bridge spanned the gulf between territories. At one point, the bridge had been made of wood, but the wyldwood kept dragging it down, as if it didn’t want anyone coming or going into the Iron Realm. So finally, I’d spoken to my father, King Oberon, and another bridge had been constructed, this time made of stone and fashioned in place by trolls and rock dwarves. Moss and vines still curled around the heavy posts and railings, but dwarves knew stonework better than anyone, and this bridge wasn’t going anywhere for a long time.
Just as well.
A fight raged in the middle of that bridge—at least, I thought it was a fight. It might’ve been a crazy, twirling dance for all I knew. A hoard of small, dark faeries in wooden masks jabbered and danced around a tall figure in the center of the bridge. Spear points flashed, and I realized the little men were trying to stab the stranger, who was doing a fantastic job of dodging or blocking every strike with his daggers. His hair gleamed a shocking red in the darkness, and my heart leaped to my throat.
“Puck!”
The redheaded faery in the middle of the chaos shot me a quick glance. “Oh, hey, Meghan!” Robin Goodfellow paused a split second to wave before dodging back as a midget stabbed at him. “Small world! And ice-boy’s here, too! What a coincidence, I was just coming to look for you. Hey!” He ducked as a spear flew over his head. “Jeez, take it easy, you guys! I already told you, it was a simple misunderstanding.” The midgets chattered angrily and surged forward, jabbing with their weapons. Puck grimaced. “Uh, ice-boy, a little help?”
Ash instantly drew his arm back and sent a flurry of ice daggers spinning toward the bridge, striking several of the small figures, though not hard enough to kill them. They shrieked and whirled on us, dark eyes flashing, then bounded forward with raised spears.
I tensed, but at the edge of the Iron Realm, they skidded to a halt, gazing up at me with wide eyes. Crowding close, they jabbered to one another in that strange, unfamiliar language before turning to shout something to the few who still swarmed around Puck. They paused, then came forward to babble at one another in low voices, pointing fingers at me, then Puck.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Ash, who was following the strange conversation with a slight frown. He sighed.
“They’re Aluxob,” he said, to my utter confusion. “Mayan nature spirits. They protect the ancient forests of the Maya, but are usually fairly tolerant of outsiders.” He shot a look at Puck. “Unless the trespasser does something to anger or insult them.”
“Ah.”
“What do you mean, ‘ah’?” Puck said, still keeping a wary eye on his former attackers. “I told them before, it was a teensy tiny misunderstanding with an old headdress and an ancient burial ground. How was I supposed to know it was so important?”
“Puck—” I groaned, but one of the small men had crept close, watching us carefully. As I waited, he gave a jerky bow.
“Goddess?” he asked in a clear, high-pitched voice. “You…goddess of place, yes?”
I looked down at the tiny men, keeping a straight face even as I recalled the line from a favorite movie. When someone asks you if you’re a god, you say…yes!
“I am Meghan Chase, Queen of the Iron Realm. What do you want here?”
“Command,” the Alux-whatever went on, pointing back to Puck. “Command this one. Return to us what was stolen. Return, and we go.”
Ash sighed and shook his head. I blinked at the midget, then turned to glare at Puck. “What did you steal?”
“I didn’t steal it,” Puck said, sounding affronted. “I was just borrowing it for a while. I was going to give it back.”
“Puck!”
“Okay, okay. Jeez.” Reaching back, Puck pulled a long feather out of his hair. It shimmered as it caught the light, a rainbow of different colors, shifting gorgeously in the wind. Begrudgingly, he handed it to the nearest little man, who snatched it from his fingers, scowling. “Man, take one feathered serpent’s wingtip and you’re marked for life. It’s not like they don’t shed them every decade or so.”
The Aluxob bared their teeth at Puck, bowed to me and, as quickly as they had come, melted back into the trees. We watched until their small forms had completely disappeared into the tangled shadows, leaving the three of us standing alone at the edge of the wyldwood.
For a few heartbeats, we just stared at each other. The last time I’d seen Puck, I had been normal Meghan Chase, the girl he’d looked after for years at the command of my father, Oberon. That was before I nearly died saving Faery from the false king, took the throne for myself and married Puck’s archrival. Before I became the Iron Queen.
Things were different now. After the final battle, Puck had vanished, first to help Ash in his quest to earn a soul, then disappearing from the Nevernever completely. No one knew where he’d gone, but I suspected he’d wanted to put some distance between us, take some time to think. I’d desperately hoped to see him again soon, if only to let him know how grateful I was. Puck had loved me, but he’d gone with Ash to help him earn a soul so that his archrival could return to the Iron Realm to be with me. Robin Goodfellow, for all his pranks and mischief, was the sweetest, most noble person I’d ever known, and I’d missed him terribly.
“Well.” Puck finally broke the silence, scratching the back of his neck. “This is awkward. And here I thought I would have to rescue you and ice-boy from something again. That’s normally how these little reunions go.” He gave me a sheepish grin and stood uncomfortably next to the bridge, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Not sure what to do here, your highness. I’d give you a hug, but that might not be proper, and bowing just seems weird. Think I’ll just stand here and wave. Or, I could give you a salute—”
Shaking my head, I walked up to him, reached out and pulled him into a hug. He hesitated only a second, then returned it tightly.
“Hey, princess,” he murmured as we drew apart, and I smiled at his old, stupid nickname for me. It seemed everything was back to normal between us, or at least on its way. His gaze flickered to Ash, who stood by calmly, watching us both. I spared a glance at my knight, but there was nothing cold or hostile in his expression. He almost appeared happy to see Puck. Almost.
“We missed you at the wedding,” he said.
“Yeah.” Puck shrugged. “I was in Kyoto at the time, visiting some old kitsune friends. We were traveling up to Hokaido to check out this old temple that was supposedly haunted. Turns out, a yuki-onna had taken up residence there and had scared off most of the locals. She wasn’t terribly happy to see us. Can you believe it?” He grinned. “Course, we, uh, might’ve pissed her off when the temple caught fire—you know how kitsune ar
e. She chased us all the way to the coast, throwing icicles, causing blizzards…the old hag even tried burying us under an avalanche. We almost died.” He sighed dreamily and looked at Ash. “You should’ve been there, ice-boy.”
“So, how did you end up here?” I asked, promising myself to get the rest of that story out of him later. Right now, I needed to focus on what we were doing.
Puck scratched the side of his face. “Well, after the, erm, misunderstanding in Hokaido, I decided I should probably put some distance between myself and temperamental snow-maidens. So, I headed out to Belize and was poking around these cool Mayan ruins, when all of a sudden the oracle pops in outta nowhere, being all mysterious and spooky. I think she tried to scare me with the dust and the light show, but I’ve seen so many things jump out and go boo, it’s just kinda sad, now.”
I started. “The oracle?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “She said I needed to hightail it back to the Nevernever, because you and ice-boy were gonna need my help soon. Didn’t give me much else to go on, only that the three of us had to be together to get past some big nasty coming up in our future. Naturally, I thought the two of you had gotten into some kind of trouble, so here I am. Uh, minus a few hitchhikers I picked up in Belize.” Puck crossed his arms, giving me an appraising look. “So, what’s the big emergency, princess? You and ice-boy look fine to me, and the Nevernever isn’t crumbling around us. What’s going on?”
“I’m pregnant, Puck,” I said quietly, and watched his eyebrows shoot into his hair. Briefly, I explained what had happened at Elysium, the oracle’s mysterious appearance and invitation, and Grimalkin’s instruction to meet him at the Wishing Tree. By the time I was done, Puck was still staring at me openmouthed, struck mute for maybe the second time in his life, and I would’ve laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious.
“Oh,” he finally managed. “That’s, uh…wow. That’s not something you hear every day. Not exactly what I was expecting, though the entire prophecy thing does get old after a while.” He shook himself, seeming to regain his composure, and glanced at Ash. “So, it’s the ever so popular Firstborn Child of Doom prophecy, huh, ice-boy? How very cliché. Why can’t it ever be the third nephew twice removed who’s fated to destroy the world?”
I felt a twinge of exasperation that Puck was being so flippant about a very serious matter, again…but that was Puck. His way of coping with the situation. I guess you couldn’t blame him. I had just dropped a rather large bombshell in his lap; it wasn’t every day that your best friend told you she was pregnant with the future Destroyer of the World.
Oh, great, now I’m making jokes.
Ash gave Puck a weary look. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said, glancing at me as if he knew what I was thinking. “We have to find the oracle and see what she can tell us, what she’s offering. Until then, it’s useless to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet.”
I marveled that he could be so calm. Did he know something I didn’t, something he had glimpsed in that future version of us? But that couldn’t be right; surely he would tell me if he’d seen something like that: our child growing up to destroy the courts. That was kind of a big thing not to mention.
Or was that all a part of the “future what-ifs” he didn’t want to talk about?
“Well,” Puck said cheerfully, forcing a rather pained smile, “it’s just like old times, isn’t it? You, me, ice-boy, the future of the Nevernever hanging in the balance…we just have to wait for Furball to show up and then it’ll be perfect.”
“He is already here, Goodfellow,” came a familiar voice behind us, sounding bored and offended all at once. “Where he has been for much of the conversation, waiting for you to see past the end of your nose.”
“Yep.” Puck sighed as we all turned to face Grimalkin. “Just like old times.”
Chapter Five
“So…why are we going to the Wishing Tree again?” Puck asked as we followed Grimalkin through a section of the wyldwood that was even darker and more tangled than most. Trees crowded together and vines and branches interlocked like clutching fingers to block the path. It would’ve been difficult to navigate, except the tangled vegetation shifted and uncoiled to let us through as I approached. The Nevernever recognized a queen of Faery; Ash had explained when this first happened. The rulers of the courts were all, in some way, tied to the land, and the Nevernever responded to their very presence, even out here in the wyldwood.
“Oy, Furball,” Puck called when Grimalkin ignored him. “I know you can hear me. Why are we going to the freaking Wishing Tree, of all places? Is creepy oracle lady going to meet us there?”
“She is not.”
“She is not,” Puck repeated, wrinkling his nose. “Of course she’s not. That would make too much sense, right?” Grimalkin didn’t answer, and Puck rolled his eyes. “So, where is she meeting us, cat?”
“The Dreaming Pool.”
“Okay, if anyone else is as confused as me, raise your hand,” Puck said, putting his arm in the air. “Do I have to ask the obvious question, then? If she’s meeting us at the Dreaming Pool, why the heck are we going to the Wishing Tree?”
Grimalkin looked over his shoulder, twitching his tail disdainfully. “I would have thought the answer obvious, Goodfellow,” he said in a very slow, annoyed voice. “If you recall, the Dreaming Pool lies somewhere in the Briars. Very deep in the Briars, and never in the same place twice. To reach it normally, one very nearly has to stumble upon it by accident. And I do not wish to go floundering about the thorns with the lot of you for who knows how long. The Wishing Tree will get us there much faster.”
“How? Don’t tell me you’re gonna wish us there.” Puck looked faintly alarmed for a second, and glanced at Ash. “That didn’t work out so well for us last time, huh, ice-boy?”
I blinked at them in shock, but Ash snorted. “You were the one who made the wish, Goodfellow. I seem to recall telling you not to do it. Of all people, you should’ve known better.”
“Really?” I looked at the grinning prankster. “Do I even want to know?”
“You really don’t, princess.”
“He was trying to make Oberon forget about a certain prank that went off in Titania’s bedchambers,” Ash answered for him. “I don’t even remember what it was, but it backfired and caught Oberon instead of Titania. The Erlking was about ready to tear his head off.”
“Oh, great, ice-boy, make it sound like the worst thing ever.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long. What happened with the tree?”
Puck scratched the back of his head. “Well—and this was a long time ago, understand—we made it to the tree—”
“Which took no small amount of effort, because Oberon was hunting us all over the wyldwood,” Ash broke in.
“Who’s telling the story here, ice-boy? Anyway…” Puck sniffed. “We made it to the tree. And I wished that Oberon would just…forget about that little misunderstanding. I thought I phrased it very well, didn’t leave anything to chance. And, it worked…sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Everyone forgot us.” Ash sighed. “The entire Nevernever. No one remembered who we were, that we’d ever existed.” He leveled a piercing glare at Puck. “I very nearly faded away, thanks to you.”
“He’ll never let me forget that,” Puck told me, rolling his eyes. I stared at him in alarm, and he grimaced. “But yeah. It was a pain in the ass to
get that wish reversed. Not something I’d want to do again. Wishing Tree equals bad news. And that’s not even counting the stupid thing guarding it.”
“Which is why I am here, Goodfellow.” Grimalkin sighed from up ahead. “Do not worry about the phrasing of the wish—I will take care of that. All you must concern yourself with is getting the queen past the sentinel of the tree. That is why you are here, I assume.”
“Sentinel?” I frowned as a thick wall of bramble and thorns peeled back for me, revealing a small clearing beyond. “What sentinel?”
Puck winced and nodded into the glen. “That sentinel.”
A tree stood in the center of the clearing. It was large and pale, bare of leaves, with crooked branches reaching up to claw the sky. However, only the top limbs were visible above the coils of a massive snake curled around the trunk. The huge serpent, black and shiny with thick, armorlike scales, shifted its huge body into an even tighter coil, looking like it wanted to suffocate the tree. I could see its head, resting on the ground, an arrow-shaped viper skull with lidless red eyes. A forked tongue, almost as long as me, flicked out to taste the air.
“Jeez, that thing has gotten huge,” Puck muttered, crossing his arms as we stared at the gigantic creature. “I don’t remember it being half that big the last time we killed it, do you, ice-boy?”
I started, frowning at him. “You killed it? Then, how is it…still here?”
“It doesn’t stay dead,” Ash replied, watching the monster over my shoulder. His hands came to rest lightly on my waist as he moved close. “If someone wants to use the Wishing Tree, they first have to kill the guardian. If they’re successful, they get their wish, but the sentinel returns to life soon after, even bigger and harder to kill than before.”
“Oh.” I glared at Grimalkin, calmly washing his paws on a nearby rock. “That’s just fabulous. And you expect us to kill that thing? It’s the size of Walmart.”