The Iron Traitor

“You can’t promise me that,” she said angrily, pushing away from the counter. Her eyes snapped at me, furious and terrified. “You can’t control what They do, if They want you to stay...there. What am I supposed to do while you’re gone, Ethan? I waited for Meghan to come home for a year, only to lose her to Them for good! How long am I supposed to wait until I’m sure you’re not coming back?”

“I’m not Meghan!” I snapped. “I’m not part faery. I’m not going to fall in love with one of Them, fight Their wars and become Their king. I hate Them and I hate what They’ve done to us. After all this time, you should know that!” At a sharp look from Dad, I stopped, getting control of myself again. Even if I was discussing faeries and the Nevernever and things he didn’t understand, he still wouldn’t let me talk to Mom like that. I took a deep breath and continued in a calmer voice. “But I am a part of that world, especially now. Even if I stay on this side of the Veil, They won’t ever leave me alone.”

“There’s a difference between Seeing Them and rushing headlong into Their wars, Ethan. You were doing so well, keeping your head down, not getting involved.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t do that anymore.” I swallowed and hoped that the universe would forgive this one small lie. “Meghan needs my help. This is something I have to do.” Mom gave a choked sob and turned away, making my stomach contract, but I kept going. “I’m tired of being afraid, and I’m tired of pretending. I’m not running from Them anymore.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Mom protested, a little desperately now. “Or taken away, just like Meghan. I won’t lose another child to Them. I will not watch Them drag you into that world. You can’t go, Ethan. I refuse to see that again.”

“I’m almost eighteen,” I said softly, watching as she stalked to the dishwasher and wrenched it open. “You can’t protect me forever.”

Mom didn’t answer, but Dad finally spoke up, his voice low and controlled. “And if we directly forbid you to go?” he asked. Not challenging or angry, just seeing where I stood. How serious I really was. I took a deep breath.

“Then I’ll go anyway and face whatever punishment you give me when I get back.”

“That’s what I thought,” Dad said. He checked his watch and frowned, then glanced at Mom, still standing over the dishwasher but not moving anything from it. “I’m calling in tonight,” he announced, backing away from the counter. “Let’s continue this talk in the living room, and Ethan can tell us exactly where in New Orleans he’s going and what he plans to do while he’s there.”

“Luke!” Mom whirled around, aghast. I blinked in shock, too. “You can’t be serious! He can’t go to New Orleans by himself! What if They find him?”

“He’s not going alone,” Dad said. “I’ll drive him up myself.”

“Uh.” I blinked. “What?”

He gave me a stern look. “You heard me. I realize this is something you have to do, but you’re certainly not going to New Orleans alone. At least I can be there if you run into trouble.”

“That’s not a solution, Luke,” Mom broke in. “So, instead of forbidding him to go, you’re going to drive him up and deliver him to Their doorstep? How is that better?”

“Melissa.” Dad faced Mom wearily. “The boy is going, whether we like it or not. He’s been fighting Them since he was a kid. I might not be able to see it, but I’m not blind.” He sighed, looking much older now, grizzled and tired. “We’ve always known it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, before They came for him. I’d rather have him know he can turn to us for help, instead of thinking we’re oblivious to what he’s getting into.”

“But...” Mom blinked back tears. “Meghan...”

“Is gone,” Dad said quietly. “And we have to accept that, just like we have to accept the fact that Ethan is involved in her world, too. Or we’re just going to be fighting this for the rest of our lives.”

Mom stood there, staring at both me and Dad, before she walked stiffly out of the kitchen without looking back. We heard her climb the steps to the upstairs bedroom, and then the door slammed with a crash that rattled the house.

I winced. Dad looked at me, haggard and grave. “When do you want to leave?” he asked in a resigned voice.

“Tomorrow,” I replied, hoping my voice wouldn’t betray me, let him know what I was thinking. Because there was no way he could come with me. Dad was only trying to help, to keep me safe, but he couldn’t find out about Keirran or the very dangerous thing I was planning tomorrow night. “I thought we could get on the road after lunch, if that’s okay.”

“Is anyone meeting you there?”

Damn. “No,” I said, hating that I had to lie, again, but I wouldn’t rat Kenzie out and possibly get her in trouble. And I didn’t think even Dad would be okay with me meeting my girlfriend in New Orleans, unsupervised. “Just me.”

He nodded and glanced to the door of the upstairs bedroom as if steeling himself. I took that to mean the conversation was over and began to slip away to my room.

“Ethan.”

I paused in the hall, looking back, as Dad scrubbed a hand across his face. “You’ll be careful, right, son?” he asked, sounding uncertain now. “I know I don’t understand much about this...other world, but your mother has never been the same since Meg left. You have to promise you won’t go the same way. It would kill her.”

“I won’t,” I told him. “I swear.”

He went up the stairs, and I continued to my room, shutting the door behind me.

Well, that was about as awful as I’d thought it would be. Mental note, Ethan: let’s not do that again. Except, I could see more conversations like that in the future, explaining to my parents why I had to disappear this time, because Faery couldn’t seem to leave me alone.

Speaking of faeries, where was Annwyl? I’d left her sitting on my bed that morning, and she’d assured me she had no intention of leaving the room unless it was an emergency. The thought of a full-blooded Summer gentry wandering around my house made me a little nervous, but I trusted Annwyl enough to know that she wouldn’t cause trouble or glamour my parents. I hadn’t seen her in the rest of the house, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t upstairs in my parents’ room. So where was she?

“Annwyl?” I called softly as I stepped farther into the room. “Are you here?”

There was no answer.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE THIN MAN

I frowned at the mattress, wondering where the Summer faery could have gone. When I left her that morning, she had been curled up on my pillow reading, petals and leaves idly sprouting around her from the bed frame. Worried that she might be bored, as bored faeries were a recipe for disaster, I’d gathered a large stack of random books, magazines and novels from around the house, sneaking them into my room for her. Before leaving for school, I’d also offered to let her watch movies on my laptop, but she had shuddered at that idea and refused. Though, when she shyly asked if the strange metal device could play any music, I’d found a classical music station and left it on, turned down so my parents wouldn’t come into the room and shut it off.

The bed was empty now, a paperback book sitting forgotten on my pillow. The music station still crooned softly, and I clicked it silent.

“Annwyl,” I called again, wondering, absurdly, if I should check the closet or under the bed. “Where are you?”

Still nothing. The subtle warmth and scent of flowers that filled my room when Annwyl was present was also gone. I suddenly remembered the faery’s words about Fading away, and a sharp ache gripped my stomach. Had she just...disappeared? Ceased to exist? My gut twisted even harder. What would Keirran have to say about that? What would he do if he found out?

Desperate now to find her, I searched the rest of the house, but she wasn’t in the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, basement or study, and I definitely wasn’t going to barge into my parents’ room right now. Hoping that she hadn’t forgotten the danger and wandered outside, I went to the back door to search our small, fenced-in yard for the vanished faery.

I yanked the door open and froze.

A thin, pale figure stood a few yards away, perched atop the wooden privacy fence surrounding the lot, silhouetted against the night sky. He stood in profile so that he faced me from the side, and one large, pale eye peered down at me from a narrow face.

My heart nearly stopped, but as soon as I saw him, the Thin Man turned, as if to say something to me, and vanished. I jumped, startled and disbelieving. With the exception of an obnoxious gray cat, I’d never seen any faery just disappear in front of me.

“Oh, blast it all” came a high, clear voice out of nowhere. “I keep forgetting. One moment, Ethan Chase.”

The Thin Man turned back, visible again, and I realized he hadn’t disappeared at all, only that he was really, really thin. Like the edge of a paper thin. So thin he could be viewed only when he turned to the side. I wondered how the hell he could stand up straight, let alone walk, if he was basically the width of a sheet of paper. But he was a faery, and things never made sense with the fey.

“Good evening,” the Thin Man said, smiling and peering down at me from the corner of his eye. “Lovely night, isn’t it?”

I closed the door behind me but did not step into the yard, watching the faery from the top step. The wards might be keeping him at bay for now, but if he somehow broke through them and came after me, I wanted enough time to reach my room and grab my swords.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Now, is that any way to greet a guest?” the faery inquired, clasping his pale hands in front of him. “I have come far to find you, Ethan Chase.”

The Thin Man took off his hat and turned it in his long, spiderlike fingers. “I have a problem, Ethan Chase,” he said, gazing down at his hands. “I was hoping you could fix it for me.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, you see...” The faery fiddled with his hat. “Long, long ago, I made a mistake. A very costly mistake, one that is having an impact on both our worlds right now. Are you familiar with the Fade, Ethan Chase? It is what happens to those of us who have either been cut off from the Nevernever or have been unremembered so long, we have forgotten our own names.”

“I know what it is.”

“Clever boy. I thought you might.” The faery smiled, showing a row of thin, sharp teeth. “Then listen well to my story. In the farthest reaches of the Between, the Veil between the mortal realm and the Nevernever, lies a town. And in that town dwell the creatures that the world has forgotten. It is their final resting place, their haven to move peacefully into nonexistence. I was the caretaker, Ethan Chase. The mayor, if you would. It was my duty to see that all those who came to Phaed were comfortable, and to help them ease into oblivion, for however long it took.”

“Sounds pretty awful,” I commented. The Thin Man ignored me.

“But then, several years ago, something came through my town that never should have been there, and something left that should have remained there forever. Because I let it go, that ripple awakened a long-sleeping darkness. A darkness that was never meant to stir. And now she is in the world again, and the things that had nearly Faded away are coming back.” The Thin Man’s gaze sharpened even more. “Even worse, because of my mistake, something was born into Faery that never should have been. A catalyst with the power to change everything.”

“So what does that have to do with me?” I asked.

The Thin Man blinked that large, pale eye. “It is the smallest things that are often the most important, Ethan Chase,” he said. “The cornerstones that will topple the whole tower. The prophecy cannot come to pass without him, and if I take away his reason to fight, the flame that keeps him going will flicker and die. The Forgotten will Fade back into the Deep Wyld once more, and all will be as it should.”

Prophecy? I felt cold. Suddenly, Meghan’s warnings, Keirran’s own words that everyone knew something he didn’t, made a lot more sense. “What prophecy?” I rasped, and the Thin Man looked at me in surprise.

“You don’t know? Surely the Iron Queen would have told you.” He paused then, as if just figuring something out. “Ahhhh,” he breathed, nodding. “No, she would not. Of course she would not, not something like this.”

“What?” I snapped. “What isn’t she telling me? What is she keeping from both of us?”

The faery steepled long fingers together. “I will tell you, Ethan Chase. I can tell you the prophecy, and your part in it, for a price.”

Dammit. Should’ve seen this coming. My knee-jerk instinct was to refuse. That was my number one rule: never make a bargain with the fey, under any circumstance.

But this prophecy sounded bad. And a lot bigger than I had imagined. “What price?” I asked warily. The Thin Man smiled.

“A small thing. Simply remove the wards you have put up and allow me to collect what I’ve come for. I will be on my way after that.”

Remove the wards. Let the faery into the house. Why would he want...

Wait. He was talking about Keirran. The catalyst, the power that could change everything, was Keirran. And Keirran’s reason to fight was... “Annwyl,” I guessed, anger and horror spreading through me. “You’re here for Annwyl.”

“The Summer girl is already Fading,” the Thin Man said patiently. “Her end has begun. You cannot stop it. He cannot stop it. This mad quest, his determination to halt the Fade, for exiles and Forgotten, must cease. You cannot fight inevitability. Once she is gone, the Iron Prince’s spark will die, and he will forget why he wanted to save the exiles in the first place.”

“Or you’ll piss him off so badly he’ll do something really stupid.”

“That is a chance I am willing to take.”

“Well, I’m not.” I stepped back, putting a hand on the doorknob. “And I’m sure as hell not turning Annwyl over to you. So go away. You’re not getting into my house, and you’re not getting anywhere near Annwyl or my family.”

The Thin Man gave a heavy sigh. “Foolish boy. Very well. Delay the inevitable awhile longer, if you wish. But the girl will Fade, and until that time, I will make sure she never sees the Iron Prince again.”

With that, he turned to face me head-on...and disappeared.

Making a mental note to strengthen the hell out of the wards later, I hurried back to my room.

“Annwyl?” I called again, pushing open the door. “Are you here?”

She looked up from the bed, moss-green eyes wide and frightened. Relieved, I shut the door, locking it behind me just in case. “He was here, wasn’t he?” she whispered. “The Thin Man. I could feel him, like an emptiness, sucking away at me.”

“Where were you?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear me looking for you earlier?”

The faery blinked at me, confused. “I...I never left the room,” she said. “I was here all day. Or I was, until...”

She glanced at the book, dropped and lying forgotten on the pillow, and her face paled. “I wasn’t here,” she whispered, horror creeping over her. “I...Faded out for a few minutes.”

She might’ve been fey, and she might’ve been Keirran’s sort-of girlfriend, but at that moment she looked more like a frightened girl than an ancient Summer sidhe. “Look, we’ll figure this out,” I promised. “One way or another. Once we find Keirran, we’ll try to find a cure for this.”

She gave me a shaky smile. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m grateful, Ethan Chase. But there is no cure. No hope. I’m only fighting the inevitable.”

Her words had an eerily familiar ring to them, much like the conversation I’d just had with the Thin Man. “You can’t just give up,” I told her. “Keirran is out there fighting for you. He wouldn’t want you to roll over and let it win.”

“Keirran...” Annwyl closed her eyes. “This is wrong,” she murmured. “He shouldn’t be trying to save me. Not after...”

She paused, biting her lip, and I frowned. “Not after what?”

“Not after he’s already done so much,” she finished, and I knew she was lying. Well, not lying, since technically the fey couldn’t tell an outright lie. But there were a thousand ways to bend and dance around the truth, and they were experts in all of them. It was one of the key things that made them so dangerous.

“Why is he doing this?” Annwyl continued. “He knows there’s no way to halt the Fade.”

“He loves you,” I said, shrugging. “Love can make us do stupid things sometimes.”

“My existence is nearly done.” Annwyl picked up the book and held it in her lap, staring down at the cover. “There’s nothing I can do to stop it. But I want to see Keirran before I’m gone. Before I Fade completely, I want to make sure Keirran is safe, that he won’t get himself bound to a contract he’ll regret forever.”

“We’ll find him,” I told her. “Tomorrow. We’ll head up to New Orleans, find out where the goblin market is being held and look for him there. And if he’s not there, we’ll just keep asking around until we find out where he’s hiding.” Someone had to know something about the whereabouts of the Iron Prince, even if the price for such information would probably be very high.

She gave a faint smile. “It’s...easier with you around, Ethan Chase,” she murmured, making me frown in confusion. “Your belief in us is very strong. Your emotions are very powerful. I think I can hold out against the Fade, at least until I see Keirran again, if you are with me.”

And then what? I wondered. What are we supposed to do after that—watch you cease to exist? You think you’ll be able to convince Keirran to just let you go?

Collapsing into my computer chair, I jiggled my computer to life and stared blankly at the screen, my mind in several places at once. I tried to focus. Find Keirran. That was the first issue. All the other stuff we’d worry about later. We would figure out this thing with Annwyl, Meghan and the Thin Man after we tracked down the Prince of the Iron Realm. And I smacked him on the back of the head for all the trouble he put me through.

The prophecy cannot come to pass without him, the Thin Man had said, causing a chill to crawl up my spine. Great, one more thing to drive me crazy. What kind of prophecy? Did it involve me? Annwyl? Kenzie? Was Keirran meant to do something, or were certain events destined to unfold around him? I suddenly felt like Glinda the Good; is it a good prophecy, or a bad prophecy? Could it be avoided if I stayed away from him, or would that just make certain it came to pass? Whatever it was.

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