Caitlin Kittredge - The Nightmare Garden

After a nerve-racking minute, Dean caught up with us. My feet barely touched the metal plates that comprised the floors of Windhaven. Skip’s stride was long and quick, and my arm burned where he grabbed it. “You’re a lucky little human,” he told me. “One of the few to ever lay eyes on the Wytch King.”

I managed to keep my voice steady, though I was terrified beyond belief. Even Dean had seemed afraid of the Wytch King when he’d finally told me the truth about being half Erlkin and about his people, and Dean wasn’t afraid of anything, that I could see. “What does he want with me?”

“I imagine you interest him,” Skip said. “Or he’s hungry. Erlkin like live meat.” He grinned at me, every tooth like a carving knife.

“Stop it,” Dean growled from behind us. “Right this redhot second.” He pried Skip’s viselike grip off my arm and slid his hand into mine. “The Wytch King doesn’t eat people,” he said to me.

I squeezed his hand. Whatever would happen between us, at least he was here now. I was relieved—without Dean, with my exhaustion and the weight of memory constantly on me, I was about an inch from being a blubbering mess.

“You used to be a lot more fun, Nails,” Skip muttered as we mounted a broad set of steps. The double doors at the top were flanked by two Erlkin in uniform sporting shock rifles.

“And you used to be a lot less of a jerk,” Dean muttered back.

The doors swung back of their own accord, and I was distracted from the imminent fistfight between Dean and Skip by what lay beyond. I’d been expecting a throne room, the sort of thing Cal’s fantasy-story heroes like Conan and Lancelot would enter, hair flowing and swords gleaming. Some grand hall covered in silk from floor to ceiling and emblazoned with noble crests.

Instead, the room was bare, containing only a broad metal table and a long swath of black velvet curtains covering the back part of the vast, echoing chamber.

The Wytch King himself sat in a swivel chair with his back to us, pale hands with pale fingers tapping against the dark, rough leather of his chair. He turned to face us, and I felt my stomach drop as if Windhaven had plummeted from the sky.

The Wytch King’s gaze was silver and pupil-less, glossed over with a mercury sheen that seemed to slip and slither across the surface of his eyes. His lips were black, and his teeth were filed to sharp points. He wore a high-necked black uniform that looked eerily like those the officers among the Proctors wore. He sniffed the air with flattened nostrils, and those silver eyes locked on me. They were the same color as Dean’s, but where Dean’s burned with life and warmth, the Wytch King might as well have been made from clockwork.

I felt a million things in that moment—fear, disgust, the urge to scream. Those were the initial tidal wave of panic, and then my engineer’s brain kicked in. The logical, impassive side that didn’t get scared or confused. I tried to assess how much danger I was actually in, and what I could do to get myself out of it. Not much , came the rapid answer, which started the panic all over again.

“Sir,” Skip said. “The human girl.”

The Wytch King stood, extended his hand to me, and smiled. “Hello, Aoife. I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

I looked at the hand, the nails blackened at the edges with some foreign substance I couldn’t identify. I recoiled at the thought of touching him, but I knew I couldn’t risk angering the Erlkin further. I put my hand in his and gripped it firmly.

His fist closed around mine like a bear trap, and while I struggled, all my fantasies of being resolute and a good ambassador for the Iron Land slipped from my mind and were replaced with the same low-frequency hum of panic that had been present since I’d left my father’s home.

“You aren’t soft,” he said. “Your hands are calloused. Not what I’d expect from a Fae spy.”

“I’m not a spy!” I said hotly, nearly at a shout. Skip’s hand dropped to his weapon and I turned my eyes on him, raising my voice to a real yell. “You want to shoot me, you pasty-faced freak?” I yelled. “Go ahead. Go ahead and do it so you can tell your friends how you stopped the dangerous Fae spy who hasn’t done a thing except try to stay alive.”

I ripped my hand from the Wytch King’s grasp, and his nails left tracks of blood across my palm. My chest was heaving, my vision was tunneled in black, and I could hear my heartbeat roaring in my ears. I didn’t even realize I’d balled up my fists and started for Skip until Dean caught me and spun me into his arms.

“Aoife,” he said against my ear. “Aoife!” again, louder, when I reflexively fought back against his embrace. “You’re bleeding,” Dean murmured. He released me and uncurled my hand to show three long furrows in my skin, oozing blood. “Let me take care of that for you,” he said softly. “Just cool your jets, all right? This is not the place. I know how you feel. But it just isn’t.”

“You know and I know we’re not leaving here,” I said, trying to still the shakes running through me. “They’ve already made up their minds that Conrad and I are working against them.”

The Wytch King began to laugh. It was an eerie sound, more like static crackling over the aether than a sound borne from a living throat. He wheezed for a moment and then slapped his knee. “I like your girl, Nails. Like her very much.” He turned those flat doll’s eyes on me, and once again I felt the chill of something cold and older than I could imagine sweep over me. The Erlkin might not have had the iron affliction or cruel, spiteful streak of the Fae, but they weren’t human, and things like me were prey to them. I was acutely aware of that as the king stared at me.

“It doesn’t change the fact,” he said, “that your brother consorted with slipstreamers, smugglers who weaken our borders by bringing your kind through. And I will not let that go unanswered. I can’t. My people rely on me to keep them safe, just as you rely on Nails.”

“I keep myself safe,” I said, steel creeping into my tone. “I’ve been doing it for a long time.” How dare he imply I was some helpless, sappy girl, cowering in fear unless she had a boyfriend to protect her? The more time I spent with the Wytch King, the more his unpleasantness reminded me of Grey Draven’s. The former Head of Lovecraft, the man who’d tried to use me to lure my father into a trap, had the same single-minded coldness as the Wytch King. I didn’t know if that made the Wytch King more human or Grey Draven less so.

“You welcome some humans,” I challenged the king, spurred by the memory of Draven and his cold-blooded threat to find and exterminate my father, Conrad and anyone else of the Grayson line he could get his hands on when I wouldn’t cooperate with him. “You helped my father.” Maybe if I could convince the Wytch King I wasn’t his enemy, I could wheedle my father’s location out of him. The thought made me stand a little straighter and try to act as if I weren’t a knock-kneed mess. During my life at the Academy, I’d gotten good at pretending such things.

“I did,” the Wytch King agreed. “I helped Archie Grayson, because the enemy of my enemy is my ally, and Archie has never crossed an Erlkin widdershins, which is more than I can say for most of your kind.” He took his seat again, leather and springs creaking under surprising weight. “But you’re not your father, little miss. And if the Fae and that human-shaped stain on the world who calls himself Grey Draven have their say, you’re never going to follow his footsteps through the Gates either.”

This time, the chill I felt had nothing to do with his stare. “How do you know him?” I demanded. Were we in even worse trouble than I thought? Had Draven somehow snowed the Erlkin into an alliance to bring me in, use me as the bait he needed to lure my father?