Julie Kagawa - The Iron Knight

He unlocked a door and led us into an even smaller, more crowded room. Here, the merchandise lining the walls and piled in corners was even stranger than the stock outside, but more familiar to me. Basilisk fangs and wyvern stingers. Glowing potions and toadstools of every color. A huge tome of puckered flesh rested beneath a headdress made of griffin feathers. Rudy maneuvered through the clutter, kicking things out of the way, until he came to the back wall and pushed back a curtain. A simple wooden door stood on the other side.

“Open it,” Grimalkin ordered.

Sighing, Rudy unlocked the door and pushed it open. A cold breeze, smelling of earth and crushed leaves, fluttered into the small room, and the gray, murky expanse of the wyldwood came into view through the frame.

Puck blew out a long breath. “There she is.” He sighed, sounding wistful. “Never thought I’d be so happy to see her again.”

Grimalkin was already through the door, tail held straight up as he vanished into the mist. “Hey,” Rudy called, frowning through the doorway. “No more favors, okay, cat? We’re even now, right?” He sighed and eyed us as we started to follow. “I, uh, I’d appreciate it if this didn’t get out, your highnesses. Seeing as I helped you and all … uh …” He trailed off as Puck gave him an appraising look in the door. “That is, if it’s okay with you.”

“I don’t know.” Puck frowned and crossed his arms. “Didn’t you hear Oberon saying something about a certain pawnshop, ice-boy? And redcaps? Or was that something else?”

Rudy looked faint, until Puck slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh, making him jump three feet in the air. “You’re a good guy.” He grinned, walking backward through the frame. “I might come back to visit someday. Hurry up, prince.”

“Prince?” The half satyr blinked as I stepped forward. “Robin Goodfellow and a prince, come to my shop?” He stared hard at me, then his eyebrows shot up as something clicked into place. “Then … you must be … are you Prince Ash?”

The wyldwood breeze was cool against my face. I paused in the doorway and glanced over my shoulder, giving my head a small shake.

“No,” I told him, and walked through the door. “I’m not.”

The wyldwood was exactly as I remembered it—gray, dark, misty, with huge trees blocking out the sky—and yet, it was vastly different. I used to be a part of this world, part of the magic and the energy that flowed through all living creatures in the Nevernever. I wasn’t now. I was apart, separate. An intruder.

But now that I was back in the Nevernever, I could feel the glamour swirling within me, familiar and strange at the same time. Winter glamour, but different. As if … as if it wasn’t my magic anymore, but I could still reach it, still use it. Perhaps it was part of this soul I had gained, the part that Ariella had given up, freely and without reservation. And, if that was true, then in some small way, she was still with me.

I found that thought very comforting.

“So.” Grimalkin appeared out of the mist, jumping onto a fallen log, his plumed tail waving behind him. “Here we are at last. I trust the two of you can manage the rest of the way without me?”

“Running off again, cat?” Puck crossed his arms, but his grin was an affectionate one. “And here I was just getting used to having you around.”

“I cannot look over your shoulder every step of the way, Goodfellow,” Grimalkin replied in a bored tone. “It was a good adventure, but now it is done. And, as difficult as it is to believe, I have things of my own to attend to.”

“Yeah, that nap must be terribly pressing. How do you survive?”

Grimalkin ignored him this time, turning to me. “Farewell, knight,” he said formally, startling me with the term he’d never used before. “I wish you luck on your journey, for I fear it will not be easy. But you have been through much, more than anyone could reasonably have hoped to survive. I suspect you will be all right in the end.”

I bowed to the cat, who blinked but seemed pleased with the gesture. “Couldn’t have done it without you, Grim,” I said quietly, and he sniffed.

“Of course not,” he replied, as if it were obvious. “Give the Iron Queen my regards, but tell her not to call on me too soon. I find pulling you both out of sticky situations increasingly tiresome.”

Something rustled in the bushes a few yards away, drawing my attention for a split second. When I glanced back at the log, Grimalkin was gone.

Puck sighed. “Cat sure knows how to make an exit,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Well, come on, ice-boy. Let’s get you to the Iron Realm. You’re not getting any younger.”

THE JOURNEY TOOK US TWO DAYS, mostly due to the goblin border skirmish we ran into in the Gnashwood. Because, as nothing ever came easily in the wyldwood, the goblin tribes were at war again and were even more intolerant of trespassers through their territory. Puck and I had to flee from several angry war parties, eventually fighting our way through the lines to reach the outskirts of goblin lands. For a while, it was like old times again, the two of us, fighting side by side against much greater odds. My body felt like my own again, my sword fluid and natural in my hands. A poisoned goblin arrow hit me once in the thigh, and I spent an evening in pain trying to stave off the effects, but I was able to shake it off by morning and continue.

But despite the thrill of battle and the excitement of simply being alive, I was anxious to get to the Iron Realm. I could feel the seconds ticking away, like grains falling through the hourglass, each day that brought me closer to my inevitable end. Whether it was an ordinary mortal life span, or if I was still faery enough to slow the advance of time, I wanted to spend the days I had left with Meghan. With my family.

The last night before we reached the border of the Iron Realm, Puck and I camped on the edge of a small lake, having finally escaped the Gnashwood and the territory of angry, bloodthirsty goblins. We were so close—I could feel it, and it was difficult for me to relax, much to Puck’s amusement. I finally dozed, leaning back against a tree, facing the water.

Sometime during the night, I dreamed. Ariella stood on the banks of the water smiling at me, her silver hair glowing in the starlight. She didn’t speak, and I didn’t say anything, having no voice in this dream, but I think she wanted me to know that she was happy. That her quest was fulfilled, and that I could finally let her go. I could put her memory to rest at last. I woke with blurry eyes and an ache in my chest, but for the first time since that fateful day, I felt lighter. I would never forget her, but I no longer felt guilty that I had moved on, that I could be happy with someone else. I finally knew that’s what she would want.

At last, forty-eight human hours after we’d entered the wyldwood, Puck and I stood at the edge of the Iron Realm, gazing at the metal trees stretching to either side as far as one could see. It seemed the Nevernever itself had done its best to separate from the Iron Kingdom, for a great chasm ran between the wyldwood and the Iron Queen’s territory, the earth having fallen away. A wooden bridge had been hastily constructed to span the gulf, but the wyldwood was slowly attempting to destroy that as well, for vines and weeds were already wrapped about the planks, as if trying to drag it down.

Puck and I stopped at the edge of the bridge. “Well, here we are.” The Summer jester sighed, scrubbing the back of his head while eyeing the forest. “Home sweet home for you, iceboy, strange as it is to think about that. Sure you can make it to Mag Tuiredh on your own? I really don’t know where it’s located from here.”