The Lost Prince (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten 1)

“Wish I had my camera.” Kenzie sighed as a black-faced ewe watched us from the side of the road, blinking sleepily. It snorted and trotted off, and Kenzie gazed after it, smiling. “Then again, maybe not. It might be weird, explaining how I could take pictures of the Maryland countryside when I never left Louisiana.” She shivered, rubbing her arms as a cold breeze blew across the pasture, smelling of sheep and wet grass. I wished I had my jacket so I could offer it to her.

“What do you do?” Kenzie went on, her gaze still roaming the woods beyond the hills. “When you get home, I mean? We’ve been to Faeryland—we’ve seen things no one else has. What happens when you finally get home, knowing what you do, that no one else will ever understand?”

“You go back to what you were doing before,” I replied. “You try to get on with your life and pretend it didn’t happen. It’ll be easier for you,” I continued as she turned to me, frowning. “You have friends. Your life is fairly normal. You’re not a freak who can see Them everywhere you go. Just try to forget about it. Forget the fey, forget the Nevernever, forget everything weird or strange or unnatural. Eventually, the nightmares will stop, and you might even convince yourself that everything you saw was a bad dream. That’s the easiest way.”

“Hey, tough guy, your bitterness is showing.” Kenzie gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t want to forget. Just burying my head in the sand isn’t going to change anything. They’ll still be out there, whether I believe in them or not. I can’t pretend it never happened.”

“But you won’t ever see them,” I said. “And that will either make you paranoid or drive you completely crazy.”

“I’ll still be able to talk to you, though, right?”

I sighed, not wanting to say it, but knowing I had to. “No. You won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because my life is too screwed up to drag you into it.”

“Why don’t you let me decide what’s best for my life,” Kenzie said softly, not quite able to mask her anger, the first I’d ever heard from her, “and who I want to be friends with?”

“What do you think is going to happen once we go home?” I asked, not meeting her stare. “You think I can be normal and hang out with you and your friends, just like that? You think your parents and your teachers will want you hanging around someone like me?”

“No,” Kenzie said in that same low, quiet voice. “They won’t. And you know what? I don’t care. Because they haven’t seen you like I have. They haven’t seen the Nevernever, or the fey, or the Iron Queen, and they won’t ever understand. I didn’t understand.” She paused, seeming to struggle with her next words. “The first time I saw you,” she said, pushing her bangs from her eyes, “when we first talked, I thought you were this brooding, unfriendly, hostile, um…” She paused.

“Jerk,” I finished for her.

“Well, yeah,” Kenzie admitted slowly. “A pretty handsome jerk, I might add, but a huge, colossal megajerk nonetheless.” She gave me a quick glance to see how I was taking this. I shrugged.

Not going to argue with that.

And then, a second later:

She thought I was handsome?

“At first, I just wanted to know what you were thinking.” Kenzie pushed back her hair, the blue-and-black strands fluttering around her face. “It was more of a challenge, I guess, to get you to see me, to talk to me. You’re the only one, in a very long time anyway, who talked to me like a real person, who treated me the same as everyone else. My friends, my family, even my teachers, they all tiptoe around me like I’m made of glass. They never say what they’re really thinking if they feel it might upset me.” She sighed, looking out over the fields. “No one is ever real with me anymore, and I’m sick and tired of it.”

I held my breath, suddenly aware that I was very close to that dark thing Kenzie was hiding from me. Tread softly, Ethan. Don’t sound too eager or she might change her mind. “Why is that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, like I didn’t care. Wrong move.

“Um, because of my dad,” Kenzie said quickly, and I swore under my breath, knowing I had screwed up. “He’s this big-shot lawyer and everyone is terrified of him, so they p**syfoot around me, too. Whatever.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about my dad. We were talking about you.”

“The huge, colossal megajerk,” I reminded her.

“Exactly. I don’t know if you realize this, Ethan, but you’re a good-looking guy. People are going to notice you, bad-boy reputation or not.” I gave her a dubious look, and she nodded. “I’m serious. You didn’t see the way Regan and the others were staring the first time you came into the classroom. Chelsea even dared me to go up and ask if you had a girlfriend.” One corner of her mouth curled in a wry grin. “I’m sure you remember how that turned out.”

I grimaced and looked away. Yeah, I was a total jackass, wasn’t I? Believe me, if I could take back everything I said, I would. But it wouldn’t stop the fey.

“But then, we came to the Nevernever,” Kenzie went on, gazing a few yards up the road, where Keirran’s bright form glided down the pavement. “And things started making a lot more sense. It must be hard, seeing all these things, knowing they’re out there, and not being able to talk about it to anyone. It must be lonely.”

Very lightly, she took my hand, sending electric tingles up my arm, and my breath caught. “But you have me now,” she said in a near whisper. “You can talk to me…about Them. And I won’t tease or make fun or call you crazy, and you don’t have to worry about it frightening me. I want to know everything I can. I want to know about faeries and Mag Tuiredh and the Nevernever, and you’re my only connection to them now.” Her voice grew defiant. “So, if you think you can shut me out of your life, tough guy, and keep me in the dark, then you don’t know me at all. I can be just as stubborn as you.”

“Don’t.” I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face the quiet sincerity in her voice. Fear stirred, the knowledge that she was only putting herself in danger the longer she stayed with me. “There is no connection, Kenzie,” I said, pulling my hand from hers. “And I won’t be telling you anything about the fey. Not now, not ever. Just forget that you ever saw them, and leave me alone.”

Her stunned, hurt silence ate into me, and I sighed, stabbing my fingers through my hair. “You think I want to keep pushing people away?” I asked softly. “I don’t enjoy being the freak, the one everyone avoids. I really, truly do not take pleasure in being a complete a**hole.” My voice dropped even lower. “Especially to people like you.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because people who get close to me get hurt!” I snapped, finally whirling to face her. She blinked, and the memory of another girl swam through my head, red ponytail bobbing behind her, a spray of freckles across her nose. “Every time,” I continued in a softer voice. “I can’t stop it. I can’t stop Them from following me. If it was just me that the fey picked on, I’d be okay with that. But someone else always pays for my Sight. Someone else always gets hurt instead of me.” Tearing my gaze from hers, I looked out over the fields. “I’d rather be alone,” I muttered, “than to have to watch that again.”

“Again?”

“Hey,” Keirran called from somewhere up ahead. “We’re here.”

Grateful for the interruption, I hurried to where the faery waited for us beneath the branches of a large pine by the side of the road. Striding through weeds, I followed Keirran’s gaze to where the top of a Ferris wheel, yellow and spotted with rust, poked above the distant trees. Lights flickered through the branches.

“Come on,” Keirran encouraged, sounding eager, and jogged forward. We followed, trailing him under branches, through knee-high grass and across an empty, weed-choked parking lot. Past a wooden fence covered in vines and ivy, the trees fell away, and we were staring at the remains of an abandoned fairground.

Though the park seemed empty, lanterns and torchlight flickered erratically, lighting the way between empty booths, some still draped with the limp, moldy forms of stuffed animals. A popcorn cart lay overturned in the weeds a few yards away, the glass smashed, the innards picked clean by scavengers. We passed the bumper cars, sitting empty and silent on their tracks, and walked beneath a swing ride, the chains creaking softly in the wind. The carousel sat in the distance, peeling and rusted, dozens of once-colorful horses now flaking away with age and time.

Keirran skidded to a halt in front of a darkened funnel cake booth, his face grave. “Something is wrong,” he muttered, turning slowly. “This place should be crawling with exiles. There’s supposed to be a goblin market here year-round. Where is everyone?”

“Looks like your friend might not be here,” I said, switching my sticks to both hands, just in case there was trouble. He didn’t seem to hear me and abruptly broke into a sprint that took him between the midway aisles. Kenzie and I hurried after him.

“Annwyl!” he called, jogging up to a booth that at one point had featured a basketball game, as several nets dangled from the back wall. The booth was dark and empty, though flowers were scattered everywhere inside, dried stems and petals fluttering across the counter.

“Annwyl,” Keirran said again, leaping easily over the wall, into the booth. “Are you here? Where are you?”

No one answered him. Breathing hard, the faery gazed around the empty stall for a moment, then turned and slammed his fist into the counter, making the whole structure shake. Razor squeaked, and Kenzie and I stared at him.

“Gone,” he whispered, bowing his head, as the gremlin buzzed worriedly and patted his neck. “Where is she? Where is everyone? Are they all with her?”

“What’s going on?” I leaned against the counter, brushing away drifts of petals and leaves. They had a rotten, sickly sweet smell, and I tried not to breathe in. “Who’s with her? Who is Annwyl? Why—?”

I trailed off, my blood turning cold. Was it my imagination, or had I just seen a white shimmer float between the booths farther down the aisle? Carefully, I straightened, gripping my weapons, my skin starting to prickle with goose bumps. “Keirran, we have to get out of here now.”

He looked up warily, reaching back for his weapon. And then, something slipped from the booths onto the dusty path, and we both froze.

At first, it looked like a giant cat. It had a sleek, muscular body, short fur and a long, thin tail that lashed its hindquarters. But when it turned its head, its face wasn’t a cat’s but an old, wrinkled woman’s, her hair hanging limply around her neck, her eyes beady and cruel. She turned toward us, and I ducked behind the stall, pulling Kenzie down with me, as Keirran vanished behind the counter. I saw that the cat-thing’s front paws were actually bony hands with long, crooked nails, but worst of all, her body flickered and shimmered in the air like heat waves. Like the creepy fey that had chased me and Kenzie into the Nevernever. Except this one seemed a bit more solid than the others. Not nearly so transparent.