...to face a horde of Forgotten on the other side.
I tensed, gripping my swords. Great, out of the frying pan, into the fire. And here I’d thought we were home free. But the Forgotten didn’t move, watching us with glowing yellow eyes, and Keirran, standing in the doorway, gazed calmly back.
And then the crowd of Forgotten parted, bowing their heads and moving aside. Keirran took Annwyl’s hand and stepped through the door, moving steadily across the room. Warily, the rest of us followed, and the horde of Forgotten watched us leave, standing to either side like an army of shadows, silent and unmoving.
It gave me the creeps.
Keirran didn’t stop until we were out the door, through the twisted alleyway that was far shorter than I remembered and across the street. Pulling Annwyl into the dark space between two buildings, he turned on me with a bright, desperate look in his eyes.
“All right,” he began, staring me down, “I did what you asked. I refused the deal that would suppress the Fade, and I think I’ve burned all bridges with Mr. Dust. Please tell me you have something else, Ethan. Something that will stop this.”
I swallowed. “I do. Or, at least, my Guro does. You met him before, remember?” Keirran nodded, and I went on. “He’s a tuhon, a faith healer of his people, and he’s also skilled in the magic arts. He said if we were to find you, to come to him. He might be able to help.”
“Might?” Keirran asked and shook his head. “What if he can’t? What will happen then?” He glanced at Annwyl, his expression tormented. “If this doesn’t work, what am I supposed to do?”
The Summer faery’s eyes were gentle as she touched the side of his face. “You could let me go, my prince. Sometimes, that is the only choice.”
Keirran’s gaze turned defiant, but before he could reply, another voice pierced the darkness above us.
“Master!”
A spindly, bat-eared creature with huge green eyes scuttled down the wall like a huge spider and leaped at Keirran, landing on his chest. “Master!” the gremlin cried again, tugging on his shirt. “Master, he is coming! He is coming!” His head swiveled around then, catching sight of Kenzie, and he flung himself at her with a joyful cry. “Pretty girl! Pretty girl is here!”
“Hey, Razor.” Kenzie grinned as she caught him. The gremlin buzzed and scrambled to her shoulders, flashing his blue-white smile. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Who is coming?” Keirran asked, and the gremlin’s ears pressed flat to his skull.
“Dark elf,” he almost whispered. “Dark elf coming. Now.”
Dark elf? Oh no. That could only mean one person. And by the way Keirran went pale, he was thinking the same thing.
Cautiously, we edged up to the wall and peeked around the corner.
A silhouette was striding down the center of the road, heading for the alley we’d just vacated. Lean, tall, a long black coat rippling behind him, he was instantly recognizable. Even from this distance, I could see the glow of his sword, blue-black and deadly, and the glint of a cold silver eye.
Keirran lunged back from the edge.
“This way!” he whispered and grabbed Annwyl’s hand. “Hurry, before he sees us!”
“Keirran, wait!” I hurried after them, Kenzie right behind us, still holding Razor. “Why are you hiding from your parents?” I demanded as we ducked out of the alley into the goblin market, Keirran looking around wildly. “Are you in trouble? What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” Keirran replied and seemed to pick a direction, jogging toward it with us hurrying to catch up.
“Right. That’s why we’re running away from the freaking Prince Consort of the Iron Court!”
“Keirran!”
The deep, booming voice made me wince. I glanced over my shoulder...to see Ash on the rooftops across the street, the full moon at his back, staring right at us.
Keirran took off, weaving through the groups of fey, dodging unearthly vendors and shoppers and trying to melt into the crowd. The rest of us scrambled after him, and I didn’t dare to look back to see how close Ash was.
“This way!” Keirran urged, ducking into a small, deserted side street. No fey walked the sidewalks, and the road seemed eerily abandoned. Worse, a tall fence stood at the end of the street, preventing us from going any farther.
I panted and glared at Keirran. “Dead end. Looks like we’ll have to face him after all.”
“No, we won’t.” Keirran ran his fingers along the wall, his gaze narrowed. “Where is it?” he murmured. “The Veil is thin here. I can feel it. Where...”
A tall silhouette appeared at the end of the street, just as Keirran pushed his hand into the wall and moved it aside, parting it like a curtain. Beyond the sudden crack was darkness and mist, and the prince gestured to us impatiently. “Hurry! Through here!”
Annwyl and Kenzie vanished through the tear, Razor jabbering on Kenzie’s shoulder. Keirran glanced at me and jerked his head as Ash came steadily closer. “Come on, Ethan!”
I muttered a curse, ducked my head and plunged into the once-solid brick wall, feeling like I was passing through a film of cobwebs. Keirran was right behind me, dropping the curtain as he did, giving me a split-second glance of the street through the gap. Then the opening swooshed shut, closing the tear between realities, and the real world vanished behind us.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE BETWEEN
“Where are we?”
My voice echoed in the vast emptiness surrounding us. I gazed around in shock; when we’d gone through the gash, I’d fully expected to appear in the Nevernever. Probably in some lonely corner of the wyldwood. But upon reflection, I realized how unlikely that was. Only the fey rulers—the kings and queens of Faery—could create trods between the Nevernever and the real world. I knew Keirran was strong and all, but he didn’t have that kind of power. At least, I didn’t think he did. Maybe I was wrong. But more important, Annwyl had been banished from Faery, so she couldn’t go back to the Nevernever; the trods had been sealed off to her by Titania. And yet, here she was, standing beside Keirran and gazing around in awe like the rest of us.
So, logical conclusion: we weren’t in the Nevernever.
Where were we?
The ground under my feet was hard, though I couldn’t see what I stood on due to the thick gray mist coiling around my legs. In fact, I couldn’t see anything except mist and fog, swirling around us in eerie patterns. There were no lights, no shadows, no glimpses of trees or buildings or anything through the writhing blanket of gray. There was no sound, either. Except for the four of us and one gremlin perched on Kenzie’s shoulder, there didn’t seem to be anything alive out there at all. I felt like I’d been dropped into a vacuum.
I looked to Keirran for an answer, and he sighed.
“This,” he stated, his voice echoing weirdly in the gloom, “is the Between.”
I stared at him. “Care to say that again? The Between? We’re between Faery and the real world right now. How is that possible?”
“It’s not difficult,” Keirran said quietly. “The knowledge of going Between has been lost over centuries, but...the Forgotten know how to do it. Leanansidhe, too, though she keeps to her mansion most of the time.” He rubbed an arm, looking embarrassed. “I...sort of picked it up when I was with the Lady.”
I nodded. “That’s why no one has been able to find you,” I guessed. “Because you haven’t been in the Nevernever or the real world. You’ve been here, in the Between.”
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Keirran said, holding my gaze. “When this is all over, when Annwyl is safe, I’ll explain everything. I’ll go back to Mag Tuiredh and face whatever punishment the courts want to throw at me. But I can’t stop now. And I can’t let anyone else know where I am or what I’ve been doing. Promise you won’t tell my parents, Ethan. Not now.”
“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I’ve spoken to Meghan—she just wants to talk to you. You’re not in trouble, unless you’ve done something we don’t know about.”
“It’s not that.” Keirran raked a hand through his silver hair. “My parents are the rulers of the Iron Court, and what I’m trying to do now is forbidden. The other courts would only see me and Annwyl breaking the ancient law, and they’d call for my exile or something similar. I don’t want to put my parents through that, even if they wanted to help. This has to be all on me.” He looked away. “Besides, by the time they could figure something out, it would be too late. Annwyl would be gone.”
“I am standing right here, Keirran,” Annwyl said, sounding angrier than I’d ever heard before. Her green eyes flashed as she stared the prince down. “And I did not ask you to save me if it meant bargaining at the goblin market, making deals that could get you killed and running away from the Prince Consort of Mag Tuiredh. You did not ask me what I felt about this plan—you just disappeared without telling anyone.”
“Kind of like another jackass I know,” Kenzie added, making me start.
“What? Hey, this isn’t about me,” I protested, holding up my hands. Kenzie, however, wasn’t listening. Her arms were crossed, and even Razor, watching me from her shoulder, looked peeved. My heart sank. In all the excitement and running for our lives, I’d forgotten that Kenzie and I were fighting. It appeared she had not.
“You’re no better than Keirran, you know that, Ethan?” Kenzie stated, causing the prince to blink at her, too. “Taking off with Annwyl, leaving me behind? And after we made all those plans to do this together. Did you think I’d be okay with that?”
“Kenzie, you were sick!” I argued. “You just got out of the hospital. There was something after us and...” I trailed off. By the look on Kenzie’s face, she was seriously unimpressed. “I just wanted you to be safe,” I finished quietly.
“You don’t get to decide that, Ethan,” Kenzie said. “God, you sound just like my parents, my teachers, my doctors, everyone! What have I been saying all this time? If I’m going to die, I want to do it on my terms. I don’t want people constantly protecting me, telling me what I can and cannot do, ‘for my own good.’” Her eyes narrowed. “I trusted you. I thought that you, at least, would get me.” She swiped a hand across her eyes. “You promised me you’d stay, that you wouldn’t leave just because They were out there. What happened to that?”
A noise, somewhere out in the mist, interrupted us.
Everyone stopped talking and became very, very still. Even Razor, buzzing in distress on Kenzie’s shoulder, froze, his huge ears pricked and alert.
The noise came again, a soft crying sound, accompanied by a faint slither that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Keirran motioned us to stay silent, and we listened as the thing, whatever it was, dragged itself over the ground, crying and babbling in a low, raspy voice. I never saw it through the mist and coiling fog, and I really didn’t want to. After countless seconds, the thing moved on, its voice growing fainter and fainter, until the fog swallowed both the creature and the noises, and we were alone once more.