THE FADE
I was going to die.
That was what Meghan was so afraid of. She knew. She knew something was going to kill me, and Keirran would be there when it happened. Was this the prophecy everyone was so worried about? How would it happen? Would Keirran and I end up fighting something too strong for us, something vicious and powerful, and it would end up killing me? Or had he just found me lying there in the grass? I hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of him in the vision, but I did remember the blood streaking his face and arms, though I wasn’t sure if it was his or an enemy’s. We might have been in a fight; in that brief flash, I couldn’t remember if he had his sword out. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember if I had my swords out.
I didn’t know, and at that moment, I didn’t really care how that vision had come to pass, only that it had. Would. I had just seen my own death. I was going to die, and Keirran would be there when it happened.
“Ethan?”
Annwyl rose and came hesitantly forward, her green eyes concerned. “You’re white as a sheet,” she remarked. “And you’re shaking. What did the Oracle show you?”
Damn, I was shaking. Clenching my fists, I pushed myself off the trunk, taking a deep breath to slow my pounding heart. “Nothing,” I told her, forcing myself to be calm. “I’m fine. It’s nothing, Annwyl, just adrenaline from the fight.”
And seeing my own death, of course. That’s always an eye-opener. Dammit, I’d never get that vision out of my head; it was imprinted on my mind like a brand, and would be there forever. Myself sprawled at Keirran’s feet, bloody, limp and most assuredly dead, Keirran looking down in horror. I started to shake again, but stopped myself. No. There’s no way I’m going to let that happen. If the Oracle wanted me to see that, there must be a way to avoid it. Otherwise, why would she show me at all? Resolved, I shoved back the fear spreading through me, determined not to turn into a basket case. Whatever. It hasn’t happened yet, and like Kenzie said once: I don’t believe in Fate. I am not going to die, not like that.
“Those creatures.” Annwyl shivered, rubbing her arms as if cold. “They were Forgotten, weren’t they? Why didn’t they attack us?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, gazing down at the limp pile of rags, all that was left of the Oracle. I found myself thinking that we had just witnessed something huge and terrible, and I wondered if the death of the ancient faery was an ominous sign for everyone. “I guess...they were just after her.”
* * *
We hurried out of the park, wary now for any shadowlike Forgotten as we fled back to my truck. This time, Annwyl scrambled inside without hesitation, and I fished my swords out from under the seat, laying them beside me on the cab. That was it—I was not going anywhere without them again.
I found a hotel fairly close to Bourbon Street—not on it, because the places located down that famous strip would probably be mega expensive—and paid for a room with cash. Even then, it cost way more than I wanted it to, and I tried not to cringe as I handed over the wad of money. I would definitely have to get another job this summer, as it appeared this trip was going to suck my limited funds dry.
Dammit, Keirran. You’d better be worth it.
At least the well-dressed man behind the desk didn’t ask any questions, such as why a seventeen-year-old with no parents in sight needed a room, alone, and handed me a key without hesitation. With Annwyl trailing invisibly behind me, I walked down the narrow orange-and-gold hallway until I found the right door, then pushed my way inside.
The room was small, but at least it was clean, and I tossed my pack on the bed. “Well, we’re here,” I announced, glancing at Annwyl, who was looking around the room curiously. “I guess we’ll just have to hang tight until tonight, unless there’s anything else you want to do.”
I suddenly wondered what Kenzie was doing, if she and her family were already here, walking around, soaking up the local history. All the things you were supposed to do on a family vacation. I wished I could’ve done that with her. This wasn’t a vacation or a pleasure trip for me, not by a long shot, but it would’ve been nice to take my girlfriend to New Orleans. We could go to restaurants, listen to jazz music, visit a museum or take a sightseeing tour; all the normal stuff that I’d probably never get to do.
Annwyl was giving me that appraising look that hinted that she knew what I was thinking or feeling. Maybe my glamour aura was giving me away again. “You miss Kenzie,” she said, confirming my suspicions. I shrugged, and she tilted her head. “Why don’t you call her?” she suggested. “You can do that, can you not? With your...telephones?”
I smiled at the faery’s confusion with the mortal world. She had been in the Nevernever so long, tech and modern conveniences like phones and computers were completely foreign to her. Just as quickly, though, the smile faded. “I can’t,” I said, scrubbing a hand through my hair. “She’s pretty mad at me. I don’t think she’s going to want to talk.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want her going into the goblin market. Not with that creepy thin faery stalking us, and especially not now, with those shadow Forgotten out there. It’s too dangerous.” I remembered Kenzie lying in the hospital room, pale and weak, and my stomach turned. “She’s sick, Annwyl,” I said in a near whisper, at the same time wondering why I was telling this to a faery. “I can’t put her at risk. Not like that.”
Annwyl gave me a very strange, unreadable look, and I frowned. “What?” I challenged, crossing my arms. “What’s that look for?”
“I’m sorry,” Annwyl whispered, and the peculiar stare turned to frustration. “I know you but, I...seem to have forgotten your name. Where...are we?”
And before my horrified gaze, she started to disappear.
* * *
“No!” I lunged for her, grabbing a slender wrist before it became transparent. “Annwyl, look at me,” I demanded, shaking her. She blinked and stared at me with glazed green eyes. “What’s my name?” I asked, holding her tightly. She felt so...fragile. I could see the dresser right through her head and gave her another little shake. “Annwyl, focus! Answer me. What’s my name?”
“I...I don’t know.” Her voice was barely a whisper, her eyes the only spots of color left. Everything else was becoming transparent and pale. “I can’t...remember...anything.”
“Dammit,” I growled. “Don’t do this. Not now.” My fingers slipped through her wrist, and I could only watch helplessly as she grew fainter and fainter. I was losing her. If she Faded out, I didn’t know if she would return. Annwyl stared through me, her expression blank, nearly gone. Desperately, I played my last card. “Keirran!” I burst out. “Do you remember him? The one we’re looking for, who’s out there fighting for you right now. Do you remember Keirran?”
A spark of recognition finally flashed over Annwyl’s face, and she jerked her head up. “Keirran,” she choked out, her eyes filling with horror. “Ethan Chase. Yes, I...remember...”
She shivered, and color returned, washing out the ghostliness, turning her solid again. I slumped in relief. Annwyl turned away, covering her face with her hands, trembling.
I let her be, not knowing what else to do. So this is what Keirran is fighting against, I thought, suddenly understanding him a lot more. Not just for Annwyl, either. For all of them. I remembered his words when we were leaving the Forgotten Queen’s chamber that night. You don’t know how horrible it is for exiles, for all of them, to face nothingness. Losing pieces of yourself every day, until you cease to exist.
Well, I’d seen that firsthand now, and it was pretty horrible. A couple months ago, I wouldn’t have cared about the fate of exiled fey. If they disappeared from the world forever, good. Fewer faeries to torment me.
It was different now.
“I’m sorry,” Annwyl finally whispered, lowering her arms. “I let my guard down. I stopped trying to remember who Kenzie was, who you were, why we’re here. I’m so tired. I want to let go, to stop fighting this.” She sank onto the mattress and bowed her head, long chestnut-colored hair sliding forward to cover her face. “I just want to see Keirran one more time.”
I sat next to her, not touching, but letting her know I was there. “We’ll find him,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making empty promises. “Just hang on a little longer. And who knows? Maybe he’s found something to stop it.”
But Annwyl shuddered. “I hope not,” she murmured. “The price would be so high. And so dangerous. Cheating death, even if it’s not your own...” She shook her head. “Even our kind avoids making that type of bargain at all costs.” She shivered again. “We have to find him, Ethan. Stop him from whatever he’s planning to do. Before he promises something he can’t ever take back.”
“Yeah,” I rasped, standing up. “That’s why we’re here.” Grabbing my backpack, I set it on the bed and rifled through it to make sure I had everything I needed. Besides a change of clothes, my laptop and my toothbrush, I also brought a small canister of salt, several bottles of honey and my old leather journal containing all my research on the fey. Digging it out, I flipped it open to a blank page and scribbled: Laffite’s Blacksmith Shop—entrance to goblin market. Go in left door, turn widdershins 3 times, leave thru right door. I paused a moment, tapping my pen on the paper, then also wrote down: Dryads of City Park—3 oaks near edge of pond; be polite.
And under that: Who was the Oracle? What is the prophecy?
My pen wavered as the Oracle’s vision crept up again: me dead on the ground at Keirran’s feet. Keirran covered in blood but looking unharmed. And Annwyl’s comments about the fey’s price for cheating death cast a sudden, dark thought into my mind.
What if Keirran was the one to...
I shook my head, snapping the journal shut. No, I wouldn’t think about that. That vision could be anything. Even if it was true, what was I going to do? Leave? Refuse to help him and Annwyl? Abandon Keirran to whatever crazy, dangerous thing he might be doing out there? I couldn’t. He was family. I owed it to him, and Annwyl, and even Meghan, to help.
Stuffing the journal into the pack again, I turned to Annwyl, still sitting on the bed. “Come on,” I told her, making her look up in surprise. “I’m starving. Before I go looking for a market full of bloodthirsty goblins, I at least want breakfast.”
* * *
My phone didn’t ring all afternoon. Except one time at the coffee shop, when I got an irate call from Dad because I hadn’t let them know I made it to New Orleans. I debated whether or not to call Kenzie, but each time decided against it. She was probably still pissed at me. Besides, she was likely with her family now, touring the streets of New Orleans. She didn’t need me hanging around.
Still, I found myself gazing out the window of the small coffee shop, looking for a girl with blue streaks in her hair. Even now, hours away from walking into a street teeming with dangerous fey and forbidden items, I couldn’t stop thinking of her. I wondered if she would even want me around after this. I’d screwed this boyfriend thing up big-time, but if it meant keeping her safe, I would deal with the terrible wrath I knew was coming. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to get past this. She might dump me, and the saddest thing was, that was probably for the best.
I brooded into my coffee. Across the table, Annwyl curled her fingers around a cup of tea, gazing blankly out the window. I peeked up at her and frowned. I didn’t like how the sunlight seemed to be shining right through her, making her almost transparent. On the tile floor, I could see the shadow of myself, hunched over my cup, but nothing in the seat across from me.
“Hey,” I said quietly, so as not to alert the people around us. “Annwyl. Talk to me.”
She blinked out of her trance. “Hmm?”
I had to keep her talking, keep her remembering, about anything. If she started Fading right here in the coffee shop, I’d look like a nutcase when I leaped up and started yelling at nothing. At worst, someone would call the cops. “Tell me something about yourself,” I said, and she gave me a puzzled look. “What did you do in the Summer Court?”
Her brow furrowed. It looked like recalling the past was difficult. “The Summer Court,” she began in a slow, halting voice. “I don’t...remember much now. Trees and sunlight. Music. I was happy there, I think.”
Her voice became wistful and very sad on the last sentence, and I switched tactics. “So, how did Keirran ever get you to talk to him?” I went on. “Didn’t he tell me you sicced a pack of undines on him when he was visiting Arcadia one day?”
“Undines,” Annwyl repeated. Suddenly, her eyes darkened, a shadow falling over her face as she stared into her cup. “I remember that day,” she murmured, sounding very unlike herself, solemn and grim, and choked with guilt. “Keirran was only trying to talk to me and...I almost had him drowned.”
“What happened?”
She fiddled with the edge of her cup, a very human gesture of embarrassment. “One afternoon, I was beside the river that separates Arcadia from the wyldwood when I looked up and saw him on the other bank. I knew he was there for me—he’d been trying to get me alone ever since that night at Elysium when I danced for the court. Back then, I was afraid of him. He was the son of the Iron Queen, and there were all sorts of rumors about the horrible things he did to regular fey. So when I saw him at the river that day, I didn’t know what he wanted, and I think I panicked a little.” Annwyl winced. “I asked the undines to stop him from crossing to the other side. He was walking over the bridge, and they just...yanked him right in.”
I snorted a laugh into my coffee, managing to turn it into a cough. It was hard to picture the calm, refined Iron Prince getting dragged into a river by a school of water faeries. Sort of like Batman falling off his batcycle; it simply didn’t happen. “Was he mad?” I chuckled. Annwyl grimaced.
“He nearly died,” she admitted, making me sober quickly. “I didn’t tell the undines how to stop him, so naturally they tried to stop him permanently. I could see them in the center of the river, the whole school, all trying to drag him to the bottom to drown. But the strangest thing was, Keirran didn’t fight back. Not lethally. I’ve seen him fight—I know he could have drawn his sword and sliced them all to pieces, but he didn’t.”
“How’d he get out?”
“He froze the whole river,” Annwyl whispered, and I raised my eyebrows. “The water turned frigid, and the surface iced over as far as I could see. Everything around it became covered in frost.”
“Geez,” I muttered.
“Undines are Summer fey, so they can’t stand cold water,” Annwyl went on. “I don’t know what exactly happened between them and Keirran once the surface iced over—they were all underwater when it happened. I do remember standing at the edge of the bank, looking at the frozen river and waiting for Keirran to surface. I thought I really might have killed him, and I was terrified.”
“I assume he finally surfaced.”
The Summer girl smiled faintly. “No,” she said. “I never saw him break out. I kept waiting for him, when suddenly, I heard a quiet ‘Excuse me,’ at my back. I turned, and he was right there, dripping wet and smiling.”
I snorted. “Show-off.”
Annwyl’s smile grew wider, though more wistful. “He wasn’t even angry,” she murmured. “I think I started falling for him that very afternoon. Though I didn’t know it until later, and even then, I thought it could never work between us. The courts would never allow it.” She gazed into her cup, her eyes far away. “We had...a few nights. When he would sneak out of Mag Tuiredh and come visit me, first in Arcadia and then at Leanansidhe’s. I wish we’d had more time. But it doesn’t matter now.” Her gaze darkened again, and she closed her eyes. “I’ll be gone soon enough. And Keirran will move on. It’s better that way.”
I started to reply, when there was a dark shimmer outside the window, like an ink blot moving through water, and my skin prickled.
Not far from where we sat, perched on the railing of a balcony across the street, a shadowy thing watched us with glowing yellow eyes. Annwyl followed my gaze, and her face tightened with fear.
I drained the last of my coffee and rose. Without speaking, Annwyl and I hurried back to the hotel room, where I dug a sprig of Saint-John’s-wort out of my backpack and taped it to the door. I also poured a line of salt across the windowsills, not caring what the cleaning ladies would think when they came in. Small precautions. Not perfect, but better than nothing.
“Get some rest,” I told Annwyl, flopping down on one of the beds. “Looks like we’re stuck here until tonight. Might as well sleep while we can.” Not that I thought I could relax enough to sleep; I’d likely stay up with my swords close by, just in case any shadowy figures slipped under the door and into the room. But Annwyl looked tired and still frighteningly pale.
Better than she had in the truck, and much better than that awful moment when she’d started to Fade from existence, but she still didn’t look great.
The Summer girl didn’t argue. Settling wearily atop the other bed, she curled into herself and closed her eyes. I waited a few minutes, then quietly eased off my bed, grabbed my laptop and swords, and settled in the armchair in the corner.
“Ethan?” came Annwyl’s soft voice after a few minutes of silence. I’d thought she had fallen asleep, and glanced up in surprise.
“Yeah?”
The Summer faery hesitated, her back still to me. “I wish I could express how grateful I am,” she murmured. “My kind doesn’t say...those words...but you’ve done so much for me and Keirran. I just want to say...”
“It’s fine, Annwyl.” I spoke quickly to reassure her. “You don’t have to say it. I know what you mean.” She relaxed, her shoulders slumping in relief. “You’re welcome, but we haven’t found Keirran yet. Just concentrate on not Fading away until we do.”
I saw her nod, and a few minutes later, she seemed truly asleep. In the silence, the urge to call Kenzie returned, stronger than ever. I missed her. I hated the thought that she was angry with me now. But I didn’t regret my decision. In a few hours, Annwyl and I would head into the dangerous, unpredictable goblin market, and it was better that Kenzie stay far away from the madness.
If I was being honest with myself, she’d be better off staying away from me, too.
* * *
The hours dragged and yet went more quickly than I would’ve liked, every minute bringing us closer to midnight. Annwyl slept most of the afternoon; maybe she’d never really gotten to sleep until now, or maybe her condition made her tired and sluggish, sort of like having the flu. I didn’t know, but she politely declined leaving the room when I headed out to get food. Fearful of having her disappear, I grabbed a couple candy bars from the vending machine outside and hurried back to find she had fallen asleep again. Restless, I watched TV and Netflix and envied the faery, still curled up on the bed. She did wake up later that evening when I forced her to go to McDonald’s with me because I was starving after nothing but chocolate bars for lunch. But she remained quiet and nervous, not speaking much. Truthfully, I was more than a little nervous, too.
At eleven-thirty, I grabbed my backpack, stuffed my swords inside, out of sight of the public eye, and turned to Annwyl.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” she replied, with a determination that reminded me of someone on the way to the gallows. Terrified but resolved to show no fear. “Let’s go find Keirran.”
Bourbon Street wasn’t far, and New Orleans glowed an eerie green and orange under the light of the full moon. It was almost surreal. We walked the couple blocks to the famous street, passing neon signs and lampposts shining feebly in the artificial haze. People wandered by, not paying any attention to either me or the faery at my side. A goblin peered at us from a narrow alley, picking his teeth with a fragment of bone, but didn’t make any move to follow.
Laffite’s Blacksmith Shop was a tiny building on the corner of St. Philip and Bourbon Street. From the outside, it looked deliberately run-down, white plaster peeling away to reveal spots of red brick. Wooden shutters and doors stood open to the night, and an old-fashioned lantern hung beside the entrance, flickering orange.
I gazed behind us to the road, watching cars cruise down Bourbon Street and people drift over the sidewalks. With the orange lights, full moon and faint strands of jazz music playing from one of the open bars, New Orleans did have a magical quality to it. I knew why this place was such a haven for the fey, and I knew they were out there, skulking between buildings and slipping invisibly through crowds. Still, I couldn’t imagine the whole street teeming with faeries, an entire marketplace of them. I hoped that dryad knew what she was talking about.
Annwyl and I crossed the street and ducked through the leftmost door of Laffite’s bar to find ourselves in a dim, old-fashioned room. Round wooden tables were scattered about a stone floor, and the bar stood against the back wall, most of the stools occupied. The only lights came from the candles set on the tables and hanging from the walls, and the flames in the huge stone fireplace in the center of the room.
Someone pushed past me from behind, jostling me with barely a grunt of apology. I stepped farther into the bar and glanced back for Annwyl, nearly lost in the shadows.
“All right,” I muttered, stepping up to the fireplace and turning to face the doors. Annwyl followed silently. “So, according to the dryads, we just have to turn widdershins three times and walk out the door on the right—left now, since we came inside—and we’ll be in the market.” I checked my watch to make sure it was 12:00 a.m. Six minutes past midnight. “On three?”
She nodded, and on my signal, we closed our eyes and spun counterclockwise in place three times, me feeling slightly ridiculous and hoping no one was watching.
On the first two circles, nothing happened. But when we completed the third, I opened my eyes to find the inside of the bar had...changed. It wasn’t full of fey. The lights and tables and patrons sat where they had always been; really nothing had moved. But everything around us was slightly out of focus. Conversations were muted, and everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
Except us. And the door a few yards away. It stood out sharply against the blurred, hazy backdrop, the opening shimmering like heat waves. That was it. Our entrance to the goblin market.
I nudged Annwyl, and together we walked across the floor, past indistinct shadows and nearly frozen candle flames, and ducked through the opening.