NYX
Keirran and I exchanged a glance. In the shadows of the Ferris wheel, the Forgotten King’s expression was impassive.
“Uh, you didn’t come here with a mob of angry trolls on your heels, did you, princeling?” I asked.
The shadow of a smirk crossed his face. “I was about to ask you the same,” he said dryly. “Apparently, there are rumors that a few thousand wild geese somehow appearing in Queen Titania’s throne room this summer was not entirely a fluke of nature.”
“Touché.” I grinned back at him. “Not that I would confess to anything about that incident, but man, geese are loud. You could hear them honking for miles. Well, then.” I dusted imaginary dirt from my hands and turned toward the direction of the shouting. “I guess we should go see what’s up.”
Together, we walked across the fairgrounds toward the distant hubbub. As we drew closer, the voices got louder and angrier, though any actual words were blown away on the breeze. Whoever they were, I hoped it wasn’t an angry mob looking for Keirran, or me. Hard as it was to believe, there were creatures out there who didn’t like me that much. Titania herself sicced her hounds on me at least once a year. You couldn’t be the World’s Greatest Prankster and not have people wanting to kill you all the time.
We were nearly to the carousel, tents and booths lining the walkway again, when the tenor of the voices changed. A bloodthirsty howl rose into the night, indicating something had gotten tired of words and switched to violence. More voices echoed the call for blood as rushing footsteps and snarls of rage indicated the fight had finally broken out.
Keirran and I sprinted the final paces around the carousel and found the ruckus.
A crowd of a couple dozen fey, eyes hard and lips curled in shouts or snarls, clustered in a loose half circle around a wagon. Most of them were Unseelie: redcaps, goblins, and a few Winter sidhe that held themselves apart from the “lesser” fey. But I saw a handful of Seelie scattered throughout the throng as well. Marla, the gnome, stood at the edge of the mob, her wrinkled face pulled into an ugly scowl as she shook a fist at what was happening in the center of the circle.
A group of four redcaps—think evil gnomes with jagged shark teeth and a hat drenched in the blood of their victims—surrounded a figure a few paces from the wagon steps. The figure’s back was to us, so I couldn’t see its face, and a hooded gray cloak hid the rest of its body, but each of its hands, slightly raised from its sides, gripped a curved, shining blade. My eyes were drawn to those blades. They glowed silver-white in the darkness and didn’t appear quite solid, as if the figure was brandishing two razor-thin shafts of moonlight.
Whatever they were made of, they were definitely sharp enough to do the job. A pair of redcaps lay writhing in the dust at the stranger’s feet, blood streaming from identical hair-thin gashes across their throats. As I watched, the bodies rippled, then dissolved into piles of squirming slugs and worms as the bloodthirsty faeries died in the manner of all fey and simply ceased to exist.
The rest of the motley snarled, baring their fangs, but seemed reluctant to fling themselves on the stranger’s blades of light. Around them, the crowd roared, perched on the edge of devolving into utter pandemonium.
“Enough!”
I jumped as the booming voice rang in my ear and shook the struts of the carousel. Startled, I paused, and Keirran strode past me toward the mob, power snapping around him like a cloak. Overhead, lightning flickered, and ice spread out from his boots as he walked, coating the ground with tiny crystal daggers.
Eyes wide with fear and recognition, the throng cringed away from the Forgotten King as he stopped in the center of the circle. The redcaps hissed and scuttled back into the crowd, and the rest of the mob shuffled nervously, averting their gazes. Keirran might be the newest ruler of Faery, a mere child to most, but he possessed a special talent that none in the Nevernever could boast: the ability to wield all three glamours, Summer, Winter, and Iron.
“What is the meaning of this?” Keirran’s voice was back to its normal calm, but there was no mistaking the steely edge beneath. “Have you all lost your minds? The goblin market is neutral ground. All fey are welcome here, even those of the Iron Court. Explain yourselves.”
“Forgotten King.” A Winter sidhe, tall and draped in a robe adorned in colored icicles, stepped forward. The icicles jingled like chimes as he raised an arm, pointing a long finger at the cloaked figure. “This creature came into the market and was clearly dangerous,” he accused, his voice high and haughty. “We thought the threat should be eliminated.”
“It attacked every one of you?” Keirran’s voice was just the right mix of skeptical and mocking. “It came to the goblin market with the sole purpose of starting a war? How very ambitious. Perhaps we should ask how it intended to accomplish such a thing.” He shot a glance at the figure standing motionless beside him. “What say you, stranger? This lot accuses you of single-handedly trying to slaughter them all. What is your side of things?”
“Nothing quite so interesting, Your Majesty.” I blinked at the voice. Lilting, confident, and as wryly amused as Keirran. Also, definitely female. “I came to the goblin market searching for someone. Apparently, stopping to ask for directions is a crime worthy of death in this era, though it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. At least I found whom I was looking for.”
She raised her head, gazing directly at the Forgotten King, and Keirran stiffened. Not noticeably; he hid his surprise quite well. But I saw the flash of recognition and shock in his eyes, and my own curiosity flared.
“Well, then.” I stepped from the carousel’s shadow and strode to the middle of the circle, beaming my brightest smile at the crowd of fearful, angry faces. “Obviously this has been a giant misunderstanding,” I said loudly, “one we can all put behind us and forget about. I’m sure that’s what we want, right? I’m sure nobody here wants to explain to the courts why the entire goblin market suddenly exploded in a rain of fire, blood, lightning, and frogs. Why frogs, you ask? Well, that’s what happened the last time the goblin market tried to put an end to a certain Summer jester. Nothing but frogs as far as the eye could see.” I found the gazes of the redcaps and the Winter sidhe. “It was so epic, the humans in the mortal world still talk about it. But I don’t see any reason that it should happen again, right?”
“Robin Goodfellow is here, too?”
I didn’t see the speaker, but at least half the crowd cringed back even farther. The Winter sidhe with the tinkling coat shot me a glare of absolute loathing, but I saw fear on that pale, haughty face as well. The redcap motley peeking out of the crowd cast furious gazes between me and the cloaked stranger, but this mob was done. No faery in their right mind would pick a fight with the Forgotten King and Robin Goodfellow, and after a tense silence, the Winter sidhe gathered up his robe and stalked off in a huff, cheerful jingles following his exit. The rest of the throng dissipated quickly, with only Marla giving me a pinched, disappointed look, before she, too, vanished into the market, leaving Keirran and me alone with the stranger.
“Well, that was fun.” I laced my hands behind my head and grinned at Keirran. “Nothing screams ‘exciting evening’ like cowing a bloodthirsty mob and sending them scurrying back into the dark. Though you went right to the fire-and-light show there, princeling. I could’ve handled it in a less...direct manner, you know.”
“A rain of frogs is not subtle, Puck,” Keirran replied, but he wasn’t looking at me. His attention was riveted to the stranger, who had dropped to a knee before him and bowed its cowled head. “Nyx,” Keirran said matter-of-factly. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, Your Majesty,” came the reply from under the cloak. “My apologies for causing such a disturbance. I forgot the fey of this era have not seen my kind before. Apparently, I startled the faery with the blood-soaked hat, and it acted on instinct. I did not mean to draw blood in the market.”
Keirran frowned. “No one should have faulted you for defending yourself. And I told you before, you don’t have to bow to me every time we meet. Get up.”
Gracefully, the figure rose and brushed back the hood, and the comment about Keirran and proper fey protocol died on my lips.
I’m a pretty old faery, and don’t take that the wrong way—it’s not like I’m some toothless hunchback in a rocking chair waving a cane and shouting, “Git off my lawn!” at neighborhood hooligans. What I mean is, I’ve been around awhile. When humans feared the dark and the things lurking in it, I was one of those things they feared. I have ballads and poems written about me. I made some writer dude named Shakespeare famous. Or maybe that was the other way around. The point is, I’m no spring chicken, and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve battled creatures from storybooks and had tea with legends. I know my faeries, myths, and monsters.
I had never seen this type of fey before.
She was sidhe, I could tell that much. Commonly referred to as high elves in more modern speak—thanks, Tolkien. Generally, there were two types of sidhe: the Seelie of the Summer Court, and the Unseelie hailing from Winter. Over the centuries, a few splinter branches had cropped up: dark elves lived underground, hated the sunlight, and had an unnatural obsession with spiders; wood elves kept to the forests and were of a more primal nature; and there were a couple clans of snow elves that rarely came down from their icy mountain peaks. But with a few differences in clothing and mannerisms, whether they would make you dance until you died from exhaustion or just stab you in the face, most sidhe were the same: slender, beautiful, otherworldly, and pointy-eared.
This faery was all of those, right down to the knifelike pointed ears, but she was still something I had never seen before. And that made her the most intriguing faery I had met in centuries.
She was shorter than most sidhe; I had several inches on her, and I’m not exactly tall. Her skin had a bluish-gray tint to it, not ghastly or corpselike but almost translucent, and tiny, star-shaped markings hovered under her eyes and spread across her nose like silver freckles. Beneath the cloak, she was clad in what looked like black leather armor, formfitting and leaving little to the imagination. Though I didn’t see any scabbards for the pair of glowing blades she had wielded; they seemed to have dissolved into thin air. Her long hair was silver-white, even brighter than Keirran’s, and cast a faint halo of light around her head. When she looked at me, I expected her eyes to be pale blue or black, or even silvery white with no pupils. But they were a luminous gold, like two glowing moons, and, looking into them, I felt my stomach drop.
She was...old. Older than me. Maybe older than the courts. She didn’t look old, of course; her face had an almost childlike innocence that was quite jarring as she stared at me with the gaze of an ancient dragon. Age meant nothing to us, some of the oldest fey I knew looked and sounded like they were twelve, but...holy crap. Who was this faery, and where had Keirran found her?
The stunned amazement must’ve shown on my face when I glanced at him, for he offered a grim smile. “Puck,” he began, indicating the faery before him, “this is Nyx. She’s a Forgotten. I met her when I was first investigating the incidents in the Between. She comes from a place called Phaed.”
“Phaed?” I blinked in shock. I’d heard that name before, remembered it from an adventure with a certain Winter prince. “That creepy town in the Deep Wyld?”
“It’s not entirely in the Deep Wyld,” Nyx said quietly. “Its borders touch the Between, so it drifts in and out of the Nevernever, manifesting itself only briefly.” She cocked her head, giving me an appraising look. “Although, I’m surprised that you’ve seen Phaed. Usually only the Forgotten, or faeries close to death, can find their way to the Town that Isn’t There.”
“Ah, well.” I grinned at her. “You know me. The impossible has a nasty habit of landing right in my lap. Same goes with any type of curse, disaster, bad luck, or calamity. I’m a trouble magnet—one of the perks of being me.”
“I see.” Nyx gave me that cocked-head, scrutinizing look again. “And you are?”
“Robin Goodfellow. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”
She pondered that a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said clearly. “I don’t think I have.”
“What?”
I almost choked on the word. Nyx continued to watch me, completely serious and straight-faced. I waved a hand at an imaginary me off to the side. “Robin Goodfellow. Puck? The famous trickster from stories, poems, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The one who gave Nick Bottom a donkey head and made Queen Titania fall in love with him? Everyone knows who I am.”
“Robin Goodfellow.” She made a point of thinking it over for another moment, then firmly shook her head again. “No, I’m afraid it’s not a name I’ve heard before.”
A coughing sound echoed beside us. Keirran’s face was red, one fist pressed against his mouth, as he clearly tried very hard to hold in his laughter. I scowled at him, and he immediately took a quick breath and sobered, though his mouth still curled at the edges. “Sorry, Puck. Let me introduce you properly. Nyx, this is Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, personal servant to King Oberon of the Summer Court. He is...rather well-known, in Faery and the mortal world. That part isn’t exaggerated.”
“My apologies.” Nyx gave a graceful, formal bow. “I meant no offense, Robin Goodfellow, but I have not been back in the world very long. My memories are fragmented, and I fear I have lost a great deal. Keirran has attempted to explain what has happened in the time I was gone, but the mortal realm has changed so much. Even Faery is unrecognizable.” Nyx shook her head, a haunted look going through her golden eyes. “Everything is so different now,” she murmured. “The last thing I remember is being with my kin in the Lady’s service.”
“The Lady?”
“The Queen of the Forgotten,” Keirran said.
“Then...” My brows shot into my hair. “Wait, you’re telling me she was around when the Lady ruled the Nevernever?” I asked incredulously. “As in, before the courts? Before Summer and Winter even existed?”
Keirran nodded gravely, and I let out a breath in a rush. Nyx wasn’t just old, she was primordial. True, I had seen the mortal world change, and Faery with it, but I had been awake through the whole process. I’d seen the great forests cut down and replaced with cities. I’d seen humans’ belief in magic fade away as they turned to science, computers, and technology. I’d adapted, as had all fey—the ones who’d survived. I couldn’t imagine waking up and finding everything and everyone I knew gone, and the world a vastly different place than the one I left.
Honestly, she was handling it far better than I ever would.
Though, her being a servant of the Lady, the Forgotten Faery Queen who had tried to take over the Nevernever a few years back, was mildly concerning. If Nyx was a Forgotten, Keirran would be her king now, but only because he’d killed the Lady in the war with the Forgotten several years back. That was probably another shock: waking up and finding that not only had the world changed, but the queen you served was gone and three new courts had taken her place. I know I’d be shocked if one day I woke up and Oberon was no longer king. If Titania was gone, I’d be devastated; who would I play all my hilarious pranks on then? I didn’t have to worry about her, though. That basilisk would live forever on spite alone.
“Nyx,” Keirran said, interrupting my musings. “Why are you here? Last I heard, you were going back to Phaed to check on things. Did something happen?”
“Yes.” The faery turned to Keirran with a grim expression. “You must come with me to the Between, Your Majesty,” she implored. “Something terrible has happened. The town, the fey there...they’re gone.”