“It’s going to be dark soon,” Simon said.

“It just seems too easy,” Jared said. “Like a trap.”

“Trap or not, we’re going to have to keep going,” Mallory said.

Simon nodded. Jared still thought that Simon looked a little too pale and wondered how much pain he was in. At least the red skin had faded somewhat.

Stepping onto the drawbridge cautiously, Jared braced himself for something to happen. He kept glancing at the jagged glass jutting up out of the moat. Then he raced across. Mallory and Simon paused a moment, then ran after him.

As they entered the palace, they found themselves in a large hall constructed from salvaged materials and what seemed to be cement. The archways were trimmed with bent chrome fenders. Hubcaps hung from the ceiling on rusted chains, flickering with the uncertain light of dozens of yellowed candles and dripping with wax. Set inside one wall was a fireplace large enough to roast Jared in.

It was eerily quiet. Their footsteps echoed in the dim rooms, and their shadows loomed along the walls.

They walked farther, passing musty-smelling couches covered in threadbare throws.

“Do we have anything even remotely resembling a plan?” Mallory asked.

“Nope,” Jared said.

“No,” Simon echoed.

“Hush,” said Thimbletack. “Have a care. I hear something over there.”

They paused a moment, listening. There was a faint noise that sounded almost like music.

“I think it’s coming from here,” Jared said, pushing open a door that had been decorated with more than a dozen knobs. Inside the room was a tall, long table made from a plank of wood on top of three sawhorses. Thick candles that smelled of burning hair covered most of the table. Rivulets of melted wax ran down the sides. Also set on the table were platters of food—long, greasy trays of roasted frogs, half-eaten apples, the tail and bones of a large fish. Flies buzzed greedily around the remains. From somewhere in the room came a series of high-pitched notes.

“What is that?” Simon asked, squeezing past a single large chair. Then he stopped, looking at something Jared and Mallory couldn’t see. They scrambled over to him.

A large urn sat on the floor underneath an open window. There, in the wavering light, Jared could see sprites trapped in honey, sinking as though it were quicksand. The sprites’ tiny cries were the sound he had heard before.

Simon reached in to pull the sprites free, but the honey was heavy and clung to their thin wings, tearing them. The sprites squealed as he set each one down on the table in a sticky, sodden heap. One was completely still and lay there limply, like a doll. Jared looked away, staring out the window.

“Do you think there are more in there?” Mallory whispered.

“I think so,” Simon said. “At the bottom.”

“We have to keep going.” Jared moved toward another doorway. The thought of the tiny drowned faeries made him feel queasy.

“The palace is just too quiet,” said Mallory as she followed him.

“Mulgarath can’t be here all the time,” Jared said. “Maybe we got lucky. Maybe we can just find Mom and get out.”

Mallory nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.

They passed by a map hung on a wall. It looked much like Arthur’s old map, but the places had been renamed. Jared noticed that over the junkyard had been written MULGARATH’S PALACE and that lettered across the entire top of the paper was MULGARATH’S DOMAIN.

“Look!” Simon said. Ahead of them was a large room with a throne at its center. Surrounding the throne were overlapping carpets in different patterns, all of them moth-eaten and worn. The throne was made of metal, welded together and jagged in places.

At one end of the room was a spiral staircase, each step a plank suspended on two long metal chains. The whole thing looked like a web, wobbling slightly with each breeze. In the dim light the stairs looked impossible to climb.

Mallory pulled herself onto the first rung. It swung alarmingly. She tried to step onto the next one, but her legs were too short.

“These steps are too far apart!” she exclaimed.

“Perfect for an ogre,” Simon pointed out.

She finally managed to catch the second step, flop onto it chest-first, and pull herself up that way.

“Simon’s not going to be able to climb this,” she said.