by Evelyn Avery
And my next thought was that I wanted to find out.
“You’re a hobgoblin.” The words burst from my lips before I could stop them.
The old stories described hobgoblins as small and hairy little men, fond of practical jokes. But this was the Underground, where everything had been created to entice the wanderer deeper and make it, so they never wanted to leave. Here, the hobgoblins were long and sleek, with a desire for darker things than practical jokes. All they had in common with the human stories was their ability to shapeshift and their love of causing trouble.
His eyes flashed a brilliant violet in the meager light. “Indeed. And how would you come to know that?”
If I knew nothing else, it was not to offer anything, including information, without getting something in return. “I’ll tell you if you show me how to enter the labyrinth. I can’t seem to make it through the trees.”
His expression turned contemplative, but his heated gaze never left my face. Then his attention shifted to the lariat around my neck. “I know who you are, little traveler. I could get into quite a bit of trouble for helping you.”
I glanced down at the necklace, where the blue stone had darkened to the color of a star at midnight. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
The hobgoblin did a slow circle around me as if I was a prize hog at the fairgrounds he was thinking about purchasing. Except his gaze didn’t make me feel like an animal, even as I wondered if he wanted to eat me. “I do love a juicy secret, but you’ll have to trade something better if I’m sticking my neck out.”
“What do you want?”
I couldn’t seem to stop asking the wrong questions.
He shifted closer, invading my personal space in a way that no human man would unless he had dangerous intentions. His eyes twisted and whirled like an amethyst reflecting light, and I found it nearly impossible to focus on them for long.
“What do I want? How can I answer such a question when there are so many intoxicating possibilities?” He stopped when he was standing directly behind me and bent over my shoulder. He inhaled deeply as if smelling a bouquet of flowers. “You’ll have to learn to mind your words when in the presence of a trickster. I am far from the most dangerous of my kind.”
A shiver worked over me, and I forced myself to stand up straighter. Even so, I fought the urge to shift closer to the heat of his body and the spicy scent wafting off him, like freshly turned earth and hearth fire.
“I’ll extend you a courtesy, Izzy.” My name on his vibrating tongue had too many syllables and came out in a sibilant hiss. He hadn’t touched me, but every nerve ending on my body felt alive as if waiting for precisely that. His face shifted closer to mine, and my mouth fell open on a desperate inhalation of air. “Tell me my true name, and I shall show you the entrance.”
My mouth clacked shut on empty air as he stepped away. It was easier to think with some space between us and I stumbled further away, willing my head to clear. The Erlking’s enticements had tempted me because it was simply how he was made. He had no other way to lure victims into his trap. But my physical reaction to this man, if you could call him that, made absolutely no sense at all.
He watched me as if sensing my internal struggle and was amused by it, mildly sympathetic. Hobgoblins were known for their desire to make friends unless you ended up on their bad sides. But I had no doubt that he would refuse to help me if I couldn’t answer his challenge.
I wracked my brain, trying to remember. The Erlking’s domain had been the sole subject of my fevered imagination since I was a child. I created dozens of creatures over the years or thought I did. Unless psychosis allowed for a complete escape from reality, what I thought was my imagination had become something else entirely.
Like it wasn’t my imagination at all, but an almost-forgotten memory.
Forcing away that ridiculous thought, I tried to focus. The Erlking wasn’t the only character I’d invented over the years. There were others, even if I never considered them to be anywhere near as important.
Only one hobgoblin stood out in my mind at all.
“You’re Robin Goodfellow, jester in the Erlking’s court until he had you cast out in disgrace, also known as Puck.”
“Only to my friends.” The shadow of a smile twisted his lips. “I’ll have to ask more of you when we next make a bargain.
I’d gotten it right. A burst of pleasure ran through me at the realization that I’d finally taken a step forward in this awful place. I was down over two hours and no closer to reaching my friends than when I started. “You promised to show me the entrance to the labyrinth.”
“So I did.”
He walked up to the obsidian trees and paused next to a particularly large trunk. “Watch closely now.”
With a grin full of dark whimsy, he stepped forward and disappeared into the shadows.
Cursing, I raced up to the spot where he’d stood, but there was nothing to indicate where he might have gone. The wall of trees was as impenetrable as it had been for the past hour.
“Hey! Where did you go?”
Puck’s disembodied voice floated over me. “I promised to show you the entrance. Nothing more and nothing less. Shall I demonstrate it again?”
I hated these faerie deals more than anything else in the entire world. “Fuck you.”
“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, dear heart.” His face appeared again in a break between the trees, and I understood now that his body only became a physical thing when he wanted it to be. The smug expression on his face made it clear that he never intended to help me find the path, not for something as simple as just knowing his name. “Shall we try again?”
“I’m not making any more bargains,” I snapped at him, no doubt in my mind that these damn trees were the last thing I’d see before I died. “I don’t trust you.”
“Nor should you. Don’t trust anything you encounter here, no matter what it promises you.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on a hand that appeared from nowhere. “One more bargain, and I promise to make it worth your while.”
“Tell me what you’re offering,” I said obstinately. At least I’d managed to learn one lesson. “And then I’ll decide.”
I wondered if he was going to ask for something sexual, which forced me to consider precisely what getting into this labyrinth was worth to me. Lives were at stake, except that wasn’t the only precious thing I was capable of losing here.
But Puck surprised me.
“Allow me to accompany you on your journey, and I will ensure you are able to cross the trees to enter the labyrinth.”
I couldn’t keep the expression of shock off my face. “That’s it?”
His eyes darkened to a deep mulberry as he studied me. “That’s it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, but some unnamed emotion crossed his face. Before I could figure out what it was, the sunny smile had already returned. “You know as well as I that hobgoblins are always hoping to make a new friend. And we so rarely have visitors passing through these days.”
Did I trust him not to push me off the nearest cliff if the impulse struck? Absolutely not. But it wasn’t as if I had a backup plan.
Regardless, it was important to be explicit. “And you won’t do anything to stop me from continuing on my journey. No helping me across the trees and then knocking me back to the other side?”
Something above his head caught his attention, and he giggled before turning back to me. “Of course not. A deal is a deal.”
“No lies?”
“I would never.” He actually managed to look offended. “The fae do not lie, even you must know that.”
I might have made up these rules, but it seemed like a good idea to make absolutely sure.
“Fine.” I gestured toward the tree in front of me. “Help me cross the trees. And get moving. I’m running out of time here.”
Puck leapt back down, body coalescing midair in a way that made me blink several times before
I believed what I was seeing. Sidling up beside me, he took my hand. His grip was as strong as iron when I attempted to pull it away.
“Pay very careful attention,” he murmured in my ear, his breath tickling my skin. “You’ve been going about this all wrong. Sometimes, the labyrinth will require you to go straight through like a battering ram. But sometimes, as now, the way forward is actually sideways. I’ll show you what I mean.”
“Hey—”
I reacted with a high-pitched squeal as he swung me into his arms. For as lithe and slim as his body seemed, his arms wrapped around me like bands of iron. Approaching the wall of trees, he stopped just short of a large trunk.
“Take a deep breath.”
And then he stepped sideways. Instead of bumping right into the next tree like the laws of physics said we should, we entered a pitch-black space. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he stepped again in the opposite direction, and bright light nearly blinded me.
He set me down, and I stumbled backward, blinking as my eyes readjusted to the light. My back hit something hard. As my vision cleared, I turned to see the wall of trees behind me, so tall that they blocked out the distant horizon.
When I turned back, the labyrinth lie ahead of us.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to Puck with a genuine smile.
He returned the smile and then said, “The next favor you ask of me will only be granted if you’re on your back.”
I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? His hand shifted to the swirling tattoos on his chest and stroked the skin while his gaze stayed centered on my face.
“Duly noted,” I replied, swallowing hard as my gaze followed the path of his hand.
Puck brushed a silver nipple ring I hadn’t noticed before this moment with his thumb. Then his hand moved lower, fingers disappearing under the waist of his pants.
I did what any sensible girl would do: turned and ran. Well, I didn’t exactly run. More of a brisk walk to put as much distance between me and the bare-chested, chiseled temptation that had suddenly attached itself to my side.
I wasn’t here to get distracted or laid. It was impossible to know what sort of suffering Vaughn and Chloe were enduring while I ogled man meat. My head needed to get in the game, right fucking now.
His laugh wrapped around me. “There’s that word again. That must be on your mind a lot.”
Shit, I said that out loud.
“I don’t mean it literally.”
Puck jogged to catch up with me, the outline of his hardened dick visible through the thin pants. “You will.”
The lariat swung from my neck, and I glanced down at it. The next stone had already begun to change color, turning a pale yellow.
So much time had passed only for me to make so little progress.
“You know the Erlking brought me here for himself, right?” The long train of my dress snagged on a branch, and I stumbled. Puck caught my arm, electricity tingled along my skin until I pulled away. “What do you think he’ll do if he finds out you helped me?”
“The Erlking knows all and sees all. This is his domain.” The words would have seemed grave if not for the mischievous smile on his face. “There are no secrets that can be kept from him here.”
I stepped over a large crack in the stone path before my foot could catch on it. “You don’t sound worried?”
“Should I be?”
“He’s your ruler, right?”
A shadow passed over his face. “The Erlking has cast me from his court for my misdeeds. It lessens his power over me.”
I glanced at his face, searching for some hint of his mood. “And now you want a friend?”
“Or more than that.” He waggled his eyebrows, abandoning the somber tone. “For now, I’ll just stand here and watch you walk down the path. It’s quite a view.”
He was trying way too hard for me to take his flirting seriously, but it was a nice distraction. The Erlking had promised that the path would be laid out clearly ahead of us, but he neglected to mention that it would extend into infinity. My feet already ached, and we’d only just started.
The scrubby brush surrounding the trees behind us eventually gave way to a brick path that wound off into the distance. With each step I took, the path seemed more and more like it would never end. I squinted at the horizon, trying to make out the distant shape of what I could only assume was the Erlking’s castle. But it was too distant and amorphous to make out clearly.
Another mile passed, the third stone around my neck now a violent canary yellow. We should have made more progress by now.
“Something’s wrong.”
Puck popped up beside me, his walk more of a jaunty dance. “And what would that be, lovely?”
“We’re not making any progress. The Erlking gave me thirteen hours, but it would take weeks to reach whatever is at the end of this path.”
He followed the finger I pointed at the horizon, his expression pensive. “The King’s deals are rarely fair.”
“But they can’t be impossible, that would be against the rules.”
My foot caught again on a crack in the pavement, and my skirt wrapped around my ankles as I stumbled forward. Only the arm that Puck wrapped around my waist as he pulled me into the circle of his arms kept me from falling.
I stared up into his brilliantly-violet eyes, caught in the spell they cast. My body shifted infinitesimally forward as if drawn to him by a force outside of my conscious control. It was only at that moment I realized how much I wanted him to kiss me.
What the hell was wrong with me?
It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy sex on the handful of occasions I’d had it, but at no point in my life would anyone describe me as boy crazy. But I couldn’t seem to keep my mind off the idea of humping every beautiful creature that crossed my path. The Erlking had to be doing something to me, at least I hoped he was.
With a knowing smile, Puck set me back on my feet and slowly pulled away. “Careful now.”
Embarrassed, I looked down at my feet. The crack in the pavement wasn’t large but deep enough that stepping on it the wrong way could have turned my ankle. I’d thought the same thing the last time I saw it.
Because this was the exact crack that I’d tripped over before. “Oh, shit.”
Puck tensed, casting his gaze around as if waiting for an attack. “What is it?”
I pointed to a rock that was suspiciously familiar to one I’d seen almost thirty minutes ago. “All of this is the same.”
“You’re right.” He looked around us with a new attention, an expression of surprise on his face. “We’re trapped in an illusion. One of the more elaborate I’ve seen. The Erlking certainly wants to ensure you never make it from one end of this place to the other.”
My gaze moved frantically around me, wondering how I could possibly have missed that every crack in the brick path, every blade of grass, even the angle of the setting sun on the horizon had remained unchanged. “How do we break it?”
“This is the Erlking’s realm. We cannot break any illusion he has created inside of it.”
“If we can’t break it, can we at least figure out a way to see through it?”
“Perhaps.” He stepped off the path into the scrubby grass and brush, looking for something. “Illusions are powerful because they pit your own mind against you. When created by someone with more power than you possess, they’re nearly impossible to combat. I’m surprised you were able to see through it at all, most wouldn’t have.”
My fingers clenched as the futility of all of it washed over me. The next time I saw the Erlking, I was punching him in his smug face. “So we’re stuck until the Erlking shows back up in . . .” I glanced down at the lariat, counting the stones that were still transparent. “Nine and a half hours.”
“Not necessarily.” With a triumphant sound, he picked something up and held it out for me to see.
“That’s a rock.”
“If you wan
t to be literal. In another sense, it’s our ticket to freedom.” He reared back and launched the rock into the air, then watched as it flew in an arc. It struck the path a dozen feet ahead of us with a loud thunk. “Not there.”
He bent to look for another.
“I don’t get it.”
“The only way to break a powerful illusion without magic of your own is to force your mind to see through it. We aren’t seeing what’s really here, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out of it. It’s like holding up a prism and turning it in your hands. The light looks one way from a certain position and much different from another.”
“What does that have to do with throwing rocks?”
“If you throw the rock and then don’t see it land, you’ll know you’ve found a break in the illusion. Now, do you want to ask more inane questions, or do you want to help me?”
I picked up a small stone and hurled it as far as I could down the path. It only landed a few feet away.
Puck scoffed “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Resisting the urge to aim the next one at the back of his head, I picked a target just to the side of the path and threw it. The stone curved through the air, but then something strange happened. Instead of landing where it should, the stone seemed to jump in the air and then dropped at least a foot further away. The difference was subtle, and if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.
I jogged forward to where the stone landed. The air shimmered slightly as I got closer. “There has to be something here.”
“Only one way to find out,” Puck murmured before he shoved me hard from behind.
I plunged forward, barely getting my hands out in front of me in enough time to catch my fall. I hit the ground hard, gravel digging into my palms and making them sting.
When I looked up, the scenery had changed. Walls of stone rose up around us, many of them cracked and broken. There was still a path ahead, but it turned in a sharp corner a dozen feet away, so it was impossible to know what lay beyond the bend.
