by Julie Kagawa
I stepped over the threshold into the box, Ironhorse following at my heels. Cheerful orchestra music played at a muted volume over the speakers, and the floor was carpeted in red. Puck rushed inside and stood in the middle of the floor, away from the walls, arms crossed tightly to his chest. Ironhorse turned and blinked at him.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, GOODFELLOW?” he asked, his voice nearly bringing tears to my eyes as it echoed within the box. Puck gave him a fearsome smile.
“Me? I’m fine. Big metal box in a big metal tube? Not a problem. Hurry and get us to the right floor, Princess.”
I nodded and unfolded a piece of paper from my suit pocket, holding it up to the light. “Well, here goes nothing,” I murmured, and started punching in the code on the elevator buttons. 1-1-1-3-1-2-2-1-1-3. The numbers lit up as they were punched, singing out a little tune like the buttons on a cell phone.
I hit the last 3 and stepped back, waiting and holding my breath. For a moment, nothing happened. Ironhorse’s raspy breathing echoed off the metal walls, filling the box with the smell of smoke. Puck coughed and muttered something under his breath. I started to punch the code in again, thinking I’d pressed a wrong button, when the doors swooshed shut. The lights dimmed, the music ceased, and a large white button shimmered into existence, marked with a bold 29.5.
I shared a glance with my companions, who nodded.
“Floor twenty-nine point five,” I whispered, and hit the button with my thumb. “Going up.”
THE ELEVATOR STOPPED, and the doors opened with a cheerful ding.
We peered out at a long, brightly lit hallway with numerous doors lining its walls and gray tiles leading to single door at the very end. I knew we were in the right place. I could feel it in the air, a faint buzz, a sharp tingle just below my skin. It made my neck hairs stand on end, and was oddly familiar. Glancing at Puck and Ironhorse, I knew they could feel it, too.
We inched down the corridor, Puck in front and Ironhorse bringing up the rear. Around us, our footsteps echoed in the silence. We passed doors without hesitation, knowing they were the wrong ones. I could feel the buzzing getting louder the closer we got to the end of the hall.
Then, we were at the last door, and Puck leaned against it, putting his ear to the wood. I don’t hear anything, he mouthed at us, and pointed to the handle. Shall we?
Ironhorse nodded, clenching his massive fists. Puck reached down and freed his daggers, gesturing to me with a point. Biting my lip, I reached out and carefully turned the handle.
The door swung forward with a creak, and a waft of frigid air hit me in the face. I shivered, resisting the impulse to rub my arms as my breath clouded the air before me. Someone had cranked the AC down to like zero degrees; the room was a freezer box as we stepped inside.
A dozen or so humans in expensive business suits sat around a long, U-shaped table in the center of the floor. From the looks of it, we had interrupted a business meeting, for they all turned and stared at me with various degrees of annoyance and confusion. At the end of the table, a swivel chair sat with its back to us, hiding the speaker or CEO or whoever was in charge. I suddenly remembered all the times I’d snuck into class late and had to scurry down the aisles to my desk while everyone watched. My face burned, and for a moment, you could hear a pin drop.
“Um, sorry,” I muttered, backing away. The business suits continued to stare at me. “Sorry. Wrong room. We’ll just…go.”
“Oh, why don’t you stick around, my dear.” The buzzing, high-pitched voice made my skin crawl. At the front of the table, the figure swiveled the chair around to face us, smiling. She wore a neon-green business suit, radioactive-blue lipstick, and bright yellow glasses above a thin, sneering face. Her hair, a myriad of computer cables, was bound atop her head in a colorful mockery of a bun. She held the scepter in green-nailed hands, like a queen observing her subjects, and my stomach gave a jolt of recognition.
“VIRUS!” Ironhorse boomed.
“No need to shout, old man. I’m right here.” Virus put her heels on the table and regarded us smugly. “I’ve been waiting for you, girl. Looking for this, are you?” She lifted her arm, and I gasped. The Scepter of the Seasons pulsed a strange, sickly green light through her fingers. Virus bared her teeth in a smile. “I was expecting the girl and her clown to come sniffing after it, but I never expected the honorable Ironhorse to turn on us. Tsk-tsk.” She shook her head. “Loyalty is so overrated these days. How the mighty have fallen.”
“YOU DARE ACCUSE ME?” Ironhorse stalked forward, smoke drifting from his mouth and nostrils. We hurried after him. “YOU ARE THE BETRAYER, WHO FOLLOWS THE COMMANDS OF THE FALSE KING. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS FALLEN.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Virus sighed. “As usual, you have no idea what is really going on. You think I want to follow the wheezings of an obsolete monarch? I want that even less than you. When he put me in charge of stealing the scepter, I knew that was the last command I would ever follow. Poor Tertius, believing I was still loyal to his false king. The gullible fool handed me the scepter without a second thought.” She smiled at us, fierce and terrible. “Now, I have the Scepter of the Seasons. I have the power. And if the false king wants it, he’ll have to take it from me by force.”
“I see,” I said, coming to a stop a few feet from her. Around us, the men in business suits continued to stare. “You want to become the next ruler. You had no intention of giving it to the Iron King.”
“Can you blame me?” Virus swung her feet off the table to smile at me. “How often have you disobeyed your king because his commands were rubbish? Goodfellow—” she pointed the scepter at Puck “—how often has the thought of rebelling crossed your mind? Don’t tell me you’ve been a faithful little monkey, catering to Oberon’s every desire, in all the years you’ve known him.”
“That’s different,” I said.
“Really?” Virus sneered at me. “I can tell you, it wasn’t difficult to convince Rowan. That boy’s hatred and jealousy are inspiring. All he needed was a little push, a tiny promise of power, and he betrayed everything he knew. He was the one who told me you were coming for the scepter, you know.” She snorted. “Of course, the claims of becoming immune to iron are completely false. As if thousands of years of history can be rewritten or erased. Iron and technology have been and will always be lethal to the traditional fey. That’s why we’re so inherently superior to you oldbloods. That’s why you’re going to fall so easily after the war.”
Ironhorse growled, the furious rumble of an oncoming train. “I WILL TAKE THAT SCEPTER AND PLACE THE TRUE MONARCH OF THE IRON FEY ON THE THRONE,” he vowed, taking a threatening step forward. “YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME NOW, TRAITOR. YOUR HUMAN PUPPETS WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO PROTECT YOU.”
“Ah ah ah.” Virus waggled a finger at him. “Not so fast. I didn’t want my drones up here because they are delicate and rather squishy, but I’m not quite so stupid as to be unguarded.” She smiled and gazed around the table. “All right, gentlemen. Meeting adjourned.”
At that, all the humans sitting at the tables stood, shedding glamour like discarded jackets, filling the air with fraying strands of illusion. Human facades dropped away, to reveal a dozen faeries in spiky black armor, their faces sickly and pale beneath their helms. As one, the Thornguards drew their serrated black swords and pointed them at us, trapping us in a ring of faery steel.
My stomach twisted violently, wanting to crawl up my throat and make a break for the door. I heard Puck’s exhalation of breath and Ironhorse’s dismayed snort as he pressed closer to me. Virus snickered, leaning back in her chair.
“I’m afraid you’ve walked nose first into a trap, m’dears,” she gloated as we tensed, ready to run or fight. “Oh, but you don’t want to rush off now. I have one last little surprise for you.” She giggled and snapped her fingers.
The door behind her creaked, and a dark figure stepped into the room, coming to stand behind the chair. This time, my heart dropped to my toes and stayed there
.
“I’m sure you four know each other,” Virus said, as my world shrank down to a narrow tunnel, blocking everything else out. “My greatest creation so far, I think. It took six Thornguards and nearly two dozen drones to bring him down, but it was so worth it. Ironic, isn’t it? He nearly got away with the scepter the first time, and now he’ll do anything to keep it here.”
No, my mind whispered. This isn’t happening. No no no no no.
“Ash,” Virus purred as the figure came into the light, “say hello to our guests.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Traitor
I stared at Ash in a daze, torn between relief that he was alive and an acute, sickening despair. This couldn’t be real, what was happening. I had stepped into a nightmare world, where everything I loved was twisted into something monstrous and horrible. My legs felt weak, and I had to lean against Puck or I would’ve fallen.
Ironhorse snorted. “AN ILLUSION,” he mocked, staring at Ash in contempt. “A SIMPLE GLAMOUR, NOTHING MORE. I HAVE SEEN WHAT HAPPENS TO THE OLDBLOODS YOU IMPLANT WITH YOUR FOUL BUGS. THEY GO MAD, AND THEN THEY DIE. THAT IS NOT THE WINTER PRINCE, ANY MORE THAN THESE GUARDS.”
“You think?” Virus’s grin was frighteningly smug. “Well, if you’re so sure, old man, you’re welcome to try to stop him. It should be easy to defeat one simple guard, although I think you’ll find the task harder than you ever expected.” She turned a purely sadistic smile on me. “The princess knows, don’t you, my dear?”
Ironhorse turned, a question in his eyes, but I couldn’t take my gaze off Virus’s bodyguard. “It’s not an illusion,” I whispered. “It really is him.” The way my heart fluttered around my chest proved this was real. I stepped forward, ignoring the bristling Thornguard weapons, and the prince’s gaze sharpened, cutting me like a knife. “Ash,” I whispered, “it’s me. Are you hurt? Say something.”
Ash regarded me blankly, no glint of recognition in his silver eyes: no anger, sorrow, nothing. “All of you,” he said in a quiet voice, “will die.”
Shock and horror lanced through me, holding me immobile. Virus giggled her hateful, buzzing laugh. “It’s no use,” she taunted. “He hears you, he even recognizes you, but he remembers nothing of his old life. He’s been completely reprogrammed, thanks to my bug. And now, he listens only to me.”
I looked closer, and my heart twisted even more. In the shadows of the room, the prince’s face was ashen, the skin pulled so tight across his bones it had split in places, showing open wounds beneath. His cheeks were hollow, and his eyes, though blank and empty, were bright with unspoken pain. I recognized that look; it was the same look Edgebriar had turned on us in the cave, teetering on the edge of madness. “It’s killing him,” I whispered.
“Well, only a little.”
“Stop it,” I hissed, and Virus arched a sardonic eyebrow. My heart pounded, but I set my jaw and plunged on. “Please,” I begged, stepping forward. “Let him go. Let me take his place. I’ll sign a contract, make a bargain, anything, if that’s what you want. But take the bug out of his head and let him go.”
“Meghan!” Puck snapped, and Ironhorse stared at me in horror. I didn’t care. I couldn’t let Ash fade away into nothing, as if he had never existed at all. I imagined myself in a field of white flowers, watching a ghostly Ash and Ariella dance together in the moonlight, together at last. Except it would be a lie. Ash wouldn’t be with his true love, even in death. He wouldn’t be anything.
Virus chuckled. “Such devotion,” she murmured, rising from the chair. “I’m terribly moved. Come here, Ash.” Ash immediately stepped up beside her, and Virus laid a hand on his chest. “You should congratulate me,” Virus continued, regarding the prince like a student with a winning science project. “I’ve finally discovered a way to implant my bugs in the fey system without killing them outright, or driving them mad within the first few hours. Instead of rewriting his brain—” she stroked Ash’s hair, and I clenched my shaking fists, fighting the urge to leap across the table and rip out her eyes “—I had it take over his cervical nervous system, here.” Her fingers dropped to the base of his skull, caressing it. “You’re welcome to try to carve it out, I suppose, but I’m afraid that will be quite fatal for him. Only I can order my bugs to willingly release their hosts. As for your offer…” She threw me an indulgent smile. “You have only one thing I want, and I will take that from you momentarily. No, I find that I prefer my bodyguard as he is, for however long he has left.”
My heart pounded. He was so close. I could reach over the table, grab his hand and pull him to safety. “Ash!” I cried, holding out my hand. “Jump, now! Come on, you can fight it. Please…” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t do this. Don’t make us fight you…”
Ash gazed straight ahead, not moving a muscle, and a sob tore free from my throat. I couldn’t reach him. Ash was lost to us. The cold stranger across the table had taken his place.
“Well.” Virus took a step back. “This has grown tiresome. I think it’s time I took what I want from you, my dear. Ash.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Kill the princess. Kill them all.”
With a flash of blue light, Ash drew his sword and slashed it across the table. It happened so quickly, I didn’t even have time to scream before the icy blade streaked down at my face.
Puck lunged in front of me and caught the blade with his own, deflecting it with a screech and a flurry of sparks. I stumbled back and Puck grabbed my wrist, dragging me away even as I protested. “Retreat!” he yelled as the Thornguards leaped across the tables with a roar. I looked back and saw Ash jump gracefully onto the table, his terrible blank gaze fastened on me. “Ironhorse, fall back, there are too many of them!”
With a bellow and a blast of flame, Ironhorse reared up into his true form, breathing fire and lashing out with his hooves. The guards fell back in shock and Ironhorse charged, knocking several aside and clearing a path to the door. As the huge Iron fey thundered past, Puck shoved me toward the exit. “Go!” he shouted, and whirled to block Ash’s sword, slicing down at his back.
“Ash, stop this!” I cried, but the Winter prince paid me no attention. As the Thornguards closed on us again, Puck snarled a curse and threw a fuzzy black ball into their midst.
It burst into a maddened grizzly, which reared up with a booming roar, startling everything in the room. As the Thornguards and Ash turned toward this new threat, Puck grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the room.
“Been saving that, just in case,” he panted, as Ironhorse snorted with appreciation. “Now let’s get out of here.”
We ran for the elevator. The hallway seemed longer now, the steel doors deliberately keeping their distance. I looked back once and saw Ash stalking toward us, his sword radiating blue light through the corridor. The icy calm on his face sent a bolt of raw fear through me, and I wrenched my eyes from him.
Ahead of us, the elevator dinged. A second later, the doors slid open, and a squadron of Thornguards stepped into the hall.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Puck exclaimed as we skidded to a halt. As one, the knights drew their swords and marched forward in unison, filling the corridor with the ring of their boots.
I looked behind us. Ash was advancing steadily as well, his eyes glassy and terrifying.
A click echoed through the hall and miraculously, one of the side doors swung open.
“How predictable,” Grimalkin sighed, appearing in the doorway. We gaped at him, and he regarded us with amusement. “I thought you might need a second way out. Why is it always up to me to think of these things?”
“I would kiss you, cat,” Puck said as we crowded through the doorway, “if we weren’t in such a hurry. Also, the hairballs could be unpleasant.”
I slammed the door and leaned against it, gasping as we took in our newest surroundings. A vast white room stretched before us, filled with hundreds upon hundreds of cubicles, creating a labyrinth of aisles. A low hum vibrated in the air, accompanied by the rhythmic sound
of tapping keys. Humans sat at desks within each cubicle, dressed in identical white shirts and gray pants, staring glassy-eyed at the monitors as they typed away.
“Whoa,” Puck muttered, looking around. “Cubicle hell.”
Simultaneously, the tapping stopped. Chairs shifted and groaned as every single human in the room stood up and, as one, turned in our direction. And, as one, they opened their mouths and spoke.
“We see you, Meghan Chase. You will not escape.”
If I hadn’t been filled with a hollow, bone-numbing despair, I would’ve been terrified. Puck cursed and pulled out his dagger just as a boom shook the door behind us. “Looks like we’re going straight through,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes. “Grimalkin, get moving! Rusty, clear us a path!”
Grimalkin bounded into the maze, dodging feet and weaving through legs as the hordes of zombie-drones shuffled toward us. Ironhorse pawed the tile, put his head down and charged with a roar. Drones flung themselves at him, punching and clawing, but they bounced off or were thrown aside as the angry Iron fey stampeded through the hall. Puck and I followed in his wake, leaping over downed bodies, dodging the hands that grabbed for us. Someone latched on to my ankle once, but I let out a shriek and kicked him in the face, knocking him back. He fell away clutching my shoe, and I quickly shook the other off, running barefoot through the hall.
The maze of aisles and cubicles seemed to go on forever. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the mob of zombie heads bobbing above the cubicle walls, following us.
“Dammit,” Puck snarled, following my gaze, “they’re coming fast. How much farther, cat?”
“Here,” Grimalkin said, darting around a cubicle. The room finally ended with a stark white wall and a door in the corner, marked with an Exit sign. “The emergency stairs,” he explained as we rushed forward in relief. “This will take us to the street level. Hurry!”
