by Julie Kagawa
I was simultaneously annoyed that she was talking so much about Keirran and angry at the thought of Nyx being targeted simply because she was a Forgotten. A Forgotten assassin who once was the right hand of the Lady, yeah, who was as skilled and dangerous as she was beautiful, but she wasn’t even part of the last war.
“Ah, don’t stress too much about it.” I plopped beside her on the bench, and she glanced at me with calm, moon-colored eyes. “Nothing’s going to happen to you in the Iron Court. Anyone wants to start shit, they’re gonna have to go through me.”
Her mouth twitched in a wry smirk of her own. “You don’t think I can handle myself?”
“Oh, believe me, I am fully aware that you can slice and dice your way through pretty much anything.” I held up my hands as she watched me, still smiling. “No question about your murder capabilities, please don’t stab me. But if we’re in the Iron Realm and we do have to make trouble, better for the blame to land on me than you. One, you’re a Forgotten, and it seems that everyone’s panties are in a twist over that. Best if you lie low for now. And two, I’m good friends with the Iron Queen, and I will be playing that card every chance I get.” One silver brow arched, and I shot her a grin. “Besides, I’m Robin Goodfellow. If things blow up, collapse, explode, or turn into frogs around me, well, that’s just to be expected.”
She snorted. “Is subtle also a four-letter word in your world?”
“Nope, but tact is. Also, meek, mild, calm, care, plot, plan, mind, quit, stop, test... I could go on if you want me to.”
A creaking, jingling sound interrupted me. I turned to look at the gate and saw the top of a covered wagon making its way over the bridge toward us. At first, it looked like it belonged to a snake oil salesman in an old Western, until it drew closer and I saw it clearly.
Instead of wheels, four segmented legs jutted from the sides like those of a huge metal insect, picking their way over the ground as the wagon crawled forward. The sides were tall and banded with copper, and a pair of lanterns flickered at the back and front, swaying in the breeze. The painted sign on the side of the wagon read Tinkerer’s Workshop. Repairs, Adjustments, Custom Pieces.
I groaned. “Oh yeah,” I muttered as Nyx rose beside me, watching the wagon lurch toward us on jointed metal legs. “Forgot to mention... Lots of things in the Iron Realm have a really disturbing fascination with insects. Just a heads-up, in case you loathe spiders and all their ilk and believe anything with more than four legs should be cleansed from the world with fire. Except octopi—they get a pass ’cause they’re cool and can squeeze their bodies through pretty much anything. Everything else, kill it with fire. Spiders, scorpions, centipedes...”
“Butterflies?”
“Have you seen a butterfly’s face up close? It’s terrifying.” I grimaced. “Besides, the amount of times I’ve been swarmed by carnivorous butterflies in the Nevernever is more than once. So, yep, kill ’em with fire.”
Nyx chuckled, and it sent a strange little flutter through my insides. “Well, hopefully there will be no killer butterflies inside,” she said, and together, we walked toward the bridge and the Tinkerer’s wagon, crouched like a giant cricket at the edge of the chasm.
9
BUG WAGONS AND KILLER BEE FEY
The things I do to deliver a message.
My skin crawled as we approached the Tinkerer’s wagon. Maybe it was my own paranoia, but it felt like the wagon was watching me, patient and unmoving, like a spider ready to scuttle toward me as I got close. And it had legs. Creepy insect legs, when four nice normal wheels would have been just fine.
Squashing down my reluctance, I walked around the back of the cart and found the steps that led to a single, bright green door covered in brass cogs and wheels. A doorbell rested beside the frame, glinting bright copper in the wood, and I pressed it firmly. Something within buzzed, but there was no answer.
“Hellooooo?” Standing on tiptoes, I peered in the single frosted-glass window next to the door, but all I could see were blurry shapes against hazy orange light. “Anyone here? Are you open?”
The door clicked, then swung open a crack, and a trio of very long, very thin fingers curled from the opening. I peered into the gap and was met with a pale gray eye in an equally pale face.
“Hey.” I raised a hand as the eye blinked at me slowly. “Did anyone order a pizza with extra olives?”
“Robin Goodfellow.” The voice was soft and rusty, and the door creaked open a bit farther as a head emerged on a long, skinny neck. A nose like a beak narrowly missed my chin as the head rose to stare me in the face. A jewelry loupe, jutting from one pale eye, glinted as it fixed on me. I suddenly felt like I was being studied like an uncut diamond. “You are the one the first lieutenant told me about. Can I help you?”
“Yeah, actually, you can.” I leaned back from the giant honker before I was impaled. “I heard you were the faery to see about getting a certain trinket? Something small and stylish, that prevents your face from melting off if you go into the Iron Kingdom?”
“That is true. I am the crafter of the protection amulets used by the regular fey to survive the Iron Realm. However...” The withered head pulled back a few inches. “I have already crafted your amulet, Robin Goodfellow,” he said. “I remember each and every piece I create, and yours was commissioned by the Iron Queen herself. You do not need another amulet.” His open eye narrowed sharply. “Unless of course you have lost it.”
“What? Moi? Lose something so important? What gave you that idea?” I smirked at his unamused expression, then motioned behind me. “I don’t need one. This amulet is for my friend. She needs to get into the Iron Realm to see the queen and would like to do so without imploding from iron sickness. That would be very inconvenient. Also messy.”
The Tinkerer’s gaze slid past me to Nyx, hovering at the bottom of the step. Two extremely long fingers came up to twirl and adjust the loupe, before the faery drew in a slow breath.
“A Forgotten? Well, now, what an interesting request. So that is the reason the knight seemed rather agitated when he delivered the message.” He observed Nyx a moment longer, then frowned. “Her kind is not well received by some residents of the Iron Kingdom.”
“Yeah, we got that. So, can you make her one, or not?”
He sighed. “Come in and shut the door, and please do not touch anything.” He drew back, disappearing from sight, and the door creaked on its hinges as it swung open.
We stepped through the frame, shut the door behind us, then turned around.
I expected to see the interior of the wagon, cramped and crowded, with lots of items on shelves and barely enough room to stand up, much less move around. Instead, I stood in the doorway of a large room, soft orange light glowing from several lamps on the ceiling. Shelves lined three of the four walls, filled with all manner of doodads and thingamabobs, and heaps of what looked like junk lay piled in every corner. Gears, levers, springs, wires, and other metallic parts glittered under the lamps, and a faint hum filled the air from some machine in the back.
It looked part workshop, part storefront, and the faint smells of iron, copper, and various other metals were making my nose hairs tingle. Worriedly, I glanced at Nyx, knowing the presence of so much iron was probably making her insides squirm.
The Forgotten’s jaw was set, her twilight-gray skin looking a bit washed-out, and her eyes were hard.
“Nyx.” Stepping close, I put a hand on her elbow and felt her muscles contract under my fingers. “You okay? Hanging in there?”
The Forgotten gave a grim smile. “I will admit, I’ve felt better.”
“Hang on.” Reaching back, I pulled the protection amulet from around my neck and held it up, the metal raven glittering at it spun in a slow circle between us. Instantly, I could feel what Nyx was feeling, the nausea flooding my insides, the acidic burn in the back of my throat. “Ugh, wow, that is unplea
sant, isn’t it? Here, take this. At least until you have your own.”
I went to drape it around her neck, but she placed a hand on my arm, stopping me. “I’m fine, Puck,” she said. “One of us has to endure this. Better that I know what I’m walking into. I assume it will be worse in the Iron Realm itself.”
“Besides, your amulet would not work on her, Robin Goodfellow.”
The Tinkerer’s voice, calm and matter-of-fact, drifted across the room. I turned to see him behind a counter, reaching a really long arm up to one of the shelves on the wall. And when I say a really long arm, it was twice the length of a normal arm and very thin, like a pool noodle with fingers. Also, now that I could see him clearly, he seemed to have four of them. Four creepy long arms, with four creepy spiderlike fingers on each hand, for maximum creep effect.
Okay, it was official. I really didn’t like this place.
“That amulet will not shield her from the iron sickness,” the Iron faery went on, pulling a box off the top shelf and peering into it. “It was crafted specifically for you, Robin Goodfellow, and only you can receive its protection. No one else. Now...” He put the box on the counter while simultaneously reaching up with two more arms to feel around the shelves. “Let us see what we can do for your friend.”
Reluctantly, I returned the amulet to its place under my shirt, feeling both relieved and guilty when the sickness faded to almost nothing. Nyx still looked miserable, but she gave me a reassuring nod, and I had no choice but to follow her across the room to where the Tinkerer was still feeling around the top shelves with his creepy long arms. As he moved a box aside, there was sudden a buzz of wings, and a swarm of small, glittery things flew out from the row of boxes, zipping into the air.
“Confounded sparks!” exclaimed the Tinkerer, as the tiny creatures swarmed frantically around him. “I keep telling you not to sleep in the supply boxes.”
The creatures buzzed back and forth, sounding irritated, before they seemed to notice the two strangers by the door and immediately zipped over to investigate.
I tensed. Up close, they looked like piskies with copper skin, though they were half the size of regular piskies, which was to say, really tiny. This did nothing for my wariness. Piskies were what humans typically thought of when they heard the word faery. Cute little Tinker Bells with gossamer wings and magic dust. Trust me, there was nothing cute about them. Don’t let their size fool you; piskies had incredibly sharp teeth and the swarming instincts of a school of piranhas. If they were hungry, a horde of them could strip a horse down to the bone in minutes.
The piskie swarm surrounded me, blips of frantic movement and glittering skin. The air around them buzzed with electricity, and each time they moved, there was a faint popping sound, like a static shock. If my hair didn’t already have that tousled, I just rolled out of bed but I still look good look, it would be standing straight up.
“Um...hi?” I attempted a smile, despite being more than slightly creeped out by their spindly little arms and huge, multifaceted eyes, like those of enormous bees or hornets. Did I mention that I had a thing about bugs? Don’t get me wrong, I’d seen a lot of scary things: living dolls and clowns with sharp teeth and all sorts of monsters from your worst nightmares. But everyone has that one thing that makes their skin crawl, makes them get up and flee the room if that thing pops in and says hi. If you haven’t guessed by now, mine happens to be bugs.
And an Iron faery with arms like a freaking giant cricket living in a giant spider wagon with a swarm of killer wasp fey was ticking all of my oh hell no boxes.
“Enough, sparks,” the Tinkerer called, making the swarm draw back slightly. “You are making the customers uncomfortable again. Please shoo for now.”
The piskie swarm drew back, rising up to buzz around the ceiling, as Nyx and I crossed the floor to the counter.
The Tinkerer waited for us, tapping long fingers against the glass. It made his hand look like a spider in its death throes, and I repressed a shudder. “I have never crafted an amulet for a Forgotten before,” he mused. “How very interesting. This could be tricky.”
“Why is that?” Nyx wondered.
“Because to assemble the amulet, I must take a bit of the bearer’s own glamour to craft it,” the Tinkerer explained. “That is why Robin Goodfellow’s amulet will not work on anyone but him—it has a piece of his essence inside it, and the amulet will not recognize anyone else.”
I remembered when Meghan first mentioned the amulet to me; she had asked for a lock of hair or something similar, and had rolled her eyes when I gleefully asked why she wanted it. After explaining it was for an experiment to help traditional faeries survive the Iron Realm, I’d given her a jet-black feather, and a few days later was presented with the amulet I was wearing now.
“So?” I shrugged. “I don’t see the problem here. It’s not like she doesn’t have hair. She has very nice hair, in fact.”
“You are missing the point, Robin Goodfellow.” That pale eye glared at me. “If I needed only hair, or blood, or feathers to craft the amulet, I could do so for any monkey that knocks on my door. That is not the issue.”
“It’s because the Forgotten have no glamour of our own,” Nyx guessed. “We have to steal it from other fey, or the Nevernever itself.”
“That is correct.” The Tinkerer nodded. “A faery’s personal glamour must be woven into the amulet for it to work properly. It is why I cannot simply mass produce these items. Each one must be specifically crafted for the bearer alone. I do not even know the final form the amulet will take—it all depends on the essence of the faery I am making it for.” He eyed Nyx shrewdly. “But you, like all Forgotten, have lost your glamour along with your name. I do not know if I can make you an amulet without that magic to anchor it in place.”
“Is there no other way?” Nyx wondered. “No other source of magic that can be used to craft an amulet for someone?”
“I do not know,” the Tinkerer mused. Steepling long, spiderlike fingers under his chin, he regarded Nyx intently. The jewelry loupe on his right eye gleamed as he turned it on her. “I can sense the emptiness inside you, my dear,” he said softly. “The struggle simply to exist, to not fade away. Even now, you are subconsciously siphoning a bit of glamour from everything around you, including Master Goodfellow.”
Nyx winced at that, and I straightened. I’d known about the Forgotten’s glamour draining abilities, of course, but I hadn’t realized it was something they couldn’t control. I thought back to the battle with the monster, remembering the exhaustion and sluggishness I’d felt when it was over. Had Nyx been draining my magic while we were fighting, using it to power those cool abilities of hers?
I looked at her, and she met my gaze apologetically. “I am sorry, Goodfellow,” she said. “I overextended myself in the last battle, and when that thing attacked...I reached for whatever magic I could.” A brief look of frustration crossed her face, and one fist clenched at her side. “I’m not used to this, to having no glamour of my own, but that’s not an excuse. I should have told you before.”
“Hey.” I shrugged. “I’ll take being tired over being dead any day of the week. Or being squished into magic paste by ugly monsters. You need my glamour, for anything, it’s yours.”
“Be that as it may,” the Tinkerer interrupted, reminding us of the present problem, “you cannot depend on Goodfellow’s magic if you want to safely travel to Mag Tuiredh. The effect of the Iron Realm is powerful, and without proper protection, you will die even faster than the traditional fey. You are going to need a very strong, continuous source of glamour if you want to survive past the border.”
“What about a Token?” I asked.
The jewelry loupe swiveled around to me. “A Token,” he repeated, and those spider fingers drummed against each other. “Hmm,” he mused. “That might work. Yes, I might be able to substitute a Token for the glamour essence of the bearer,
provided I had something of hers to weave into it. I do not, unfortunately, have a Token with me, and they are relatively difficult to come by. If you know where you can find one—”
I drew the playing card from my pocket and flourished it dramatically. “Ta-daaah!” I announced loudly. “From Cricket’s Collectables, your one stop for the most interesting treasures and curios this side of the goblin market. Drop on by, and find the thing you never knew you needed.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth almost without thought; a side effect of the bargain I’d made with a cheerful, enterprising Iron faery. I sounded like a shifty used-car salesman, but as deals went, it wasn’t too bad. I just hoped Nyx wouldn’t have to announce the wonders of Cricket’s merchandise to every faery who noticed her amulet.
Wait... On second thought, that would be hilarious.
Both Nyx and the Tinkerer blinked as my “announcement” came to an end. I grinned and tossed the card onto the counter. “So, will this work or not?”
“Perhaps. Let us see what we have here.” The Tinkerer reached out, curling long fingers around the piece of cardboard, like a spider consuming an insect, before bringing it up to the jewelry loupe. “Fortune,” he murmured after a moment. “Luck and destiny. And a bit of a passion for playing the odds. Hmm.” He pulled the card away to stare at Nyx for a long moment, as if comparing the two in his mind. “I think I can make this work,” he finally said. “If the bearer can give me a small piece of herself? It doesn’t have to be a lot, a single strand of hair or drop of blood will work for this purpose.”
Nyx reached back and plucked a strand of her silvery white hair before holding it out to the Iron faery, whose long fingers curled around it in the same slow, spiderlike manner.
“Excellent,” he said, nodding. “This will do nicely.” Both items vanished in the folds of his apron before he turned back to us, clasping his long fingers together. “And now, all that is left is to discuss matters of payment.”
