The Iron Raven

by Julie Kagawa

  “Why are you still fighting me, Goodfellow?” Ash wondered, a smirk of his own creeping across his face. It transformed him into something ugly and hateful, and I squeezed my daggers until the hilts bit into my palm. “You lost. Meghan loves me, and nothing will change that. I’ve already won.”

  “I wouldn’t celebrate just yet, prince.” I stalked toward him, feeling hate and glamour swirl around me like a whirlwind. “You could still lose everything. After all, I’m still alive.”

  I lunged at him, stabbing my daggers right for his offensively pretty face...and the world disappeared.

  * * *

  I opened my eyes. The fire in the pit had burned low, and the sky was still pitch-black through the trees. Carefully, I sat up, gazing around for the others. Grimalkin was gone, typical for him, but I could see the red glow of Coaleater under a tree several yards away, equine head bent low as he slept standing upright. I wondered when he had changed into horse form, and also if he found sleeping upright more comfortable. I didn’t see Nyx anywhere, but I wasn’t too worried about the assassin; if she was on watch, she was probably stalking the woods around the camp, silent and unseen and looking for things to stab.

  Across the fire, Meghan dozed in Ash’s arms, with the Ice Prince leaning against a tree and both their swords out and within easy reach. And though ice-boy looked like he was sleeping soundly, I knew that was often a lie. All it would take was one twig to snap and he’d be on his feet, already slashing at whatever had made the noise. Years of trying to sneak up on him had taught me to be wary even when I thought he was unconscious.

  But it had also taught me the difference between the times he was conscious and those brief moments when he was truly asleep.

  Like now.

  Memories of the dream trickled back to me, seeping anger and resentment into my veins. I felt a slow smile stretch across my face as I rose, gazing down at them, at the slumbering Ice Prince in particular.

  Well, don’t you look comfortable, ice-boy. I don’t think you’re taking me very seriously, to be so relaxed. Maybe it’s time I did something about that...

  “Can’t sleep, Goodfellow?”

  I jumped, nearly falling into the firepit. “Geez, Nyx,” I whispered, turning to find her crouched silently on a rock a few feet away, crescent blades held loosely in her fingers, eyes glowing yellow in the darkness. “Not that I mind the whole guardian-angel-of-death thing you’ve got going on, but could you not loom so menacingly?”

  “Why not? I’m very good at it.”

  “No argument there.” I scrubbed a hand over my chin as the assassin continued to watch me, unblinking. “But it’s still a few hours till dawn, and now that I’m up I might as well take watch. Maybe you should try to get some sleep?”

  She gave me a faint, knowing smile. “I can’t,” she said simply, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m a nocturnal fey, Puck. I don’t sleep at night. I’m not even sure I could if I wanted to.”

  “Really? That’s unfortunate. Sleeping is one of my favorite things to do, after all. And all the activities that come before sleeping as well.”

  Whoops, did I just say that out loud? I eyed the Forgotten, wondering if she would take offense, ready to leap back should she hurl a moonlight shuriken at me. She gave a weird little smirk beneath the hood and rose, brushing the cowl back so that the light spilled over her silver hair.

  “I, too, enjoy the activities that come before sleeping,” she said. “Quite a lot, in fact. Come find me, and I’ll show you what they are.”

  And before my eyes, she shimmered, like a beam of moonlight across a glass window, and disappeared.

  “O-kaaaaaaaay.” I shot a look at Meghan and Ash, still dozing against the trunk. Despite my earlier feelings, I didn’t exactly want something to jump them while they were asleep. If I went prancing off into the woods without explanation, they might be cross if some big nasty ambushed them while I was gone. Though honestly, those two would be fine. Meghan was the Iron Queen, and Ash was Ash. They didn’t need me watching over them.

  The glint of a single golden eye pierced the darkness as I stood there, debating with myself. From an overhead branch, Grimalkin gave me a bored look, then closed his eye again, curling his tail around his nose.

  That decided it. If Furball was unconcerned, then there was no danger. I turned my back on the sleeping pair and slipped away, into the woods where I hoped the shadowy Forgotten had vanished to.

  Turns out, I didn’t have to search far. Making my way into a tiny grove surrounded by shadowy pine, I paused as, with a shimmer from the corner of my eye, Nyx slid from the shadows like a ghost. She wasn’t smiling, her eyes were hard, and those lethal crescent blades glimmered in the darkness as she circled me like a beautiful, dangerous phantom.

  I swallowed, resisting the urge to draw my own weapons as she stalked closer, moving with liquid grace over the ground. “Um, okay, then. Obviously, we were thinking of vastly different things. Is this how your Order starts everything off, then? With a ritual stabbing?”

  She didn’t stop, continuing to glide toward me, and nothing in her gaze or stance said she was playing around. She looked entirely serious about stabbing me.

  I backpedaled a few steps, but my hoof caught on an uneven root and nearly dumped me on my backside. “Nyx, wait,” I said as the Forgotten closed in. “Hold up. Can you just stop for a second, please?” I raised my empty hands in the universal gesture of I don’t want to fight you, and the assassin finally halted. “I will admit, I’m a little confused as to what’s happening here,” I said, holding her gaze. “If you’ve brought me out here to kill me, you could’ve just stabbed me in my sleep and saved yourself the trouble.”

  For a few seconds, the Forgotten stared at me, her expression flat and dangerous in the moonlight. For a second, I thought I might have to defend myself from a deadly, highly efficient killer who was just as fast as me, whom I did not want to fight for many reasons. Finally, though, she let out a small, slightly frustrated sigh and lowered her weapons, allowing me to breathe again.

  “I can’t figure you out, Goodfellow.” Nyx glared at me across the clearing, her gaze both angry and conflicted. “I want to believe you’re honorable, that you’re loyal to your friends, that you’re someone I can trust. But then, I see him...” she gestured to my forehead with the hilt of her blade “...and it makes me wonder who you really are. It makes me wonder if I can trust anything about you.”

  I smirked, unable to stop the flippancy that came from my mouth even now. “You and everyone else in the Nevernever.”

  “That is not reassuring, Puck.” Nyx narrowed her eyes, unamused. “I’m a Forgotten,” she went on. “I feel the glamour auras around me more keenly than most. And yours is...frightening. There is a viciousness inside you that is fighting to get out, and once it does, I’m afraid of what it might do. And what I might be forced to do in return.”

  “I know.” I scrubbed my fingers through my hair, wincing as they hit my horns. “You’re not really seeing me at my best,” I told her. “This...” I raised my arms in a helpless gesture. “I haven’t been this guy in a long time. I honestly thought I got rid of him. Turns out he was always there, just buried.”

  Nyx circled closer, a graceful predator with glowing yellow eyes. “What changed?”

  “It’s a rather long, boring story. Do you really want to get into it right here?”

  “Well, it’s either that or keep wondering if I should kill you or not.”

  “Always with the stabbing.” I sighed. “Fine. Sit down, get some popcorn, and I’ll tell you the sordid tale of how Robin Goodfellow grew a conscience.”

  * * *

  “A long time ago,” I began in a grand voice, “in a galaxy far, far away... Wait, hold up. Wrong story. Lemme try that again.”

  * * *

  “A long time ago,” I went on, ignoring the impatient loo
k from Nyx, “Oberon banished me from the Nevernever. It was the first time he had ever banished me, but no one was surprised. For years, Titania had demanded that he exile me from the court, but it was Mab who finally convinced him. Basically, she gave him the choice—either banish me, kill me, or go to war with Winter. I...uh...might’ve really pissed her off that year. I won’t go into details, but there was a high and mighty Winter noble who chased a Summer faery into a cavern and somehow got himself eaten by a dire weasel. Unfortunately, unknown to the Summer faery, that noble was the Winter Queen’s current boy toy. And she was not at all happy about his sudden demise, accidental as it was.”

  Nyx shook her head, a faint smile quirking one side of her mouth, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “that was too much for Mab to handle, and since Oberon didn’t want a war with the Unseelie right then, he exiled me from Faery. Forever.”

  “Forever,” Nyx repeated, and shook her head. “Didn’t seem to take.”

  “Yeah, you noticed that, did you?” I shrugged. “Eventually, Oberon rescinded the exile, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Point is, this was the first time I’d ever been banished from Faery. I really did think it might be forever.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Wandered for a bit. Several years, actually. I traveled the human world, hung around a few places for a while, but I always moved on. I traveled, played pranks, inspired a few folk legends and horror stories, and generally tried to keep myself entertained. Those first few years were actually kind of freeing... I wasn’t part of the Summer Court any longer. Oberon wasn’t looming over my shoulder, ordering me around. True, there was always the danger of Fading, but back then mortals still believed in magic and the fey, and technology hadn’t taken off yet, so the risk of Fading wasn’t quite so severe. I can’t lie and say I didn’t miss the Nevernever and the Summer Court, but for the first time, I was actually free.”

  A shadow crossed the Forgotten’s face; the notion of freedom, or the distinct lack of it, was all too familiar for her. The difference between us was Nyx never questioned her service to the Lady, never deliberately defied her orders just to prove that she could. Guess I was just a rebel at heart.

  “Eventually,” I went on, “I ended up near this tiny village in Wales. I don’t remember exactly where, but I was in the forest one day, not really doing anything, when this little kid wandered through. She couldn’t have been more than five or six, and was obviously very lost. She was wailing like a bean sidhe, and also attracting every goblin and bugbear in the area. I was, admittedly, a bastard back then, but even I didn’t really want to watch a kid get eaten alive by a bugbear, so I introduced myself and offered to take her home.”

  “A human child,” Nyx repeated. “That young, they can still See us as we are. The Mist has no effect on them yet.”

  “Yep. She called me Funny Goat Man the entire way home.” I chuckled at the memory. It had been so long ago, another lifetime, really. But I still remembered that girl’s smile, her small fingers clinging tightly to my own. “Her name was Drysi, and when she was safely back at her cottage, she asked if I would come play with her and her friends the next day. Naturally, I told her I would.”

  Nyx nodded in understanding. Children, especially young kids, were irresistible to faeries, and don’t take that the wrong way. They had the brightest glamour aura, and young kids could still see the hidden world and the creatures that were invisible to adults. They believed in faeries, magic, and monsters under the bed. And while there were always goblins, witches, and ogres who would love nothing more than to eat a lost, wandering child, there were many of us who delighted in playing with a human who could See us and wasn’t afraid. Ever known a kid who had an imaginary friend? More than likely, that friend was a faery.

  “I went back the next day,” I went on. “And the next. And the day after that. I hung around that village for nearly fifteen years. And I watched that kid grow up. When it got to the point where she couldn’t See me anymore, I glamoured myself to look like a human boy, just so we could keep being friends. And after a while, I became part of that village, too. Drysi was...” I sighed, shaking my head. “She was an incredible mortal. Strong and fearless, but always wanting to take care of others. When the village was attacked by raiders, she was right there on the front lines, swinging a staff without any regard for herself.” I gave a wicked smirk. “Course, I might’ve taught her how to fight, and Drysi wanted to learn, despite being forbidden to do so by the elders of the village. She didn’t have a sword, but we would sneak out to the sheep pasture and practice with staffs and staves, until she was a match for any human. Those raiders certainly got a shock when they tried manhandling her. And they didn’t know the village was under the protection of Robin Goodfellow.” My grin turned vicious as I remembered the carnage, the screams, and the terror of the attackers. “It was not a good day to be a raider.

  “I was going to kill them all,” I went on, “but Drysi stopped me. By that time, most of them were running away. I was going to make sure they never came back, but she begged me to be merciful. She said that taking a life, no matter whose it was or what they had done, was a stain upon your soul. Not terribly concerning to me, since the fey don’t have souls. But hey, who was I to deny a pretty face? She didn’t want me to kill them, so I let them go.”

  Nyx cocked her head, regarding me in that intense, appraising way of hers. “Were you in love with this mortal?” she asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I was fond of her, and she was the first human I considered a friend, but I wasn’t in love with her. I was still a bit too fey for that, if you know what I mean.

  “Unfortunately,” I went on, “I couldn’t say the same for Drysi. One night, a few months after the attack on the village, she confessed that she loved me.”

  Nyx’s gaze narrowed. “And what did you do with this revelation?” she asked.

  I sighed. “I was going to give her what she wanted,” I began. “I was fey, and there was this pretty girl who admitted to being in love with me. Any normal faery would’ve taken advantage of that. But...” I frowned, shaking my head. “I couldn’t go through with it. For the first time, I felt guilty about what I was doing. Even though I had no idea what this strange new sensation was, I didn’t want to hurt her.

  “I left the next morning,” I continued. “Turned my back on the village and disappeared into the forest again. It was better that way. I couldn’t be around Drysi anymore, not with what I knew. A human falling in love with a faery never ends well. And I couldn’t give her what she wanted. So, it was best that I moved on.”

  “And the human?”

  “I made sure she wouldn’t remember me,” I said. “The rest of the village was easy. When you’re fey, humans tend to forget you were ever there. The memory of the human boy who had appeared out of nowhere one day would just fade from everyone’s minds. Drysi was a little harder... She loved me, and that tends to make forgetting difficult. I did end up using glamour to make her forget. I didn’t want her to spend the rest of her days pining after the boy who disappeared with no warning or explanation. I wanted her to be free. Frankly, it ended up being the best decision. A few months later, Oberon called me back into the Nevernever. My exile was over, and I had to return to Faery and the Summer Court.

  “But when I came back...” I raised both arms in a shrug. “I wasn’t the same Robin Goodfellow. I had changed. I started calling myself Puck, to further separate myself from the faery I was before. The name stuck, though most of the Nevernever still treats them as one and the same. I know the difference, though, even if the rest of Faery never lets you forget what you did in the past.”

  “And what happened to the girl? Did you ever see her again?”

  “I did, actually. As soon as I could get away from Oberon, I went back to the mortal world, to the village I left behind. I thought it had been a couple years, bu
t time flows differently in the Nevernever. Drysi was a grandmother by then, a village elder, with a horde of children and grandkids frolicking around her. She had definitely moved on.

  “So, that’s my tale.” I crossed my arms, giving the Forgotten a challenging look. “How Robin Goodfellow went from being a jackass to a less egregious jackass. All because of a mortal, and the power of loooove.” I snorted and rolled my eyes. “I haven’t told that little story to anyone, you realize. Not even Meghan and ice-boy. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to anyone, either. Sometimes it’s a good thing the rest of the Nevernever doesn’t realize that Puck has a conscience.

  “So,” I continued, watching the other faery’s reaction. Nyx hadn’t moved any closer, though the moonlight blades in her hands had not disappeared. “What’s the verdict, Miss Stoic Assassin? Kill me now for the threat Robin Goodfellow represents, or take a chance with Puck?”

  Nyx considered me, her face unreadable...before she shimmered into moonlight and disappeared. I had about a second to be surprised before a curved, shining blade was pressed against my throat from behind.

  A soft chuckle escaped me. “Wow, I can’t believe I fell for that,” I muttered, feeling the Forgotten’s presence at my back. The sword edge hovered against my skin, cold and razor sharp for being made of light. “Well, Miss Assassin? I’m still waiting. What’s it to be?”

  “It depends.” Nyx leaned closer, bringing her lips to my ear, her breath cool on my skin. “Can I trust you, Puck?”

  “I don’t know.” I wanted to shrug, but that was kind of hard with a sword at my throat. “Honestly, I don’t really trust myself right now. I’m not completely him, though. Not yet.”

  “Not much of an assurance, Goodfellow.”

  “Here’s one more, then.” My hands shot up, striking her elbow and forcing the blade from my throat. At the same time, I twisted in her grasp, sliding out and grabbing her wrist. A half second later, it was Nyx backed against a tree with my dagger over her heart. “I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize this mission,” I told her as she froze. “I fully intend to find this monster and stick it with knives until it dies properly this time. And if that changes me back, then so be it. Truthfully, that’s probably the best outcome. No one likes a horny Robin Goodfellow.”