Page 21 of The Iron Raven

Sneaking past the goblins was easy; most of them were drunk, the others were too busy fighting among themselves to notice anything. Nyx moved like a shadow, blending so seamlessly into the background that I felt I would lose her if I blinked. Once we were past the goblins, I took the lead and turned us in the direction of Mag Tuiredh.

The Iron Court. At the end of this road were the rulers of Iron: the former Winter prince and the extremely powerful Iron Queen. Well, to everyone else, anyway. To me, they were my good friends Meghan Chase and Ash-also-known-as-ice-boy. Hopefully they weren’t in the middle of a crisis with Summer or Winter and could be convinced to leave their kingdom long enough to help track down a terrifying abomination that didn’t seem phased by glamour or stab wounds or anything, really.

But it didn’t matter if the monster was invincible. I didn’t care how strong or special or unstoppable something was; when the three of us were together, we could take down anything.

“The wyldwood hasn’t changed much, at least,” Nyx mused, her voice barely a murmur in the eternal twilight. Around us, the tangle of trees and branches were decked out in shades of gray, except for a few shocking bursts of color among the gloom. Neon blue flowers and poison green toadstools glowed against the otherwise colorless landscape. “Though it does seem a little less dangerous than I remember.”

“How isthatpossible?” I wondered.

The massive forest sprawled between the courts of Faery, and there were a few things to remember about it. One: it was alive. Literally. Though not exactly sentient, like a dragon sitting in a lair scheming against you, the wyldwood had its own quirks, foibles, and personality. Take your eyes off the path for a second, and it could disappear. That nice dry cave you found earlier in the day? Probably gone when you returned. Or if it wasn’t, you shouldn’t count on it being empty. In fact, best to avoid poking your head into strange caves in the wyldwood in the first place if you didn’t want it bitten off. What did you expect? It was part of Faery, after all.

Luckily, I’d been around almost as long as the wyldwood, so we were very well acquainted. I knew all of its tricks, which berries to avoid eating (all of them), which ponds to give a wide berth, what seemingly peaceful meadows would sprout flesh-eating butterflies that tried to eat your face off. After so many years of playing, hunting, and tramping through and beneath the tangled canopy, there was nothing about the wyldwood that could surprise me.

Or so I thought.

Nyx gave me a sidelong glance, then turned her gaze to the forest around us. “It feels...tamer,” she mused. “Not quite as malicious as before. Venturing into the wyldwood used to mean faeries just vanished sometimes. Without a trace.” Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “That doesn’t happen anymore, I suppose.”

“Only if someone is being careless and not paying attention,” I scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s still plenty dangerous out here if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fortunately, I’m an expert.”

Nyx raised a skeptical eyebrow and seemed about to say something, but clenched her jaw instead, sinking to a knee in the grass.

Alarm made my stomach jump. “Hey, you okay?”

“I’ll live.” Her words were tight, but she raised her head, schooling her expression into a blank mask. “It’s just a scratch. I’ve suffered worse.”

Abruptly, I remembered the monster’s claws smacking her from the air, the sick feeling in my gut when she crashed into a tree. We hadn’t had time to bind wounds and properly heal before plunging headlong into Faery; she might be bleeding out beneath that cloak, and I wouldn’t know until it was too late.

“Here,” I said, taking a step toward her and earning a wary look. “Let me see.” Her eyes narrowed, and I smirked. “I don’t bite. Hard.”

She glared a moment more, then sighed and turned her head away. I took that as agreement not to stab me and knelt beside her, carefully brushing the cloak aside to see how badly she was wounded.

My stomach dropped. Beneath the cloth, her black armor conformed snugly to her body, but three long, nasty-looking gouges had torn their way across her ribs, ripping through the material like it wasn’t there. The dark armor hid it well, but the area around the wounds was slick with blood.

I blew out a breath and looked at Nyx, who continued to stare into the distance, giving no indication that there were four giant holes in her body. “Okay, clearly we need to define ‘just a scratch,’” I said in disbelief. “Backing a car into a mailbox? Just a scratch. Angry kitten, just a scratch.” My voice shook. I didn’t know why I was suddenly angry. “This is not ‘just a scratch,’ Miss Stoic Assassin. We need to take care of this now.”

“No.” Nyx stubbornly shook her head, attempting to pull away from me. “There’s no time,” she argued. “We have to get to the Iron Queen as soon as we can. That monster could be anywhere now.”

I grabbed her arm. “And if we trip over it in this condition, it’s going to stomp us into pudding for sure,” I countered. “Not to mention, you’re bleeding. In the wyldwood. And it’s almost night.”

She winced. Tramping through the wyldwood while wounded, announcing that you were easy prey to anything that wanted a quick snack, was a bad idea. Pushing on through the night, when all the really nasty things came out, was a surefire way to get yourself eaten or dead.

“Look, we’re in pretty bad shape,” I admitted with a shrug. “I have bruises on top of bruises in places I didn’t knowcouldbruise. Trust me, I’m all for finding and kicking this thing back to the hole it crawled out of, but if it came at us right now, I don’t think I could stop it. At the moment, I’m not sure I could stop an irritated piskie.”

That earned the hint of a smile from Nyx, which somehow made things a bit better.

“So yeah, we want to reach the Iron Queen as soon as we can, but we have to get to Mag Tuiredh first. Preferably alive. We’re not helping anyone if we get ourselves torn apart by a Grendel in the middle of the wyldwood.”

“What do you propose we do?”

I gazed around to get my bearings, then nodded. “There’s a healer not far from here.” I gestured through the trees in the general direction of the Summer Court. “She owes me a favor. Or, do I owe her a favor? One of those is true. Maybe they both are. Anyway, if we go now, we can get there before nightfall. Her bedside manner is awful, but her potions work miracles. With any luck, we’ll be on the road to Mag Tuiredh before dawn.”

Nyx sighed. “I suppose it would be reckless to continue like this,” she muttered, gingerly touching the wound beneath her cloak. The barest flicker of pain went through her eyes, almost too fast to be seen. “And the king is counting on us. I can’t fail.” She gave a decisive nod and glanced up at me, her expression resolved. “All right then, Goodfellow, I’ll trust you for now. Where is this healer of yours?”

I held out a hand. After a moment, she took it and let me gently draw her upright. I gazed down at her, smiling faintly, and she stared right back, unafraid of me, my name, or my reputation. I could see my reflection in her gaze, the horns jutting out of my hair, the slightly feral look that seemed normal for me now, but Nyx’s expression didn’t falter. My heartbeat picked up, and my mouth went dry as this deadly, confident, beautiful assassin held my gaze without fear.

Clearing my throat, I turned away, breaking eye contact. “Come on,” I said, feeling her gaze on me as I stepped back. If she noticed the flush on my face, I hoped she wouldn’t mention it. “As the great and impatient Furball would say, we’re not getting anywhere standing around. And if we wake the healer up, we’ll certainly be in for an earful.”

“Do you have any idea what time of night it is?”

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