Page 32 of The Iron Raven

The jewelry loupe swiveled around to me. “A Token,” he repeated, and those spider fingers drummed against each other. “Hmm,” he mused. “Thatmightwork. 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.”

“Payment?” Though I wasn’t really surprised, part of me winced, anyway.

The Tinkerer glanced my way with a raised eyebrow. “Well, of course, Goodfellow. You did not think you were going to get it for free, did you?”

“I was kind of hoping, yeah.”

“Last time the queen herself commissioned the amulet. You do not have that luxury. However...” The Tinkerer paused, then sighed. “There is something wrong within Faery,” he went on in a grave voice. “Not just in the Iron Realm, but the entire Nevernever itself. I cannot say what it is, but I sense a malignance in my clients, in the fey passing me on the streets. I hear whispers that chill me to my bones.” He shivered, then turned his loupe on me fully, peering at me with an enormous, magnified eye. “Something is coming, Goodfellow. Something that might threaten us all. And the Iron Queen will need allies in the coming days, those she can trust with her life. I want your promise that you will aid her however you can, that when the time comes, you will be at her side. That is my price for the amulet. Swear this to me, and the talisman is yours.”

“What?” I frowned, going over the deal in my head, word for word. It didn’t sound nefarious or raise the usual red flags, but... “That’s all? Help Meghan if she needs it? I mean, I was planning to do that, anyway. What’s the catch?”

“You are Robin Goodfellow,” the Tinkerer said. “The Puck. The infamous trickster, and one of the most well-known faeries in existence. You, the cait sith, and the Winter prince are the guardians, the trio of power that surrounds the Iron Queen. I do not want you to forget. I want your promise that if the Iron Queen ever needs you, or if she ever calls on you for aid, you will be there.”

“I’ve known Meghan a long time,” I said. “I was looking out for her before she ever became the Iron Queen. You don’t have to wrestle a promise out of me. I swear that if she’s in trouble and needs my help, for any reason, I’d show up in Mag Tuiredh, talisman or no.”

The old faery bobbed his head. “That will have to be sufficient.” He drew back, one long arm moving to the door behind the counter and pushing it open with a creak. A couple sparks zipped out with high-pitched buzzes, making me wince, but the Tinkerer ignored them. “Give me a few minutes,” the faery told us. “I have not crafted an amulet using a Token before. I will have to experiment with how to make this work. But it will be an enjoyable challenge, I am certain. I will call for you when it is ready.”

He slipped out of the room, and the door closed behind him with a creak, leaving Nyx and me alone except for a few sparks buzzing around near the ceiling.

I glanced at the Forgotten and winced at how pale she looked. “I say we wait outside.”

“I second that,” Nyx agreed, and we fled the room, back to the stone bench beneath the willow tree, away from the stink of metal and the corruption of the Iron faery’s domain.

I leaned back on the bench, breathing in the clean, untainted air. Nyx perched beside me, a bit of color returning to her cheeks now that we were in the open. “That was...an experience,” she mused, gazing down at her hands as if she expected her skin to be peeling off. “Is this tingling sensation normal?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” I shrugged. “That’s just the first physical sign of iron poisoning. The burning, sickness, and wanting to die comes later.”

“Oh good.” Nyx lowered her hands. “Something to look forward to.”

I chuckled. “Ah, it’s not so bad, really. Once you get past the sickness and the dying and the puking-your-guts-out part, some regions of the Iron Realm are actually quite nice. Mag Tuiredh is pretty impressive. And now that I can move through the realm freely, I get to really explore the place. Last time I was there, I stumbled onto this forest that had mirrors everywhere, growing right out of the ground or hanging from the trees, as far as the eye could see.” I snorted and wrinkled my nose. “Trust me, that was the most confusing place to get out of, and the locals were no help at all. You’d try to talk to one, and the second it noticed its reflection, it would forget all about you and preen.”

Nyx smiled, but the smile had a wistful edge to it. “Sounds like you’ve been a lot of places.”

“A few. I definitely have stories. What about you?” I asked, curious now. “With how long you’ve lived, I’m sure you’ve seenallthe crazy the Nevernever has to offer.”

But the Forgotten shook her head. “I never left the wyldwood,” she said solemnly. “The Summer and Winter courts didn’t exist back then, and the mortal world was closer to Faery than it is today. There was no reason for me to venture beyond the Lady’s domain, and she didn’t like us to leave her unprotected, so I stayed.”

“What? You’ve never been out of the wyldwood?” The thought was mind-boggling. The wyldwood was huge, and you could certainly spend your whole life there without seeing it all, but who wouldwantto? There were so many other places in the Nevernever, not to mention the human world, that begged you to visit and get into trouble. “Okay, we are going to fix that,” I told Nyx. “When this is over, I’m going to take you on a tour of the Nevernever. Keirran certainly doesn’t need you to hang around him twenty-four-seven. He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself. And after this many centuries, I say you’ve earned a vacation.”

A wry smile played over the Forgotten’s lips. “Just the two of us?”

I ignored the weird turning of my stomach and shrugged. “Well, I’d ask ice-boy to join us, but he’s so busy now, what with ruling the Iron Realm with Meghan. He rarely gets to go on adventures anymore. Pity, really. Those were the days.” For a second, I felt a twinge of nostalgia, regret, and the tiniest bit of resentment. Once upon a time, the Winter prince of the Unseelie Court and Robin Goodfellow were the dynamic duo of the Nevernever, seeking out adventure and getting into more trouble than we had a right to get out of alive. I’d even gone to the End of the World with him, helped him earn a soul so he could be with Meghan in the Iron Realm. Now, Ash had no time for anything but his queen. The queen he had stolen away from me.

Whoa, where’d that come from, Goodfellow? Obsessive much? It’s been years. We arewaypast that, remember?

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