Page 5 of The Iron Raven

I stepped forward. “Since when do you have to rely on the goblin market to send messages to the Iron Realm, kid?” I asked loudly. “Did something happen that we don’t know about? Or are you in trouble again? Or both?” I shrugged. “Both is always an option, I’ve learned.”

The cowl moved, the hood lifting slightly, as if its wearer had just realized I was there. His icy blue gaze seemed dangerous for a split second, hard and cold, just like another faery I knew, before recognition dawned and he relaxed.

“Puck? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know. Mostly looking for trouble.” I waggled my brows. “But I could ask you the same. What are you doing in the goblin market? Don’t you have more important places to be?”

Cricket gazed at both of us, lips pursed in a puzzled frown.

The figure hesitated, giving the vendor a brief glance before turning back to me. He didn’t want the Iron faery to know who he was. “Perhaps we can talk somewhere in private,” he suggested, taking a smooth step back. “I will wait for you on the other side of the Ferris wheel. Please find me when your business here is complete.”

With that he spun gracefully and walked away, vanishing into the darkness as silently as he’d appeared. When he was gone, Cricket turned on me. “Who was that?” she wanted to know. “He seemed...familiar, for some reason.”

“Just the kid of a friend of mine.” I shrugged, very casually. “Tends to get himself into trouble if we don’t keep an eye on him. Speaking of which, this has all been very interesting, but I should really be going.”

“Hold on, Robin Goodfellow.” The Iron faery held up a hand. “You cannot leave Cricket’s Collectables empty-handed. There must be something here that you’d find interesting. Hmm, let me think, let me think...”

“I don’t really need—”

“Oh, I got it!” She snapped her fingers, then pulled something from a leather satchel and thrust it at me.

It was a playing card—the Joker, to be exact—with a grinning black-and-white jester in the center. Ordinary looking at first glance. But a glamour aura clung to it, pulsing with magic and making my brows shoot up. A Token. A mortal object that had been so loved, cherished, feared, or hated by its owner that it had developed a magic all its own. Like a never-ending glamour battery. Tokens were rare, and the magic coming off this one was strange. It felt almost defiant, like it was daring the world to do its worst.

“This,” Cricket announced, waving the card back and forth in my face, “was a famous gambler’s lucky Joker. He believed that as long as he had this card up his sleeve, he could never lose a poker game. Apparently, it was lucky in other ways, too. According to the stories, lots of mortals tried to kill the gambler by shooting, hanging, even burying him alive, but it never took. Somehow, the bullets missed anything vital, the ropes snapped, or he miraculously escaped.” She pulled the card back, watching me over the rim with a smile. “That luck could be yours, if you just do me once teensy-tiny itty-bitty favor.”

“Always a catch,” I sighed, and crossed my arms. “Let’s hear it.”

“Just this. If someone asks where you got such a treasure, tell them you found it at Cricket’s Collectables, your one stop for the most unique items in the Iron Realm and beyond.”

“That’s it?” I said, dubious and surprised. Tokens were valuable, and the bargain to get one was usually a lot more than that. “No, seriously. I was expecting at least a lock of hair. It’s never that easy. What’s in it for you?”

“Lock of hair?” She gave a high-pitched giggle. “Oh, you oldbloods aresoold-fashioned. It’s called word of mouth, silly. Free marketing! If the famous Robin Goodfellow, friend of queens and hero of the Nevernever, recommends my shop to anyone, that alone is worth a dozen bargains. No strings, no fine print, this is just business. So...” She held the Joker out once again, waggling the card in an enticing manner. “Do we have a deal? You know you want it.”

Oh, what the heck? She seemed nice enough, if a bit unhinged. And you only live once.

“Deal,” I said, and snatched the card out of her fingers before she could add anything else. “Not that I need the luck, but more is always good, right?”

She beamed. “Pleasure doing business with you, Robin Goodfellow,” she exclaimed, and took a step back. “Don’t forget, if anyone asks about that Token, point them to Cricket’s Collectables. You have a good night now.” She lifted a hand in a wave, then turned and walked back to her stall, followed by the little terrier and eventually the two big dogs.

Man, easiest goblin market deal I’ve made yet. Free word of mouth, huh? Maybe she’s onto something, after all.

I grinned, stuck the card in a pocket, and went looking for a cloaked faery king.

He waited for me on the other side of the massive wheel as he’d promised, hood pushed back, face no longer hidden in shadow. The moonlight caught in his silver hair, which was longer than I’d seen it last and pulled into a tail behind him. Tall and lean, he stood motionless, watching me approach, and though his face was young, the set of his jaw and the grimness in his eyes made him appear much older. He was dressed completely in black, down to his boots and gloves, the shadowy cloak rippling around him. Except for his pointed ears, he would’ve given a vampire a run for its money.

And though I hated to admit it, it suited him.

I wished it didn’t. I remembered a time when he had smiled easily, when that bright blue gaze could charm a manticore, when he would listen, wide-eyed, as I told him stories about my greatest adventures in the Nevernever and beyond. I’d watched him grow up, watched as he developed the best, and worst, parts of both his parents—his mother’s kindness and empathy, his father’s courage and warrior spirit. And the mile-wide stubborn streak of them both. But I’d also seen that hint of darkness within that not even his parents had noticed, had watched it grow and fester until, eventually, it had swallowed him whole, and he’d turned into something no one recognized. A threat to the entire Nevernever.

Thankfully, with the help of his family and a certain infamous trickster, he had been able to drag himself out of the darkness, back into the light. But as was always the case when one returned from the void, he wasn’t quite the same. Tragedy had marked him, and the taint lingered. For his crimes against Faery, he’d been banished from the Nevernever and forbidden to return to the place of his birth. Now, he lived in a place called the Between, the veil between Faery and the mortal world, with the shadowy fey called the Forgotten.

I worried for him. Despite everything he’d done, he was still a good kid, wanting to redeem himself for the crimes of his past. But I saw that hint of darkness in the shadows that clung to his skin and curled around him like grasping claws. He reminded me of another faery who, at a time when rage and despair had driven his every decision, had turned on his former best friend and tried to destroy him. I saw hints of that grief in the faery before me now. He was very much like his father.

Keirran, son of the Iron Queen, former prince of the Iron Court and King of the Forgotten, faced me calmly in the shadows cast by the Ferris wheel.

“Princeling,” I greeted as I sauntered up. “Fancy meeting you here. Aren’t you supposed to be in the Between ruling a court or something? Are the Forgotten driving you crazy, or did you just get bored?”

“I’ve been trying to get a message to Mag Tuiredh,” Keirran replied, all businesslike and serious. “But the normal ways haven’t been working. The gremlin messengers disappear—they never make it to the Iron Realm.”

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