Page 68 of The Iron Raven

“Oh,” I remarked. “Good. That’s the type of thing you wanna hear. Those are the words of a completely rational faery. I can’t wait to have a perfectly ordinary conversation with him.”

The monster shook his shaggy head, curling a lip at the sounds floating down the stairwell. “Now you know why everyone avoids this part of the castle,” he growled. “When the shrieking starts, you can hear it all the way out in the halls.”

Meghan’s brow creased in sympathy. “Have you been able to understand him at all?” she asked the monster, who snorted.

“A few words. I don’t really listen. He screams ‘it’s coming’ a lot. Considering that he’s hiding here and refusing to leave, I’m guessing he thinks something is after him.”

“Or something is really after him,” Nyx put in.

The monster shrugged. “It would have to find this place first, and then it would have to get past me. Not that I care what happens to him one way or another, but I don’t take kindly to trespassers.” A shriek rang out somewhere overhead, and he winced. “Ugh, it’s starting again. This way, Iron Queen. Once the wailing really starts, you won’t be able to get two coherent words out of him.”

He turned and started padding up the stairs, and we followed him to a small stone landing with a thick wooden door set into the wall. Sobbing and nonsensical mutterings echoed through the door, filling the small enclosure, buzzing in my ears like really whiny mosquitos.

“The door isn’t locked,” the monster told us, gesturing to the handle with a huge hairy paw. “You can just open it...” He pushed on the wood, but was met with a clunk, and the door stayed firmly shut. The monster sighed. “Unless he’s barred it from the inside again.”

“If you’ll allow me.” Meghan stepped forward, and the creature moved aside with a shrug. Stepping up to the door, the Iron Queen put her hand against the wood and closed her eyes. Glamour flickered around her, and something on the other side of the barrier clicked, then dropped away.

She pushed the door open, and a howl immediately echoed through the chamber as something came hurtling through the doorframe. Meghan ducked, and Ash’s sword flashed out, striking the small clay bowl and shattering it into a dozen pieces.

“Noooooo!”shrieked a voice that seemed to come from nowhere. “I’m not here! Not here, you won’t take me!”

We all peered into the room. At first, I couldn’t see anything but shadows. Dank stone floors met dank stone walls, with the only light coming from the door and a tiny barred window near the top of the room. The back of the cell was nearly pitch-black, and nothing seemed to move in the darkness.

Then, a glimmer of yellow light winked into existence, followed by another, like a pair of round golden fireflies. After a second, I realized the two floating lights were actually eyes, belonging to the shadowy form of a Forgotten crouched in the corner of the room. Unlike Nyx, this one looked like the Forgotten I was used to: jet-black and featureless, like a shadow come to life.

I squinted against the darkness, trying to see it better, but it was like trying to spot an ink stain on a black carpet at midnight. And the extra bright glowing eyes, huge and round like car headlights, were not helping.

“Nooooo.”The Forgotten’s voice slithered out of the cell again. It wasn’t loud, but it still caused the hairs on my neck to rise. “No, not yet. Not yet, it isn’t time. The dream is not over. It sleeps still, not time yet.”

“Calm down.” Meghan’s quiet, soothing voice cut through the rising tension. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk.”

“The queen.” Even though I couldn’t see him clearly, the Forgotten was clearly talking to himself. “The queen has come. The end is nigh.”

Meghan straightened at that, and Ash pressed closer to her, crowding the door. I scowled and stood on tiptoes to peer over his shoulder, as from the corner, a piece of the darkness slid away from the rest, coming into the light.

A thin silhouette of a humanoid faery, meaning it had two arms, two legs, and one head. Its ears were long and pointed, and it didn’t seem to have any extra limbs, wings, or tails. But that was all I could say for certain, as the Forgotten really did look like a shadow had stepped off the floor and come to life. It might’ve been beautiful, terrifyingly hideous, or covered in bright orange feathers; we would never know.

“Iron Queen,” the Forgotten whispered. “You have come.” It trembled, then like an ooze of ink running down a wall, sank to the floor. “She is here,” it moaned. “It comes. It comes with her. The end has started at last.”

Meghan stepped into the cell. The rest of us, even Ash, hovered in the doorway, watching as the Iron Queen walked to the faery’s side and knelt, gazing at the undistinguishable lump on the floor. “You’ve seen the oracle’s memories,” she said, and the Forgotten moaned, curling in on itself, looking even more like a blob of oil spread over the floor. “What are you talking about? What’s coming? Do you mean the creature that’s stalking the Nevernever? The one that can transform fey by touching them?”

“It comes,” moaned the Forgotten. “It comes. For me. For you. For us. For the world. The surface breaks and shatters, and the darkness beneath rises to swallow us all. You cannot stop it. No one can stop it. The world will fray apart and drown in hate. The harbinger will find us. You cannot hide, cannot run, cannot will it away. It...”

The Forgotten stopped. Grew very still. For a second, it was a motionless dark lump on the stones of the cell. Then, a giggle escaped it. And another. Rising, it threw back its head and laughed, high-pitched and frantic, making the hairs on my arms stand up to join the ones on my neck.

Ash’s hand slid to his sword hilt, but Meghan remained calm in the face of the Forgotten’s laughing fit; she even reached out to steady the faery when it seemed in danger of collapsing again.

Behind us, the beast let out a disgusted growl, the hackles on his neck and shoulders standing up like spines. “This is what I mean, Iron Queen,” he said over the shrieking laughter of the faery in the cell. “The creature is inconsolable when he gets like this. Want me to knock him senseless and give us all a little peace and quiet?”

I was tempted to say yes, but the Forgotten then stopped, as suddenly as flipping a light switch.

“No.” He panted, a few hysterical chuckles slipping out, and shook his head. “No, you do not understand. Iron Queen...” He clutched at her arm, though Meghan did nothing to shove him away. “You’re too late,” the faery whispered. “Too late. It comes. For me. For you. For us all. I have seen it. It will not stop, it is unstoppable. It...”

He raised his head, a chilling, terrifying light sliding across his vision. The realization of something that could not be taken back. “It is here.”

A baleful, familiar howl rang out somewhere in the night.

19

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