Loe raamatut: «The Iron Traitor»

CHAPTER ONE

BACK TO “NORMAL”

My name is Ethan Chase.

Just shy of a week ago, I was dragged into Faeryland.

Again.

The first time it happened, I was four. Yeah, four years old, kidnapped by faeries and taken into the Nevernever, home of the fey. Long story short, my older sister rescued me and brought me home, but became a faery queen herself and now rules a part of the Nevernever called the Iron Realm.

Thirteen years later, despite all the precautions I took against the Fair Folk, it happened again. I found myself smack-dab in the middle of the Nevernever, and this time, I wasn’t alone. A classmate of mine, a girl named Mackenzie St. James, managed to get pulled in, as well. A lot of weird, screwed-up stuff happened in the next few days, like following a talking cat through the Nevernever, meeting my sister in the Iron Realm, sneaking out of the Iron Realm to meet up with the Queen of the Exiles and, oh yeah, discovering that my sister has a son. That’s right, I have a nephew. A nephew who is part fey, completely unknown to my parents, and who, by way of screwy faery time, is the same age as me.

There is one other important thing we discovered—the emergence of a new, deadly species of fey called the Forgotten, faeries that almost don’t exist anymore because they’ve been unremembered for so long. Faeries that have to steal the glamour from regular fey to survive, killing them in the process. But for me, the nephew thing sort of stands out. If I thought my family was weird before, it’s not even a blip on the weirdness scale now. I thought I’d seen it all. But when I got pulled into the Nevernever, the thing I never saw coming was Keirran.

When Keirran went back into the Nevernever, I knew I hadn’t seen the last of him. Still, I had no idea how entangled my life would soon become with his, and how he would be the catalyst...for the end of everything.

* * *

Sometimes I wished everyone paid less attention to me. Sometimes I even wished I had faery blood, so that when the really weird things started happening around me, people would forget they’d seen it as soon as I left. That worked for Robin Goodfellow, the most infamous faery in existence. And to a lesser extent, it even worked for my sister. But in the real world, if you’re fully human and you vanish into thin air for nearly a week, people tend to notice. If you vanish at the same time as a very rich, popular classmate, they notice even more.

Which was why, I supposed, I was back in the principal’s office the Monday after I returned from the Nevernever. Only this time, there were two policemen in the room as well, looming over my chair and looking stern. Kids passing by peered through the door’s window and gaped at me before hurrying off with their friends, whispering. Great. I already had a reputation for being a delinquent and a troublemaker; this probably wasn’t going to help.

“Do you know why we’ve brought you here, Mr. Chase?” the principal said, pursing his thin mouth. I shrugged. I’d been in this office on my first day of school and knew the principal thought I was a lost cause. No point in trying to change his mind. Besides, the two officers were far more worrisome.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about Todd Wyndham,” one of the policemen stated, making my stomach twist. “As you may know, he disappeared last Friday, and his mother filed a missing-persons report when he didn’t return from school. According to her, the last person to speak to him before he vanished...was you.”

I swallowed. Todd Wyndham was a classmate of mine, and I knew exactly what had happened to him that night. But there was no way I was going to tell the police officers that Todd was part fey, a half-breed who had been kidnapped by the Forgotten and drained of his glamour. Problem was, draining his glamour had also robbed him of his memories, his emotions and his sense of self. By the time Kenzie and I had found him, his magic was already gone, leaving him dazed, passive and completely human.

Keeping my voice steady, I faced the officer who had spoken. “Yeah, I saw him at school that day. Everyone did. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal,” the officer continued, frowning harder, “is that Todd Wyndham showed up at his home last week completely shell-shocked. He doesn’t remember much, but he has told us that he was kidnapped and that there were other kidnap victims. His symptoms are on par with someone who has witnessed a violent crime, and we fear the kidnapper could strike again soon. We’re hoping that you can shed some light on Todd’s condition.”

“Why me?”

The policeman narrowed his eyes. “Because on the day after Todd’s disappearance, Mrs. St. James reported her daughter missing, as well. She was last seen at a martial arts tournament, speaking to you. Witnesses say that you pulled her out of the building, into the parking lot, and then you both disappeared. Care to tell me what happened, Ethan?”

My heart pounded, but I kept my cool, sticking to the script Kenzie and I had come up with. “Kenzie wanted to see New York City,” I said casually. “Her dad didn’t want her to go. But she really wanted to see it, you know...before she died.” They blinked, probably not knowing if I was being serious or overly dramatic. I shrugged again. “She asked me to take her, so I did. She never said her dad didn’t know she was leaving.”

Kind of a lame excuse, but I couldn’t tell them the real reason, of course. That a bunch of murderous Forgotten had found us at the tournament, chased us into the parking lot, and I’d had to send us both into the Nevernever to escape.

The policeman’s lips thinned, and I crossed my arms. “If you don’t believe me, ask Kenzie,” I told him. “She’ll tell you the same thing.”

“We intend to do that.” They straightened and backed away, making gestures to let me know we were done here. “Go on back to class, but we’ll be watching you, Ethan. Stay out of trouble, you hear?”

Relieved, I stood and headed for the door. As I left I could feel the principal’s glare on my back. He’d probably hoped I’d be arrested and carted off to juvie; one less delinquent for him to deal with. I certainly gave off the image of the sullen, brooding troublemaker: ripped jeans, shirt turned inside out, pierced ears and defiant smirk firmly in place. But whatever. I wasn’t here to be a perfect student or win any trophies. I just wanted to get through the year without any major disasters. Any more major disasters.

I slipped out of the principal’s office with a sigh of relief. Another bullet dodged. I was an expert at lying to cover up the truth no one else could see. That the fey were out there and couldn’t seem to leave me alone. To keep the people around me safe, I’d become someone no one wanted to be around. I’d driven away potential friends, isolated myself and basically been a dick to anyone who tried to get close to me. Usually it worked. Once I made it clear that I wanted to be left alone, people did just that. No one wanted to deal with a hostile jerk.

Except one girl.

Dammit, I hope she’s okay. Where are you, Kenzie? I hope you didn’t get into trouble because of me.

I supposed we were lucky that we’d been gone only a week. In the Nevernever, time flows differently than in the real world. There are stories of those who vanished into Faeryland for a year and when they came home again, a hundred years had gone by and all they’d known before was changed. Losing one week was getting off pretty easy, but to everyone looking for us, we appeared to have vanished into thin air. With one exception, no one had seen or heard any trace of us from the time we left the tournament until the night we came home, several days later.

So Kenzie and I had had to come up with a really good excuse for when we got back.

* * *

“Are you sure?” I’d asked, gazing into her chocolate-brown eyes, seeing my worried reflection staring back at me. “That’s the story you want to give your dad when we get home? You decided to visit New York, and I agreed to drive you there?”

Kenzie had shrugged, the moonlight shining off her raven hair. Behind her, the great expanse of Central Park was a black-and-silver patchwork quilt, fading into the glimmering towers over the tree line. Her slim arms hung around my waist, her fingers tracing patterns in the small of my back, distracting me. “Can you think of anything better?”

“Not really.” I shivered as her fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and brushed my skin. I resisted the urge to squirm and tried to focus. “But won’t he be mad that you just took off without telling him?”

The girl in my arms gave a bitter smile, not looking up. “He has no right to be,” she muttered. “He doesn’t care what I do. He never checks up on me. As long as I come back with all my fingers and toes, he won’t care where I’ve been. And if he does say something, I...I’ll tell him that I wanted to see New York City before I died. What is he going to do?”

My gut twisted for a different reason then. I didn’t answer, and Kenzie peeked up at me, apologetic. “What about you?” she asked, cocking her head. “What do you want to tell your family when we get home?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “My family has dealt with this before.” When we lost Meghan. “I’ll come up with something.”

She fell silent, chewing on her lip. Her soft fingers were still tracing patterns beneath my shirt, sending tremors up my spine. “Ethan?” she said finally, her voice strangely hesitant. “Um...I’m going to see you again, when we get back to the real world, right?”

“Yeah,” I whispered, knowing exactly what she meant. She wasn’t worried that I would fade from sight like one of the fey, but that I would go back to being that mean, hostile jackass who kept everyone at arm’s length. “I promise, I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, brushing a dark strand of hair from her eyes. “I’ll even do normal things like take you to dinner and go to the movies, if you want.”

Kenzie grinned. “Can I introduce you as my boyfriend?”

My stomach lurched the other way. “If you think introducing me to anyone is a good idea,” I said, shrugging. “I just hope your dad is as lenient on your boyfriends as he is on your whereabouts. You said he’s a lawyer, right?” I grimaced. “I can just see how that first meeting is going to go.”

Kenzie rose on tiptoe, her hands climbing my chest to my shoulders, and touched her lips to mine. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes, feeling her soft mouth caress my lips, forgetting everything for a moment.

“Let me handle my dad,” she murmured when we drew back.

“Prince Ethan.” A short faery with a potato-like nose, wrinkled and stubby, padded up. The gnome was dressed in a long white coat, and one of its arms was mechanical, the fingers made of needles, tweezers, even a scalpel. “You are injured,” it stated, gesturing to the rough bandages trussed around my leg and arm where I’d been sliced open by a couple nasty faery knights. My sleeve and half my pant leg were covered in blood. “The Iron Queen has bid me to tend to your wounds. As she said, in her own words, ‘I do not want Mom and Luke freaking out the second he comes home.’ Please, sit down.”

Kenzie let me go, and, suddenly feeling my injuries, I maneuvered painfully into a seated position. “You can stitch me up all you want,” I grumbled as the gnome’s index finger became a pair of tiny scissors and began cutting away my arm wrap. “They’re still going to freak out when they see me half-drenched in blood. I see an emergency room visit in my future.”

“Not necessarily,” the gnome returned, and waved its regular arm. I felt the tingle of glamour settle over me as the blood on my shirt abruptly...vanished. Holes disappeared, tears stitched themselves together and my clothes looked perfectly normal again. Beside me, Kenzie drew in a sharp breath, even as I recoiled, not wanting any faery glamour put on me, even if it seemed harmless.

“Oh, calm down,” the gnome said, taking my arm again. “It’s an illusion, nothing more. But it will break the second you remove your clothes, so I suggest you make sure you are alone when you decide to change. As for these—” it plucked at the sleeve of my shirt “—I suggest a nice bonfire.”

* * *

When I’d gotten home that night, I’d been bracing myself for an interrogation. Thanks to my sister disappearing into Faeryland thirteen years ago, my parents were paranoid and overprotective to the nth degree. If I was out five minutes past curfew, Mom would be calling my phone, demanding to know where I was, if I was all right. As I’d slipped through the front door that night, I still hadn’t known what I was going to tell them, but when I’d seen them in the living room, waiting for me, I’d realized they already knew.

It seemed they had received a visit from the Iron Queen that very night, and Meghan had told them I was safe. That I had been with her in the Nevernever and I was on my way home. She didn’t tell them the whole truth, of course; she’d left out the parts with Keirran, and the Forgotten, and how I’d almost died a few times. I’d thought Mom and Dad would want the rest of the story; even if they couldn’t see the bloodstains covering my clothes, or the stitched wounds beneath them, they’d had to know something had gone down in Faeryland. But whatever Meghan had told them seemed to be enough. Mom had just hugged the breath out of me, asked if I was all right about four dozen times and left it at that.

Truthfully, I didn’t think she wanted to know. Mom was terrified of the fey and thought that if she pretended they didn’t exist, they wouldn’t harass us. Which kind of sucked for me, because they did. But, at least that night, I’d been glad I didn’t have to explain myself. It wasn’t often that I was let off the hook. I’d just hoped Kenzie’s family was as understanding.

Kenzie. I sighed, scrubbing my hand through my hair, worried again. I hadn’t seen her since the night she went home, back to her dad and her stepmom. I’d tried calling her over the weekend, but either her phone was still dead or it had been taken away, because my calls went straight to voice mail. Worried and restless, I’d gotten to school early this morning in the hopes of seeing her, finding out how her family had taken her abrupt disappearance, but I’d been pulled into the principal’s office before I could catch a glimpse of the girl who was very suddenly my whole world.

Morose, I headed back to class, still scanning the hall for any glimpse of blue-streaked black hair, irrationally hoping to run into Kenzie on her way to the principal’s office. I didn’t see her, of course, but I did pass a group of girls in the hall, talking and laughing beneath the bathroom sign. They fell silent as I passed, staring at me with wide eyes, and I heard the murmurs erupt as soon as my back was turned.

“Oh, my God, that’s him.”

“Did you hear he forced Kenzie to run away with him last week? They were on the other side of the country before the police finally caught them.”

“So that’s why the cops are here. Why isn’t he in jail?”

I clenched my jaw and kept walking. Gossip rarely bothered me—I was so used to it by now. And most of the more colorful rumors were so far off it was laughable. But I hated the thought that, just by being around me, Kenzie would be the target of speculation. It was already starting.

She wasn’t in any of the classes we shared, which made it difficult to concentrate on anything happening around me. Even so, I caught suspicious glances thrown my way, whispers whenever I slid into my desk, the hard stares of some of the popular kids. Kenzie’s friends. I kept my head down and my usual “leave me the hell alone” posture going, until the bell rang for lunch.

Kenzie still hadn’t made an appearance. I almost went down to the cafeteria, just to see if she was there, before catching myself with a grimace. Geez, what are you doing, Ethan? You’ve gone completely stupid for this girl. She’s not here today. Just accept that already.

As I hesitated in the corridor, trying to decide which direction to go, my nerves prickled and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, a sure warning that I was being watched—or stalked. Wary, I casually scanned the surging throng of teenagers for anything that might belong to the Invisible World, the world only I could see. The source of my unease wasn’t a faery, however. It was worse.

Football star Brian Kingston and three of his friends were pushing their way through the corridor, broad shoulders and thick arms parting the crowd with ease. By their faces and the way they were scanning the halls, it was obvious they were on the warpath. Or at least the quarterback was, with his ruddy face and thick jaw set for a fight. I could just guess who was the target of his wrath.

Great.

I turned and melted into the throng, heading in the opposite direction, hoping to disappear and find someplace I could be alone. Where vengeful football jocks and their cronies couldn’t smash my face into lockers, where I didn’t have to hear whispers of how I’d kidnapped Kenzie and forced her to go to New York with me.

Once more, maybe by fate, I found myself back in the library, the quiet murmurs and rustle of paper bringing with it a storm of memories. I’d come here during the first week of school, too, in an attempt to avoid Kingston. It was also here that I’d promised to meet Kenzie for one of her infamous interviews. And it was here that I’d held my last lucid conversation with Todd, right before he vanished.

Hiding my lunch under my jacket, I ignored the no-food-or-drink sign on the front desk and sauntered into the back aisles. I earned a suspicious glare from the librarian, who watched me over her glasses, but at least Kingston and his thugs wouldn’t follow me here.

I found a quiet corner and sank down against the wall, engulfed in déjà vu. Dammit, I just wanted to be left alone. Was that too much to ask? I wanted to get through a school day without getting beat up, threatened with expulsion or arrested. And I wanted, for once, to just have a day where I could take my girlfriend out to the movies or to dinner without some faery messing everything up. Something like normal. Was that ever going to happen?

* * *

When the last bell rang, I grabbed my books and hurried to the parking lot, hoping to make it out before Kingston or any of Kenzie’s friends. No one stopped or followed me in the halls, but when I started toward my beat-up truck, parked at the far end of the lot, my nerves went rigid.

Brian Kingston was sitting on the hood, legs swinging off the edge, smirking at me. Two of his football buddies leaned against the side, blocking the door.

“Where do you think you’re going, freak?” Kingston asked, sliding to the ground. His cronies pressed behind him, and I took a deep breath to calm down. At least they hadn’t damaged my truck in any obvious way...yet. The tires didn’t look slashed, and I didn’t see any key marks in the paint, so that was something. “Been wanting to talk to you all afternoon.”

I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet. He didn’t want to talk. Everything about him said he was itching for a fight. “Do we really have to do this now?” I asked, keeping a wary eye on all three of them. Dammit, I did not need this, but if the choices were “fight” or “get my ass kicked,” I wasn’t going to get stomped on. I supposed I could have run away like a coward, but the fallout of that might be even worse. These three didn’t scare me; I’d faced down goblins, redcaps, a lindwurm and a whole legion of murderous, ghostly fey who sucked the glamour out of their normal kin. I’d fought things that were trying their best to kill me, and I was still here. A trio of unarmed humans, thick-necked and muscle-headed as they were, didn’t register very high on my threat meter, but I’d rather not get expelled on my first day back if I could help it.

“This is stupid, Kingston,” I snapped, backing away as his cronies tried to flank me. If they lunged, I’d need to get out of the way fast. “What the hell do you want? What do you think I’ve done now?”

“Like you don’t know.” Kingston sneered. “Don’t play stupid, freak. I told you to stay away from Mackenzie, didn’t I? I warned you what would happen, and you didn’t listen. Everyone knows you dragged her off to New York last week. I don’t know why the cops didn’t toss your ass in jail for kidnapping.”

“She asked me to take her,” I argued. “I didn’t drag her anywhere. She wanted to see New York, and her dad wouldn’t let her go, so she asked me.” Lies to cover up more lies. I wondered if there would ever come a point where I didn’t have to lie to everyone.

“Yeah, and now look where she is,” Kingston shot back. “I don’t know what you did to her while you were gone, but you’re gonna wish you never came here.”

“Wait. What?” I frowned, still trying to keep the jocks in my sights. “What do you mean? Where is Kenzie now?”

Kingston shook his head. “You didn’t hear, freak? God, you are a bastard.” He stepped forward, eyes narrowing in pure contempt. “Kenzie is in the hospital.”