“Really.”

“Yup.”

I pulled open the door of my room, gazed down one of the many, many hallways of the Iron Palace and sighed. “Well, if that’s the case, then maybe you can find us a map,” I said, “because I have no idea where the library is.”

Kenzie grinned. “Oh, I’ve got something better than a map,” she returned, and raised her head. “Razor,” she called, and the gremlin bounced upright, huge ears perked and quivering. Kenzie smiled at him pointed with a finger. “To the library, Razor, stat!”

The gremlin gave a buzz of excitement. Leaping off her shoulders, he scurried up the wall and to the ceiling, where he hung upside down like a huge spider. Beckoning us with a claw, he scampered away, then paused and glanced back to see if we were coming. Kenzie gave me a smug grin.

“You were saying?”

“You’re cute when you’re bossy,” I told her, and grunted when she poked me in the ribs. Raising my free hand, I pushed her hair back from her cheek. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

An annoyed crackle came from the ceiling, and Razor skittered a few feet toward us. “Funny boy!” the gremlin called, bouncing in impatience. “Pretty girl, this way! Library this way, follow Razor!”

Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she sighed, tugging me forward. “We’d better hurry, before Razor gets bored and leaves us. Then we would need a map.”

Keeping an eye on the gremlin, we walked down a long corridor, through several chambers, up a spiraling set of stairs and down another hall until we came to a pair of large double doors. Razor crawled up to Kenzie’s shoulder and pointed with a claw.

“Quiet room! Lots of books, bleck. Gremlins not allowed.”

“Good boy,” Kenzie said, and the gremlin grinned manically. We pushed open the doors with a faint creak and stepped through.

Inside, it looked like a normal library, albeit bigger than the ones I had seen before. Rows of books lined the walls to the ceiling, and more shelves were arranged in narrow aisles throughout the room. It was quieter here than in the rest of the Iron Palace, the air musty and cool. Warily, I gazed around, searching for the one who’d called us here, but with the maze of aisles and the shadows that clung to the corners of the room, it was difficult to see if we were alone or not.

Kenzie turned in a slow circle, the glow from Razor’s teeth piercing some of the gloom. “I don’t see anyone,” she murmured. “Do you think your sister is here?”

“No,” said a deep voice from the shadows. I spun as Ash stepped out of the darkness, his expression grave as he came into the light. “Meghan didn’t call you here,” the dark faery explained, fixing us with his piercing silver glare. “I did.”

CHAPTER FIVE

ASH’S REQUEST

I stiffened, fighting the urge to step in front of Kenzie and drop a hand to my sword. Old resentment bubbled up, filling me with a long-familiar hate. I shoved it down. Ash was not my enemy, I reminded myself. He was not responsible for my sister’s disappearance, all those years ago. Meghan had chosen to be with him, to become a queen of Faery, and from the small interactions I’d seen between them, if my sister ever decided to return to the mortal world, Ash wouldn’t stop her. Follow her, sure; I doubted anything short of an act of God would keep him away, and maybe not even that. But I couldn’t keep blaming Ash for my sister’s decisions, my abandonment hang-ups or for Meghan falling in love. Like it or not, he was family, too. It was time I grew up and accepted that.

“Ash,” I greeted, as the faery regarded us solemnly. “You sent that message? Why?”

“I want to talk to you about Keirran.” Ash settled against one of the shelves, long black coat falling around him. “There are some things I need to understand. And I...” For the first time I’d ever known him, his voice faltered. “I have a favor to ask of you, Ethan.”

Stunned, I could only stare and try to keep my mouth from dropping open. Ash sighed, looking away for a moment, his gaze distant. For just a heartbeat, he wasn’t the cold, emotionless Winter faery I had always seen. He was, like Meghan, someone whose world had been torn apart by Keirran’s betrayal, and was struggling to understand what had happened.

“You were with Keirran at the very end,” Ash finally said. “You knew him, before and after he met the Forgotten Queen. Both of you fought side by side, and I know he considered you a friend—one of his only friends.” His expression darkened, and he shook his head. “The Keirran at the war council today...I didn’t recognize him. He’s changed so much, nothing about him made sense. I refuse to believe that was my son.”

I swallowed at the underlying pain in Ash’s voice. The faery paused, a flicker of anguish breaking his perfect composure, before he was himself again. “Keirran didn’t just change into that overnight,” the dark faery went on, looking at me. “Something must have happened to him, someone must have done something, to turn him against his own court. Ethan, you mentioned an amulet. Can you tell me what it does, what type of magic we’re dealing with?”

The amulet.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Dammit, how could I have forgotten? Maybe the shock of being killed and the worry for Kenzie, my parents and the war with the Forgotten had driven it from my brain, but I felt like an idiot for just remembering it now.

You do not know, do you? He is mostly human. It is taking his soul.

Ash noticed my reaction, and his eyes narrowed. “Tell me,” he said, and pushed himself away from the shelf. “Everything, Ethan. Everything that led up to that night. What happened to you and Keirran before you went to see the Lady?”

Reluctantly, I nodded. I didn’t want to, didn’t want to reveal my part in all this, but Ash deserved to know. “When Keirran disappeared that first time,” I began, thinking back to that night and the chain of events leading up to it, “Annwyl came to me at home. She was Fading. Whatever the Forgotten did to her had accelerated the process. Keirran was desperate to stop it. We—Annwyl, Kenzie and I—tracked him to a goblin market, where he was trying to find a cure for the Fade. That’s when you caught up to us,” I added, remembering that night, following the Iron Prince through the New Orleans streets, trying to outrun the faery before us now. “We got away because Keirran had figured out how to go Between—that’s why you couldn’t find us. The Lady had taught him how to open the Veil.”

Ash didn’t give any indication of surprise, just nodded for me to go on. I hesitated, steeling myself for what came next. For the decision that had cost me a friend, a family member and, ultimately, my life.

“I decided to take him to Guro,” I said quietly. “My kali instructor, back in the real world. He’s...I guess he’s kind of a shaman, a faith healer, though I didn’t know that part of him until recently. Guro was the one who crafted that protection amulet, the one I was wearing when Keirran...” I trailed off, not wanting to say it, and Ash gave a stiff nod of understanding.

“We went to see him,” I continued, “because it was the only thing left I could think of. Annwyl was dying; she didn’t have much time left. It was our last hope. But, when we explained what was happening, Guro said that he couldn’t save her. That there was nothing in the light arts that would help.” I paused, then added, “That’s when Keirran...asked about the dark arts.”