“Now we step through.” Kyran held out his hands to us.
We were going to walk through a shadow? Wel , why not? Since arriving in Faerie I’d walked through wal s, doorways that didn’t show the correct room beyond their thresholds, and a hole in reality. Why not walk through a shadow?
I clasped the amulet back onto my bracelet before accepting the kingling’s hand. “I suggest a deep breath,” he said. “This wil be cold.” Then he stepped forward and the shadow overtook us.
Disorientation hit hard as between one step and the next my boots left sand and landed on crimson-colored carpet.
My stomach flipped, like the moment at the top of a rol er coaster when you’re hanging upside down but gravity hasn’t caught on yet so you hang suspended before crashing into the shoulder harness. If I’d looked around and discovered I was standing on the ceiling, waiting for reality to realize it and drop me, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I wasn’t on the ceiling. I was in a plain, sparsely decorated room.
The shadow we’d stepped through was cast by a large wardrobe that dominated most of one wal ; a smal bed huddled against another wal ; and in the far corner of the room was Hol y.
I let PC slide to the floor as I crossed the room in three steps. Her eyes were open, and she sat perfectly straight, her hands resting on her knees. She wore a pair of pink silk pajama bottoms and a white camisole that she must have changed into before lying down and the curse overtaking her. She didn’t move as I approached.
“Hol y?” Not so much as a twitch. I waved my hand in front of her face. “Hey.”
of her face. “Hey.”
Falin joined me. He gently moved her face toward us, but she didn’t even blink. “She’s entranced.”
“But a pretty dol ,” Kyran said.
I startled, spinning around to face the nightmare kingling. I hadn’t realized he was stil in the room. I’d expected him to return to his realm after he’d delivered us to Faerie, but as he settled against the wal , he looked like he planned to hang around.
I frowned at him. “She’s not a dol .”
“Al changelings are dol s. Some are just more autonomous than others.”
Dread slid under my skin. She wasn’t a changeling. Was she? How much time in Faerie could pass during a day in the mortal realm?
“Damn, Hol y, snap out of it.” I shook her shoulders. She slumped forward, and the dread sank deeper into my skin. I had found her. I’d traipsed through three courts, but I’d found her. And I stil couldn’t rescue her.
“It won’t help,” a squeaky, high-pitched voice said, and I jumped.
A wooden birdcage hung in the corner of the room, but the creature inside wasn’t a bird. It was a smal fae. He was no tal er than five inches and covered with fur, but his face was more human than animal and he wore clothes like a man.
I stood and walked over to the cage. “What won’t help?”
“Cal ing, shaking, or any means you use to gain her attention,” the little creature said, stepping closer to the edge of the cage, but not approaching the bars. “The mistress wasn’t sure if she’d need her, so the fire witch waits. Nothing wil wake her but the mistress.”
I shook my head. “That’s unacceptable.” We’d carry her out of here if we had to. Wel , I’d probably ask Falin to do it, but we’d get her out of Faerie.
I stepped closer to the cage and then faltered. Something was wrong in that corner of the room; I could feel it with was wrong in that corner of the room; I could feel it with every atom of my being. “Iron,” I hissed as I recognized the slight tingle. “There’s iron encased in the cage bars.” Which meant this fae was not a pet but a prisoner. I reached for the door, but Falin grabbed my wrist, pul ing me back.
“You don’t know what he is, why he’s in there, or what he’l do if released,” Falin said.
I frowned and studied the little creature. It had smal pink ears that looked like soft mouse ears where they stuck up around its brown hat, and big round eyes atop a human nose and mouth. It didn’t look particularly dangerous—but looks could be deceiving.
“Who are you?” I asked the smal creature.
“Tiddlywinx, best glamour spinner in the oak ring,” he said, doffing his pointed hat and giving me a deep bow.
“Is the oak ring a place?” I asked Falin under my breath.
“Probably just a ring of oaks, and this little guy is as likely to be the only one who lives there as he is to be the best glamour spinner,” he said.
I mouthed, Oh, and Tiddlywinx bal ed his smal fists on his hips as he glared at Falin. “You ruin a good title, Sleagh Maith.”
A glamour spinner, huh?
“I think I met a hydra you made,” I told the smal man.