Джули Кагава – The Iron Warrior (страница 12)
“After that,” I told Ash, “Keirran didn’t know what to do. Titania was our last resort. He was going to go home, but then, the Forgotten Queen called for him. And since he’d promised to speak with her one last time, he had to go. To Ireland—that’s where she was waiting.”
“And you went with him,” Ash guessed.
I nodded. “I couldn’t let him go alone.” Keirran was family, and he’d been trying to save Annwyl, despite all the stupid stunts he’d pulled. He couldn’t go by himself.
I did not mention that I’d nearly let him do just that. It was only Kenzie’s insistence that I help Keirran out, one more time, that had made me relent. Even lying in a hospital bed, recovering from the latest catastrophe he had caused, she was far more forgiving than I.
Ash was quiet. He knew, as I did, what came next.
“So, we went to see the Lady,” I continued. “And right before...Keirran stabbed me, the Lady mentioned something. She told him that my sacrifice would lift the Veil, that if I died, all exiles and Forgotten would be saved, because humans would be able to see them. And that belief would let them exist again. But, there was...one other thing she told us. About Keirran, and the amulet. She said that not only was the amulet draining Keirran’s strength and magic, it was also...” I hesitated. Ash was going to hate me after this.
“What?” Ash prodded gently. I swallowed.
“Stealing his soul.”
“It was just supposed to be a temporary solution,” Kenzie broke in, as Ash went very still, looking dangerous now. “It was supposed to keep Annwyl alive until we could convince Titania to lift her banishment. Once she went back to the Nevernever, Keirran promised he would destroy that thing. It wasn’t...” Her voice shook, very slightly, and dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
Silence filled the room. Memories, regret and what-ifs tore at me. So much waste, lost friendships, broken promises and families torn apart. The Nevernever was going to war. Meghan was going to have to fight her own son. All because Keirran had tried to save someone he loved from dying. It didn’t seem fair.
“
“I—I don’t know,” I stammered helplessly. “We would have to find Annwyl, see if she still has it.”
Ash nodded slowly. “I think that’s all we can hope for now,” he mused, almost too faint to hear. Closing his eyes, he took a breath, and then his gaze sliced into me again. “I will not lose my son,” he said in a terrifying yet almost desperate voice. “Meghan is queen—her hands are tied in this matter—but I will do whatever it takes to see him returned to us. Ethan, you were his friend, once. You stood with him when no one else would. I know that what Keirran has done can never be forgiven, but...would you be willing to do this one final thing? For Meghan, if for no one else. Go to your Guro. Ask him about the amulet. See if there’s anything we can do to return Keirran to himself. If it’s not too late to save him.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah,” I rasped, nodding. “I’ll do it. For Meghan.”
Ash turned away, gesturing for us to follow, and we trailed him to the end of an aisle. Reaching up to a shelf, Ash hooked a finger atop a book spine and pulled it down. There was a creak, and a section of shelf swung back, revealing a narrow stone tunnel snaking away into darkness.
“This will take you out of the city,” Ash said, turning back. “There is a trod at the end of the tunnel that will return you to the mortal realm, very close to your own house, Ethan.” I blinked in surprise, and Ash smiled sadly. “Keirran used this passage all the time to sneak out of the palace, until I finally locked it down.”
A pained look crossed his face, but he shook his head, and it was gone. “I would go with you myself,” he continued, “but...my place is here, with Meghan. Too much is at stake in the Nevernever right now. We must prepare the Iron Realm for war, so I am counting on you—both of you—” he added, looking at Kenzie “—to save Keirran. Bring him home, so we can end this madness for good.”
“I can’t promise anything, Ash,” I said, thinking that my attempts to do the right thing had gotten us into this mess in the first place. “But I’ll try. If there’s a way to destroy that amulet without killing Keirran and Annwyl, I’ll find it.”
Ash nodded once, then turned away. I watched his lean, dark form fading into the shadows, and took one step after him.
“Hey,” I called. “Ash, wait.”
He turned back toward us, and the words caught in my throat. What did I want to tell him?
Ash, in that surreal, eerie way of his, seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “We all have regrets, Ethan,” he said. “Things we wish we could change. Events we wish had never happened. I myself have too many to count, but there is one thing that I have never regretted, and that is meeting your sister.” He said it calmly, like he was stating the obvious. “I would not change anything when it comes to Meghan,” Ash went on, “but I do know that our decisions have made your life very hard. She wished it could have been otherwise, but I think we both know why she chose what she did. Just remember that she was always thinking of her family, and you especially, Ethan.”
I blinked rapidly and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I know,” I husked out, and said something that I had never spoken out loud before in Faery, had never thought I would. “Thanks.”
Ash spun and vanished into the darkness, leaving me and Kenzie alone. I stood there a moment, waiting for my eyes to clear, before I felt Kenzie’s warm hand on my back. “You okay, tough guy?”
I dragged in a deep breath. “Yeah,” I rasped, turning to face her. “I’m fine. You ready for this?”
She smiled, slipped both arms around my waist and hugged me. For a moment, I just held her, my brain looping in dark, endless circles. Find Guro, destroy the amulet. Or at least, reverse whatever soul-sucking juju was at work here. That was it. And, hopefully, once that was done, Keirran would stop being an unforgivable douche and go home. Of course, there was still the Lady and the Forgotten to worry about, but one problem at a time.
Kenzie let me go and stepped forward, peering into the tunnel. Razor leaped from a shelf and landed on her shoulder, buzzing happily, and the blue-white glow from his fangs threw strange flickering lights over the walls. “Do you think Annwyl is all right?” Kenzie whispered. “And that Keirran will really come to his senses once we kill the amulet?”
I stepped up beside her and took her hand. “Let’s find out.”
Together, we walked into the darkness.
RETURN TO GURO
We followed the passage for a while as, I suspected, it took us beneath the palace and then below the streets of Mag Tuiredh. The stone tunnel soon dumped us into a large copper tube, where I had to bend slightly to keep my head from hitting the ceiling. Smaller pipes and tubes broke off from the main passageway, dripping water, oil and, occasionally, some strange, bright green substance that sizzled when it touched anything but the copper piping. I was careful to avoid it and kept a sharp eye on Kenzie, hoping she would not get curious and poke a stick into the caustic green puddles just to see what happened.
Small metal cockroaches crawled along the walls and ceiling, waving bright, hair-thin antennae at us, pinprick eyes glowing the same poison green as the puddles. Razor’s arm shot out once, faster than thought, snatching one of the metal bugs from the roof and stuffing it in his mouth with sharp crinkling sounds. Kenzie
Finally, the tube came to a dead end, with a steel ladder leading up to a square trapdoor. Pushing back the lid, I squinted as bright sunlight flooded the air above me. Crawling out of the tube, I felt a tingle of magic against my skin, like walking into a spiderweb. Ignoring the urge to wipe at my face, I heaved myself onto a patch of cool, dry grass, leaving one realm behind and entering another.
The real world. Home.
I turned to help Kenzie through the hole, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up beside me. Razor immediately leaped to her shoulder, as I gazed around to get our bearings.
“Where are we?” Kenzie asked, dusting off her hands. I blinked, shaking my head in amazement.
“I don’t believe it,” I muttered, staring around at the overgrown lot. “We are literally three blocks from my house. When Ash had said it was close, he wasn’t kidding.”