Panting, the Wolf staggered to his feet, then gave himself a violent shake, sending fur and dust flying. Glancing at me, he gave a grudging nod.
“For a mortal,” he growled, heaving in great, raspy breaths, “you are remarkably strong. Almost as strong as …” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “Are you sure you received what you came for, little prince? It would be annoying if we came all this way for nothing.” Before I could answer, he sniffed the air, nose twitching. “No, your scent is different.
“I’m … not really sure myself.”
“Well.” The Wolf shook himself again, seeming to grow a bit more steady on his feet. “Whatever you are, you did not leave me behind, and I will not forget that. If you are in need of a hunter or someone to crush your enemy’s throat, you have only to call. Now …” He sneezed and bared his fangs, glaring around. “Where is that wretched feline?”
Grimalkin, of course, had disappeared. The Wolf snorted in disgust and began to stalk away, but with a shiver and a loud grinding noise, the stone door started to rise.
We tensed, and I dropped a hand to my sword, but the spirits on the other side of the door had disappeared. So had the entire room. Instead, a long, narrow hallway stretched out beyond the frame, empty and dark, fading into the black. The cobwebs lining the walls and the dust on the floor were thick and undisturbed, as if no one had walked this way in centuries.
The Wolf blinked slowly. “Magic and parlor tricks.” He sighed, curling a lip. “I will be glad to be done with it. At least in my territory, things are honest about trying to kill you.” He shook his great, shaggy head and turned to me. “This is where we part ways, prince. Do not forget my part in the story. I might have to hunt you down if you happen to forget, and I have a very long memory.”
“It’s a long way back to the wyldwood,” I told him, pulling out the small glass orb. The swirls of magic within left faint, tingling sensations against my palm as I held it up. “Come with us. We’ll return to the mortal realm, and from there you can easily find a trod to the Nevernever.”
“The mortal world.” The Wolf sniffed and backed up a step. “No, little prince. The human realm is not for me. It is too crowded, too fenced in. I need the vast spaces of the Deep Wyld or I shall quickly suffocate. No, this is where we say goodbye. I wish you luck, though. It was quite the adventure.” The Wolf padded toward the dark, empty hallway, a lean black shadow that seemed to fade into the dark.
“You sure, Wolfman?” Puck called as the Wolf paused in the frame, sniffing the air for any remaining foes. “Like iceboy said, it’s a long way back to the wyldwood. You sure you don’t want a faster way home?”
The Wolf looked back at us and chuckled, flashing a toothy grin. “I am home,” he said simply, and bounded through the door, melting into shadow. His eerie howl rose into the air, as the Big Bad Wolf vanished from our lives and returned to legend.
Grimalkin appeared almost immediately after the Wolf had gone, licking his paws as if nothing had happened. “So,” he mused, regarding me with golden, half-lidded eyes, “are we returning to the mortal realm or not?”
I raised the globe but then lowered it, gazing at the cait sith, who stared back calmly. “Did you know?” I asked in a low voice, and the cat blinked. “Did you know the reason Ariella was here? Why she came along?” Grimalkin turned to groom his tail, and my voice hardened. “You knew she was going to die.”
“She was already dead, prince.” Grimalkin paused and looked back at me, narrowing his eyes. “She perished the day you swore your oath against Goodfellow. Faery brought her back, but she always knew how it would end.”
“You could have told us,” Puck chimed in, his voice flat and strangely subdued.
Grimalkin sneezed and sat up to face me, his golden eyes knowing. “If I had, would you have let her go?”
Neither of us answered, and the cat nodded at our silence. “We are wasting time,” he continued, waving his tail as he stood. “Let us return to the mortal world so that we may be done with this. Grieve for your loss, but be grateful for the time that you had. She would have wanted it that way.” He sniffed and lashed his tail. “Now, are you going to use that globe, or should I wish for wings to fly back to the wyldwood?”
I sighed and raised the glass, watching the magic swirl within. Taking it in both hands, I gazed past it to the End of the World, at the brilliant void that never ceased to amaze. With a deep breath, I brought my hands together and crushed the glass between them, releasing the magic into the air. It expanded outward in a burst of light, engulfing us, and for a moment everything went completely white.
THE LIGHT FADED, and the sounds of the human world began: car engines and street traffic, honking horns and the shuffle of feet over pavement. I blinked and gazed around, trying to get my bearings. We were in a narrow alleyway between two large buildings, overflowing Dumpsters and heaps of trash lining the walls. A ragged lump in a cardboard box stirred, mumbled sleepily, and turned its back on us, frightening a large rat that went scurrying over the wall.
“Oh, of course.” Puck wrinkled his nose, stepping back from a pile of rags crawling with maggots. “With all the meadows and forests and big swaths of wilderness that I
Grimalkin leaped atop a Dumpster, looking surprisingly natural in the urban environment, like a large alley cat prowling the streets. “There is a trod not far from here,” he stated calmly, picking his way across the rim. “If we hurry, we should reach it before nightfall. Follow me.”
“Wait, you
“Most cities are very much the same, Goodfellow.” Grimalkin reached the edge of the sidewalk and peered back, waving his tail. “Trods are everywhere, if you know where to look. Also, I am a cat.” And he trotted off down the street.
“Hold it, ice-boy,” Puck said as I started to follow. “You’re forgetting something.” He pointed to my sword, hanging at my side. “Normal humans don’t walk around city streets with big, pointy weapons. Or if they do, they tend to draw unwanted attention. Better give it to me for now. At least until we reach the wyldwood.”
I hesitated, and Puck rolled his eyes. “I swear I’m not going to lose it, or drop it in the gutter, or give it to a homeless guy. Come on, Ash. This is part of being human. You have to blend in.”
I handed the belt and sheath over reluctantly, and Puck looped it around one shoulder. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“If you lose that …”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll kill me. Old news, ice-boy.” Puck shook his head and motioned me forward. “After you.”
We emerged from the alleyway onto a sidewalk bustling with people, rushing by with barely a glance. Overhead, huge towers of glass and steel loomed against the sky, flashing in the evening sun. Cars honked and slid through the streams of traffic like giant metal fish, and the smell of asphalt, smoke, and exhaust fumes hung thick on the air.
The changes were subtle, but I could still see a difference. The world wasn’t quite as sharp as it had been. Edges were dull, colors not quite so bright anymore. Sounds were muted; the murmur of voices around me had merged into a babble of human noise, and I could no longer pick out conversations just by listening to them.
I took a step forward, and someone ran into me, knocking me back a pace. “Watch where you’re going, jackass,” the human snapped, shooting me a glare without breaking stride. I blinked and joined the flow of street traffic, following Grimalkin as he expertly wove his way through the multitude of feet and swinging legs. No one seemed to notice him, or Puck, walking right beside me, glamoured and invisible. Even on a crowded sidewalk, they swerved around him or stepped out of his way, often at the last second, without even knowing there was a faery in their midst. But I caught several glances—curious, appreciative, or challenging—as I maneuvered my way through the crowd, jostling and bumping into me. It was a good thing Puck still had my sword; otherwise I might’ve been tempted to draw it to get them all out of my way.
As I swerved out of the path of yet another human, I brushed against a wrought-iron fence encircling the base of a small tree on the edge of the sidewalk and instinctively recoiled, jerking back from the metal. But the weakness and pain of being so close to iron didn’t come, though I did earn a few strange looks from various
