face, and then he stopped when he got close. I couldn’t blame him. We smelled like troll guts.
“That was utterly disgusting,” Beezle said, wiping at his eyes with his little fists. “You couldn’t find a less gooey way to kill the thing?”
“You were the one who said it was impervious to magic,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before the other one comes back.”
The forest below us swayed, and the angry clatter of branches told us that heading back to the ground wasn’t an option. Some more trees had ignited, and it seemed like the whole place was on the verge of a full-on conflagration.
“We will have to fly to the edge of the forest,” Nathaniel said.
All three of us looked ahead. The trees appeared to stretch on forever.
“It’s got to end sometime,” I said with a hope I didn’t feel.
We started off, flying as quickly as possible, always checking behind us for signs of the other troll.
I don’t know how long we flew, but there was no break in the endless expanse of treetops. After a while Beezle started complaining.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“How can you even think about food when you smell like that?” I asked.
“My beak has gone numb, and it’s been hours since I’ve eaten anything,” he said.
“That’s not true,” I said. “You had your face in a bag of chips while I was out trying to find Jayne Wiskowski’s soul, and you just ate the world’s biggest ice cream bar.”
“But it’s been a really long time since then,” Beezle whined.
“How long has it been?” I asked Nathaniel. I’d left the house without my cell phone, and I didn’t own a watch.
“It’s difficult to say. I know it only seemed like a few moments that we traveled with Lord Lucifer, but it could have been hours. Time moves differently for him,” Nathaniel said.
“Well, we can’t eat anything here,” I said to Beezle. “So you’re just going to have to suck it up.”
My own stomach growled uncomfortably, and I desperately wanted a shower. But neither of those things would be forthcoming until we got out of this stupid country, and it seemed like we would never get to Titania and Oberon’s court.
Then I looked down and saw the edge of the tree line and, about half a mile beyond, a little cabin beside a lake.
“Thank the Morningstar,” I said, and started to descend toward the ground.
I was exhausted. I didn’t often do a lot of long-distance flying, and the unfamiliar exercise plus the constant fatigue of pregnancy had worn me down.
“Wait,” Nathaniel said, grabbing my shoulder. “We don’t know if there are friends or foes in that place.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I need to set down for a while or I’ll never make it.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to jump in that lake and wash all over,” Beezle said.
“Let me investigate first,” Nathaniel urged.
I could see the wisdom of this, so I nodded, hanging in the air while he went to the ground to check things out.
Nathaniel covered himself with a veil, and disappeared from sight.
I couldn’t see what he was doing, but no alarm was raised by his actions, and after a few moments he reappeared in front of the cabin, waving us to the ground.
“Bath time!” Beezle shouted, and dove for the lake.
I followed more slowly. By the time I’d reached the ground Beezle had cannonballed into the pool of water and was happily splashing around like a puppy.
“Any sign of who might live here?” I asked Nathaniel.
He shook his head. “The cabin is empty.”
I went to the window and peeked inside. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace, a pile of soft-looking furs on the floor before it. Steam rose from a silver bathtub in the corner of the room.
“Did you set all that up?” I asked Nathaniel.
He blinked. “Set what up?”
“The bath and the fire and all that,” I said.
“There is no bath or fire,” he said. “The cabin is bare of furniture or any sign that anyone might have ever lived here.”
I looked back in the window. The tub and the fire and rug were still there.
“Either I’m hallucinating or there’s something screwy going on here,” I said. “You don’t see anything inside there at all?”
Nathaniel shook his head, a line forming between his eyebrows. “If you do, then there must be some magic here to lure you, and we should leave.”
The cabin looked comfortable and inviting, as I’m sure it was meant to do. Especially if one was covered in dried troll slime and totally wiped out from a long-distance flight.
“Let’s ask Beezle to take a look,” I said. “Beezle!”
Beezle was floating on his back near the shore of the lake, his round belly pointed toward the sun. “What?”
“Come over here and look at something for me,” I said.
He heaved a long-suffering sigh and flew out of the water to join us. I nodded toward the window. “Look inside and tell me what you see.”
The gargoyle flew closer, peering inside. “Ah. Yeah, you don’t want to go in there.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“This is the home of a gretewitch,” he announced.
“A great witch?”
“Yeah, like ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ you know. She’s trying to lure you inside with something you want. Kids like gingerbread houses, but you would see something else. Once you get in there, she’ll pop out from wherever she’s hiding and eat you up,” Beezle said.
“What do you see when you look in there?” I asked curiously.
Beezle sighed. “An all-you-can-eat buffet.”
I laughed. “And you didn’t see anything, Nathaniel?”
“No,” he said shortly.
I was pretty sure he was lying and, if so, wondered why. Surely he wouldn’t want me to get eaten up by a witch? But it didn’t seem wise to hang around a witch’s house. She might decide not to wait for us to come inside.
“I guess we have to continue on,” I said, looking sadly at the sparkling water of the lake. Washing off the muck would have to wait. “I don’t think I can fly, though. We’ll have to walk for a while.”
We set off around the lake, which seemed as large and endless as Lake Michigan. After a very long while we came to the farthest shore. When I looked back I saw that the cabin was far out of sight.
The sun had not moved its position in the sky the entire time we’d been in Titania and Oberon’s kingdom. The constant blaze of sunshine was starting to get annoying, and I was thirsty and tired.
Before us was yet another field of tall grass and wildflowers and, at the end of it, a forest. A forest that looked a lot like the one we’d just come through. I could see a mother deer and her fawn foraging at the edge of the field.
“Are you kidding me?” I said, my temper blazing to the surface. I shouted at the sky. “Are you kidding me? You want me to walk in circles until I’m crazy? Do you think I’ll fall for that?”
“Who are you shouting at?” Beezle asked.
“It’s an illusion,” I said.
“Well, yes, we knew that. Remember I told you that the glamour was too deep to penetrate?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not a glamour to make a bad place look good. This whole path-to-the- court thing—it’s an illusion. Titania and Oberon are probably watching us walk around like idiots. There’s no forest, no hill, no lake, no troll, no witch. It’s not here at all.”
