HOLDING HANDS WITH BOYS

Jack was balancing a spoon on his nose when I walked in.

"You," I said, knocking it off his face.

"Me!" he answered cheerfully.

"Take me to the Faerie Realms. Now."

"You always did have a great sense of humor, Evie."

I pulled the package Bud gave me out of my pocket, unwrapping a pure silver switchblade, the handle opalescent white. Classy, and it goes with everything. Who knew Bud had it in him. I flicked the blade in and out a few times, getting a feel for it.

"You know, I'd be a lot more comfortable if you'd put that away," Jack said, eyeing it warily.

"Tell you what." I closed the blade with a satisfying snick. "Remember that time you tried to kill me because I wouldn't open a gate to hell?"

"The memory's a bit fuzzy..."

I opened the knife again.

"Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall something like that happening, although my motivation was certainly never to kill you. Can't you view it as me inspiring you to figure out how to use the Paths? I didn't actually want you to die."

"No, I really can't view it that way. And I still don't know how to use the Paths, which means that if you want all to be forgiven-and, trust me, you want all to be forgiven-you do me one final favor and then we agree to never see each other again."

He looked hurt, then his smile mask popped back into place. "But this has all made me realize how much I miss your sparkling personality and warmth."

I pulled Tasey from my jeans and flicked the setting to its highest level. "Do you mean 'sparking'? Because we can do sparking if you want."

Jack rolled his eyes and stood up. "Look. I know you still suspect I hate you, and, yeah, I did quite a bit, but I'm very mercurial. It's part of my charm." He gave me his broadest, most dimpled smile. "So while I hated you in that moment, I don't hate you anymore. No promises that I won't hate you again in the future, but what's life without a few surprises? And since I don't currently hate you, I'd feel awfully bad escorting you to a most certain and probably gruesome death."

"I'm not asking your opinion on my odds. All I'm asking you to do is get me to the Dark Queen. Then you are off the hook, completely and totally, forever."

"What about your mad faerie fellow?"

I grabbed a roll of duct tape out of one of the kitchen drawers. "Just give me your hand, you little monster. I'll deal with Reth."

"Fair enough." Jack held out his hand and I took it, steeling myself against the pit of terror in my stomach. Then I wrapped about twelve layers of duct tape around our joined wrists.

"Oy, I value those fingers. You've cut off my circulation!"

"I'll cut off more than that if you try to leave me in the Paths. This is insurance that you can't make a quick getaway."

He scowled at the floor and muttered, "I wouldn't do that again."

I walked him over to the nearest wall and he put his free hand against it, frowning in concentration as the light of a faerie door beamed and opened into the black.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, giving me a surprisingly earnest look.

I pulled his hand, the edges of the tape digging into my skin, and tugged him forward into the darkness as an answer. We walked together and I focused on the footsteps, on the feel of Tasey in my free hand, and on the reassuring bulk of the knife in my pocket.

"Do you have any sort of plan?" Jack asked.

"Not really."

"Eh, just as well. It'll be less of a disappointment when you fail."

"Thank you for your confidence."

We meandered, Jack struggling a little, as always, to find the door to the Faerie Realms. "In case you die, which I'm thinking is pretty likely, there's something I need to say. You don't even have to believe me, as long as you hear it. What I did...it was wrong. I know it was wrong. You are"-he paused, swallowing hard-"you were the closest I've ever had to a friend, and I used you, and I'm sorry. Trust me when I say it's not an emotion I'm very familiar with."

I shook my head, avoiding the sincerity pooling in his bright blue eyes. His manipulation of me had been both thorough and admirably well plotted. I wasn't going to let it happen again. I had no doubt he'd cut his losses and bail the second he thought he could do it without Reth hurting him.

"Ah," he said finally, breaking the silence that had stretched between us after his apology. "Here we are. Any particular place you want to come out?"

"Don't suppose you know where the Dark Queen holds court or keeps her captives?"

"I am a very smart boy, Evie, and extremely good at self-preservation. So, no."

I sighed. "I dunno. Anywhere in Unseelie territory, I guess."

He shrugged and opened the door; we walked out together into a forest of mirrors. Every tree was perfectly sculpted out of a brilliantly reflective material, each line of the bark a new facet, each leaf perfect, razor thin, and shining. A thousand fractured replications of the two of us stared back at me, distorted and strange and really, really bad for hiding. Even the ground was mirrored. Anyone anywhere near us would be able to tell immediately that we were somewhere we weren't supposed to be.

"This place gives me the creeps," Jack muttered.

"Not exactly ideal for sneaking around." I took a step forward and was rewarded with a crack that echoed through the entire forest, growing and doubling back on itself until the sound was overwhelming. Bits of mirror shattered and started falling off the trees, raining down all around us. A piece bounced off my hand, leaving a tiny line of blood in its wake.

I put both hands over my ears, accidentally tugging Jack's with mine, screaming, "Somewhere else! Anywhere else!" He yanked his hand back, and with a stomach-churning twist we were on the outskirts of a city. I squinted, totally disoriented. We were in New York. But no-those skyscrapers weren't made of metal and concrete. Metal and concrete didn't move in subtle, writhing, slithering motions. Oh gosh. It was New York made out of millions of living snakes woven together, as far as I could tell from this distance. And the degree to which I did not want to get a closer look was pretty much infinite.

"Not very creative, are they?" Jack commented. "They couldn't make a new city out of snakes?"

"Seriously. I mean, New York is awesome and all, and who'd have thought snakes would be such a durable construction material, but couldn't they do better?"

"No, we really can't," Reth said, standing next to me and observing the city with a thoughtful expression.

I didn't even bother to be shocked that he'd found us so quickly. I looked at him from the corner of my eye, not wanting to turn my back on the snake city lest they decided to stop being buildings and start coming for me. "I'm doing this, and you can't stop me."

"I see. I cannot tell you how many times I've wished that, in place of a soul, I could fill you with an adequate amount of fear. You never seem to realize how hard it is to keep you alive, especially with you so constantly trying to achieve the opposite goal."

I certainly wasn't lacking in fear. If I thought about facing the Dark Queen too much, it was all I could do to breathe. I just didn't care anymore. The fear wasn't worth noticing because it didn't change anything about what I had to do. "It's not my life I'm worried about right now."

"You aren't going to find him here. And the longer you wander directionless around these cursed places, the sooner you will be found and incapable of helping the boy."

"You want me to survive so much, then help me! Take me to him and I swear I'll do everything I can to make it out alive."

"I can take you home in a heartbeat, you know."

I lifted my chin. "And I'll keep finding new ways to get back here if it kills me."

He stared at me, his heartbreakingly beautiful face devoid of any expression. Finally the corners of his perfect lips turned down ever so slightly. "I'll be very upset if you die."

I ignored the small, annoying, creeping warmth in my heart. He wasn't allowed to make me feel that way. "Does that mean you'll help?"

"Give me your hand."

I tucked Tasey into my jeans, pulled out my knife, and slid it through the duct tape, severing Jack's connection to me. Ripping the last of the sticky gray strands away, I laced my fingers through Reth's-then was surprised by Jack taking my other hand, his fingers circling mine.

"You're off the hook, Blondie. Go terrorize someone else." I gave him the best smile I could muster. He'd helped me when no one else would. He was still unbalanced and only helping me under duress, but it was something.

"Well, I don't know. It's bound to be exciting, if nothing else. I think I'll see this one through."

"Really?" He was free-completely and totally. And he was still here. He might have been sincerely sorry, after all.

He flashed an impish grin at me. "Really. Maybe we can light something on fire again."

"We can only hope." I smiled back at him, surprised and happier than I thought I could manage right now. With the two unlikeliest of allies, I was going to save Lend or die trying.

It wasn't a bad way to go, really.

"Off to it, then," Reth said, and the city snake-scape twirled away, replaced by...the most breathtakingly beautiful place I had ever seen in my life.

It was a riot of color, explosions of flowers carpeting every surface. Trees in the most brilliant shades of orange, red, and pink were clustered together, arching overhead and filtering the light so that everything was somehow softer and brighter at the same time, like your eyes were finally working how they were always supposed to. Jewel-toned butterflies the size of my face fluttered lazily on a breeze that smelled like sweet, sleepy contentment. The whole place was warm, and gorgeous, and very, very not scary. I turned to Reth, angry. "Where are we?" Of course he wouldn't have brought me where I asked him. I don't know why I expected anything different.

"Welcome to the Dark Court," Reth said.

Well, bleep. Not quite what I'd imagined.