“What do I have to do?”

“Thank goodness.” She pushed away from the table. “Now, we go deeper into Faerie.”

And somehow I’d gotten talked into going to the one place that scared me the most.

Rianna led me through the club, toward the large tree growing right through the floorboards of the bar. Over our heads, a swollen moon glimmered high above the tree limbs. I frowned at it. The full moon had passed almost a week ago on the mortal plane. The full moon here was not a reassuring indication of time.

“How do we get there?” I asked, lagging slightly behind. Desmond had glued himself to Rianna’s side, and there wasn’t room for all three of us to walk abreast between the crowded tables.

“We’ll have to pass through the winter court,” Rianna said without turning around. “Then we’ll take another door to Stasis—that’s the no-man’s-land where the holdings are currently located.”

She stopped as she reached the tree and turned back to me. Motioning me closer, she raised on her tiptoes and whispered, “I wouldn’t mention where we are going. Coleman’s holdings are nothing magnificent, and surely nothing to fight over, but the Winter Queen was miffed to say the least when Faerie didn’t award it to her court. In her opinion, her knight is responsible for Coleman’s death, even if he employed the help of a feykin. She doesn’t take rejection well and she isn’t the most pleasant person when displeased.”

“I take it the winter court wouldn’t be one to align with then?”

Rianna lifted one thin shoulder and let it drop. “I know you have . . . interests . . . in the winter court—which, by the way, I also recommend that you not mention. The queen is infamous for her jealousy. But any court you decided to join would be better than staying in Stasis, cut off from everyone.”

Interests. I almost laughed. That’s one way to say I slept with the queen’s pet assassin and lover. Of course, I hadn’t known he was either at the time. I shook my head. “You know that even if Faerie recognizes me as inheriting, I’m not going to automatically join a court. I don’t know anything about the courts.”

“I know. But at least if the holding is claimed, that will be taken care of.” She gave me a weak smile. “Desmond and I can wait it out as long as we know we’re not going to be tossed and traded around.”

“Am I inheriting the dog as well?”

The dog in question rolled back his lips, showing fangs, and Rianna winced. “Not exactly. I’ll explain later. Are you ready?”

Well, I guess this is it. I nodded and followed her as she walked around the back of the tree. I expected a trapdoor in the ground, or maybe in the tree itself—after all, folklore reported Faerie to be a subterranean land, and I’d heard Caleb say before that he was headed “under hill,” but there was no door—there was just tree and the back side of the bar.

“Rianna, wha—”

“Keep walking.”

I took another two steps around the tree, and the world seemed to slide around me. I wasn’t moving, or at least it didn’t feel like I moved in space, but the warm amber light in the bar smeared into darkness, and a cooler, bluer light filled the air.

I looked around: the bar was gone, the tree was gone, and I stood next to a giant pillar carved from shimmering glass. No, not glass. Ice.

The air had a bite to it, but it wasn’t cold, and surely not frigid enough for the enormous pillar beside me, but though the ice shimmered, the intricately carved fae dancing in spirals up the pillar were sharp, the details too precise for the pillar to be melting. My eyes followed the dancing fae up the column until it disappeared into a glassy ceiling that sparkled like hundreds of small stars were caught in the frozen mass. Music emanated from somewhere, the soft, plucked notes mournful.

“This is Faerie?” I asked. Where are the fae? There was no one here, unless the carved ice sculptures lining the walls were alive. Which was possible.

“This is a hallway. Little more.” Rianna crooked her arm through mine. “We shouldn’t tarry.”

She set a brisk pace, all but dragging me down the long passageway. I expected the smooth ice floor beneath us to be slick, but it was no worse than walking on marble. The only light in the passage was from the stars caught in the ice overhead, but it provided more than enough illumination, even for my bad eyes. I reached out with my ability to sense magic. The very air buzzed with enchantments and magic. It was as if I were drinking the magic of Faerie in with every deep breath. I tightened my shields before the buzz of magic overwhelmed my senses.

We’d made it only a couple of yards when three figures stepped out in front of us. At first I thought the statues really had come to life, but these were fae of flesh and blood. Not that we could see a lot of that flesh. All three wore hooded cloaks as white as freshly fallen snow, and in the gap where the cloaks fell open I could see intricate armor that looked like plated scales carved from blue-tinted ice. Two blocked our path while a third moved to intercept us, a sword naked in his hand.

“You’ve entered the winter court’s territory. Identify yourselves and your purpose,” the guard with the sword said, coming to a stop directly in front of us. This close, I could see thin, shimmering lines of glyphs tattooed across the exposed skin of the guard’s face and hands—at least I thought they were tattoos, though the ink glimmered like hundreds of ice crystals tracing the man’s skin.

Welcome to Faerie.

“I’m the changeling Rianna, currently in Stasis. And this is . . .” She glanced at me, squeezing my hand once before dropping it. “My dear friend. I have permission to use this hall to travel between Stasis and the mortal realm.”

The guard held out his hand, palm up. “Let’s see it, then.”

Rianna dug a thin chain out from under the collar of her dress and tugged it over her head. A blank pendant shaped like an ice crystal hung on the end of the chain, and she dropped it in the guard’s palm.

He whispered a musical-sounding word and the pendant glowed a deep cobalt blue. With a nod, the guard handed the chain and pendant back to Rianna. “Follow me. I’ll escort you to the door.”

Rianna followed silently, so I did the same. Desmond brought up the rear, his nails making the softest clinking sounds on the ice. At first I tried to memorize our route, but as the guard led us down one identical hallway after another I lost track of how many lefts and rights we’d taken. I’ll definitely need a guide to get back out of this place.

Finally the guard stopped. He gave Rianna a nod and then stepped aside, motioning us to a doorway. Except it wasn’t a doorway at all. It was a large archway set into the wall.

I stared at the unbroken ice wall inside the arch. “Um.” “It’s the door,” Rianna said, locking my arm with hers again. “It will take us anywhere we want to go in Faerie, as long as we know where we want to go. Now you have to trust me. And don’t let go.”

She stepped forward, into the wall. Oh, crap. I squeezed my eyes closed and followed.

The world froze around me. I gasped, sucking in solid frozen air, and a sharp ache filled my lungs. Panic stung my mind, flooded my muscles, but I couldn’t move. Then, as suddenly as the world had frozen, it thawed, turning as comfortable as bathwater. I released the frozen gasp I’d taken, and the pain in my chest vanished as warmth spread over my body. Again I didn’t feel like I was moving, but the world slid out of focus, like a child smearing his hand through a painting that was not yet dry. Then it solidified again, and I was standing in a cavern that held a castle. Not just a big house, but an honest-to-goodness, large-stonefacade-with-turrets-and-towers castle. There was even a moat—though why anyone would build such a thing in the belly of a cave was beyond me. As I stood there staring, the drawbridge lowered and a portcullis made of twisting vines lifted to clear our path.

Rianna beamed at me. “Welcome home, Al!”

Chapter 9

“Home?” I stared at the large stone wall. At the moat of crystal clear water. At the jutting spiral towers. “This isn’t a home. This is a castle!” Like a castle straight out of the Middle Ages. Or a fairy tale. Welcome to Faerie, Alex.

“Do you want to go inside?” Rianna all but bounced on her toes as she asked. “It opened for you. It’s yours.”

“And it’s about time,” a rough female voice said behind me.

I turned, but didn’t see anything. My confusion must have shown on my face, because Rianna pointed toward the ground. I obediently looked down.

A woman who stood no higher than my knee stared up at me. She was nearly as wide as she was tall, so she looked like a waddling basketball wrapped in burlap as she gave me a quick once-over, and then, with a nod, marched past me.

“Well, get a move on,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m sure there’s a layer of dust on everything by this point.”

I gaped at the small woman and then looked to Rianna for explanation.

“Wait, Ms. B,” Rianna called after the woman. “This is Alex.”

The small woman paused. “Well, of course she is.” Ms. B curled her lips in what might have been a sneer or a smile—I wasn’t sure which. “Now, I’ve work to do.” She hopped onto the castle’s drawbridge, the hair that exploded around her head like overgrown spider-grass trailing behind her as she walked away without a backward glance.

“Uh, Rianna . . . ?” I looked at my longtime friend.

“Ms. B is a brownie. Think of her as a housekeeper, cook, and general organizer of all things inside the castle.”

“I can’t afford a housekeeper!” And I certainly couldn’t afford to keep a castle. I was barely able to stay on top of paying rent on an efficiency.

“Don’t be silly. You don’t pay brownies. Faerie may say you own this property, but trust me, this is Ms. B’s castle. She went absolutely crazy when she couldn’t get inside—tried to take the wall apart stone by stone. Not that Faerie let her. She was here before Coleman claimed the castle, and she’ll still be here when the castle changes hands again.” She didn’t elaborate on how I might lose the castle, but hurried on. “My suggestion is to make friends with her. She never liked Coleman. On the few occasions he stayed in the castle every meal came out burned, the ceilings leaked, moths attacked every scrap of material, and sand wound up on the bedsheets. He’d leave and everything would return to gleaming order. Brownies are good at holding a grudge.”