“You are on a quest,” the Wolf went on, finally tearing his gaze away from the cat to look at me. “The queen told me of this. That you, a soulless and immortal being, wish to become human for the mortal you love.” He paused and shook his head in grudging admiration, or perhaps pity. “That is a story. That is a tale that will endure for generations, if you can survive the trials, of course. But even if you don’t, even if this tale becomes a tragedy, my name will still be in it, adding to my strength.” He narrowed his eyes, staring me down. “Of course, it would be a better tale if you manage to reach your destination. I can help you in that respect. It will make the story longer anyway.”
“What makes you think we need, or want, your help?” Grimalkin asked loftily.
The Wolf gave me an eerie smile, all fangs, and his eyes glinted in the shadows. “I will be in this tale one way or another, little prince,” he warned. “Either as the great wolf that protects and guides you to your destination, or as the tireless evil that tracks you through the night, haunting your steps and your dreams. I have been both, and such roles are easy for me to slip into. I leave the choice to you.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, two hunters sizing each other up, checking strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I nodded and carefully sheathed my blade.
“All right,” I said as Puck blinked and Grimalkin snorted in disgust. “I’ll accept your help for now. But I make no promises about our continued alliance.”
“Neither do I, boy.” The Wolf regarded me the way a cat would observe a mouse. “So, now that we have an understanding, what should we do first?”
Overhead, Grimalkin sighed, very loudly. “Unbelievable,” he said, and the Wolf grinned at him and ran a pink tongue over his jaws. Grimalkin was not impressed. “May I remind you,” he continued in that same bored, annoyed tone, “that out of this entire party, only I know the way to the seer. And if a certain dog forgets its manners, you will all be up the river without a paddle, so to speak. Remember that, prince.”
“You heard him,” I told the Wolf, who curled a lip at me. “No chasing or attacking our guide. We still need him to reach the seer.”
“Please.” Grimalkin sniffed, and leaped to another branch. “As if I would ever allow that to happen. This way, and do try to keep up.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE HOLLOW
After leaving the lake and the dead ballybog village, we followed Grimalkin through another tangled forest and across a rocky plateau, the great black Wolf trailing noiselessly behind us. The two animals didn’t speak to each other, but the Wolf kept his distance from the cat, even when traveling across the open plains, so it seemed that they had worked out some sort of truce. A basilisk stirred on a rocky shelf, eyeing us hungrily as we passed beneath, but the Wolf silently curled his lip, baring his fangs, and the monster appeared to lose interest.
After we crossed the plateau, the ground turned sharply downhill and thick, thorny brambles started appearing, choking out the trees. When we reached the bottom of the slope, the briars rose around us like a spiny maze, ragged wisps of fog caught between their branches. The ground was wet and spongy, saturated with water, mud and something else. Something dark had seeped into the earth, turning the ground black and poisoned. The air was still, silent as a grave; nothing moved in the shadows or between the thorns, not even insects.
“This is as far as I go.”
Startled, we both turned to Grimalkin, sitting tightly on a patch of dry ground, watching us. “From here,” he said, regarding each of us in turn, “you are on your own.”
“What?” Puck exclaimed. “You mean you’re not going to venture into the hollow of death with us? Shocking. What kind of monster do you think lives here, ice-boy? It has to be pretty nasty for Furball to flake out on us. Oh, wait …”
Grimalkin flattened his ears but otherwise ignored the Summer faery. The Wolf sniffed the air, growled low in his chest, and the hackles rose along his spine. “This place,” he muttered, curling a lip, “is not right.” He shook himself and took a step forward. “I’ll scout ahead, see if it’s—”
“No,” Grimalkin said, and the Wolf turned on him with a growl. The cait sith faced him seriously, his yellow eyes intense. “You must remain here. The valley will not tolerate intruders. This part of the journey is for them, and them alone.”
The Wolf and the cat locked eyes, staring each other down. Grimalkin did not blink, and something in the cat’s steady gaze must have convinced the much larger wolf. Reluctantly, he nodded and took a step back. “Very well,” he growled. “I will scout along the perimeter, then.” He shot a glare at me and Puck. “If you two need my help, just scream.”
He turned swiftly and trotted away, melting into the shadows and the trees. Grimalkin watched him go and turned to us.
“I have brought you as far as I can,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet, plumed tail waving. “The final few steps are up to you.” His gaze narrowed, watching us grimly. “Both of you.”
A coil of mist curled across the place where Grimalkin sat, and he was gone.
Puck crossed his arms, gazing past the edge of the valley into the darkness and thorns. “Yep.” He sighed. “A really, really nasty monster, indeed.”
I gazed into the hollow, watching the mist writhe through the thorns, creating shadows and dragons where there was nothing. Silence hung thick on the air; not a peaceful, serene silence, but the silence of a tomb, or the aftermath of a battle, where death and darkness thrived and the living had no place. I could hear the whispers of hate and fear that hissed through the brambles, ghosts on the wind. I could hear them call my name.
Something in me recoiled, reluctant to set foot in that dark valley. It was waiting for me, somewhere beyond the mist. Still watching.
Filled with a foreboding I couldn’t explain, I drew back, then stopped, angry with myself. Why this sudden fear? Fear meant nothing to me. Fear was the knowledge of pain, the awareness that you could be hurt, that you could die. That was all it came down to. I knew pain. Intimately. I’d welcomed it at times, because it meant I could still feel, that I wasn’t completely frozen. What more could anything do to my body that I hadn’t already lived through?
Nodding to Puck, I drew my sword and stepped into the hollow, feeling the mist coil around me as we slipped into the fog.
A gray shroud enveloped us instantly, lit by a flat, even glow that somehow managed to darken everything. Nothing moved in the hollow; all life had been swallowed by the thick black briars that sprang up everywhere, choking everything out. The ground beneath us was wet and spongy, though the writhing layer of mist made it impossible to see what we were stepping on.
As I moved through the brambles, my sword held up and ready, I began to sense the wrongness of the valley, right below my feet. The ground pulsed with hate and blood and despair; I could feel it clawing at me, the darkness of this place. I could feel my Unseelie nature rise up in response, cold, ruthless and angry.
“This place is cursed,” Puck muttered as I struggled to control myself, to stifle the darkness rising within. “We need to find this seer and get out of here, soon.”
“Ash,” something whispered through the brambles, raising the hair
