“Idiot human! Do you think that was the only one? Look around you!”
I did, and my heart nearly stopped. The thorns around us were moving, hundreds upon hundreds of them, unfurling into tiny faeries with pointed, gnashing teeth. The air filled with the sound of buzzing, and thousands of tiny black eyes glimmered through the thorns.
“Oh, this isn’t good,” Puck murmured as the buzz grew louder, more frantic. “I really, really wish I had that Off!”
“Run!” spit Grimalkin, and we ran.
The faeries swarmed around us, the hum of their wings vibrating the air, their high-pitched voices shrieking in my ears. I felt the weight of their tiny bodies on my skin, an instant before the stings, and flailed wildly, trying to dislodge them. Puck snarled something unintelligible, swiping at them with his knives, and Ironhorse blasted flame from his mouth and nostrils, roaring. Charred, dismembered faeries dropped shrieking from the air, but dozens more buzzed in to take their place. Grimalkin, of course, had vanished. We charged blindly down a tunnel of thorns, through swarms of furious killer wasp-fey, with no clue of where we were going.
As I rounded a corner, a body appeared right in front of me. I had no time to react before I crashed into it, and we both went sprawling.
“Ow! What the hell!” someone yelped.
Swatting faeries, I looked into the face of a girl a year or two younger than me. She was tiny and Asian, with hair that looked as if she’d taken a machete to it, wearing a ratty sweater two sizes too big. For a second, my mind went blank with the shock at seeing another human, until I saw the furry ears peeking out of her hair.
We blinked at each other for a second, before the sting from a killer-wasp faerie snapped me out of my daze. Flailing, I scrambled to my feet as the swarm buzzed around the strange girl as well. She yelped and swatted wildly, backing away.
“What is this?” she hissed, as Puck came up behind me and Ironhorse charged in, blowing flame. “Who the hell are you people? Oh, never mind! Run!” She darted past us, looking back once to shout “Hurry up, Nelson!” over her shoulder. I barely had time to wonder who Nelson was when a kid built like a linebacker barreled through us, somehow dodging Puck and Ironhorse, and pounded after the girl. I caught a glimpse of gorillalike shoulders, muddy blond hair, and skin as green as swamp water. He clutched a backpack in his arms like a football and charged down the trail without a backward glance.
“Who were they?” I asked, over the buzzing of the swarm and my own frantic flailing.
“No time,” Puck said, slapping at a faery on his neck. “Ow! Dammit, we have to get out of here! Come on!”
We had started down the path again when a roar shook the air ahead of us, causing the swarm of killer fey to freeze in mid-air. It came again, guttural and savage, as something rattled the wall of thorns, coming toward us with the sound of snapping wood. I sensed hundreds of creatures in the brambles fleeing for their lives.
The faeries scattered. Buzzing in terror, they vanished into the hedge, through cracks and tiny spaces between the thorns. In seconds, the whole swarm had disappeared. I peered through the branches and saw something coming down the trail, ripping through the wall of thorns like it wasn’t there. Something black and scaly, and much, much bigger than the spider. Is that what I think it is?
“Thiiiief!” roared a deep, inhuman voice, before a gout of flame burst through the hedge, setting an entire section on fire, making the air explode with heat. Ironhorse bugled, rearing up in alarm. Puck cursed, grabbed my arm, and yanked me back the way we came.
We fled down the trail after the strange girl and her muscle-necked companion, feeling the heat from the monster’s fire at our backs. “Thieves!” the terrible voice snarled, staying right on our heels. “I can smell you! I can feel your breath and hear your hearts. Give me back what is mine!” “Great,” Puck panted, as Ironhorse cantered beside us, bellowing that he would shield me from the flames. “Just great. I hate spiders. I hate wasps. But, you know what I hate even more than that?”
The thing behind us roared, and another blast of flame seared the branches overhead. I winced as we ran beneath a rain of cinders and flaming twigs. “Dragons?” I gasped.
“Remind me to kill Grimalkin next time we see him.”
The trail narrowed, then shrank down to a tight, thorny tunnel that twisted off into the darkness. Bending down and peering into it, I could just make out a door at the end of the burrow. And, I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the door shut.
“I think I see a door!” I called, looking over my shoulder. Puck nodded impatiently.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Princess! Go!” “What about Ironhorse?”
“He’ll have to squeeze!” Puck pushed me toward the mouth, but I resisted. “Come on, Princess. We don’t want to be in the middle of that if Deathbreath decides to sneeze on us.”
“We can’t leave him behind!”
“WORRY NOT, PRINCESS,” Ironhorse said, and I gaped at him, not believing my eyes. Where a horse had been, now a man stood before me, dark and massive, with a square jaw and fists the size of hams. He wore jeans and a black shirt that bulged with all the muscles underneath, the skin stretched tight over steely tendons. Dreadlocks spilled from his scalp like a mane, and his eyes still burned with that intense red glow. “YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH A FEW TRICKS UP YOUR SLEEVE, GOODFELLOW,” he said, a faint smirk beneath his voice.
“NOW, GO. I WILL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”
With a horrible cracking sound, the dragon’s head rose above the briars on a long, snaking neck, looming to an impossible height. It was bigger than I’d imagined, a long toothy maw covered in black-green scales, ivory horns curling back from its skull to frame the sky. Alien, redgold eyes scanned the ground impassively, gleaming with cunning and intelligence. “I see you, little thieves.”
Puck gave me a shove, and I tumbled into the burrow, scratching my hands and knees and jabbing myself on the thorns. Cursing, I looked up and saw two familiar golden eyes floating before me in the dark.
“Hurry, human,” Grimalkin hissed, and fled down the burrow.
The tunnel seemed to shrink the farther I went, scraping my back and catching my hair and clothes as I followed Grimalkin, bent over like a crab. I heard Puck and Ironhorse behind me, felt the glare of the dragon’s eye at my back, and cursed as my sleeve caught on a thorn. We were going too slow! The red door loomed at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of light and safety, so far away. But as I got closer, I saw Grimalkin standing in front of it, ears flattened against his skull, hissing and baring his teeth.
“Saint-John’s-wort,” he snarled, and I saw a cluster of dried yellow flowers hanging on the door like tiny sunbursts. “The fey cannot enter with that on the door. Take it down, quickly, human!”
“Burn, little thieves!”
Fire exploded down the tunnel, writhing and twisting in a maelstrom of heat and fury, shooting toward us.
I ripped the flowers off the door and dove through, Puck and Ironhorse toppling in after me. Flames shot over my head, singeing my back as I lay gasping on a cold cement floor. Then, the door slammed shut, cutting off the fire, and we were plunged into darkness.
