The Iron King

“I know,” I said.



Grimalkin gave me a long, uncomfortable stare. “Also, remember, human—you have been to the Nevernever. The glamour over your eyes is gone. Though other mortals will not see anything strange about you, you will see things a little…differently. So, try not to overreact.”



“Differently? Like how?”



Grimalkin smiled. “You will see.”



WE EMERGED FROM THE DRAINAGE pipe to the sounds of car engines and street traffic, a shock after being in the wilderness for so long. We were in a downtown area, with buildings looming over us on either side. A sidewalk extended over the drainage pipe; beyond that, rush-hour traffic clogged the roads, and people shuffled down the walkway, absorbed in their own small worlds. No one seemed to notice a cat and a scruffy, slightly bloodied teenager crawl out of a drainage ditch.



“Okay.” Despite my worry, I was thrilled to be back in my own familiar world, and astounded by the huge glass-and-metal buildings towering above me. The air here was cold, uncomfortably so, and dirty slush clogged the sidewalks and drains. Craning my neck, I gazed up at the looming skyscrapers, feeling slightly dizzy as they seemed to sway against the sky. There was nothing like this in my tiny Louisiana town. “Where are we?”



“Detroit.” Grimalkin half closed his eyes, peering around the town and the people rushing by us. “One moment. It has been a while since I have been here. Let me think.”



“Detroit, Michigan?”



“Hush.”



As he was thinking, a large figure in a tattered red hoodie lurched out of the crowd and came toward us, clutching a bottle in a sack. He looked like a homeless person, though I’d never actually seen one. I wasn’t too worried; we were on a well-traveled street, with a lot of witnesses to hear me scream should he try anything. He would probably ask me for change or a cigarette, and keep going.



However, as he got close, he raised his head, and I saw a wrinkled, bearded face with fangs jutting crookedly from its jaw. In the shadows of the hood, his eyes were yellow and slitted like a cat’s. I jumped as the stranger leered and stepped closer. His stench nearly knocked me down; he smelled of roadkill and bad eggs and fish rotting in the sun. I gagged and nearly lost my breakfast.



“Pretty girl,” the stranger growled, reaching out with a claw. “You came from there, didn’t you? Send me back, now. Send me back!”



I backed away, but Grimalkin leaped between us, fluffed out to twice his size. His yowling screech jerked the man to a halt, and the bum’s eyes widened in terror. With a gurgling cry, he turned and ran, knocking people aside as he fled. People cursed and looked around, glaring at one another, but none seemed to notice the fleeing bum.



“What was that?” I asked Grimalkin.



“A norrgen.” The cat sighed. “Disgusting things. Terrified of cats, if you can believe it. He was probably banished from the Nevernever at some point. That would explain his words to you, wanting you to send him back.”



I looked for the norrgen, but it had vanished into the crowd. “Are all the fey walking around the human world outcasts?” I wondered.



“Of course not.” Grimalkin’s look was scornful, and no one does scornful better than a cat. “Many choose to be here, going back and forth between this world and the Nevernever at will, so long as they can find a trod. Some, like brownies or bogarts, haunt a house forever. Others blend in to human society, posing as mortals, feeding off dreams, emotions, and talent. Some have even been known to marry a particularly exceptional mortal, though their children are shunned by faery society, and the fey parent usually leaves if things get too tough.



“Of course, there are those who have been banished to the mortal world. They make their way as best they can, but spending too much time in the human world does strange things to them. Perhaps it is the amount of iron and technology that is so fatal to their existence. They start to lose themselves, a little at a time, until they are only shadows of their former selves, empty husks covered in glamour to make them look real. Eventually, they simply cease to exist.”



I looked at Grimalkin in alarm. “Could that happen to you? To me?” I thought of my iPod, remembering the way Tansy leaped away from it in terror. I suddenly recalled the way Robbie was mysteriously absent from all of his computer classes. I’d simply thought he hated typing. I had no idea it was deadly to him.



Grimalkin seemed unconcerned. “If I stay here long enough, perhaps. Maybe in two or three decades, though I certainly do not plan to stay that long. As for you, you are half-human. Your mortal blood protects you from iron and the banal effects of your science and technology. I would not worry too much if I were you.”



“What’s wrong with science and technology?”



Grimalkin actually rolled his eyes. “If I thought this would turn into a history lesson, I would have picked a better classroom than a city street.” His tail lashed, and he sat down. “You will never find a faery at a science fair. Why? Because science is all about proving theories and understanding the universe. Science folds everything into neat, logical, well-explained packages. The fey are magical, capricious, illogical, and unexplainable. Science cannot prove the existence of faeries, so naturally, we do not exist. That type of nonbelief is fatal to faeries.”



“What about Robbie…er…Puck?” I asked, not knowing why he suddenly popped into my head. “How did he stay so close to me, going to school and everything, with all the iron around?”



Grimalkin yawned. “Robin Goodfellow is a very old faerie,” he said, and I squirmed to think of him like that. “Not only that, he has ballads, poems, and stories written about him, so he is very near immortal, as long as humans remember them. Not to say he is immune to iron and technology—far from it. Puck is strong, but even he cannot resist the effects.”



“It would kill him?”



“Slowly, over time.” Grimalkin stared at me with solemn eyes. “The Nevernever is dying, human. It grows smaller and smaller every decade. Too much progress, too much technology. Mortals are losing their faith in anything but science. Even the children of man are consumed by progress. They sneer at the old stories and are drawn to the newest gadgets, computers, or video games. They no longer believe in monsters or magic. As cities grow and technology takes over the world, belief and imagination fade away, and so do we.”



“What can we do to stop it?” I whispered.



“Nothing.” Grimalkin raised a hind leg and scratched an ear. “Maybe the Nevernever will hold out till the end of the world. Maybe it will disappear in a few centuries. Everything dies eventually, human. Now, if you are quite done with the questions, we should keep moving.”



“But if the Nevernever dies, won’t you disappear, as well?”



“I am a cat,” Grimalkin replied, as if that explained anything.



I FOLLOWED GRIMALKIN DOWN the sidewalk as the sun set over the horizon and the streetlamps flickered to life.



I caught glimpses of fey everywhere, walking past us, hanging out in dark alleys, stealing over the rooftops or skipping along the power lines. I wondered how I could’ve been so blind before. And I remembered a conversation with Robbie, in my living room so long ago, a lifetime ago. Once you start seeing things, you won’t be able to stop. You know what they say—ignorance is bliss, right?



If only I’d listened to him then.



Grimalkin led me down several more streets and suddenly stopped. Across the street a two-story dance club, lit with pink-and-blue neon lights, radiated in the darkness. The sign proclaimed it Blue Chaos. Young men and women lined up outside the club, the lights sparkling off earrings, metal studs, and bleached hair. Music pounded the walls outside.



“Here we are,” Grimalkin said, sounding pleased with himself. “The energy around a trod never changes, though when I was here last this place was different.”



“The trod thingy is the dance club?”



“Inside the dance club,” Grimalkin said with a great show of patience.



“I’ll never get in there,” I told the feline, looking at the club. “The line is, like, a mile long, and I don’t think this is a minor-friendly place. I won’t make it past the front door.”



“I would think your Puck taught you better than this.” Grimalkin sighed and slipped into a nearby alley. Confused, I followed, wondering if we were going in another way.



But Grimalkin leaped atop an overflowing Dumpster and faced me, his eyes floating yellow orbs in the dark. “Now,” he began, lashing his tail, “listen closely, human. You are half fey. More important, you are Oberon’s daughter, and it is high time you learned to access some of that power everyone is so worried about.”



“I don’t have any—”



“Of course you do.” Grimalkin’s eyes narrowed. “You stink of power, which is why fey react to you so strongly. You just do not know how to use it. Well, I shall teach you, because it will be easier than having to sneak you into the club myself. Are you ready?”



“I don’t know.”



“Good enough. First—” and Grimalkin’s eyes disappeared “—close your eyes.”



Feeling not a little apprehensive, I did so.



“Now, reach out and feel the glamour around you. We are very close to the dance club, so glamour is in ready supply from the emotions inside. Glamour is what fuels our power. It is how we change shape, sing someone to their death, and appear invisible to mortal eyes. Can you feel it?”



“I don’t—”



“Stop talking and just feel.”



I tried, though I didn’t know what I was supposed to experience, sensing nothing but my own discomfort and fear.



And then, like an explosion of light on the inside of my eyes, I felt it.



It was like color given emotion: orange passion, vermillion lust, crimson anger, blue sorrow, a swirling, hypnotic play of sensations in my mind. I gasped, and heard Grimalkin’s approving purr.



“Yes, that is glamour. The dreams and emotions of mortals. Now open your eyes. We are going to start with the simplest of faery glamour, the power to fade from human sight, to become invisible.”



Still groggy from the torrent of swirling emotions, I nodded. “All right, becoming invisible. Sounds easy.”



Grimalkin glared at me. “Your disbelief will cripple you if you think like that, human. Do not believe this impossible, or it will be.”



“All right, all right, I’m sorry.” I held up my hands. “So, how will I do this?”



“Picture the glamour in your mind.” The cat half slitted its eyes again. “Imagine it is a cloak that covers you completely. You can shape the glamour to resemble anything you wish, including an empty space in the air, a spot where no one is standing. As you drape the glamour over yourself, you must believe that no one can see you. Just, so.”



The eyes vanished, along with the rest of the cat. Even knowing Grimalkin was capable of it, it was still eerie seeing him fade from sight right before my eyes.



“Now.” The eyes opened again, and the cat’s body followed. “Your turn. When you believe you are invisible, we will go.”



“What? Don’t I get a practice run or something?”



“All it takes is belief, human. If you do not believe you are invisible on the first try, it only gets more difficult. Let us go. And remember, no doubts.”



“Right. No doubts.” I took a breath and closed my eyes, willing the glamour to come. I pictured myself fading from sight, swirling a cloak of light and air around my shoulders and pulling up the hood. No one can see me, I thought, trying not to feel foolish. I’m invisible now.



I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands.



They were still there.



Grimalkin shook his head as I looked up in disappointment. “I will never understand humans,” he muttered. “With everything you have seen, magic, fey, monsters, and miracles, you still could not believe you could become invisible.” He sighed heavily, leaping off the Dumpster. “Very well. I suppose I will have to get us in.”



CHAPTER FOURTEEN



Blue Chaos



We stood in line for nearly an hour.



“All this could have been avoided if you just did what I told you,” Grimalkin hissed for about the hundredth time. His claws dug into my arm, and I resisted the urge to drop-kick him over the fence like a football.



“Give me a break, Grim. I tried, okay? Just drop it already.” I ignored the odd stares I was getting from the people around me, listening to the crazy girl muttering to herself. I didn’t know what they saw when they looked at Grim, but it certainly wasn’t a live, talking cat. And a heavy one at that.



“A simple invisibility spell. There is nothing easier. Kittens can do it before they walk.”



I would’ve said something, but we were approaching the bouncer, who guarded the front doors to Blue Chaos. Dark, muscular, and massive, he checked the ID of the couple in front of us before waving them through. Grim pricked my arm with his claws, and I stepped up.



Cold black eyes raked me up and down. “I don’t think so, honey,” the bouncer said, flexing a muscle in his arm. “Why don’t you turn around and leave? You have school tomorrow.”



My mouth was dry, but Grim spoke up, his voice low and soothing. “You are not looking at me right,” he purred, though the bouncer didn’t glance at him at all. “I am actually much older than I look.”



“Yeah?” He didn’t seem convinced, but at least he wasn’t throwing me out by the scruff of my neck. “Let’s see some ID, then.”



“Of course.” Grim poked me, and I shifted his weight to one hand so I could hand my Blockbuster card to the bouncer. He snatched it, peering at it suspiciously, while my stomach roiled and cold sweat dripped down my neck. But Grimalkin continued to purr in my arms, completely undisturbed, and the bouncer handed the card back with a grudging look.