Page 20 of The Iron Sword

I closed my mind to it all, and reached out to the nightmare glamour.

There was a flare of power, along with an immediate spike of rage. I felt my Winter glamour surge up, cold and deadly, bolstered by the infusion of strange magic. There was strength in anger, in fury and hatred, and the Unseelie side reveled in the power coursing through my veins.

I directed that rage at the creatures swirling around us, and released that energy into the cloud.

There was a burst of frigid glamour, and for a moment, everything went completely silent. The sound of their wings stopped, the shrill hisses and shrieking cut out, and everything hung in icy stillness. I looked up to see nearly all of the swarm frozen in midair, wings iced over, tiny bodies rimmed in frost. For a split second, they hung there like crystal ornaments. Then, as one, the entire frozen horde dropped to the ground, shattering like glass against the pavement.

I breathed deep, feeling the rage subside and the ripple of strange glamour fade. The others lowered their arms, watching as the rest of the few remaining piskies scattered, flying over the tops of buildings and out of sight. None of them gave me odd or wary looks, not even Meghan. I had used this particular glamour technique before; it wasn’t anything new. But the power I’d felt when tapping in to my anger was instant and overwhelming. For a moment, I’d felt like the Winter prince again.

“Brr,” Puck complained, rubbing his arms where a coating of frost had spread over his skin. “Not that I mind when you do the whole instant-blizzard thing, ice-boy, but a little warning would be nice. I hate it when my nose hairs freeze.”

Kenzie appeared, walking back across the lot with Razor buzzing irritably on her shoulder. The gremlin kept glancing up, scanning the sky as if he feared piskies would dive-bomb him from above.

“That was fast,” Kenzie remarked, observing the carpet of dead, melting piskies fading to nothing on the ground. “So, now that the bugs are gone, we should be able to see what they were so attracted to.”

“Hopefully the princeling,” Puck said. “And a lot of Forgotten. Unless that’s a honey factory in there.”

Meghan caught my gaze, a shadow of worry crossing her face. But she turned toward the warehouse, hope and fear mingling with concern as she gazed up at it.

“I can feel a barrier surrounding the building,” she murmured. “It’s weak, flickering, but composed of all three magics—Summer, Winter, and Iron.”

All three glamours.“It’s Keirran,” I growled, and strode across the lot with the rest of them at my heels.

As I vaulted up the steps to the heavy steel doors, I could suddenly feel what Meghan was talking about. A shield of glamour encased the whole warehouse like a shell, pulsing with energy that made part of me—the winter side—want to recoil and back away.

“Ouch,” Puck said, shivering as he took a step back. “That’s a pretty impressive barrier. Summer-, Winter-,andIron-repellant, huh? Whoever is on the other side definitely doesn’t want anyone coming through.”

“Hang on,” Ethan said, coming up the steps. “I’m immune. Glamour doesn’t affect me, so it shouldn’t—ow!”

He’d reached for the door handle, but there was a soundless crackle of energy, and Ethan jerked his hand back with a curse. Puck shook his head.

“You’re not immune to iron glamour, kid.” Crossing his arms, he regarded the doors appraisingly. “Looks like our princeling wasn’t taking any chances.”

“How do we break it?” Kenzie wondered, staring up at the warehouse. On her shoulder, the gremlin hissed and muttered incoherently, baring his teeth at the doors. “I was going to send Razor in, but I don’t think even he’ll be able to get through.”

“You do not want to break it.” It was Grimalkin’s voice, and the feline appeared on a nearby stack of wooden crates. “The barrier is directly tied to whomever is keeping it up. Shattering it by force could damage their psyche and even cause them physical harm.”

I glared at the invisible wall before me, stifling the urge to draw my blade and cut through the doors.Dammit, Keirran, I thought. If he was trying to protect his people, he would spare himself no discomfort, and he would pour everything he had into keeping up the barrier.I didn’t want to bring this down by force if it would hurt him. How did we let him know it was us?

The barrier flickered and snapped threateningly, warning me back. Setting my jaw, I raised an arm and pressed my palm to the door.

Instantly, I felt a searing pain through my hand, like I had grasped a live, burning coal. My winter glamour recoiled from the agonizing burn of Summer magic, but I didn’t pull back. Closing my eyes, I tried finding the person on the other end, the one we had come all this way to find.

Keirran, I thought, hoping my thoughts would reach him, that he could sense who was pushing against his barrier.It’s us. You’re safe now. Let us in.

For a few moments, nothing happened, except the burning pain in my hand continued to worsen. Then, I felt the faintest glimmer of emotion coming through the barrier wall so fast I might have imagined it. Surprise, and then utter relief.

The barrier flickered once and vanished, taking the searing pain of Summer magic with it. I put my shoulder to the doors and bashed them open, and we all rushed inside.

A sea of glowing yellow eyes instantly turned to face us, surrounding the room. The space beyond the frame was dark, with corroded beams lining decaying concrete walls. Shards of glass littered the floor, and the tang of rust and iron clogged the back of my throat as we stepped farther inside, glass and debris crunching under our feet. The glowing eyes didn’t move, and in the pitch-dark, it was impossible to tell what was fey and what was shadow.

In the center of the open space, surrounded by Forgotten, a figure knelt in a shaft of moonlight coming through the broken windows. The light gleamed off his silver hair, though the rest of him was shrouded in black, from his cloak to his gloves. He hunched there with his head bowed, his shoulders heaving with deep, ragged breaths, but he looked up as we entered the room. His face was haggard, his skin pale and wan with exhaustion, but his blue eyes shone with relief as our gazes met through the crowds of Forgotten.

“Keirran!”

Meghan strode forward, through the ranks of fey, who quickly parted for her. Ignoring the Forgotten, she dropped to her knees in front of Keirran and pulled him close. He slumped against her, closing his eyes and letting all his defenses drop, if only for a moment.

The ice in my veins thawed, and I let relief sweep through me as I strode forward, joining my family in the center of the room. Keirran was safe; we had gotten to him in time, and he hadn’t turned into that soulless, blank-eyed stranger from my dream. I wouldn’t have to fight my son; the relief of that realization was nearly as great as the joy of finding him.

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