Page 63 of The Iron Vow

“Okay, we’re here.” Puck crossed his arms and looked at our Nyx. “So, where’s this secret, hidden path into the castle that surely avoids all the Nightmares and super nasty beasties that are prowling through the forest?”

“I didn’t say it was a path,” Nyx replied. “I just said the Order could always find their way.”

“Don’t worry, Neverfey,” Varyn chimed in, a faint smirk on his face. “The Order will keep you safe from the scary Nightmares.”

“Me? Worried?” Puck scoffed. “That’s laughable. You have Robin Goodfellow with you, not to mention the Iron Queen and the son of Mab. I know you guys have no idea who they are, but really,weshould be saying something like that toyou.”

Gilleas walked forward, gazing around at the looming trees and fog. “I remember this,” the Evenfaery murmured. “The last time I went looking for the king. I remember this forest. We are on the outer edges now, but farther in, there will be many Nightmares. I suggest we proceed with caution. And perhaps...” His deer skull turned in Puck’s direction. “A bit of discretion.”

“You are wasting your breath, I am afraid.” Grimalkin sauntered past with his tail in the air. “Asking Goodfellow to be silent is like telling a dragon not to hoard gold, or a fish not to swim. It is simply not in his nature.”

“Yeah, like a cat not disappearing whenever something scary pops in,” Puck added.

Grimalkin didn’t even turn around. “Do not be ridiculous, Goodfellow. That is simply common sense.”

We ventured into the forest, which grew more tangled and eerie the farther we traveled. Tendrils of mist hung in the branches, reaching out to us like they were alive. Our footfalls made little eddies that swirled through the thick carpet at our feet before writhing away on the air. Sound was muffled, and sight was nearly nonexistent. The shapes in the fog played tricks with my mind; it was hard to tell if what I was seeing was the base of a trunk or the legs of some monstrous creature standing in the trees.

“Huh. You know, this place isn’t so bad,” Puck commented, after we had been walking for several minutes without running into anything that wanted to kill us. Thankfully, he kept his voice relatively low. “Misty, quiet, creepy. A lot of places in the Nevernever are like this. Oh hey, remember the forest where that coven of witches lived, ice-boy?”

Grimalkin sighed from where he appeared atop a fallen branch. “And my point stands. However, now that we are in the forest proper, I believe I know the way to the castle.”

“Oh, of course you do, cat. And you were going to tell us...when?”

“Wandering about aimlessly was never the answer, Goodfellow,” Grimalkin said, as if it was obvious. “Nor does the castle move around, as is the common thought. No, when you leave the forest, you leave your memories of how to reach the castle behind in the mist. That is why no one can remember how to get there once they depart the valley. The mist takes those memories and the forest holds them here, until the time when you return.”

“Oh,” Puck commented. “Well, that’s pretty devious. Effective, I suppose. So, how do we reach the castle? Because, unlike some of you, I have no memories of this place.”

Gilleas folded long fingers beneath his chin, thinking. “When I first came through,” he mused, “I didn’t use the front gates. They were guarded by Nightmares that would tear me apart as soon as they spotted me. But I remembered there were other ways into the castle.”

“The passage,” Other Nyx said suddenly. “I remember...a passageway underground. It led past the gates into the courtyard. The Order would use it when we wanted to get in and out of the castle unseen.”

“In the ruins by the great tree,” Nyx added. “But...wasn’t that passage guarded by something?”

“It was,” Varyn said. “But the Forest Sentry never bothered the Order. It knew us. And it’s a better plan than trying to fight our way through the Nightmares at the gates.”

“I think I might’ve hit my head or something,” Puck said, “because I like that plan. That plan makes a lot of sense to me.”

I looked at Gilleas and the three Evenfey. “Do you remember where this secret passage is?”

“I believe I do,” our Nyx replied.

We continued through the forest. Gradually, the mist began to disperse, though it never went away completely. Stone ruins began appearing in the fog; towers that had fallen, crumbled stone archways, and half-erect walls soon littered the landscape. Trees had grown over many of the structures, moss and roots crawling over the stones, branches pushing out through roofs and windows. But even more eerie than the ruins and the fog were the dozens of children’s toys lying scattered through the dirt. Dolls, wooden swords, jump ropes, toy trains, balls, and numerous stuffed creatures lay abandoned and forgotten by their owners.

“I remember these ruins,” our Nyx said. Even her soft voice echoed in the absolute stillness of the forest. “Fey lived here, once, even before my time.” She bent and picked up a cloth figure with yarn for hair and button eyes.

Puck let a yelp. “Nyx, what are you doing? Everyone knows you don’t touch the creepy little dolls in the haunted forest. That’s just begging them to come to life and start popping up everywhere.”

“It’s fine, Puck.” Nyx gently placed the toy against a broken wall. “As long as you respect the forest, you’ll be safe from the guardians within its boundaries. Or, that was the case when I lived at the castle. I’m not sure how much has changed.”

“Right, so that means we shouldn’t touch creepy dolls in a nightmare forest, just to be safe.”

Ducking beneath an archway, we came to a small grove that the fog didn’t seem to penetrate. An enormous tree stood in the center, twisted as if in agony, its trunk and branches bone white and barren of leaves. The ground beneath it was thick and mossy, a verdant carpet that stretched across the ground, covering ruins and tree trunks and several huge boulders scattered throughout the grove. Fat white toadstools grew everywhere, and the bones of several animals lay in bleached, broken piles in the moss.

Beneath the tree, being actively strangled in vines and the twisted, snakelike roots rising from the ground, an archway with a flight of stone steps led down into the unknown.

“Well, there’s the entrance to the passageway,” Gilleas said, gazing warily around the grove. “And it doesn’t seem to be guarded.”

Puck gave a mock gasp. “You mean we might actually get to do something easy?” he asked in fake disbelief. “Something that’s not going to cause us intense bodily harm? Wow, this is a first. We might actually get to the castle without having to fight our way—ow!”

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