that word. Uh, I call that one Ugly Dog Without a Tail. And that one’s the Dirty Spoon.”
He kept them moving, chatting about the stupid stars, distracted from the big mess they were in. They were weak and kept stumbling, so if they could laugh at Rags’s babble, it was better than nothing.
Plus, they had to keep walking.
Rags was pretty sure his feet were bleeding, but there were cool hands clutching his, a swarm of fae kiddies looking to him to get them through.
They stayed on their feet, pushing onward and away from the castle, straight through another dawn. Rags couldn’t tell one kind of tree from the next, but he suspected they were in what he thought of as the Badwoods, although its official name was the Forest of Never-Leaving.
Since people only ever went in, didn’t ever come out.
Good thing they were traveling with fae and the fragments. The trees didn’t attack or try to eat them or whatever it was they usually did. In fact, Rags could’ve sworn that the trees were bowing aside, leading them toward something.
Somewhere?
The problem with morning was there were no more stars to jabber about, so Rags worked on showing the kids some tricks, like making a coin appear behind their ears or out of their nostrils, then disappearing it again in midair with sleight of hand. He gritted his teeth and forced his brittle fingers through the motions.
Only breathed when he didn’t drop the coin in the grass.
“Are you a Lying One?” Smartass asked dubiously.
“I lie,” Rags admitted. “But not the way you mean it.” He made the coin appear again. Happy’s smile could have lit up the whole forest. Rags hid his answering grin by hiding the coin in his sleeve, then pretending to cough it up.
So it went.
Rags assumed they’d walk until they dropped. When they stopped, he swayed on his feet. He’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be still.
The scraping of stone. Rags peered over some shoulders, one of which was covered with bruising lashes, all of them dirty and torn-up and bloody, to see the fragments pushing a boulder between two great oaks. The silver cat was still re-forming after it’d been struck by lightning and slightly melted, the owl had clumps of feathers and chunks of beak missing, and the dog was really into sniffing trees, but the lizard had them working together smoothly to push this huge rock from one spot to another.
Rags saw why.
It had covered a hole, dark inside until Tal stepped forward and those same swirly patterns from the fae ruins began to glow around the edges.
“The Queen’s people know about the tunnels,” Einan, or Scrappy Redhead, as Rags thought of her, warned them. “Who’s to say they don’t know about these?”
“This will take us to the True Palace, the Heart of the Bone Court.” The way Tal said it, Rags knew it was an official name. “Once we are there, we can defend it from any intruder. Even those who know the way.”
There was no arguing with someone who sounded that sure. Tal could be hilarious when he was protecting Rags from the threat of a spoon, but in moments like this, it was most obvious that he came from someplace other.
A fae prince with a fae palace. Rags should’ve known from the beginning where he’d wind up in the mix. He wasn’t palace people.
“Here.” Rags loosed Happy’s hand, fished in his pocket for the old, raw silver lump. It sat cupped in his palm, stretched the length to the tips of his fingers. “Your queen put this in the stars, so I guess it’s kinda like a star? Go on. Take it. It’s yours.”
Happy took one look at the thing, then peered around to glance at Smartass. After a second’s wordless interaction, which was eerie at best, she shook her head.
“It is not for us to bear,” Happy said gravely. “But if you like, we will keep it with us for a time.”
“Until we reach our destination,” Smartass confirmed.
Rags slipped the lump into their tiny, golden hands. Too tired to think any more about who was doing who a favor. So he missed what he should’ve caught: a faint glow, pulsing from within, a slender seam of sunlight around the lump’s middle.
Then, with exquisite precision, it split open. Rags sprang back to cup his hands around the spilling light. Beacon, his senses screamed.
They couldn’t let anyone find them.
Nothing happened. Rags peered between his fingers, aware of Happy and Smartass