“Is he?” Puck asked.
He leaped into the air and kept going, as though ascending a solid, invisible staircase. He halted inches from Aran’s nose and, hands on his hips, scrutinized Aran.
“Hey,” Aran said, standing his ground. “You’re in my space, little guy.”
“Little I may be, but I am no guy. I am a sprite. And you, mortal, are in our space far more fully at present than we may venture into yours.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Aran thought he knew what Puck was saying, despite his weird, roundabout faerie-speak. “And your goblin pals didn’t seem to have a problem traipsing into my world.”
Thomas winced. “There was more sacrifice involved in opening that portal than you might guess.”
“Aye.” Puck reached one long-fingered hand and grabbed a handful of Aran’s hair, then gave it a quick, painful tug.
“Ow!”
Aran swiped at the creature, but Puck, grinning widely, had already somersaulted back down his invisible staircase.
“I know not why she should risk so much, for your sake,” the sprite said.
“Who? The queen?”
Puck gave an impatient snort, then turned to Thomas. “One of the Feyguard comes. Summoned, no doubt, for this mortal.”
“Aid her as you may.” Thomas shot Aran an unreadable look. “I’ve no doubt she will be successful in her task.”
“I shall assist, be assured of it.” Puck cocked his head. “I do not think I can bring her to the queen’s doorstep undetected. Meet us in the hour before midnight, in the borderlands nearest the realm.”
“What are you guys even talking about?” Aran asked. “And what does it have to do with me?”
“Everything,” Puck said. “And now, I must away.”
He waved his hand and glittering dust swirled around him. When the air cleared, the sprite was gone.
“Where’d he go?” Aran asked, facing Thomas. “And what’s going on?”
Thomas walked past him to the table, where the ever-present teapot was always hot and the plate of cakes never emptied.
“You will know, soon enough,” the bard said. “Tea?”
Aran was tired of conversations that didn’t go anywhere, of secrets and half truths. And he still couldn’t entirely accept that he was hanging out in a magical land with a dead programmer.
“What happened to the other human?” he asked. “The kid who was here.”
“Ah.” Thomas set down the teapot, his cup only half full. “He has returned home.”
Relief rippled through Aran. “So, he’s not dead? Glad to hear the faeries don’t go in for human sacrifice.”
“Oh, they do.” Thomas’s tone was grim.
Aran swallowed, hard. He’d had enough answers for now.
“Right. I’m going to bed.”
“Rest well, BlackWing.”
As if he could. Aran pushed open the curtain to his room, glad for some privacy. He sat on the bed and picked up the plastic dragon figurine from the table, where he’d left it beside his tablet.
He turned the knobby plastic between his fingers, then ran his thumb over the seam along the figurine’s back. It felt good to have that connection to the mortal world. A plastic dragon and his tablet. Sad, really.
Knowing it wouldn’t work, he reached over and pressed the tablet’s power button. Nothing. With a sigh, Aran put the dragon back on the table. It teetered for a moment, then fell over onto the blank screen.
Light flickered across the tablet face, and Aran blinked. He picked the dragon up, and the tablet went dark again. Slowly, he set the plastic figure on the screen and the surface immediately brightened. The tablet powered on—but only when the plastic dragon touched it.
Freaky. But then, this whole place was beyond strange.
Aran pinned the dragon against the screen with his thumb and moved the tablet onto his lap. Could he actually connect back to the real world?
He opened his messager to find a blinking note from Bix.
:That was a lame-ass goodbye. You better send postcards. And message me now and then. Gotta live vicariously through your adventures.:
For a stabbing second, Aran regretted his decision to go with the goblins. He wished he really could send Bix a postcard from some nice, normal tourist destination.
There were no postcard racks in the Dark Court. If, in some freaky alternate universe, there were, he could just imagine what they’d look like. A close-up of the trapped fairies screaming, their tiny hands pressed against the lantern glass. The eerie figure of the horned hunter silhouetted against the unearthly stars. A candid shot of the Dark Queen reclining on her throne, with “wish you were here” emblazoned across the front.