“I don’t know,” I whispered back. Anger, guilt and despair burned my insides, making me feel sick. Keirran wouldn’t listen to us; we hadn’t been able to reach him. Not even Annwyl had been able to get through, and she had been our final hope. What chance did we have of convincing the prince to destroy the amulet? We couldn’t even keep him from trying to kill us all.
“Master,” Razor whimpered on Kenzie’s shoulder. “Master bad. Master bad.”
“Ethan Chase,” the Thin Man said, appearing beside us and making Razor hiss. His pale eyes were sympathetic but stern. “I think you know what you have to do now. The next time you see the Iron Prince, you must kill him.
“We tried, my boy,” he continued gently, as I stiffened in protest. “The Summer girl tried...and failed. The Iron Prince will not hear us. He will not destroy the amulet of his own free will. And the stakes are too high to allow this to continue. You heard what the prince said. About the Lady. About the Veil.” He looked at what was left of the bramble wall, his face grim. “She intends to destroy it for good. And she will use the Iron Prince to accomplish her goal. As long as he lives, the courts will not be able to stop her. Not when they are so busy fighting among themselves. This attack will not be the last. The Forgotten can strike anywhere, at any time. And each time they do, each time the First Queen sends them through the Veil, she destabilizes it a little more. That has been her plan all along, I believe. Using the Iron Prince and the war to weaken the barrier, until she shatters it completely.” The Thin Man turned back to me, his voice hard. “Once the queen rallies her forces, the prince will lead them through again. We must stop him before that happens. We must go into the Between and kill him ourselves.”
“No,” Annwyl whispered. She had drifted close and was staring at us with glazed green eyes, her face slack with horror. “Ethan Chase, please,” she said, looking at me. “I can reach him. Let me try again.”
“There is no time to try again!” the Thin Man snapped. “The Iron Prince must be stopped. Look at the damage he has caused, the lives he took, in a single night! He is using the full extent of his power, and we cannot hold back any longer. Your feelings for him will doom us all.”
“Annwyl,” Kenzie said, still pressed close to me. “I don’t want to accept it, either, but...maybe he’s right. Keirran might be gone. I mean, if Ethan wasn’t immune to glamour now, he would’ve killed him. Again. How many chances can we afford to give him?”
“Please,” Annwyl whispered, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at me. “I’m begging you. One more time, Ethan Chase. He is your family, your blood. One last chance.”
I gazed across the field without answering. The knights, now joined by several fey of both Summer and Winter, had finally hacked their way through the bramble wall. As expected, Keirran was nowhere to be found. He’d probably slipped back into the Between as soon as he’d thrown up the distraction and was on his way to the Lady right now. Because we couldn’t stop him.
“You!”
I jumped as Titania’s furious voice rang over the field, but for once, it wasn’t directed at me. The Summer Queen strode across the field, her blazing glare fixed on Mab, who awaited her with ice spreading out from her feet.
“Curse you!” Titania spat, as the air around the two queens swirled into a dangerous cyclone. “Curse your interference, Mab! I had the Iron Prince where I wanted him. I could have stopped him tonight, had you not interfered!”
“That is my grandson,” Mab hissed in return. “The only kin of my last remaining child. I will not have him killed by the likes of you.”
“I warn you, Mab.” Titania drew herself up, eyes flashing. “You are moments from being at war with the Summer Court, as well.”
Mab sneered. “Is that a threat, Summer Queen? Do you think I am afraid of you and your pathetic court?” Her lips curled in a savage, dangerous smile. “Any time you wish to experience the wrath of Winter, we are happy to oblige.”
“Someone needs to stop this,” Kenzie whispered in a warning voice. I couldn’t agree more, but I didn’t want to be the one to step between two pissed-off Faery queens. Titania swelled with fury, wind and lightning screaming around her, and Mab straightened, too, icicles spearing out of the ground to claw the air. They each raised their arms, and the ground started to shake. I whispered a curse, then shoved away from Kenzie.
“Stop it!”
Both queens turned, pinning me with blazing, scary eyes. I strode forward, trying to put distance between myself and Kenzie in case a lightning bolt or ice storm suddenly came my way. “This isn’t the time to fight each other,” I said, glaring at the queens with more bravado than I felt. “If you declare war on the other court, you’ll just be helping the First Queen. You’ll be playing right into her hand, and she’ll be laughing at you all as she takes over the Nevernever and destroys the Veil. Is that what you want?”
“You dare, mortal?” Mab asked softly, and several sharp icicle points turned in my direction. “You dare speak to a queen of Faery like that?”
“Someone has to,” I heard myself saying, and gestured to the torn landscape, suddenly furious myself. “Look around us. If you haven’t noticed by now, Faery is being torn apart, the Veil is being shredded, and the First Queen is still out there while you two are having a pissing contest. I might just be mortal, but my world is being threatened, too. If the Veil goes down, it’ll be hell on earth for everyone, not just the Nevernever. So I’d kinda like to stop that before Keirran and the First Queen unleash the faery apocalypse. And the two of you aren’t helping by being at each other’s throats all the time!”