The thing lunged again, snaking through the trunks, snapping at me. Thankfully, its body was just a bit too wide to maneuver at top speed, and I was able to dodge, cracking it in the skull as I did. Hissing, it pulled back, trying from a different, higher angle. I ducked, stabbing it in the throat, wishing I had a knife or a blade instead of wooden sticks. It gave an angry gurgle and backed out, eyeing me evilly through the trunks.

“Ethan!” Kenzie yelled, as the monster darted close again, “behind you!”

Before I could turn, a heavy coil snaked around my waist, slamming me back into a tree trunk, pinning me there. I struggled, cursing myself for focusing solely on the monster’s head instead of the whole creature. My right arm was pinned to my side; I raised my left as the head snaked through the trees and came at me again. Timing it carefully, I stabbed up with the tip, jamming it into a slitted yellow eye.

Screeching, the monster drew back. With a hiss, it tightened its coils around my chest, cutting off my air. I gasped for breath, punching the end of my rattan into the monster’s body, trying to struggle free. It only squeezed harder, making my ribs creak painfully. My lungs burned, and my vision began to go dark, a tunnel of hazy light that started to shrink. The creature’s head drifted closer; its tongue flicked out to brush my forehead, but I didn’t have the strength to raise my weapon.

And then, Kenzie stepped up and brought her iron key slashing down across the monster’s hurt eye.

Instantly, the coils loosened as the monster reared up, screaming this time. Gasping, I dropped to my knees as it writhed and thrashed, scraping the side of its face against the trunk, snapping branches and smashing into the trees. A flailing coil struck Kenzie, knocking her back several feet. I heard her gasp as she hit the ground, and tried to push myself upright, but the ground was still spinning and I sagged to my knees again.

Cursing, I struggled to get up, to put myself between Kenzie and the snake in case it turned on her. But the iron key to the face seemed to have killed its appetite for humans. With a final wail, the monster slithered off. I watched it vanish into the undergrowth, then sagged in relief.

“Are you all right?” Kenzie dropped beside me, placing a slender hand on my arm. I could feel it shaking. I nodded, still trying to suck air into my burning lungs, feeling as if they’d been crushed with a vise.

“I’m fine,” I rasped, pulling myself to my feet. Kenzie rose, dusting herself off, and I stared at her in growing astonishment. That thing had had me on the ropes, seconds away from being swallowed like a big mouse. If she hadn’t been there, I’d be dead right about now.

“Kenzie, I…” I hesitated, grateful, embarrassed and angry all at once. “Thanks.”

“Oh, no problem,” Kenzie replied with a shaky grin, though her voice trembled. “Always happy to help with any giant snake monster issues that pop up.”

I felt a weird pull somewhere in my stomach, and the sudden crazy urge to draw her close, to make sure we were both still alive. Uncomfortable, I retreated a step. “Sorry about your camera,” I muttered.

“Huh? Oh.” She held up the device, now very broken from the fall, and gave a dramatic sigh. “Well, it wasn’t working anyway. Besides…” She reached out and gently squeezed my arm. “I owed you one.”

My mouth was dry again. “I’ll replace it. Once we get back to the real world—”

“Don’t worry about it, tough guy.” Kenzie waved it off. “It’s just a camera. And I think surviving an attack by a giant snake monster was more important.”

“Lindwurm,” came a voice above our heads, and Grimalkin appeared in the branches, peering down at us. “That,” he stated imperiously, “was a lindwurm, and a rather young one at that. An adult would have given you considerably more trouble.” He flicked his tail and dropped to the ground, wrinkling his nose as he gazed at us. “There might be others around, as well, so I suggest we keep moving.”

I glared at the cat as we maneuvered through the trees again, wincing as my bruised ribs twinged. “You couldn’t have warned us any earlier?”

“I tried,” Grimalkin replied with a sniff. “But you were too busy discussing hostile vegetation and how faeries are completely untrustworthy. I practically had to yell to get your attention.” He glanced over his shoulder with a distinct I-told-you-so expression. “Next time, when I suggest you move silently through a dangerous part of the Nevernever, perhaps you will listen to me.”

“Huh,” Kenzie muttered, walking along beside me. “You know, if all cats are like him, I’m kinda glad they don’t talk.”

“That you know of, human,” Grimalkin returned mysteriously, and continued deeper into the wyldwood.

Chapter Twelve

The Border

“The Iron Realm is not far, now.”

I glanced up from where I sat on a fallen log, hot, sweaty and still sore from the recent battle. Kenzie slumped beside me, leaning against my shoulder, making it hard to concentrate on what the cat was saying. I didn’t mind the contact—she was exhausted and probably just as sore—but I wasn’t used to having anyone this close, touching me, and it was…distracting. I don’t know how long we’d been walking, but it felt like the hours were stretching out just for spite. The wyldwood never changed; it was still as dark, murky and endless as it had been when we started. I didn’t even know if we were walking in circles. Since fighting the lindwurm thing, I’d seen a wood sprite, several more piskies and a single goblin who might’ve given us trouble if he’d been with his pack. The short, warty fey had grinned evilly as it tried to block our path, but I’d drawn my weapons and Kenzie had stepped up beside me, glaring, and the goblin had suddenly decided it had other places to be. A will-o’-the-wisp had trailed us for several miles, trying to capture our attention so it could get us lost, but I’d told Kenzie to ignore the floating ball of light, and it eventually had given up.

I broke the last energy bar in half and handed the bigger part to Kenzie, who sat up and took it with a murmur of thanks. “How far?” I asked Grimalkin, biting into my half. The cat began grooming his tail, ignoring me. I resisted the urge to throw a rock at him.

I glanced at Kenzie. She sat hunched forward, her forearms resting on her knees, chewing methodically. There were circles under her eyes and a streak of mud across her cheek, but she hadn’t complained once through the entire march. In fact, she had been very quiet ever since the fight with the lindwurm.

She saw me looking and managed a tired smile, bumping her shoulder against mine. “So, we’re almost there, huh?” she said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I hope it’s less…woodsy than this place. Do you know much about it?”

“Unfortunately,” I muttered. Machina’s tower, the gremlins, the iron knights, the stark, blasted wasteland. I remembered it all as if it was yesterday. “It’s not as woodsy, but the Iron Realm isn’t pleasant, either. It’s where the Iron fey live.”

“See, that’s where I’m confused,” Kenzie said, shifting to face me. “Everything I researched said faeries are allergic to iron.” She held up the iron key. “That’s why this thing worked so well, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “And they are. At least, the normal faeries are. But the Iron fey are different. The fey—the entire Nevernever, actually—comes from us, from our dreams and imagination, as cheesy as that sounds. The traditional faeries are the ones you read about in the old myths—Shakespeare and the Grimm Brothers, for example. But, during the past hundred years or so, we’ve been…er…dreaming of other things. So, the Iron fey are a little more modern.”

“Modern?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“Huh,” Kenzie said, considering. “And you said the place is ruled by a queen?”

“Yeah,” I said, quickly standing up. “The Iron Queen.”

“Any idea what she’s like?” Kenzie stood, too, unaware of my burning face. “I’ve read about Queen Mab and Titania, of course, but I’ve never heard of the Iron Queen.”

“I dunno,” I lied and walked over to Grimalkin, who was watching with amused golden eyes, the hint of a smile on his whiskered face. I shot a warning glare at the feline, hoping he would remain silent. “Come on, cat. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.”

We started off again, pushing through the trees, following the seemingly tireless cait sith as he glided through the undergrowth. Kenzie walked next to me, her eyes weary and dull, barely looking up from the ground. A tiny faery with a mushroom cap peeked at us from a nearby branch, but she didn’t even glance at it a second time. Either the overwhelming weirdness of the Nevernever had driven her to a kind of numb acceptance or she was too tired to give a crap.

The tangled woods started to thin as the gray twilight was finally fading, giving way to night. Fireflies or faery lights began appearing through the trees, blinking yellow, blue and green.

Grimalkin stopped at the base of a tall black tree and turned to face us. I frowned as he swatted at a blue light, which zipped off into the woods with a buzz.

“Why are we stopping? Shouldn’t we get out of the wyldwood before night falls and the really nasty things start coming out?”

“You do not know where you are, do you?” Grimalkin purred. I gave him an irritated look, and he yawned. “Of course not. This,” he stated, waving his tail languidly, “is the border of the Iron Realm. You are at the very edge of the Iron Queen’s territory.”

“What, right here?” I looked around but couldn’t see anything unusual. Just black woods and a few blinking lights. “How can you tell? There’s nothing here.”

“One moment,” the cat mused, a smug grin in his voice. “It should not be long.”

I sighed. “We don’t really have time for…”