To Bear an Iron Key (14 page)

Rusty wailed, “But my parents!”

“Then look for them!” She whirled to face him, her hands out, placating. “But I cannot leave the young ones alone with the fey! You know what they will do to them!”

He glanced from the street to the bakery’s smashed door, back to the children in the Village Circle. With a miserable look, he nodded at Bromwyn, and the two of them dashed up to where the children were gathered.

As they approached, Bromwyn heard, over the sounds of the screaming grownups and nervous animals and the chortling fey wreaking havoc, the not-Brends and not-Jalsas offering the children all sorts of wonders, should they just follow them through the World Door. Some of the youngsters were barely more than toddlers, and they held the hands of their older siblings or clutched onto their rag dolls, blinking away sleep as they tried to understand what was happening. Others were nearly as old as Bromwyn and Rusty, and though they had suspicious looks on their faces, many of them also had a hopeful sheen to their eyes.

Bromwyn looked about the Circle, hoping for some help. But it was painfully clear that she and Rusty were on their own. Insanity had gripped the village, and the adults, caught in their own terror and dismay, were ignoring the children. Or perhaps the fey had used their magic to make the children invisible to their parents, and the parents invisible to their children.

That had to be it, Bromwyn decided: No parent would willingly allow a child, any child, to go off with the fey. And most children wouldn’t ignore watching their own parents suffer from magical stings and welts—at the very least, they would probably giggle.

“Yes,” a Jalsa was saying to a group of younger children, lined up as neatly as Master Tiller’s fields of spelt, “you may have sugar cookies to break your fast. Sugar cookies for lunch as well!”

“And even for dinner,” said another Jalsa. “Sugar cookies forever and always!”

“But only in our land,” said a third. “Only if you walk with us through the magic Door for no other reason than that you wish to join us in our land.”

“Which, of course, you want to do,” said a Brend with a wide grin.

“Of course,” chorused all of the Jalsas.

“What’re they doing?” Rusty whispered to Bromwyn.

She replied, “Cheating.”

The fey weren’t breaking the rule, because they weren’t stealing the children. But they were very happy to lie and trick the children into going with them through the World Door. Or maybe there really would be sugar cookies for all meals. Anything could be possible in the land of the fey. How terribly unfair—Bromwyn had to compete against pastries.

The thought made her furious. Well and good; for what she planned on doing, she needed to be at her imposing best. She stepped forward.

“What about sticky buns?” asked a small girl, raising her hand politely.

“Whenever you wish!” declared all the Jalsas together, and a cheer went up among the children.

Bromwyn narrowed her eyes. “Children of Loren,” she bellowed, mimicking her grandmother’s and mother’s disapproving tones to icy perfection. “What, pray tell, do you think you are doing?”

The children let out startled gasps. Hasty whispers of “Bromwyn Darkeyes!” and “Lady Witch!” buzzed among them, and Bromwyn, smiling grimly, did her best to look her worst.

The fey stared at her and smirked at her. Some openly mocked her.

Bromwyn noted that while the fey were all copies of Brend and Jalsa, none of them were exact copies; something about them was off, just a little bit: a mite too tall or too short, skin too clear or too ruddy, hair too curly or not long enough. It was just enough to show they were actors dressed for their roles, yet still quite overwhelming.

Or they would have been overwhelming, had Bromwyn not been as tired, and as furious, as she was. She pulled herself up straighter and lifted her chin.

One older boy shouted, “We’re off to fairyland. And you can’t stop us!”

A few of the other children weakly agreed. All of them stared at her, as if waiting to see what she would do.

The fey leered, and some began to insult her.

Bromwyn ignored the false Jalsas and Brends completely, acting as if they were beneath her notice. They couldn’t harm her or Rusty directly; according to the village’s law, they themselves were still children until their seventeenth birthdays, and so they could not be stolen or marked. The Allenswood attack had probably been meant to scare and delay them; it would have been simple for the enchanted wood to have trapped them and dragged them into the earth, where they would have suffocated. The very thought temporarily banished Bromwyn’s exhaustion.

She arched an eyebrow and glared at the boy who’d shouted at her. “And what makes you think I would care to stop you, Jordan Rivers? If you want to throw away your life, all on the promise of sugar cookies, go right ahead.”

“And sticky buns,” a girl added, but someone shushed her.

“Go on,” Bromwyn said. “Show the fey that you are as easily led as sheep to the slaughter.”

Jordan looked like he was going to be sick.

“They’re not going to kill us,” one of the older girls shouted. “They’re going to feed us, and play with us!”

“Yes, yes,” Bromwyn said dismissively. “I know what they said. I have heard their promises before.” She stared hard at the girl. “They will feed you, until they forget you are human and need to eat more than once a fortnight. They will play with you, until they move onto other, shiner toys.”

“The witchling sounds bitter,” a Brend laughed. “It sounds like she was not invited to come play.”

“She is jealous of you,” a Jalsa crooned. “Jealous that she is not allowed to play in our land.”

“We will always play with you,” said another. “Always and forever.”

“And you will never miss your boring home,” said another Brend. “Never never.”

“They are lying to you,” Bromwyn said to the children. “You should know better, each and every one of you.”

The older ones paled and looked away, but the younger ones—the ones who were not old enough to have heard that they were supposed to be afraid of Lady Witch—frowned at her.

“How do you know?” one little boy demanded.

“Because they are fey,” she answered. “That is what they do. They lie.”

“We never told you anything that you did not want to hear,” a Brend said with a silky chuckle. “The witch just did not get what she wanted, so she is unhappy.”

“And taking it out on you,” another Brend said.

“She is being mean,” said a Jalsa.

“And she does not want you to have any fun,” said a second.

“None at all,” said a third.

“Meanie,” said all the Jalsas, and they stuck out their tongues at Bromwyn.

Bromwyn turned her scathing glare to the fey.

“Oh look,” a Jalsa said with a huge grin. “We made her mad!”

“I bet she is going to cry,” said a Brend.

“No bet,” said all of the other Brends.

Some of the older children laughed.

Bromwyn narrowed her eyes. Without saying a word, she cast from the Way of Sight. As earlier, her closed hand shimmered and brightened until it glowed as if she held a star inside of it. But this time, there was a touch of heat to the glow, a hint of actual sunlight—which was as deadly to fey creatures as poison was to people.

Bromwyn had a moment of surprise, but she quickly tamped that down until it was nothing more than a wary buzz in the back of her mind. The heat must have been left over from when she had readily embraced Fire to battle the burning fields. Well and good; she would happily take all the help she could get.

The fey hissed, and many flinched from the shining light radiating from her hand. Some of the creatures growled, their false human mouths making sounds no human ever could.

The smaller children began to cry.

“Mind your tongue,” Bromwyn said to the hissing fey. “And stop scaring the little ones. Some playmates you will be, terrifying the poor things like that.”

“Go away!” the Jalsas yelled at her.

“You are no fun!” the Brends shouted.

The children looked uneasy, and some scampered to the back of the lines, but none of them turned away.

Bromwyn wanted to scream at them. The dumb bunnies! She should let them all go with the fey! They deserved each other!

“Come with us,” one of the Jalsas said, “to a place where you will never be bullied by witches or grownups, ever.”

“Come with us,” one of the Brends said, “to a place where it will always be playtime.”

All of the fey grinned, and there was nothing human about those grins. They all said, “Come with us.”

And many of the children grinned back.

Just then, Rusty pushed his way in front of Bromwyn. “Now see here,” he bellowed. “You kids hear me right now! If any of you go off with the fey, I’m going to tell on you!”

There was utter silence, save for the sound of grins sliding off of faces.

“I’ll tell
all
of your parents just how naughty you are,” he shouted, wagging a finger at the children of Loren. “How you cared more for
eating cookies
than you did for your mams and das! How you were ready to go off with
strangers!”

Now the children squirmed.

“I’ll get in so much trouble,” one girl cried.

“You will!” Rusty agreed. “And it’ll be all your fault!”

“Do not listen to him,” said one of the Brends desperately. “Come with us! Play with us, forever!”

“And always,” the Jalsas begged.

Rusty snorted. “I see you, Annie Smith and Catie Underhill. I see you, Liam Small and Hannah Goodwyn. I see
all
of you. And I promise you, your parents will know the truth.” He crossed his arms and glowered at them. “See if any of you will be able to sit down when they’re done spanking you! I bet your bottoms will be so sore, you’ll stand for the better part of a month! And you’ll deserve it, each and every one of you. Like Lady Witch said,
you
know better.”

The children shuffled their feet. And then Jordan Rivers said loudly, “I’m going home.”

With that, the boys and girls of Loren slowly made their way back to their houses. Bromwyn didn’t dare to release her breath until the last child began to walk back home.

After watching their prey leave, the fey turned to face Bromwyn and Rusty. They all looked angry, but some also looked scared.

“That was cruel,” a Jalsa pouted.

“Mean,” said another.

“Spoilsport!” shouted the Brends.

Bromwyn took all of them in with her dark gaze. Fury pounded through her, and when she spoke, her voice was a low rasp. “You will leave the children alone this night. All of them. You will not trick them, or beg them to leave the safety of their homes. And you will not trick them into letting you enter. Or else.”

A Jalsa sneered at her. “Or else what?”

Bromwyn smiled then, a cruel smile that felt very right on her face. And then she raised her star-bright hand to point at the fey creature, channeling her magic to make the light shine as intensely as when the World Door had opened.

The Jalsa flinched, but she didn’t turn away.

Still smiling, Bromwyn said, “Or else I will call down the power of the sun itself, and will remind you why the fey cannot remain in our land during the day.”

The pretend Jalsa snarled at her, and showed far too many teeth. “Come,” she said to her fellows, “the witchling is not worth our time.” Then she flew away.

The other fey followed suit, and soon Bromwyn and Rusty were left alone on the main avenue of Loren.

She blew out a breath as she unraveled the spell. “That,” she said, “went very well.”

Rusty let out a shaky laugh. “See that? We can do this. No problem.”

That was when they heard a piercing scream.

KEEPING THEIR HEADS

“It’s from over there,” Rusty cried, grabbing her hand. “Come on!”

He and Bromwyn dashed down the street full-tilt, and Bromwyn would have stumbled more than once had Rusty not been holding onto her. Between the mud and the rotting fruit, the streets were slick; thanks to the smashed furniture and ruined goods scattered everywhere, the streets were dangerous, even without the taunting fey throwing things at them. Bare feet and long skirts, Bromwyn acknowledged, had their limitations after all.

Around them, madness ensued. Adults ran in circles, shrieking fit to tear the sky. Panicked livestock scampered about, screaming in their own ways. Chickens squawked and fluttered in the mud; pigs squealed and tramped over anything in their path. Bromwyn and Rusty ran on, careful to avoid wreckage and maneuver around stunned sheep (a number of which now sported bright orange wool). Two oxen lumbered out of their way, the ruins of their harness dangling by their sides. Bromwyn’s nostrils stung from the acrid smells of burned grain and charred trees, as well as from the deeper, cloying stench of wet animals.

There was another screech, the sound terrified and desperate. Bromwyn yanked up her skirt and forced herself to run faster. Legs bare to her knees, she bolted forward with Rusty by her side, squeezing her other hand like a vise.