A booming bark immediately sounded from inside, making Nyx flinch. A few seconds later, the door swung open, revealing a haggard, immediately familiar face on the other side. Ethan Chase, Meghan’s half brother and chosen champion of the Nevernever, gazed at us with wary eyes through the doorframe. His brown hair was mussed, as if he’d just rolled out of bed, and there was a five-o’clock shadow across his jaw and chin. For a moment, he stared at us, the expression on his face teetering between alarm and resignation, before he shook his head.
“Well, this can’t be good.”
“Ethan.” Meghan smiled at him, and a corner of his lip quirked up as he returned her greeting. “Sorry to barge in on you so early. We need to talk.”
Ethan Chase sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I figured,” he sighed. “Come on in. Just let me disable a few spells and I’ll be right with you.”
We stepped through the doorway into a cozy living room that looked like an ordinary human abode. Worn leather sofas sat in a half circle around a coffee table, and a small kitchen stood off to one side, a coffee pot bubbling in the corner. No strange magic could be seen or felt, though I knew there was protection and anti-fey charms completely laced throughout the house. Whatever Ethan had done, it was subtle. His home looked like a completely traditional, faery-less dwelling in the mortal realm.
“Ethan? Who was at the door...? Oh.” Soft footsteps echoed outside the room, and Mackenzie appeared in the hallway, blinking in surprise as she saw us. Small and slight, her jet-black hair pulled behind her, she did not seem at all concerned about four powerful faeries and a cait sith appearing in her living room very close to dawn. I felt a pulse of magic when she entered the room, and noticed the silver bracelet on her left wrist appeared to be endowed with some sort of spell. Probably a protection charm of sorts to shield her from hostile glamour. She was trailed by two large black dogs—enormous shaggy beasts that looked like they might have been crossed with a bear. Amazingly, the dogs did not explode in a cacophony of barking when they saw us. Their plumed tails waved back and forth as they shuffled forward, their eyes lazy and kind as they circled us with wet snuffs. Grimalkin flattened his ears and winked out of sight, and Nyx withdrew farther into her cloak.
“Oh, wow,” Kenzie said, gazing at all of us. “Everyone is here. This is going to be big, isn’t it? Stewart, Mouse, enough. Don’t drool on the royalty.”
“Hello, Kenzie,” Meghan greeted, as the girl clapped her hands, and the two enormous dogs padded back to her. “I hope this isn’t too much of an imposition.”
“Nope, not at all.” Mackenzie grinned cheerfully, her gaze sliding over each of us in turn. “I just hope we can help. I just assume that when the Iron Queen and company show up on my doorstep, something is about to happen. Oh, hello,” she went on, catching sight of Nyx standing a little behind everyone else. “I didn’t realize you had someone else with you. Sorry about the repel charms—they’re for a particularly annoying band of goblins that like to hang around the area. I’ll have Ethan disable them.”
“Already done,” Ethan called from somewhere out of the room.
“We appreciate it, Kenzie,” Meghan said. “This is Nyx, by the way. She’s part of Keirran’s court.”
Kenzie nodded. “Any friend of Keirran’s is welcome here,” she said immediately. “But I’m being rude, making you guys stand in the hall. Let’s sit down, and you can tell us what’s going on. I assume something is going on. Is this about InSite and those weird piskie creatures we saw inside?”
“InSite?” Meghan frowned. “What is that?”
I frowned as well. From what Leanansidhe had said, the nightmare piskies appeared to be spreading, so I wasn’t surprised that Kenzie knew of them, but this InSite was new.
“It’s a social-media platform,” Kenzie explained, motioning us toward the couches in the living room. “Let’s see, how do I explain this? I have an online channel that does stories on big tech companies and what they’re coming out with next. Recently, a new social-media platform called InSite has gotten hugely popular. In just the space of a couple months, they’ve exploded online. Can I get anyone anything, by the way?” she asked, as we all took seats on the sofas arranged around a low table. Meghan sat down, and this time I sat beside her, feeling much more comfortable in the Chase house than in Leanansidhe’s mansion. “I have tea, if anyone wants it,” she went on, as Ethan returned from whatever he had been doing and nodded to us all. “Or water? I’m never sure if faeries like coffee.”
“Coffee would be nice,” Meghan sighed, showing how tired she was for just a moment. Puck wrinkled his nose.
“Never understood how you could drink that stuff, princess,” he remarked as Ethan immediately headed off toward the kitchen. Giving me a sidelong glance, a faint smirk crossed Puck’s face. “I guess you’ve always liked dark, bitter things.”
Meghan silently rolled her eyes. Nyx blinked once, probably having no idea what any of us were talking about, but she didn’t say anything.
Ethan returned, handed Meghan a mug, and dropped into the love seat across from the sofa. Kenzie perched beside him, the two dogs curling up at her feet like enormous bear rugs.
“So, anyway,” Kenzie went on, “InSite. I was curious. I made an account on their platform, logged in—” her nose wrinkled “—and the amount of vitriol, hate, and toxicity just about took my breath away. It was absolutely suffocating.”
Puck snorted. “I don’t get computers,” he said, “and I don’t go online very often, but from what I’ve heard, that’s nothing new.”
“Maybe,” Kenzie admitted. “But this felt different. It seemed like InSite was deliberately trying to make people angry, or sad, or terrified, with what they’d post. Their daily ‘insights’?” She shook her head. “Nothing but fear, accusations, and hatemongering. It was disgusting, but people seemed to swallow it whole.
“So, naturally, I asked for an interview,” Kenzie said. “I wanted to know if this was just a product of the internet, or if InSite really did have an interest in generating outrage. And they agreed to meet with me, but here’s where things get weird. I went to their office building, which is located in Washington D.C., by the way, and...” She hesitated. “It just...felt strange. I can’t explain it, but it was like the building was there...and it wasn’t at the same time. I know that makes no sense, but that’s closest explanation I can come up with.”
“Faery magic?” Meghan wondered.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Kenzie agreed. “It got even weirder inside. There was hardly anyone there, but there were these tiny creatures flitting around the entire building. They looked like...”