“Madam Dreamer is expecting you, Mrs. Chase,” the bogey hissed, gesturing to a narrow black door behind her, nearly invisible against the wall. “Please, go in.”
Kenzie nodded, and we stepped through the door into a room much like the first. Elegant sofas and chairs were placed throughout the room, and though there were no windows, lacy curtains rippled against the walls.
I couldn’t be sure, because of the way they billowed out, but I thought I saw movement on the curtains as we came in. As if the cloth might be covered in hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny black spiders, watching us as we stepped through the frame.
I decided not to voice that observation to Puck.
“Ah, you have arrived.”
From behind a large wooden desk, a figure raised its head as we entered the room, then rose with liquid grace and stepped around the desk to glide toward us. She was tall and painfully thin, wearing a black dress that hugged her nearly emaciated ribs, then billowed out at the waist like a bell. Her skin was almost chalk-white, her eyes, nails, and straight, shoulder-length hair jet-black. A surgical mask covered the lower half of her face, and the eyes above them didn’t smile as she stepped forward, looming over Kenzie like a rail-thin ghost.
“Mackenzie Chase.” The woman’s voice, though slightly muffled by the mask, was cultured and breathy. “How nice to see you again. I received your gremlin earlier—it seemed to believe that setting up a meeting today was absolutely essential. But it did not say anything about bringing friends. And so many of them.” Her depthless black eyes shifted to the rest of us, becoming slightly pinched. “I don’t believe we have met,” she said. “I am Madam Dreamer, as I’m sure Mrs. Chase has told you. And whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
“Me,” Kenzie said. “You’re talking with me, Dreamer. We have some unfinished business to discuss.”
Ethan stepped closer to Kenzie, protective and watching the woman’s every move, but Dreamer only sniffed. “I suppose we do,” she said. “Though if you and Mr. Chase have broken any of my policies, I am going to be very cross. The rules are there for a reason, you know.”
She turned and sashayed back to her desk, the large bustle of the dress bouncing as she walked. Sitting down with a flourish, she laced pencil-thin fingers beneath her chin and raised her eyebrows. “Well, what can Madam Dreamer do for you today, Mrs. Chase?”
Kenzie approached the desk, Ethan beside her and the rest of us close behind. “We’re looking for someone,” Kenzie explained. “A friend of ours has gone missing. We have reason to believe he is here in the city somewhere. Or at least, very close.”
“Looking for someone,” Dreamer replied flatly. “And does this someone have a name? Is he half-fey? Is he an exile?”
“He is an exile, technically,” Kenzie replied. Dreamer gave her a flat, unamused stare, and she sighed. “We’re looking for Keirran, King of the Forgotten.”
Madam Dreamer’s rather large nostrils flared above her face mask. “That is what I was afraid of,” she snapped. “I knew that gremlin of yours sounded suspicious.” She brought a thin, spidery hand onto the desk surface with a rather weak slap. “You know my policies, Mrs. Chase,” she wheezed. “No court fey. No nobles from the Nevernever. I do not deal with the sidhe and their ilk. Certainly not the traitor son of the Iron Queen herself.”
My rage flared. I stepped forward, letting ice spread across the floor from my boots, dropping the temperature of the room several degrees. “You’ll deal with us,” I said quietly, as her head snapped in my direction. “Or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
“Court fey.” Madam Dreamer’s voice turned guttural with fear and alarm. She glared at Kenzie, ignoring Ethan, who quickly stepped up beside her. “How could you bring them here?” she said, almost whining. “You know my rules. If you think I will break my policies just because your husband is the Iron Queen’s brother—”
“The Iron Queen is here.”
Meghan’s voice filled the room. Stepping up beside me, she pushed back her hood, revealing her face to the skeletal form of the pale woman. “And as my husband said, you will deal with us, Madam Dreamer,” she said calmly. “We wish no harm upon you, but time is of the essence. We are searching for the Forgotten King, and your network of information is said to be vast. We need answers, and we need them now.”
“And what makes you think I will bargain with you?” Madam Dreamer brushed past Kenzie, glaring at us with hard black eyes. “Do you think you can come into my lair and bully me into compliance? I am no longer a mere human, thanks to your kind. Would you like to see what the fey have done to me?” She stepped closer, and I gripped the hilt of my sword. “Years ago, I dared win a game against one of your kind, a game where we competed for the affections of the same man. I won, not because I was beautiful and charming, but because I actually cared for him. I grew to love him, completely and selflessly, a sentiment which the fey know nothing about. When he chose me, she laughed and said she hoped I would enjoy my victory...looking like this for the rest of eternity!”
She tore away her mask, revealing a wide, gaping mouth, and the curving black fangs of a spider. The front of her dress parted, as two shiny jointed legs poked out, clicking against the tile. “She cursed me,” Madam Dreamer hissed, the curving fangs wiggling as she spoke, “to a life of seclusion and terror. To never knowing human contact again. My love...” She covered her face with claw-tipped hands. “I could not bear for him to see me like this, for anyone to see me like this. I would be branded a monster and hunted down. And so I fled human society forever, finding my way into the forgotten corners and hidden crevices of the world, hiding my hideous form from everyone. Eventually, I found those like me, other monsters exiled from their homes. When I realized I was not completely alone, I started building my nest, my web of information, with myself at the center. And slowly, I began attracting others like me, those who have run afoul of the fey, as I had done. Now, my home is a bastion for those like me—poor souls with nowhere else to go, outcasts and exiles and those whom humanity would consider monsters. I take them in, and I give them shelter and safety, and in return, I ask that they do me small favors from time to time. After all...” Those black fangs curved up in a blasphemous parody of a smile. “That is the way of Faery.
“But,” the spider-faced woman continued, and stabbed a black nail in our direction. “I have my policies. And the first, the most important, is no deals with court fey. Never again will I have any dealings with those still bound to the Nevernever. Once was enough, and the price was far too high.”
“I dunno,” Puck mused, crossing his arms. “I will admit, that is one hell of a nasty curse. But a truly creative, evil person could think of ways to make it even worse.” An wicked smile crossed his face for just a moment as he shrugged. “Just saying.”