Meghan was staring at the inside of the elevator, her eyes dark. If I turned my head slightly, I could see the opening of a ruined stone staircase, plunging down into the black.
“It’s down there,” Meghan said. “Whatever it is. Something powerful. And angry.”
Puck sighed. “Of course, it is,” he said, more in resignation than annoyance. “’Cause it’s never something cheerful and happy. We never find a giant smiling bunny, do we? It’s always something angry and powerful that wants to eat our faces. Fun times. Well, gang...?” He indicated the open doors. “Into the jaws of death we go. Furball, if you’re still listening, we’ll see you down there.”
I stepped through the elevator doors, with Meghan and Puck behind me. Nyx, after one last moment of hesitation, followed as well. The rest of us stood along the mirrored edges, letting the Forgotten stay in the center, as far away from the walls as she could, and Puck wrapped his arms around her waist from behind.
As the doors slid shut, I saw the hallway we had just come down stretching out before us. For a moment, I caught a thin silhouette standing at the very end, the skull mask watching us with empty eye sockets. I blinked, and the thing was closer, long sharp fingers reaching out like spider legs. Then the doors hissed shut, hiding the creature from view, and the elevator began to descend.
13
THE NIGHTMARES BENEATH
We continued to descend far longer than I thought we should; though I hadn’t been in many human elevators, it seemed like too much time passed before the box finally came a shuddering halt, letting out a sharp ding that made Nyx jump and unsheathe her light blades.
When the doors started to open, I tensed, half expecting a horde of enemies on the other side, or perhaps to come face-to-face with the eerie figure that had been shadowing us ever since we got here. Instead, a wave of roiling, angry glamour washed into the elevator. Beyond the frame, the hall was cloaked in shadow, with images of ruined stone and moss-eaten pillars overlapping the real world. The buzz of piskie wings echoed through the corridor, and tiny shapes moved in the shadows, both in the real world and within that other place.
“Can you feel it?”
The voice slithered into the hall, making us drop our hands to our weapons, gazing around warily. A face flickered into sight down the corridor, the stark white deer skull, appearing for just a moment before winking out of sight.
Weapons out, we moved cautiously down the hall, but the figure did not appear again, though the whispers continued, swirling around us.
“The anger, the rage. The beautiful hate. It is almost time. It is very nearly enough. Soon, the king will awaken. Soon, the way to Evenfall will appear.”
“What is Evenfall?” Meghan demanded.
As I passed a door to what looked like a maintenance room in the real world, from the corner of my eye, I saw the figure in the doorway, the skull face very close to mine. I jerked and whirled around, half drawing my blade, only to find myself staring into a room of brooms and mop buckets.
“Evenfall,” the voice whispered, sounding like it was somewhere in that room, hiding behind discarded cleaning implements. “You wouldn’t know it. No one, in this world or the other, remembers. The memory of Evenfall was stripped from every living creature centuries ago. But I remember now. I remember what was hidden away. When the Veil disappeared the night of the sacrifice, when the mortals were able to see us, even if it was for a moment, I remembered the king. And Evenfall.”
“What king?” Nyx asked. “There was no king of Faery. I served the Lady my whole life—there was no king before her.”
“Forgotten,” the thing whispered. “Evenfey. You are like me, the memories of yourself stripped away, sealed behind fear and hate of our kind. No matter. Soon, you will remember. The king awakens. Our king awakens. The rage of this world, the violence and anger and uncompromising chaos of it all, stirs him from his unnatural slumber. I built this site, this place of power, to speed the process. Humans helped me, oblivious to what they were creating. They are easy to manipulate, to prod in the right direction. A few whispers, a suggestion or two, and they created this—this site that lives in the ether of their world, amplified by their hateful thoughts and accusations.” The voice chuckled. “InSite. Quite the clever play on words, is it not? The mortals think they are so insightful, that they must share their great wisdom and realizations with their poor, ignorant fellows, and yet, all they do is incite one another. And through it all, the beautiful, violent emotions continue to build. Rage, hatred, fear. They seep through the cracks of this world and into the dreams of the sleeping king. His dreams are terrible in their beauty. You have seen them, have you not? The creatures that roam the Between, terrifying all they come across?”
“Wait, are you talking about the big nasty Monsters we fought?” Puck echoed, sounding both stunned and horrified. “Those huge ugly bastards who stalked us through the Between and nearly destroyed Touchstone, those were just dreams?”
“Yes,” whispered the voice. “The dreams of the king. They are but fragments of his consciousness, tiny slivers that worm their way into your world. Are they not beautiful?”
“Uh, no,” Puck said. “I would say no, they’re not beautiful. Those are nightmares, my friend. I think you mixed up the meaning of dreams with nightmares.”
“What are nightmares, but the dreams of different emotions?” For just a moment, the creature appeared, sitting on a cracked stone block. “Your kind, the fey of the Nevernever, were born of the dreams of mortals. Even the iron fey, the new abominations that roam the Iron Realm, were born of dreams. Different dreams, aspirations of technology and progress, but dreams nonetheless. Have you never wondered what the fey born of mortal nightmares would look like?”
I felt a chill in the dim hallway, a finger of dread tracing my spine at the creature’s words. We, the fey—the entire Nevernever—were all born of the dreams and fears of mortals. That was what everyone knew, what we always believed. To mortals, the world of Faery was beautiful, surreal, and sometimes terrifying.
But this thing, this creature, implied that there was another type of fey. Born not of dreams, but of nightmares. Born from the darkest side of human emotion. But if that was true, where were they all? It didn’t seem possible that an entire race of fey could exist in the Nevernever or the moral realm without anyone realizing they were there.
“The dreams of the king,” the voice whispered. “They are not Monsters—they are so much more. His nightmares, the Elder Nightmares, made real. Forgotten...” The voice went on, and said a word I didn’t recognize. A moment later, the word slipped from my mind, and I couldn’t remember what had been said, though I realized the thing had been speaking to Nyx. “You should be with us,” it continued. “How can stand with those who sealed us away? Who cut off access to our home? Why do you help them? You are one of us.”