Where are you, Puck?
Abruptly, I felt eyes on my back, and turned my head. A figure in a green sweatshirt was walking away through the crowd. His hood was drawn up, his shoulders hunched as he walked away with his hands in his pockets. As soon as I saw him, a Gentry swept in front of my vision and Puck was gone.
“Goodfellow!”
I strode forward, shouldering aside Winter and Summer fey, until I came to the spot the figure had disappeared. Pausing, I gazed around carefully. I’d come to the edge of the courtyard, where several large trees lined the perimeter just before you reached the wall of briars. Overhead, the branches grew close together, blocking out the sun and casting this area of the Summer Court in deep shadow. For a moment, I wondered if Puck had gone through the briars, but there was no tunnel in the wall of thorns that indicated he had left.
Behind me, the music abruptly stopped. Glancing back, a chill crept up my spine. The Summer Court fey were still there, but their faces were blurred, their lines and edges not quite in focus. I could hear voices drifting to me over the breeze, but they seemed muffled and far away, as if they were all speaking underwater.
There was the faintest sniffle at my back, and I turned.
A figure sat against a trunk a few paces away with his head bowed and one knee drawn to his chest. His red hair seemed duller than before, tinged with gray and almost blending into the shadows around him. Watching him, relief battled a strange sense of dread. I didn’t remember seeing him when I first looked around this area. In fact, I was certain no one had been there a second ago.
“Puck.”
He didn’t acknowledge me when I called his name, didn’t look up as I stopped beside him. Glancing down, I saw a frog perched on his knee, throat sack inflating and deflating as it sat there placidly.
“Goodfellow,” I said, trying again. “Can you hear me?”
His head moved very slightly, as if hearing something in the distance. “Someone is talking again, Mr. Croaky,” he muttered. “Sounds like ice-boy. The frosty princeling himself.” He sighed, mouth curving in a faint, sad smile. “You know, we used to be good friends. I least, I think we were. Hard to remember, now.” He looked down at his hands, frowning. “Maybe it’s always been like this, I don’t know anymore. Maybe he never saw me at all.”
“I see you,” I said, but there was no response. He continued to stare at his hands, not seeming to hear me at all now. “Puck,” I said firmly. “This is just a nightmare. Look at me.”
I went to grab his shoulder...and my fingers passed right through him, making my stomach lurch in horror. Puck frowned slightly, his brow creasing as if in pain. Where my fingers passed, they left a stain of colorless gray that slowly started to creep up his arm, turning him pale and transparent.
The Fade. No, not now. I knelt in front of him, feeling helpless as I watched the most infamous faery in the Nevernever flicker like a dying light bulb. The truth of the situation threatened to crush me. This was a nightmare world, but we were still in the Between. If Puck Faded away here, he would be gone for real.
Puck raised his arm, watching curiously as his fingers started to vanish, starting at the tips. “You know, I thought I’d be more upset,” he muttered, as the frog continued to ignore him. “But, maybe it’s better this way. I can’t hurt anyone, and no one can hurt me. Though I really did think I had a chance with Nyx. I wonder if she’ll miss me when I’m gone. Forgotten by a Forgotten. Heh.” He paused a moment, the half-there smile fading away, then snorted. “Who are you kidding, Goodfellow? She won’t remember. No one will remember you. Your stories are gone.”
The creeping gray reached the top of his head, turning him completely transparent. The frog on his knee abruptly fell through, plopping to the grass with a soft thump, and Puck closed his eyes. “Take care of Meghan, ice-boy,” he murmured, dropping his hand to his lap. “I know you don’t remember me, and I’m not even sure if we were ever friends, but I’m gonna miss you both.”
“No,” I husked out. “Puck, look at me, dammit.” He didn’t open his eyes, but I saw the faint crease of his brow again, and could only hope that, somehow, I was getting through. “I see you,” I told him. “We are friends, we were always friends. Even those times when I was trying to kill you, I could never see myself going through with it. Meghan and Keirran are my life, but you—you’re my brother. You’re as much family as they are, and we have known each other for so long. Don’t do this. I can’t...imagine a Nevernever without you in it, Goodfellow. It would be incredibly boring.”
He frowned, and his eyes finally opened, blinking in surprise as they settled on me, as if he’d just realized I had been kneeling there not three feet away. He was still transparent, though, flickering dangerously close to oblivion, and my determination grew. “Meghan needs you, Puck,” I said quietly. “The Nevernever is counting on us. This isn’t over, and there’s still work to do. You can’t Fade now. You would be missed more than you know.”
“Ash.”
Puck’s voice was barely a whisper, but hope flickered. I rose and held out my hand to him, never dropping his gaze. “So, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I ordered, “and let’s go save Faery. Unless you want me to tell Nyx you just gave up without a fight.”
Puck blinked. A spark of defiance glimmered to life in his gaze, breaking through the apathy, and the empty gray pupils were swallowed by green. Looking up, his eyes met mine, awareness and recognition dawning in his expression at last. Reaching out, he firmly grasped my palm.
The second he did, color returned to his fingers, spreading swiftly up his arm and to every part of him that had gone transparent. As color washed back into Puck, it vanished from the woods around us, as if Puck himself was leeching it from the forest. The trees started to unravel, branches turning white before coiling away into mist.
Still gripping my hand, Puck shook himself like a dog coming out of a deep sleep and grinned up at me, his expression absurdly gleeful. “Oh, ice-boy,” he crooned, sounding like his old, irreverent self again. “You do care, after all. I’m so touched. But, um, why is the world melting?”
I sighed and pulled Puck to his feet as around us, the Summer Court continued to fray apart. Trees, stones, even the fey themselves drifted apart like cobwebs, spinning away into the ether. “This nightmare is unraveling,” I told him. “Nothing here is real except us. I don’t know how these worlds can exist, but we have to get out of here before this one disappears completely.”
“Okay, I’m going to pretend I know what the hell you’re talking about and just nod,” Puck said, bobbing his head vigorously. “But getting out of here sounds like a good plan. Where’s everyone else, by the way?”
“Meghan is looking for them,” I answered, wondering if she had found Grim and the Forgotten. We still had the Evenfey and the ritual circle to deal with, but I wouldn’t even think of that until we were all together again. “We promised we would meet up again when we’d found everyone else.”