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blinked heavily. She let them close for a moment and slipped down into sleep, passing out cold in Faerieland.

Chapter 3
    I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
    When rain bends down the bough;
    And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
    Than you are now.
    —S ARA T EASDALE , “I S HALL N OT C ARE ”
    The little hob shivered in the corner of the cage as Corny heaved it out of the trunk. Dumping the wire box into the backseat, he got in next to it and slammed the door. Dry heat pumped from vents as the engine idled.
    “I’m a powerful being…a wizard ,” Corny said. “So don’t try anything.”
    “Yes,” said the little faery, blinking black eyes rapidly. “No. Try nothing.”
    Corny turned those words over in his head, but the possible interpretations seemed too varied and his mind kept getting tangled. He shook the thoughts out of his head. The creature was caged. He was in control. “I want to keep myself from being charmed, and you’re going to tell me how to do it.”
    “I weave spells. I don’t lift spells,” it chirped.
    “But,” Corny said, “there has to be a way. A way to keep from being happily led off the side of a pier or craving the honor of being some faery’s footstool.”
    “There is no leaf. No rock. No chant to keep you completely safe from our charms.”
    “Bullshit. There must be something. Is there any human who is resistant to being enchanted?”
    The little faery hopped to the edge of its cage, and when it spoke, its voice was low. “Someone with True Sight. Someone who can see through glamours.”
    “How do you get True Sight?”
    “Some mortals are born with it. Very few. Not you.”
    Corny kicked the back of the passenger-side seat. “Tell me something else then, something I’d want to know.”
    “But such a powerful wizard as yourself—”
    Corny shook the crab trap, sending the little faery sprawling, its pinecone hat falling out through one of the holes in the aluminum cage to land on the floor mat. It yowled, a moan rising to a shriek.
    “That’s me,” Corny said. “Very freaking powerful. Now, if you want out of here, I suggest that you start talking.”
    “There is a boy with the True Sight. In the great city of exiles and iron to the north. He’s been breaking curses on mortals.”
    “Interesting,” Corny said, holding up the poker. “Good. Now tell me something else.”

    That morning, while the slumbering bodies of faeries still littered the great hall of the Unseelie Court, Roiben met with his councillors in a cavern so cold his breath clouded. Tallow candles burned atop rock formations, the melting fat stinking of clove. Let our King be made from ice. He wished it too, wished for the ice that encased the branches out on the hill to freeze his heart.
    Dulcamara drummed her fingers against the polished and petrified wood of the table, its surface as hard as stone. Her skeletal wings, the membranes torn so that only the veins remained, hung from her shoulders. She regarded him with pale pink eyes.
    Roiben looked at her and he thought of Kaye. Already he could feel the lack of her, like a thirst that is bearable until one thinks of water.
    Ruddles paced the chamber. “We are overmatched.” His wide, toothy mouth made him look as though he might suddenly take a bite out of any of them. “Many of the fey who were bound to Nicnevin fled when the Tithe no longer tied them to the Unseelie Court. Our troops are thinned.”
    Roiben watched a flame gutter, flaring brightly before going out. Take this from me, he thought. I do not want to be your King.
    Ruddles looked pointedly at Roiben, closed his eyes, and rubbed just above the bridge of his nose. “We are further weakened as several of our best knights died by your own hand, my Lord. You do recall?”
    Roiben nodded.
    “It vexes me that you do not seem to expect an imminent attack from Silarial,” said Ellebere. A tuft of his hair fell over one eye, and he brushed it back. “Why should she