The Iron Traitor. Julie Kagawa
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it; I wanted to learn to use weapons when protecting myself from the fey. My Guro—my instructor—believed in the spirit world and hadn’t questioned my sanity when I’d told him invisible things were after me. He’d even helped us when we were looking for Todd, when I had nowhere else to go. The double, razor-edged swords he’d gifted me when I went to see him sat in an honorary spot in my room, and I knew Kenzie still wore his protection amulet beneath her shirt.
I hadn’t see Guro since I got back home, and I wanted to talk to him, to thank him for his help and to fill him in on everything that had happened. I owed him that.
I thought Kenzie might protest, insist that we come up with a plan together, but she only nodded. “Say hi to Guro for me” was all she said.
* * *
I was nervous when I walked onto the mats, wondering what Guro would say when he saw me. The room was full of people; the kempo and jujitsu classes that shared the dojo with us were just wrapping up, students in white gis and colored belts shuffling off the floor, laughing and talking with each other. Our class was smaller, just a handful of people in normal workout clothes, a rattan stick in each hand. They had already staked out the far corner of the mats, and I hurried over to join.
Guro spotted me the second I walked into the room. He looked the same as he always did, a small, sinewy man with close-cropped black hair and dark, piercing eyes. He didn’t say anything as I approached, just nodded for me to take my place in line. A few of the other students stared at me; either they’d heard the rumors or they’d seen my face on the news, as one of the teens involved in a suspected kidnapping. But Guro started the class as per normal, and soon I was too busy blocking bamboo sticks to the head and dodging rubber knives to think of anything else.
After class, however, he gestured for me to follow, and I trailed him down the hall into the office. Suddenly nervous and tongue-tied, I waited as he closed the door and motioned toward a couple chairs in the corner.
We both sat. I stared at my hands, feeling Guro’s eyes appraising me. He didn’t speak right away, and I wondered what he was thinking, what he thought of me now.
“How are your parents?” Guro asked at last.
“Fine,” I replied, knowing exactly what he meant. “A little freaked-out, but okay otherwise. They took it a lot better than I thought they would.”
“Good.” Guro nodded, still watching me intently. I waited, knowing this wasn’t over yet. Leaning forward, Guro folded his hands and fixed me with a piercing stare. “Now,” he continued, in a voice that made my heart start to pound, “you don’t have to tell me everything, Ethan, but tell me as much as you can. What happened after you and your friends left my home that morning? Did you find what you were looking for?”
I took a deep breath.
And ended up telling him everything.
I didn’t intend to, but as I spoke, words just kept pouring out, and at one point I was horrified to feel my eyes stinging. I told him about Meghan, the Nevernever and how I’d been taken by the fey when I was four. I told him about Kenzie, Todd, Annwyl and the Forgotten; who they were, what had happened to them. I confessed my hatred of the fey, my anger at Meghan for abandoning us, my mom’s worry and fear that I might vanish into the Nevernever, too. And I told him about Keirran, his relation to me and what I was planning to do that weekend.
When the words finally stopped, I felt exhausted, drained. But also strangely liberated, as if some huge weight had been taken from me. I’d never told anyone my whole story before, not even Kenzie. It was a relief to finally get it out. To tell someone who understood, who believed.
Through the whole thing, Guro hadn’t said much, just quiet encouragements for me to go on when I faltered. He still wore his same calm, serious expression, as if he hadn’t just spent an hour listening to a teenager ramble about invisible creatures that only he could see, that he’d been to a magical place called the Nevernever, that he was related to a faery queen.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I finished, now wondering what had possessed me to spill my guts. “I know I sound like a raving lunatic, but I swear everything I’ve told you is real. I wish there was a way I could make people see Them without gaining the Sight, but once They know you can see, They’ll just torment you forever. So, I guess it’s better that way.”
“I can see Them,” Guro said very softly.
I jerked up, staring at him, my jaw hanging a little slack. He gave me a tight smile. “Not like you,” he went on in a calm voice. “I’ve never seen Them clearly. It’s more a brief glimpse of something in the mirror, a reflection or a shadow on the ground that doesn’t match anything visible. But I know They’re there. My grandfather had this talent, also,” he continued as I still gaped at him. “But he was very in tune with the spirit world and things that no one else could see. Our family has always been sensitive to magic and the creatures no one else believes in. So I understand how difficult it is.”
I swallowed hard to clear my throat. “I wish everyone did.”
Guro didn’t say anything to that. “Have you told your parents?” he asked instead. “About what you plan to do this weekend?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I haven’t come up with a good enough excuse, and anything I say is going to freak them out, especially Mom. But I have to go.” I crossed my arms, frowning. “I just don’t know what I’m going to tell them.”
“Sometimes, the simplest answers are the hardest to see.”
I gave him a puzzled look, before I got it. “You want me to tell them the truth,” I said. Just the thought made my stomach tighten.
“That’s your call, Ethan.” Guro rose, and I stood, too, ready to follow him out. “But let me ask you this. Do you think this is the last time you’ll have to deal with Them?”
I slumped. “No,” I muttered. “I’ll never shake Them. They’ll never leave me alone. There will always be something I’m dragged into, especially now.”
Guro nodded slowly. “Be careful in New Orleans,” he said, opening the office door. “Do you still have the protection amulet I gave you?”
Technically, I’d given it to Kenzie, but... “Yes.”
“Keep it close,” Guro warned. “Other than your kali skills, that’s the best protection I can give you. If you or your friends need anything, magical or otherwise, please come to me. I cannot go with you into the hidden world, but I can make it so it is not quite so dangerous. Remember that, if you are ever in need of help.”
“I will, Guro. Thanks.”
He nodded solemnly, and I left the gym feeling a little lighter but still dreading what I had to do that night.
When I got home, things were normal. Annwyl was nowhere to be seen. Mom was putting the dinner plates in the dishwasher, and Dad was getting ready for work. I paused in the kitchen, watching Mom over the counter, and took a deep breath, preparing myself for the hardest conversation I would ever have.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE TRUTH
“Absolutely not.”
We were all three in the kitchen, me sitting on one of the bar stools, my parents facing me across the counter. Both of them wore looks of horror, anger and disbelief.
“No,” Dad said, as if that was the end of it. “Not after the stunt you pulled last week. You think we’re going to let you go to New Orleans alone? No, Ethan. Out of the question.”
A stunt? I tried to hold on to my anger, remembering that Dad wasn’t sensitive to the faery world. He tended to truly forget about it, like most normal humans did. Unlike me and Mom, who knew it was out there but tried to avoid it. We didn’t talk about it.
Well, that ended today. “What do you think I was doing last week?” I asked, startling him and causing