“Toby . . .” said May.
“I know,” I said. “Just trust me, okay? Sooner or later, Arden’s going to say—”
“I know where we are.” Arden pushed past me, suddenly moving through the trees with purpose. May muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “I hate you,” and tightened her grip on my arm, stepping in front of me so that she could haul me after the fleeing Princess. Danny brought up the rear, moving surprisingly quietly for someone his size.
Arden led us up a series of mud and timber steps that had been cut into the side of the hill, breaking into a run when she reached the top. The rest of us followed. When we caught up with her again, she was standing in front of an enormous redwood tree, with Madden sitting near her feet. The trunk was bigger around than my kitchen; you could have hollowed it out and used it as a good-sized living room. She was crying again. That wasn’t really a surprise.
“I’m here.” She raised her hands, pressing them flat against the tree. “I’m sorry. It took too long, and I’m sorry, but I’m really here. It’s me.”
Nothing happened.
Arden took a step backward, away from the tree. “It’s going to be like this, huh? Okay. I can handle that.” She turned to me. “Can I borrow your knife please?”
“Um. Sure.” I pulled the silver knife from my belt and offered it to her, hilt first.
“Thank you,” said Arden, with ritual formality. Thanks are always serious in Faerie, not least because they imply fealty—in this case, my fealty to her. She was beginning to accept who she was. Not waiting to see how I would respond, she turned back to the tree and ran the edge of my knife across her left index finger, pressing down until she drew blood. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to look away.
“My name is Arden Windermere,” she said. “My father was Gilad Windermere. My mother was Sebille, of no family line. They are gone now, both of them; they have stopped their dancing. I have not. In the name of the line of Windermere, I ask you to open your door to me. Know me, accept me, and welcome me home.” She pressed her bloody fingertip against the tree, and smiled. “I’ve missed you.”
What happened next . . . I might have understood it a little better if I’d been more fae at the time. One moment, the tree was intact, and the next, there was a great hollow in its center. That, I had almost expected, based on my previous visit to Muir Woods. What I didn’t expect was the door, a huge, ornately-carved thing that filled the hollow. As we watched, it swung open, revealing a vast hall so choked with cobwebs that the ceiling was invisible. Arden’s smile brightened, becoming almost painful to look at. She started to step forward.
“This is too easy,” I muttered, and lunged forward, grabbing her arm. She stopped, blinking at me. Fortunately, Madden stopped with her. I was quietly relieved. That would have been a complication I didn’t want to deal with.
“What are you doing?”
“This is too easy.”
“Uh, what? Maybe you’re used to bleeding every time you want something to happen—”
“She is,” said May.
“—but that was not easy,” continued Arden, undaunted.
I shook my head. “Just trust me, okay? This was too easy. The doors shouldn’t have opened without some sort of failsafe, and if Oleander was here a week before the earthquake, if she knew that it was coming, then she killed your father. And Oleander loved traps. Was this door accessible only to people with royal blood?”
Arden paled. “Oh.”
“I thought so.” I looked over my shoulder. “Hey, May, come and trigger a booby-trap for us, will you?”
“Why is that always my job?”
“Because you can’t die.”
“Oh, right.” May stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, humming atonally as she stepped through the open doorway into the lost knowe of King Gilad. There was a whistling sound, and a fletched dart appeared in the middle of her chest. She blinked down at it, then shot me an annoyed look. “I better not have just been elf-shot, you idiot.”
“Do you feel like passing out for a hundred years?”
“No.”
“Then you’re probably fine. Keep walking.”
May rolled her eyes before continuing on into the darkened knowe. She vanished into the cobwebs. There was a thumping sound, followed by a meaty thud. “I’m okay!”
“What happened?”
“Tripwire! But I think I’m supposed to be dropping dead from neurotoxins right about now, so come on in.”
Arden looked at me uncertainly. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “We do this sort of thing all the time. If May says it’s safe, there’s a really good chance she’s right.” I decided not to mention that usually “we” meant “me.” There was no point in making things more awkward than they already were.
“All right . . .” said Arden, and stepped into the knowe.
There should have been a fanfare, some sort of glorious celebration of the circle that had been broken when King Gilad died and his children lost their parents and their home in the same night. There should have been something. But all we got was a gradual brightening of the room as lights high above the cobwebs came on, glowing golden through the grime of years, and the door swinging closed behind us.
May walked back to join the rest of us, a gray ghost swathed in dust and cobwebs. “There’s a big receiving room up ahead,” she said. “No more traps that I could find.”
“We’ll have to check everything twice before we assume it’s safe,” I said. Then I turned to Arden, who was looking around with wide, too-bright eyes. I dropped to one knee and bowed my head.
“What?” she asked.
A soft thump told me May had followed my lead. A second, much louder thump told me that Danny had joined us.
“Your Highness,” I said. “Welcome home.” I raised my head, meeting her eyes. “May we reclaim your Kingdom now?”
Arden took a deep, shaky breath before she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Why don’t we go ahead and do that?”
TWENTY-THREE
WE WERE ALL CAKED IN GRIME by the time Tybalt arrived. He walked in through the now-open door of the knowe and followed the sound of vigorous de-cobwebbing to the receiving room, where we were still hard at work. We didn’t have brooms, so we were making do with branches gathered from the forest outside. Madden had Oleander’s scent from the dart we’d pulled out of May and was following it around the receiving room, barking every time he found something that smelled like a trap. We’d been marking them all with branches, since we also didn’t have the equipment to safely disarm them.
Tybalt stopped in the doorway, staying well clear of the cascading filth. “This is a charming hovel. In a few decades, it might actually be worth the effort of maintaining. I doubt it, however.”
“Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it?” I lowered the branch I’d been using to sweep cobwebs from the wall, smiling at him. The expression felt strained. I had no idea what it looked like, but judging by Tybalt’s frown, it didn’t look good. “At least we got in without any fatalities. How did it go at Shadowed Hills?”
“I do not believe Duke Torquill and I will be friends any time in the near future,” said Tybalt. “Still, he did not eject me on sight, and I did not gut him, so we can both be said to have shown admirable restraint. He is on his way, along with those of his fiefdom who are willing to make an active stand against the Queen. He said they would take an alternate route, and that you would know it.”