“Move the High Mountain Renaissance Faire to a different dimension.” Tavyn yawned, as if not caring about the danger he, too, was in. It seemed Peascod would do anything to get his freedom.
“What dimension?” Keelie asked, as if she knew one from another.
“It might be the one between the human world and the spirit world.” Tavyn looked around. “Hard to tell. Far from the reach of human, fae, or elven intervention.”
“Can you send us back?” Keelie wanted the Rocky Mountains, and she wanted to be back on good ol’ Earth. She’d had enough of spirits and gods. She didn’t want to meet up with whatever lived in this neighborhood.
“I’ll need the Compendium.”
“Well, you know where to get it. Your jester has it.” If Tavyn could move the faire back to the Earth, maybe she could do the same. It was a stretch, but she was desperate. She didn’t trust him. He had aspirations to become a god to the dark fae.
A line of fire landed near Tavyn’s feet and he jumped back. Keelie did too.
She looked up in the sky at Finch flying overhead. The dragon circled around, coming in for another attack.
The goblins went on the rampage again, taking advantage of this latest distraction. The shop owners and performers were losing the battle, despite the fresh dwarven troops fighting valiantly alongside them. Fatigue, despair, and confusion seemed to be written on the humans’ faces. The dwarves fought on with grim determination.
Thomas the Glass Blower staggered toward Keelie, blood bubbling from a wound in his chest. He collapsed on the road, and the goblin behind him waved his bloody sword and roared in victory.
“No,” Keelie shouted. She started to run toward the fallen merchant, but Knot leaped in front of her, causing her to trip. She landed hard on her knees but still managed to keep from breaking Hrok’s branch.
“Meow too dangerous.”
Thomas lay crumpled in the clutter-strewn, dusty lane, and his eyes dulled as life faded from his body.
twenty-three
Peascod glared at them from the road in front of Galadriel’s Closet. Toshi shook its head, but smiled as it looked directly at Keelie, and then clapped its little wooden hands.
“Seems as if we have our first human casualty.” Tavyn arched an eyebrow.
“Tsk. Tsk. The first of many casualties, including you, Tavyn,” Peascod called out. He clung to the Compendium, looking drawn and pale as his puppet soared toward the goblin-elf. “Although I should thank you for giving me that idea about moving the faire to this dimension. We can take care of our business unimpeded.”
Keelie sent a “thanks a lot for nothing” glare at Tavyn.
Tavyn held out his hand and the puppet stopped. It couldn’t move, immobilized by magic.
“Peascod. I tire of your games.” Tavyn’s voice deepened. He pushed his hand forward, and the puppet zoomed back and slammed into Peascod.
Keelie didn’t know what was wrong with Peascod, but it really looked like the jester needed to be in the hospital. He appeared to have aged in the past hour. But she couldn’t feel sorry for him-he had brought this fate onto himself. Remembering Cricket, Keelie couldn’t forget that it was Peascod who had killed the harmless little goblin.
Toshi floated in front of her.
Keelie recalled Sally saying that a poppet could store magic. What if Peascod had put his own life essence into the puppet?
Destroy the puppet. Destroy Peascod.
But how?
Tavyn’s eyes flared with pure disgust as he glowered at Peascod. “I will deal with you later.”
He turned to Keelie, and his eyes widened when he saw the branch. “I think I will take that gift from our friend Hrok.”
He’d recognized the branch. It was all suddenly clear to Keelie. “You are a tree shepherd.”
“Surprise!” Tavyn grinned, showing sharp goblin teeth. “My grandfather was a tree shepherd. Who’d guess the power would arise in me when I embraced my goblin side?”
A goblin tree shepherd. Hrok had read it right. Keelie stared at Tavyn, horrified.
Fire poured down from the sky, nearly hitting the goblin. Finch had zoomed in. Tavyn aimed a blast of magic up toward the retreating red dragon.
“I have work to do. Call off the dragons, or I will order my goblins to kill each and every human found within this faire, children included.” Tavyn kicked Thomas’s body.
Repulsed, Keelie wanted to blast Tavyn with green magic-but what if he could turn it against her? He was a tree shepherd too. Dad was right; she didn’t know enough about her own magic to be able to fight with anything but luck.
“I don’t know how to reach Finch or Vangar when they’re in dragon form.” She shot a dark look at the goblin-elf. To think that people made comparisons between the two of them. Except for that halfblood thing, and being tree shepherds, they had nothing in common.
“I suggest you find a way, tree shepherdess.” He flashed a smile at her, as if he found the situation amusing. He beckoned the goblins to bring Mara and her daughter forward. A goblin ripped the toddler from her mother’s arms. Little Ava screamed and Mara reached out, crying for her daughter.
Keelie had to do something.
“It’s up to Keelie-she has to call off the dragons,” Tavyn yelled above the terrified shrieks of the little girl.
Keelie hadn’t been able to stop the rampaging goblins, and so far, she hadn’t regained the Compendium. But she had other ways to fight.
She thrust Hrok’s branch into the dirt and called on the green that surrounded them. As the trees answered, desperate for help themselves, she thrust her power into the ground. If Under-the-Hill was still there…
The dark coolness of the Under-the-Hill filled her head, but it wasn’t the abandoned mustiness of the one under the meadow. It was the spicy-scented warmth of Herne’s dominion.
A roar came from the end of the road and chimes rang loud and clear, filling the air. Keelie turned in the direction of the noise.
Tavyn frowned and pounded his fist into his hand. “What have you done?”
A pulsing swirl of light, like the Aurora Borealis, formed in the middle of the path. It looked like the vortex at the Quicksilver Faire turned on its side. It separated the lines of fighting goblins and humans.
Tarl and Sir Davey scurried out into the lane to carry Thomas’s body out of the way while the goblins were distracted by the light. A pirate grabbed a discarded goblin sword and came to stand at Keelie’s side, ready to defend her.
A ground-shaking crack, like thunder, split the air. Literally. Where the pulsing whirl of light had once been was a pulse-edged sliver of darkness, a door into nothingness in the middle of the road.
It widened, and a row of gleaming, prismatic-armored knights, lances ready, rode out of the dark sliver of doorway into the faire. Keelie gasped, recognizing the High Court’s fairy army. Humans, dwarves, goblins stood frozen, staring at the beautiful beings, and then the goblins charged.
The armored knights lowered their lances and attacked. The dwarves followed, howling battle cries. Keelie was startled to see Knot, wielding a lethal-looking short sword, to the left of King Gneiss.
Tavyn screamed and ordered more goblins into the fray, while the humans threw themselves onto the rear guard of the goblin army. About fifty armored goblins split off from the fight and ran down the road to circle Keelie, Tavyn, and the pirate. The pirate hacked at arms and legs as they came near, wounding many, but to no avail. The goblins seemed impervious to pain.
Keelie called upon the trees again, and they bent, their branches hitting some goblins on the head and sweeping others aside like ugly croquet balls in a crazy lawn game.
One of the fairy knights turned his mount and galloped down the lane toward them. Tavyn screamed and leaped, landing on the roof of Galadriel’s Closet. Peascod grabbed Toshi out of the air and whirled underground in a spray of dirt.
The knight reined in his horse and leaped to the ground, yanking off his helmet. Brown hair tumbled down the shining armor, and around her father’s grim face.