But if it was the only way to find Keirran...
I sighed. “All right,” I murmured, and Annwyl looked at me in surprise. “I’ll agree to it, too. Kenzie?”
She didn’t look at me, and her voice came out stiff. “You already know I’m gonna say yes.”
“Excellent,” rasped the bird faery as the two crows flapped their wings and hopped to its hunched shoulders. One scaly talon rose to beckon to us. “Step forward, then. Come around to this side and whisper your secret into my ear. But remember—trivial secrets are of little use to me. Deep, dark secrets carry power and are the only thing that will pay for the information you desire. Do not waste my time, wingless ones. Step forward.”
I swallowed hard as Annwyl walked around the nest, coming to stand at the faery’s side. The crow on the ragged shoulder eyed her, unblinking, as she bent down, bringing her mouth close to the hooded cowl. Her lips moved, and I averted my gaze, feeling I shouldn’t watch her spill her darkest secret to the hunched form in the nest.
The crow on the faery’s shoulder suddenly lunged at her, driving its sharp beak into her ear. Annwyl gasped, jerking away, as the bird pulled back, holding a glowing green orb the size of a marble.
Ruffling its feathers, the crow hopped onto the bird faery’s arm and dropped the glowing ball into its open palm. The faery’s claws curled around it instantly, and Annwyl’s secret vanished from sight.
The Summer girl shivered.
“Yes,” the faery hissed, sounding pleased. “Good, very good. We are off to an excellent start.” It clacked its beak and looked at Kenzie. “Now, are the human’s secrets as interesting?”
Kenzie’s eyes met mine, and something in her solemn gaze caused chills to creep up my back. More secrets. I thought she’d already told me her biggest secret, the one she shared when we were alone and trapped in the Forgotten cave. The thought that she was hiding more from me made my insides hurt.
Kenzie walked around the side of the nest, bent down and whispered something into the faery’s ear. This time, though I felt rotten doing it, I watched her carefully, trying to catch a hint of what she was saying. My heart stilled when, for just a moment, I thought I saw my name on her lips, but I couldn’t be certain. Kenzie flinched when the crow’s beak darted into her ear, emerging with a shining orb of blue, and it disappeared into the faery’s claws like the other one.
Then it was my turn.
My heart pounded as I made my way around the nest. Secrets. What could I say? Kenzie already knew my biggest one. The regret I’d never told anyone before, that day with Samantha and the black pony, when I’d watched a faery hurt my friend, ruin her life and couldn’t do anything to stop it. She already knew. And the bird faery wanted something I’d never told anyone before. A secret that could be bought. That could be used against me.
I still didn’t know what I was going to say as I bent down, nervously eyeing the crow’s sharp beak, so close to my eyes. But I took a deep breath, my lips parted, and without even thinking about it, I breathed:
“It’s Keirran’s fault Meghan never comes around. She would still be part of this family if he was never born.”
Whoa. Where had that come from?
CHAPTER TWELVE
MR. DUST
I barely felt the crow stab its beak into my ear, still reeling from what I’d just told the faery. I... Did I blame Keirran for Meghan’s absence? It sure sounded like I did, which made me an irrational jackass. Okay, so I’d already known I was a jackass, but an even bigger one.
The bird faery cackled, tucking the secret into the folds of its robe. “Interesting,” it said, giving me a sideways look with one beady eye. “Sometimes the biggest secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves, eh, human?”
I crossed my arms, vowing to deal with this newest personality wrinkle later. Right now, we had to find the prince. “You got your secrets,” I told the faery, stepping back to join Kenzie and Annwyl, ignoring their worried looks. “Now, tell us where we can find Keirran.”
The bird faery clacked its beak. Reaching into a tattered sleeve, it withdrew the bright blue marble and held it up, letting it glimmer in the dim light.
“Secrets for secrets,” it rasped and tossed it at me.
I caught it instinctively, and the second the globe touched my skin, there was a flash behind my eyes, and I was somewhere else.
Or maybe someone else. I stood in the same room, facing the lanterns and the crows and the hunched old bird faery in the center of the nest. But I wasn’t me. I don’t know how I knew this; maybe because I couldn’t move or even speak. It was like I was a passenger in someone else’s head.
“And you’re certain this person can help me?”
The voice echoed inside my head, low and familiar. Across from me, the bird faery shook itself. “Secrets for secrets,” it rasped, nodding. “You have what you came for, boy. Leave now.”
I, or rather, the person whose head I was inhabiting, turned, slipped out of the tent and began walking.
I kept my eyes open, though I didn’t have much of a choice, and tried to pay attention to where I was going. Past the goblin market and the vendors haggling their unearthly merchandise, I ducked down a side alley that took me away from the main stretch. Across a deserted street, a wall of old, crumbling apartments sat at the edge of the pavement. I scanned the line of doors until I found the one I was looking for. Simple, unmarked, painted black.
Walking up the three steps to the stoop, I knocked twice, and the door swung back, revealing a shark-toothed redcap in the frame. The faery’s dull yellow eyes widened at the sight of me, but it didn’t move.