19. Bruno

19

brUNO

" W ell, this is as far as I can get you," Tobias said, swinging the beam of his flashlight over the end of the tunnel.

The passage they stood in was short, far too short for Bruno to comfortably stand. Bruno and Margo were both half-crouched, staring at the door they'd been led to.

Bruno wasn't sure what he'd expected the gates of Faery to look like. Gold filigree, maybe, or made of flowers. It ought to be magical, Bruno thought, and magical ought to look fancy .

This was not fancy.

The door had rusted iron bands patterned over graying wood. There were silhouettes of animals carved all over it. Was it supposed to imply a zoo?

It was definitely the door of someone who wanted to keep people out, not invite them in.

Tobias tapped his flashlight on one of the iron bars, but there was no answer. "Really not sure what you'll do from here. This thing never opens. "

"It will open for me," Margo said firmly. "Please stand back."

Tobias very sensibly scooted back behind Bruno.

But when Bruno expected her to charge forward and try to take it on with her shoulder, Margo merely took her own flashlight and frowned at the door, inspecting every edge and hinge and latch and grain of wood.

"Is she looking for a weak spot?" Tobias asked.

"Yes," Margo said shortly. "What would you say this door looks like?"

"A prison door?" Bruno said.

"A trunk?" Tobias suggested.

Margo nodded. "And what has a trunk?" It wasn't a question. She put her hand over the image of an elephant, said loudly, "Open!"

To everyone's surprise except Margo's, it did.

Tobias whistled as the door cracked open. The tunnel continued beyond it, to a far-off glimpse of daylight at the end. "Nice trick," he said.

"It will be different for the next person," Margo cautioned. "Faery doors always are."

"When did you become an expert on Faery?" Tobias asked.

"Last night," Margo said with a sideways glance. "The Faery Code is available online."

The door shut behind them with a clang of finality.

"How did you know what to do with the door?" Bruno asked, as he crouched to clear the doorframe, following Margo through. The tunnel was, if anything, even lower past the door.

"Gates and bridges always whisper their secrets," Margo said.

"Magic? "

"Not like spells or witchcraft," Margo was quick to explain, glancing back over her shoulder at Bruno. "It's more like shifter strength. A natural part of being a troll."

"Like my keen sense of smell," Bruno agreed.

"I don't have a sense of smell," Margo said, and Bruno thought she sounded regretful. "Maybe this is what I have instead."

"How curious," Bruno said. He worried that it didn't sound as admiring as he felt, but it was hard to converse to Margo's back end, however nice it was, when they were both half-bent over and scuttling down a damp tunnel like lost crabs.

Hug her , his cave bear advised unhelpfully.

That's your solution for everything. "What else should I know about Faery?"

"Don't say thank you ," Margo cautioned. "Faery takes debts very seriously and thank you can imply a favor owed. You don't want a faery owing you a favor."

"What about please ?"

" Please is perfectly safe."

The floor of the tunnel crunched like gravel underfoot and Bruno tried not to imagine that it was the bones of trespassers.

"What's our plan of attack once we get there?" Bruno asked. Margo was so astonishingly capable, he might be intimidated if he wasn't so enraptured with her.

"There's no way to take Eva by force," Margo cautioned. "Faery magic isn't about strength, and we have no power here anyway. I will have to open a challenge for her hand."

"Shouldn't that be me?" Bruno wanted to know. Margo was gorgeously strong and fierce, but it was hard to top a cave bear in battle or brute strength .

"Do you trust me?" Margo stopped so abruptly that Bruno ran into her from behind.

Hug! his cave bear insisted, and Bruno let himself indulge. "I trust you," he said faithfully.

It was not the most graceful hug, with both of them stooped beneath the short stone ceiling, but he felt Margo relax gratefully into him. "Then let me challenge."

As they walked, she told him more. "Under current code, challenges in Faery are very peculiar. A challenge may be brought against anyone, once. The challenged chooses the battlefield, the challenger chooses the weapons."

It was certainly challenging to track all of the parties, Bruno thought. "What about me?"

"If I fail, you can challenge again, your way, and you have three days to do it. Things in threes are important to them, like the three impossible tasks and the three nights spent at a lover's door that you hear in stories."

"Maybe it's lucky that there are three of us," Bruno suggested. He was sure they would be victorious. They would save Eva and be home before dinner. "Do I have to worry about eating faery food?" he asked, because the reminder of dinner made his stomach complain audibly.

"If they offer it, it must be served without strings," Margo assured him. "That's a change in the most recent version of the Code."

"Did you read the whole thing?"

"It was only two hundred pages. And some of it was appendixes. I skimmed those."

The tunnel finally rose and opened out into a meadow of rainbow grass that reflected a brilliant white-gold sky. Bruno blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden brightness, and found himself focusing on the tip of a spear. A knight clad in oddly-jointed armor towered above him until Bruno remembered that he could stand upright again, and then he was eye-to-eye with an eye-slit in a helmet that showed no actual eyes.

"Take us to your leader," Margo said in a perfect deadpan.

And it did.