down panic as we dropped deeper and deeper into the frigid waters.
Then, suddenly, we resurfaced, bursting out with the same noisy splash, sending water flying. Gasping, I rubbed my eyes and looked around, confused and disoriented. I didn’t recall the horse swimming back up. Where were we, anyway?
My gaze focused, my breath caught and I forgot about everything else.
A massive underground city loomed before me, lit up with millions of tiny lights, gleaming yellow, blue and green like a blanket of stars. From where we floated in the black waters of the lake, I could see large stone buildings, streets winding upward in a spiral pattern and ice covering everything. The cavern above soared into darkness, farther than I could see, and the twinkling lights made the entire city glow with hazy etherealness.
At the top of a hill, casting its shadow over everything, an enormous, ice-covered palace stood proudly against the black. I shivered, and the knight behind me spoke for the first time.
“Welcome to Tir Na Nog.”
I glanced at Ash and finally caught his gaze. For a moment, the Unseelie prince looked torn, balanced between emotion and duty, his eyes begging forgiveness. But a half second later he turned away, and his face shut into that blank mask once more.
We rode through the snow-laced streets toward the palace, and the denizens of the Unseelie Court watched us pass with glowing, inhuman eyes. We stopped at the palace doors, where a pair of monstrous ogres glared menacingly, drool dripping from their tusks, but let us through without a word.
Even within the palace, the rooms and hallways were coated with frost and translucent, crystal ice in various colors; it was possibly colder inside than it was outside. More Unseelie roamed the corridors: goblins, hags, redcaps, all watching me with hungry, evil grins. But since I was flanked by a group of stone-faced knights and one lethally calm Winter prince, none dared do more than leer at me.
The knights escorted us to a pair of soaring double doors carved with the images of frozen trees. If you looked closely, you could almost see faces peering at you through the branches, but if you blinked or looked away they would be gone. A chill wafted out from between the cracks, colder than I thought possible, even in this palace of ice. It brushed across my skin and tiny needles of cold stabbed into me. I shivered and stepped back.
The knights, I realized, were now standing at attention along the corridor, gazing straight ahead, paying us no attention. As I rubbed my stinging arm, Ash stepped close, not touching me, but close enough to make my heart beat faster. With his back to the knights, he put a hand on the door and paused, as if gathering his resolve.
“This is the throne room,” he murmured in a low voice. “Queen Mab is on the other side. Are you ready?”
I wasn’t, really, but nodded, anyway. “Let’s do this,” I whispered, and Ash pushed open the door.
A blast of that same cold, stinging air hit my face as we went through, nearly taking my breath away. The room beyond was painfully cold; ice columns held up the ceiling, and the floor was slick and frozen. In the center of the room, surrounded by pale, aloof Winter gentry and pet goblins, the queen of the Unseelie Court waited for us.
Queen Mab sat atop her throne of ice, regal, beautiful and terrifying. Her skin was paler than snow, her blue-black hair coiled elegantly atop her head, held in place with icy needles. She wore a cloak of white fur and held a crystal goblet in one delicate, long-fingered hand. Her eyes, black and as depthless as space, rose slowly, capturing me in a piercing stare. Above the furred ruff, bloodred lips curled into a slow smile.
“Meghan Chase,” Queen Mab purred. “Welcome to the Winter Court. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’m afraid you could be here a long, long time.”
“I Dare You”
The Iron Daughter
Julie Kagawa
“Why should I trust you?” I snarled at Ash.
I was completely aware that I was being an idiot, that we needed to get out of there before anyone saw us, but it was like I’d eaten spill-your-guts, and words just kept pouring out. “You’ve been lying to me from the beginning. Everything you said, everything we did, that was all a ploy to bring me here. You set me up from the very start.”
“Of course not!” Ash snarled back, his vehemence startling me into silence. “I had to make everyone believe I didn’t care, or they would’ve torn you apart. Emotions are a weakness here, Meghan. And the Winter Court preys on the weak. They would’ve hurt you to get to me. Now, come on.” He reached for me again, and I let him take my hand without protest. “Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”
“I’m afraid it’s already too late,” drawled a snide, familiar voice, making my heart stop.
To Nick, my inspiration
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
One would think the second book in a series would be easy to write, now that you’ve finished the first one and gotten all the hard stuff out of the way. Ha ha ha! No. The second book is just as difficult, if not more so, as the first, and so the list of people I have to thank has not diminished in the slightest. My family, of course, for being so supportive and always believing I could do the impossible. My newfound friends online: Khy and Sharon and Kristi and Liyana, and all the wonderful YA book bloggers of the blogosphere, whose excitement and love of this genre makes me grateful and humbled at the same time. I cannot begin to express my thanks for all they have done. My agent, Laurie McLean, who always has time to answer my questions even though I spell her name wrong sometimes. Natashya Wilson and Adam Wilson, the perfect tag team of Super Editors, and all the wonderful, hardworking folks at Mira Ink. I cannot thank you all enough. And again, I must express my deepest, heartfelt gratitude to my husband, Nick, the greatest listener of all time. I still couldn’t have done it without him.
CHAPTER ONE
The Winter Court
The Iron King stood before me, magnificent in his beauty, silver hair whipping about like an unruly waterfall. His long black coat billowed behind him, accenting the pale, angular face and translucent skin, the blue-green veins glowing beneath the surface. Lightning flickered in the depths of his jet-black eyes, and the steel tentacles running the length of his spine and shoulders coiled around him like a cloak of wings, glinting in the light. Like an avenging angel, he floated toward me, hand outstretched, a sad, tender smile on his lips.
I stepped forward to meet him as the iron cables wrapped gently around me, drawing me close. “Meghan Chase,” Machina murmured, running a hand through my hair. I shivered, keeping my hands at my sides as the tentacles caressed my skin. “You have come. What is it you want?”
I frowned. What did I want? What had I come for? “My brother,” I answered, remembering. “You kidnapped my brother, Ethan, to draw me here. I want him back.”
“No.” Machina shook his head, moving closer. “You did not come for your brother, Meghan Chase. Nor did you come for the Unseelie prince you claim to love. You came here for one thing only. Power.”
My head throbbed and I tried backing away, but the cables held me fast. “No,” I muttered, struggling against the iron net. “This … this is wrong. This isn’t how it went.”
“Show me, then.” Machina opened his arms wide. “How was it ‘supposed’ to go? What did