SNEAK PEEK - The Boy with the Hidden Name

Chapter Four

The train looks like the living room of some kind of fancy hunting lodge, with comfy chairs positioned in cozy little reading nooks around an enormous central fireplace. I am with Will and Kelsey and Safford. My aunts, who were the first people on the other T, the T we were all supposed to get on, were stuck there when the platform cracked between us.

“My aunts,” I say, and reach for the closed doors, although I don’t know what I’m going to do. How do you open subway car doors once they’ve closed?

And then the subway swings into motion, taking us away from the station. Away from the Seelie and the weird earthquake, but away from my aunts too.

I whirl back to Will. “No. Will. Take me back. I have to go back. I have to get them.”

Will is massaging his face where I collided with him. “We can’t go back.”

“We have to go back, Will! ” I scream at him. “We can’t just leave them! There was a Seelie!”

“They’re on their own subway train. They’ll be on their way now. And anyway, you’re what the Seelies want, and you’re here. That makes your aunts safer than they would be with you.”

“Will—” I start, and then truly register the surroundings of the train around us. “Wait a second. Where are we? What happened? We’re not even in Boston anymore.”

“We are. We’re just on an Otherworld train.”

“The Otherworld trains go to the Seelie Court! They’re evil!” 

Will shakes his head. “Only the Green Line is evil. The Red Line should take us to the Erlking.”

“It can’t,” I tell him. “It can’t take us anywhere without my aunts and my father. We have to go back. This train has to stop, right now.”

And then it does.

It screeches to a violent halt. The chairs skid forward, crashing against the wall. We all lose our balance, tumbling to the floor. The awful squealing of the wheels against the track ends, and the silence that descends is deafening.

After a moment, I say hesitantly, “Did I do that with the power of my mind?”

“No,” Will bites out as he gets back to his feet. “You didn’t. I told you the Seelies were after you, didn’t I? We have to get off this train.” Will is studying the doors.

“In the middle of a tunnel?” Kelsey asks. 

“And go back for my aunts?” I say.

“No,” Will snaps. “We can’t go back for your aunts. Don’t you get it? We’re being hunted. The Seelies stopped this train. So we have to get out into the tunnels.”

“And what are we going to do once we’re there?” I demand hotly. “We have to go somewhere, we might as well go—”

“We’ll go to the goblins.” Will cuts me off brusquely and tries ineffectively to pry the doors open. “This is all so much easier to do when you’ve got a traveler with you,” he comments, and then, “Don’t tell Benedict I said that.”

“Aren’t you a wizard?” I ask. “Just magic it open.”

“Sorry, I was busy learning important spells like disguising silver boughs to smuggle into prison for you and casting a protective enchantment over an entire city. I didn’t bother to memorize the spell for opening subway train doors.”

“You don’t know the spell to open things?” I say in disbelief. 

And then the doors slide open.