The Iron Legends: Winter's Passage\Summer's Crossing\Iron's Prophecy (21 page)

Unbeknownst to everyone, Ariella was resurrected by the
Nevernever, her prophetic abilities heightened so she could aid Ash and Meghan
in their destiny to save the courts from the encroaching Iron Realm. Using her
magical foresight, she manipulated such events as the exile of Leanansidhe,
Puck’s guardianship of Meghan and the first meeting of Meghan and Grimalkin in
the wyldwood.

Reunited with Ash and Puck on their quest for the End of the
World, she guides them to the Testing Ground. When Ash has passed all three of
his trials, Ariella sacrifices herself to create a soul for him so that he can
be with his true love, Meghan, and so that she can be with him, in a sense,
forever.

ETHAN CHASE

Meghan’s half brother, the son of her mother and
stepfather, Ethan is a sweet four-year-old with curly brown hair and big blue
eyes. He has the Sight, which means he can see the fey that most humans
naturally overlook. He is kidnapped by the Iron King and replaced with a
changeling, but later saved by Meghan. He worships his big sister and doesn’t
understand why she leaves and cannot come home. He ultimately blames Ash for her
abandonment.

FERRUM

(the Old King, the false king, the Iron King)

Ferrum was the Iron King before Machina. Power-hungry
and terrified of losing his throne, his fear was corrupting the land and he
refused to accept that he was obsolete and that it was time for a new Iron King
to rise. When Ferrum tried to stab him in the back, Machina, his First
Lieutenant, defeated him and stepped up to rule in his place, absorbing all of
his powers per the rules of the Iron Realm. However, Ferrum did not fade away,
but rather hid out in the tunnels under the Iron Realm, worshipped only by
packrats.

When Meghan first encounters him, Ferrum is an old, old man
sitting on a throne of junk. His skin is metallic-gray, his eyes are green and
his white hair flows past his feet. When she meets him again, he wears
voluminous black robes and there is an iron crown upon his head. He glows with a
dark purple aura of power. Ferrum has sharp, clawlike fingers, which he uses as
weapons, and he is superfast. Meghan must defeat him to save all of Faery and
become the Iron Queen.

GLITCH

(the Rebel Leader, the First Lieutenant)

Glitch was King Machina’s First Lieutenant. He has a
sharp, angular face and pointed ears, and wild black hair, spiked up like a punk
rocker, with neon threads of lightning flickering between the strands. He wears
ripped jeans and a studded leather jacket. He has the ability to cause
electrical glitches with a single touch. When Machina fell and the false king
took his place, Glitch led the revolution against him. He originally wanted to
hide Meghan away, but later follows her and joins with the armies of Summer and
Winter against Ferrum’s forces. When Meghan becomes the Iron Queen, he becomes
her First Lieutenant.

IRONHORSE

(Rusty)

Ironhorse is one of King Machina’s lieutenants. He is a
massive black horse with eyes that glow like hot coals and flared nostrils that
blow steam and fire. His body is made of iron, with pistons and gears jutting
out from its ribs. His mane and tail are steel cables, and a great fire burns in
his belly, visible through the chinks in his hide.

Ironhorse is loyal to the true ruler of the Iron Realm. He was
initially an enemy of Meghan’s, working for Machina to bring her to his
fortress. When Meghan killed Machina and inherited his powers, and therefore his
throne, Ironhorse sought her out under the guise of helping her take back the
Scepter of the Seasons, when in fact he was serving and protecting her as the
rightful ruler of the Iron Realm.

Ironhorse is a very large and outdated machine, and when he
speaks it is in a booming voice. Despite his ferocious appearance, he is also
very loyal and he did eventually sacrifice himself to help Meghan overcome her
enemy Virus. At the time of his death, he agreed to give his essence to
Grimalkin to create an amulet that would allow the faery cat to travel through
the Iron Realm and continue to aid Meghan without being poisoned.

As the Lord of the Obsidian Plains, Ironhorse rules over a clan
of similarly built horselike iron fey. He has the ability to take the form of a
monstrous black man with glowing red eyes.

MACHINA

(the Iron King)

King Machina was the true Iron King, the predecessor of
the first king, Ferrum. When Ferrum became obsolete and refused to abdicate his
throne, becoming hostile and paranoid, Machina rose up and overthrew him,
absorbing his powers.

Tall and elegant, with flowing silver hair and pointed ears,
Machina is refined and graceful, yet unmistakably powerful. He wears a stark
black coat, a metal stud in one ear and a Bluetooth headset in the other. Energy
crackles around him and electricity occasionally crackles across his black eyes.
His face is beautiful and arrogant, all sharp planes and angles, but when he
smiles, it lights up the whole room. He wears a strange, silvery cloak across
his shoulders that wriggles slightly as though it were alive. In actuality, this
cloak is a network of silver cables, a halo of metal wings wickedly barbed on
one end.

He kidnaps Meghan’s brother, Ethan, replacing him with a
changeling, in order to lure her into the Nevernever in the hopes of making her
his queen. When Meghan kills him by stabbing him in the heart with the Witchwood
arrow, he becomes a massive iron oak tree. Upon his death, his powers transfer
to Meghan, and he begins to appear to her in dreams.

MELISSA AND LUKE CHASE

Melissa (Meghan’s and Ethan’s mom),
Luke (Meghan’s
stepfather and Ethan’s father)

Meghan’s mother, Melissa, is a former artist who,
despite being married to a mortal man, was seduced by the power of the Summer
King. Meghan was raised as a human by Melissa and her husband, Paul, a piano
prodigy, until she was six, when Paul mysteriously disappeared.

Unbeknownst to Meghan, Paul had been abducted by Leanansidhe.
Fleeing to the Louisiana Bayou, Melissa met Luke, a pig farmer and “true hick”
as Meghan describes him. Due to her half-fey nature, Luke often tended to
overlook Meghan, and his frugal ways frustrated her. Nevertheless, her mother
never forgot her and when she becomes the Iron Queen, Meghan returns one last
time to say goodbye to her family.

RAZOR

(Buzz-saw)

A typical gremlin with long, thin arms, huge batlike
ears and slitted, electric-green eyes, Razor is one of the first to realize who
Meghan is and try to help her claim her rightful throne as the Iron Queen. He
first helps her escape from Glitch and the rebel Iron Fey in her attempt to join
the fight against the false king. Later, Razor travels to Mag Tuiredh and
rallies the gremlins at Meghan’s behest, swarming Ferrum’s moving fortress and
short-circuiting the electrical defenses and halting it in its progress toward
the wyldwood.

ROWAN

(Traitor, second son of Mab)

Prince Rowan, leader of the Thornguards, is the middle
son of Queen Mab. The games his mother played, pitting her sons against one
another for centuries, formed Rowan into a jealous and power-hungry prince. His
greatest resentment fell against his younger brother, Ash, who is often seen as
Mab’s favored son.

Rowan betrayed the Winter Court to side with the Iron fey,
convinced he could become immune to Iron’s effects and ultimately survive when
the Iron Realm completely took over the Nevernever. However, the iron ring he
wore on his finger caused him to begin to rot and severely weakened him. He was
eventually killed by Ash while trying to protect the false king.

SAGE

(First son of Mab)