The Elder Dryad lives in City Park in New Orleans, where she and her family guard the lives of their trees. The Elder Dryad chooses to sacrifice her oak—and thus her life—to create the Witchwood arrow from the heart of her tree, in the hopes that Meghan can use it to kill the Iron King.

Old Anna, the oracle

A skeletal hag of a woman, smelling like dust, decay and old newspapers, with tangled white hair, twiglike hands, hollow pits for eyes and a withered face full of yellow, needlelike teeth. Anna has the ability to prophesize the future and can smell need and desire. She answers three questions in exchange for Meghan Chase’s most precious memory, that of her father, and does not give the memory back until Meghan brings her a Token.

Rudy

Rudy is a pudgy half satyr. He owns a pawn shop that hides a trod into the wyldwood. He has had past dealings with Grimalkin, and allows Ash, Puck and Grim passage through his trod as payment for a favor he owed the cat.

Seedlit

This tiny piskie agrees to lead Meghan and Ash to the entrance to the Iron Realm in New Orleans. She is blue-skinned, with dandelion hair and gossamer wings.

Shard

Shard is an Unseelie fey who lives in the human world, guarding a trod to the Winter Realm. She is small and slight, with pale skin and neon-blue lips, spiky hair that sticks out at every angle and is dyed shades of blue, green and white, resembling ice crystals. She wears tight leather pants, a midriff tee and a dagger on one thigh. Her face and ears are covered in countless piercings, all silver or gold, and she has a silver bar through her bellybutton with a tiny dragon pendant dangling from it.

Shard’s arrogance causes her to be outwitted by Meghan in a faery deal. When she tries to kill Meghan by luring her into the clutches of her imprisoned ogre, Grumly, Meghan outwits her again by agreeing to free the ogre in exchange for his protection.

THE END OF THE WORLD

Very few fey have ever seen the End of the World. In fact, none in recent memory outside of Ash and his intrepid company have made it that far. Here, in Ash’s words, is what they saw in The Iron Knight:

The vast emptiness of space stretched before us, endless and eternal. Stars and constellations glimmered above and below, from tiny pinpricks of light to huge pulsing giants so bright it hurt to look at them. Comets streaked through the night sky, and in the distance, I could see the gaping maw of a black hole sucking in the surrounding galaxy, billions of miles away. Huge chunks of rock and land floated, weightless, in empty space.