I glanced around the table again. My daughter, Elspeth, had slipped away a few moments earlier, said her shoulders ached from the journey, had even shown me the bruised flesh where wing met bone on her back. But bruises can be faked.
I stood, inadvertently kicking my chair to the floor, an act that silenced all their conversation. Driscoll cowered as I swept past, the others merely stared at me with a curious expression. In a heartbeat, I was on the porch, head lifted, smelling dark sky, searching for my daughter’s scent.
My human flesh dissolved, blew away on the chill autumn wind. Wings spread, I hovered in the air, listening, searching.
“What is it?” Sage appeared on the porch behind me.
“Hush!” I ordered.
That was when I heard it. A scream. Coming from Madeline’s cottage.
Elspeth. Screaming.
I cast a Veil, strong and bright, one that would slow everything and everyone down. It froze a corner of Ticonderoga Falls like insects in bits of amber. Like my people, my powers come from human dreams. Anything they can dream, I can do.
Then I soared over field and forest, following the scream that wouldn’t end. In an instant I stood before an open window and saw Elspeth inside. A dog soared through the air toward her, teeth bared. The creature already had my daughter’s arm clamped in its jaws.
Foolish child!
I flew into the room and grabbed the dog, then pulled it away from Elspeth. “Sleep,” I whisper-sang in its ear, a song meant to calm a faithful beast that tried to protect someone it loved. I gently closed its jaws, wincing when I saw my daughter’s blood in its mouth, tried to wipe it away with my hand. Then I placed the animal on the floor, carefully, in a position that would look natural.
When I lifted my head I realized that she was watching me.
Maddie was awake.
All she would see was a blur. Still, she shouldn’t be seeing even this much. I glanced down at a sketchbook on her lap.
She had been drawing a picture of a Darkling in the forest. Me.
But I couldn’t stop to act on it. Life and limb, they were what mattered. Harm no human, no beast, during harvest. Rules had to be followed, or the harvest would turn bitter and foul in the mouth. Would bring famine. Pestilence. Plague.
I spun around, faced my child, grown now and lovely as the moon herself. Disobedient and foolish and bleeding—she was too much like her father. Because of her human blood, she too had been captured by my Veil. I ripped off my shirt, wrapped it around her wound and folded reality so that we could both fit through the open window.
Then I flew away, with Elspeth in my arms.
Chapter 19
Shimmering and Silver
Maddie:
One moment I crouched on the sofa, unable to move. My dog hung frozen in the air, biting a black-winged beast that filled the room. Then there were two beasts and an unbearable cold frosted my skin. For a brief flash of time, I recognized an unmistakable odor. But it didn’t make sense.
It was the forest, a fresh mash of green leaves and moss, sunlight and wind. The fragrance filled the room, made time stand still.
Then, suddenly I could move again. I blinked and let the wet fragrance of the wood fill my lungs. The darkness and the wings that had blocked out the light were gone now. Samwise was no longer growling.
In an instant, nothing was the same as before.
Now the dog was sleeping on the floor beside me, curled up, tail tucked to his nose.
The window hung open, shimmering and silver, as if a great heat had just passed through the room. But all was still. I stood on shaky legs. Then I walked through the house to make sure no intruder was inside, made sure Tucker was safe and asleep. I tested and closed and locked every window and door.
And then finally, I stopped and knelt beside Samwise, so deeply asleep that I couldn’t rouse him, even when I called his name. That was when I saw it—the only proof that what had just happened hadn’t been my imagination.
A few flecks of blood colored the dog’s muzzle.
Chapter 20
Silver-Gray Skin
Ash:
My wings pummeled the air. I flew through mist and shadow, between white fir and lodgepole pine; I followed a mountain pass, deeper and deeper through evergreen vein toward the village, all the while wishing that I could go faster. The clouds of midnight shadowed the vale, threatened snow, spoke promises of brittle cold. The only warmth was my daughter, a crescent of flesh that nestled too still in my arms, eyes closed.
She was caught in her Darkling skin—eyes the color of the moon, skin like a stormy sky, hair like the blue-black raven.
Eyes that wouldn’t open, flesh growing colder.
Was she asleep? Why hadn’t Sage told me about this?
I soared low through moonlit skies toward the center of Ticonderoga Falls, toward the one human I trusted.