I leave her and the warmth of the fire to piss in the woods. The air is cold and crisp. Owls hoot in the branches, making me feel watched in the night.
“Darrow?” Mustang says from the darkness. I wheel about.
“Mustang, did you follow me?” Darrow. Not Reaper. Something is amiss. Something in the way she says my name, that she says my name it all. It is like seeing a cat bark. But I can’t see her in the darkness.
“I thought I saw something,” she says, still in shadow, voice emanating from the deeper woods. “It’s just over here. It’ll blow your mind.”
I follow the sound of her voice. “Mustang. Don’t leave the camp. Mustang.”
“We’ve already left it, darling.”
Around me, the trees stretch ominously upward. Their branches reach for me. The woods are silent. Dark. This is a trap. It is not Mustang.
The Proctors? The Jackal? Someone watches me.
When something watches you and you don’t know where it is, there is only one sensible thing to do. Change the bloodydamn paradigm, try to even the playing field. Make it have to look for you.
I break into movement. I sprint back toward my army. Then I dash behind a tree, scramble up it and wait, watching. Knives out. Ready to throw. Cloak curled about me.
Silence.
Then the snapping of twigs. Something moves through the woods. Something huge.
“Pax?” I call down.
No response.
Then I feel a strong hand touch my shoulder. The branch I crouch in sinks with the new weight as a man deactivates his ghostCloak and appears from thin air. I’ve seen him before. His curly blond hair is cut tight to his head and frames his dusky, godlike face. His chin is carved from marble, and his eyes twinkle evilly, bright as his armor. Proctor Apollo. The huge thing moves again below us.
“Darrow, Darrow, Darrow,” he clucks over at me in Mustang’s voice. “You were a favorite puppet, but you’re not dancing as you ought. Will you reform and go north?”
“I—”
“Refuse? No matter.” He shoves me off the branch, hard. I hit another on the way down. Fall into the snow. I smell dander. Fur. And then the beast roars.