Barely five minutes in, we spot the white begonias.
Daryn keeps Shadow going, but Jode and Marcus exchange a look, and the weight of my sword becomes noticeable at my back.
Time drifts past. Slow time. Fast time. Measurable in breaths. In hoofbeats and trees. I don’t hear the Harrows. I don’t smell their burnt reek or hear the wind rising.
Just as the woods are becoming numbingly, painfully the same, I see something different up ahead.
A fallen tree, dried and leafless, resting on its side.
Marcus hops off Ruin and probes it with the scythe. It’s strange. The bark is broken, and parts are shredded like corn silk. I don’t see heartwood or sapwood—it’s hollowed out. And the inside of the bark is blackened and burnt.
I have the discomfiting thought that it looks like a cocoon. Like something clawed its way out.
Marcus shakes his head. “Don’t like it.” He mounts back up.
We ride again.
My mind starts to want to wander. I catch myself and bring my focus back to Bas, to the Harrows, to listening and looking. But the sameness of the woods feels like staring at a blank wall, and doing that for hours is impossible.
Random stuff starts popping into my head, like the time Bas and I were having a discussion at the train station in Denmark over whether it was okay to order a Danish or not.
Gideon, it is rude. You’d never order an American, would you? Or an Australian?
If someone asked me for an American I’d say, “You got one right in front of you.”
You’re missing the point. They’re asking because they’re looking for food.
I’m pretty sure I taste amazing.
Okay. I dare you. Walk up to those girls over there and ask if they’re hungry for an American.
I would’ve done it to make him laugh. But at that point I was already thinking about Daryn all the time. She was the only girl I would’ve allowed to cannibalize me.
I also find myself thinking about Airborne School. Remembering the double parachute malfunction that killed me, for a little while, after which I became War.
It would suck if I died for good here in the Rift.
Why? Why am I thinking about this?
I rub the back of my head. My headache hasn’t faded; it’s getting worse.
“G?” Marcus says.
I look at him. Then suddenly Riot jolts back—all the horses reel back as the ground starts to shake.
A loud noise like a boom of thunder comes from the thick woods up ahead. Trees shudder, and all I hear is the splinter and snap of branches.
We rush toward it. I have no idea what to expect.
Harrows? Samrael? Sebastian?
But the massive object that we approach is one I’d know anywhere. I recognize it instantly.
The C-130 is a workhorse of a military plane. Big and cumbersome. It’s the plane I jumped out of about a year ago, and then fell to my death.
As we ride up, it’s still rising out of the earth like a sprouting plant, the nose pressing through the treetops and disappearing beyond.
The shaking stops as suddenly as it started, and there it is. In front of us. All but the tail sticking out of the ground.
Silence rings in my ears. For a few seconds I have to just process.
Daryn told us about the flowers washing over her mom, but this is the first time I’ve seen something unbelievable with my own eyes.
“So.” I lick my dry lips. “Wonder where that flew in from.”
Marcus looks at me. Not laughing.
Everybody knows this is from my past. There’s no point in even saying it.
I hop off Riot to check it out. Jode comes with me, nocking an arrow in his bow.
I touch the plane. The metal feels solid and real. Every detail is just as I remember it. All it’s missing is people.
Jode finally lowers his bow and lets out a hissing breath. “Why?”
“Don’t know. But I was thinking about it before.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t the only thing on my mind, though.” I was thinking about Bas, too. About my mother and my sister. My dad.
“But it’s the only thing that appeared.”
“So far.”
“Yes. So far.” He shakes his head. “It’s like we’re meeting our own psyches.”
As I catch Daryn’s eye on my way back to Riot, it hits me how hard it must’ve been for her to see her mother here.
This stuff isn’t real—not the plane or her mom—but it feels completely real.
If I came across my mom in the Rift, I’d lose it. But if my dad were here?
Just imagining it makes my stomach queasy.
“Good seeing ya, plane from my past,” I say as I mount up.
Well done, Gideon. If you want to feel positive, be positive.
“Thanks, horse,” I mutter, patting Riot.
Just as I’m shaking off the plane, we come across our next surprise; they’re coming in quick succession now.
This time there’s no shaking ground or snapping branches. Like Marcus’s Mustang, we ride up and there it is.
Another car.
A Range Rover that’s smashed into a tree. Smashed into it. Almost wrapped completely around the trunk.
“Mine,” Jode says. “This belongs to me.”
He jumps off Lucent and moves to investigate, peering into the mangled cabin. It’s empty, but I’m sure he’s imagining himself inside it, since I am.
I know this story. Jode died in this car. It’s his version of the C-130.
I picture his last seconds before he crashed, died, and came back as Conquest. How much like my last seconds they must’ve been. Feeling all that regret over things you wanted to do and say and be, but never got around to. Nothing like those pre-death moments to give you perspective on life.
As Jode returns, his face is white but he tries a grin. “Quite a grand tour of our transportational tragedies.”
“Not all of them. My mother was different,” Daryn reminds us. “Her flowers, too. They’re not all related to tragic accidents.”
“Were you thinking about her beforehand?”
“I can’t remember.” Daryn frowns. “Were you thinking about this?”
“Yes. Gideon, too.”
“I think I was too,” Marcus adds. “I just remember a headache before the Mustang.”
“I felt that as well before this,” Jode says, tipping his chin at the Range Rover.
“Same for me before the plane.”
“I’ve felt pressure the entire time I’ve been here,” Daryn says.
Jode looks at each of us. “Well, let’s be smart about this. We could be manifesting these anomalies through our thoughts. We can’t dismiss the possibility. And the headaches could be giving us warning, so keep sharp, everyone.”
“Yeah, but…” I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“Say it, Gideon. We need everything right now. As much intelligence as we can use, let’s use it.”
“Daryn, you said earlier that you thought Samrael poisoned this place when you first opened the portal. He contaminated it. Those were your words.”