“Olivia Darwen,” the Fat Frog said, “do not fear—”
Whatever the frog was about to say, the humans wouldn’t hear it, for the goblins dropped them both off the treehouse. A thin shriek from the woman, then Skye heard nothing but the tribe’s yelps and shouts.
The pain locked in that tiny human dungeon cell inside her burst open like an explosion and broke the jail door off its hinges. She raced to the railing, her mate running beside her. Together they clutched the top rail and looked over. But from that height the ground was hidden by lacy layers of evergreen branches, swaying in the winter wind. The humans had fallen. They were gone.
A keening whimper escaped Skye’s throat. Her mate echoed it. They looked at one another, shocked and confused.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEATH. ONE COULDN’T FALL FROM THAT HIGH AND NOT DIE.
Livy plummeted, so terrified she couldn’t even scream anymore after one brief wail. She and Kit crashed through conifer branches; needles and twigs lashed at her on the way before whipping back up. The next layer of branches had more heft to it; some of them bent and slowed their descent for a second before giving way.
Then another layer, maybe halfway down: this time the branches curled tangibly around their bodies, and Livy and Kit slowed considerably. She grabbed at the branches and began to hope. Then those branches creaked and broke too, and they plunged again.
Lights zipped above and around them, impossibly fast. Their fall slowed once more, and when Livy flailed to seize anything within reach, she found her arms stuck to something. She and Kit were sagging in some kind of net. She turned her head, and met his astonished gaze some ten feet away. He seemed to be shaking off the blow to the head. They were both caught in filmy white stuff that spun out between trees and was stretching down to accommodate them as they sank into it. Snow-covered branches? No, a spiderweb. The biggest, strongest, fastest-built spiderweb she had ever seen. Then the web tore and they fell again.
And landed with a thump on the ground, a foot below, safe and whole.
“Oh my God.” Livy sat up, her clothes dusted with snow and webs. She crawled to Kit. She yanked the gag off him and cupped her hands around his face. “Hey.”
He drank in the sight of her, blinking fiercely. “I thought…oh God, I thought you were dead, I thought we were both about to die, and that I’d never…”
She hugged him close, feeling him press against her with all his might, though his limbs were still tied and he couldn’t embrace her. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said. Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “We failed.” She looked toward the east, where the sky was lightening to gray in an open strip between tree trunks. “Dawn’s almost here. We failed.”
“Olivia Darwen.” The frog zoomed down, still holding the ring with the red stone. Livy and Kit looked up. “We have just enough time,” it said. “But the contract bound up in this ring involves powerful blood magic. To undo it and disband them will require a sacrifice.”
“What kind?” Livy asked.
“Either something from each of the four of you, or the life blood of one of you.”
“Take mine,” Kit said at once.
Livy clapped her hand over his mouth. “No!” She looked the frog in the eyes. “Each of us. No one dies tonight.” She glared down at Kit.
She could tell from his eyes that he smiled. He acquiesced with a nod.
“I will do my best to make it painless,” the frog said. “But it will be permanent. Do you choose mind or body?”
“Permanent? Wait—what do you mean, mind or body?”
“To lose a piece of, from each of you.”
Livy felt queasy, and drew in a breath to steady herself, but answered without hesitation. “Body.” She thought of Skye and Grady, their minds compromised all this time; of Kit’s mother, her memory lost toward the end of her life. No more losing any parts of their minds. She glanced down at Kit, and dropped her hand from his mouth.
He nodded. “Definitely.”
“Then so be it.” The frog flew up again, fast as a rocket.
Livy set about untangling Kit from his chains. “I thought this was over.”
“I thought so too.”
She shook off the last chain and they held each other tightly.
At that moment the fireworks began.
One second Grady was looking into the eyes of his mate, trying to comprehend the war of strange feelings inside him. The next second, the treehouses started falling apart. Sparks flashed on the dwellings and in the air all around. The magic holding up the village collapsed; boards, furniture, weapons, and everything else that had been transformed began turning back into gold and falling out of the trees. And the goblins started to fall too.
The tribe screeched, clawed, cursed, and hung onto branches and dangling boards. Redring yowled loudest of all, but she already looked smaller and weaker, and Grady felt the change deep in himself. The tribe’s center was collapsing, all because the humans had finally found a way to work with those horrid locals—of which there were now hundreds, flitting around too fast to get a fix on them.
Grady and his mate leaped onto a board nailed to a branch. Just after they jumped, the central deck they’d left behind creaked, snapped, and went tumbling to the forest floor, carrying several screaming goblins. His mate clung to him. Their board wobbled. A whirlwind of locals bashed into them, tipping them and the board over. They squealed, but there was nothing they could do. They fell, smashing through branches, whipping through cold air, and hit the ground with a painful blow.
Everything in his body hurt. But they were immortal now, and healed almost at once. Two breaths after landing, he rose up on his knees, and caught his mate, who jumped into his arms. They knelt on the ground in the snow, staring around in amazement. Debris rained from the treetops, mostly gold trinkets that glittered bright in the icy blue of the forest, but also all the items that hadn’t started out as gold: dried fruits, kitchen gadgets, blankets, shoes, bottles, cans, anything the goblins had stolen or been given by their liaisons.
Half the tribe scampered around grabbing gold and fighting each other over it. The other half, including Redring, formed a snarling circle around the intruder and the liaison, who crouched, unhurt, on the forest floor, staring at the tribe.
Fae sparks swirled down among them, and a second later a ring of fire whooshed up between goblins and humans. Both parties yelped and drew back from the flames, but no one seemed hurt. The fire stayed in its perfect circle.
Then a wind—a wind with hands and talons all over it—surrounded Grady and his mate. It picked them up, flew them over the flames, and deposited them at the feet of the two humans. It all happened so swiftly he hardly had time to take a single breath.