A laugh escapes his lips. “Here they come.”
And then, miraculously, a cloud of sapphire blue envelops us, twisting around us like a cyclone. Thousands of wings buzz in our ears, their light radiating warmth. The monsters lunge. White-blue arcs zap them back. Some monsters run away. Others try to barrel into us again and again, but the fireflies absorb the impact every time. Tears prick my eyes as I watch them defend us, their glorious light sparking like star fire. The last monsters peel away from us, shrinking back into the night. They don’t go far—they haven’t completely given up—but it’s enough.
We’re safe for now.
My words are no more than a breath on my lips. “I can’t believe it worked.”
Henry pushes my hair behind my ear and smiles down at me. “You continue to amaze me at every turn, Winter Parish.”
His eyes travel down my face, resting on my lips. We don’t say anything, and even though we have only just escaped certain death, all I can think is Is he going to kiss me? And I’ve never kissed a boy before. And Will I be good at it?
He leans forward. My eyes flutter closed as I inhale that familiar scent. Black tea and cinnamon, the campfire smell just barely clinging to his hair now that he’s wearing new clothes. His lips are an inch from mine, and I wonder if they’ll feel as soft as they look.
My eyes snap open. “The traveler.”
Henry freezes, a question in his eyes.
I can’t believe I forgot, even for just that fraction of a second. “Stoner Guy,” I explain, even though Henry has no idea what a stoner is. “We have to find him.”
Henry’s eyes widen. In the midst of our shared relief, he forgot, too.
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
I start forward, but I can’t see much through our light shield. I move my palm over my eyes and say, “Open.” The fireflies slide away, creating a hole the size of a hand mirror to peer through.
The paths are still muddy, and our progress is slow going. Every step deeper into the wood is a bad sign for Stoner Guy, but I don’t give up. We walk.
And walk.
Trudging through the ever-thickening mud.
Almost right past him.
At first, all I see is a shoe. And then a knee. An arm. A swatch of torso. And a face, eyes closed, blood dripping from a wound over his brow. The rest of him is covered in vines and thick roots, slowly pulling him beneath a tree. Into the earth.
I grip my knife and start hacking at the vines. The wounded vines writhe back in pain, but the others snap at me, trying to clamp onto my wrists. The fireflies zap them back, and a few of my friends even break away from the pack, burning the vines until they can’t hold on to Stoner Guy any longer.
The tree roots are not as easily intimidated. They grip onto Stoner Guy harder. Henry grabs the one around the boy’s neck, pulling it away from his windpipe. I try to slice through the roots, but they’re too thick for my tiny blade.
“We’re going to have to pull him out somehow,” I say.
Henry glances around, his eyes brightening. “I have an idea.” He gestures to the logs lining the path. “Do they move? We could use them as leverage.”
It’s worth a shot. I’ve never been able to get close to the edge of the path to follow Dad, but this is different. This has to be different. I’m not trying to leave, I scream-think the words. I’m just trying to save this traveler.
I scramble on my hands and knees across the muck, half the fireflies following me and the other half staying behind with Henry. My fingers reach for the nearest log, but my body freezes several inches from the edge of the path.
Please.
My arm burns, but I keep stretching.
I need it.
I grit my teeth and will myself forward.
I am the daughter of Jack Parish, I think. Granddaughter of Edward Parish. I am the guardian of this wood, and I need to use these logs to save this traveler.
But it doesn’t work. Whatever authority I have in this wood, it stops at the rules instituted by the Old Ones over a thousand years ago.
“I can’t reach them,” I shout over the creaking of the tree roots, tightening their hold on the boy.
“Let me try,” Henry says. “Take my spot.”
“I don’t think—”
He meets my gaze, the veins in his neck bulging as he struggles to keep one of the roots from crushing Stoner Guy’s windpipe. “Old Ones can walk off the paths.”
“But you’re not an Old One.”
“The elixir makes me more like them than you think.”
I want to ask him what the hell he means by that, but there’s no time. Stoner Guy inches closer to the edge of the path, the base of the tree opening up to swallow him whole. Cursing under my breath, I take Henry’s place, pulling at the root around Stoner Guy’s neck. Henry must have been working on loosening the hold the root had on the guy’s neck while I was trying to reach the log, because with just a little more prying, I’m able to angle Stoner Guy’s head enough to slide the root off him. The root tries to grab hold again, but my fireflies close around us, keeping it away.
I hear a grunt and watch in disbelief as Henry tears four logs from the muck, his foot scraping the edge of the path without a hint of resistance. He throws the logs back to me, and we get to work placing them in strategic locations around Stoner Guy’s body, threading them through multiple roots and angling them so Henry can press down on two logs with each hand.
“On the count of three, pull him out. Ready?”
I nod.
“One. Two. Three!”
Henry bears down with all his weight on the logs. The roots barely move an inch, but between the leverage Henry is creating and the scorch marks the fireflies are searing onto their ropelike flesh, loosening their hold even more, it’s enough. I grab Stoner Guy by the shoulders and heave him out, my feet slipping in the mud. He crashes down on top of me, rolling over my wrist at an awkward angle that has me gasping in pain.
Henry lets go of the logs. With nothing left to fight against, the roots crack against the tree trunk, burrowing back down into the soil.
“Is he breathing?” Henry asks me.
I lay my head on the boy’s chest. His heart is beating, and a gentle whoosh of air fills his lungs.
“Yes.”
Henry moves around to the boy’s other side, and together we pull him to his feet.
“We should leave,” Henry says. “I do not trust this place.”
“Wait. Do you hear that?”
Henry stops. We stand silent, the buzzing of the fireflies around our ears the only sound. And then— “Chanting,” Henry says.
“Not just any chanting,” I murmur. “It’s Hersei.”
The language of the Old Ones.
XXVI
We don’t have to go far to find the source of the chanting, thank God; dragging Stoner Guy through the mud is so not how I wanted to spend my night.
Standing in a clearing off the path, shrouded in a purple mist that rises from a central campfire of the same color, are four figures wearing long, black cloaks, the hoods pulled low over their faces. Another figure stands in the center of them, his hood thrown back, his hair the color of freshly fallen snow.