I have to get to him. I have to make sure he’s all right. I turn to run toward the council threshold, but Uncle Joe appears in front of me.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he says.
“Let me go.” I raise my knife, daring him to refuse me.
He sighs. “This is the path you have chosen, then? I cannot change your mind?”
My coin burns as Alban’s frantic voice echoes through my mind. The council is under attack. All guardians and intermediaries, come at once. There’s a scream in the background—male or female?—and then Alban’s voice cuts off. My coin turns cold once more.
“Why would I choose to follow you?” I mutter, my eyes burning into Joe, finally seeing his true self after years of thinking I knew who this man was. Of thinking I could trust him. Turns out, I didn’t know him at all. “You’re a monster.”
Disappointment flickers in his gaze. “Very well. I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no choice.” He claps his hands and the canopy overhead thickens, blocking out the sun. Shadows glide from behind the trees, circling us.
“I will try to save you when this is all over. I promise.” He gives me a sad smile. “See you in another life, Winnie girl.”
XXXIX
My fingers tighten around my coin.
“Sahabri’el,” I cry as shadows rush me. Their fingers claw at my hair, nails digging into my scalp. They are the cold, cold burn of winter, the breath you take that feels like fire in your lungs and leaves ice crystals on your scarf. My muscles seize and my heart pumps faster, faster, trying to get blood to the parts of my body already shutting down, compartmentalizing the cold. I lunge out with my knife, but the shadows break apart like smoke. I pull my hand back and they re-form.
Their whispers clog my ears.
Fresh meat so nice to eat. Skin like honey, skin like wine, skin in my mouth, so fine fine fine.
I scream as they tear through my coat and peel a slice of skin from my arm, wriggling it in the air like a piece of bacon. A few of them fight over it, darting far enough away for me to see Uncle Joe, his face expressionless, his eyes dead coals.
“Have you changed your mind yet, Winter?”
“Go to hell,” I spit as I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the flashlight hidden there. The beam is not very wide, but it’s bright. I swing it around myself in circles. I’m not fast enough to keep them all back, but it does slow their progress.
Another long finger of smoke scratches a thin triangle into my bicep as the others circle me, trying to find a way in, a tornado of whispered voices and arctic air. The smoke seeps into the lines of the cut on my skin and pulls. I swing the flashlight on the Sentinel, but it’s already gone. Two more shadows glide away from me as they fight over that piece, and somewhere a rational part of my brain thinks they could all just fillet me to death and get their fair share, that there’s no point in fighting over every little piece, but maybe that is the point. Maybe it’s all part of the fun, and meanwhile I stay alive. Stay fresh.
A ball of blue light sears the side of my vision. I glance through the hole left behind by the scuffling shadows. My fireflies are closing in. They’ll save me. Tears spring to my eyes as I watch them. So fast, so loyal, so—
“Balak’ahmeir,” Joe hisses, throwing up his hand.
My fireflies fall to the ground like fat raindrops, their lights extinguished, their tiny bodies unmoving.
“NO!” I run for them without thinking, and the shadows take their chance. They swarm me, knocking me to the ground. I try to shield myself with the flashlight, but now that I’m horizontal, I can’t reach my entire body.
My cheek burns where another strip of skin is sliced off. Their lips smack against my ear as they chew. My fingers go numb from the cold, and distantly I realize my flashlight is no longer in my hand. But that can’t be right … the light is still hovering over me. I just can’t feel the handle in my grip anymore.
Winter.
Dad?
Hold on.
It hurts.
I know. Just hold on a little longer, baby. You’re my strong girl, remember?
Strong, I think to myself. I’m strong. But I don’t feel strong, and my eyes are closing, and I can’t feel my legs anymore. It’s too cold. It would feel so good to just close my eyes for a minute. When I open them, I’ll be ready to fight, but right now they’re so heavy, and I just … can’t …
Joe’s hand circles my wrist, wrenching me out from the shadows. The collar of my shirt digs into my windpipe, choking me as his fist gropes the fabric behind my neck. He sets me down. My body tenses to run, but he grips my wrist once more.
“Don’t,” he says. “They won’t touch you so long as you stay here, next to me.”
My eyes widen. What sort of monster must he be, to terrify darkness itself?
“I’m going to ask you again,” he says, his voice soft, “now that you’ve seen the full extent of my power. Have you changed your mind?”
I try to speak, but I can’t breathe. My lungs are frozen inside my chest. And then, finally, there—a little gasp of air sneaks into them. I try again, breathing deeper, and deeper. Blood seeps from the cut on my cheek, dripping into my mouth.
“No,” I reply, the word thick as sludge on my thawing tongue. “I have not changed my mind.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“So you’ve said, but I’d rather die than join my father’s murderer.”
He grabs me by both arms, his fingers bruising my bones. “Stop calling me that,” he shouts. “I’m going to bring him back!”
“Let go of me!”
“Please, Winter.” His eyes are wild, frantic. “You have to believe me.”
“I said, let go!” I swipe my knife at his forearm. The blade slices through his coat, nicking his skin, but there’s no blood. The wound closes too fast for that. Still, it takes him by surprise, and I wrench out of his loosened grip.
The shadows are on me almost immediately, but this time I don’t try to fight them. I just run. My joints are stiff from cold, and I feel like the Tin Man, in desperate need of oil, but adrenaline pushes me forward. Burns through my veins like battery acid. It isn’t pretty, and every limp, every stumble, brings the Sentinels and Uncle Joe closer to me, but I can’t give up.
I won’t give up.
I keep the flashlight angled behind me. The light swings wildly with every pump of my arms, and some of the Sentinels manage to tangle their fingers in my coat, my hair. But I keep moving, driving my feet into the ground. Faster, faster, faster.
“You can’t escape me, Winter,” Uncle Joe says. He appears on the path in front of me, blocking my escape. “I am the wood.”
I skid to a stop and double back. A few of the shadows swipe at me, but my skin is too cold to feel it being ripped away. I turn onto the next closest path, but Joe’s already there.