The water levels rose, soon above both Tadg’s and Viola’s heads. But while treading water, Ethel and Abel could no longer hold them, and Tadg and Viola slipped out of their grasps. The rain continued so hard that it hurt, the drops beating like hail against Barclay’s skin. The pool rose and rose. Beside Barclay, Root had pushed Abel’s Doppelgheist off him and had begun to tread, his head bobbing up and down at the water’s surface. Barclay reached for him and mouthed, “Thank you,” then he and Viola returned Root and Mitzi to their Marks.
“Is this enough for you?” Barclay asked Tadg.
“Almost,” Tadg answered. He’d tilted his head up so he could still stand and breathe.
Abel and Ethel had disappeared back into their reflections, but the mirrors remained.
“How is this not enough?!” Barclay shouted at him.
“Mar-Mar will shock you if you’re still in the water,” Tadg said. “You need to wait for the mirrors to fill up so you can spill over.”
Barclay didn’t like the idea of wasting more time. But the pool filled up within only a few minutes, and soon both Barclay and Viola were able to hoist themselves over the ledge of mirrors and tumble the ten feet to the ground below.
Once they did, a terrible shriek pierced the forest. Barclay’s Mark stung in warning, more painful than it ever had.
“Can you see anything?” Barclay asked Viola, wincing and standing on his tiptoes to try to peer over the glass.
Viola shook her head. “I can’t.”
Just then, a head emerged from the water. It rose up and up, so tall that it hunched beneath the forest’s canopy. The Beast’s face looked even more hideous in person than it had on the cover ofA Traveler’s Log: wide, flat at the top, and translucent like a fish. He opened his mouth to let out a second bloodcurdling shriek and revealed rows and rows of teeth.
A bright light began at the lamprey’s eyes and spread down him in a pattern of scales and lightning. A sound like a rumble of thunder roared, and all at once, the mirrors shattered. Glass blasted in every direction, followed by the water bursting out. Tadg was swept across the forest floor like a limp piece of algae.
He coughed, clinging to the lamprey’s side. Barclay could see what Tadg meant now, when he called his Nathermara a monster. He was massive and hideous and terrifying—not at all like Root.
The lamprey shrieked again. Barclay got the sense that he was shrieking at Tadg.
Tadg grimaced at him. The serpent writhed as he faded and returned to his Mark, and when he disappeared, he left the Woods eerily quiet except for the rain. Then Root let out a second howl, and the rain lightened into a drizzle and stopped altogether.
“Who names a monster like that Mar-Mar?” Barclay asked, wringing out his hair and clothes.
“My father,” Tadg answered darkly. “Now let’s go catch his real killer.”
TWENTY-FOUR
The forest pathways began to slope downward, like they were descending deeper and deeper into the Woods.
Barclay would soon come face-to-face with Gravaldor, the monster who had killed his parents. Even if that was seven years ago, even if Barclay had never seen Gravaldor himself, he’d heard enough stories and had enough nightmares to imagine his face. Barclay knew he couldn’t bring his parents back, that stopping Gravaldor wouldn’t somehow save them. But it felt like it might.
Barclay’s heart nearly stopped when another roar shook the Woods. His Mark stung. What if they were too late?
Then the forest path opened into a sort of cave, its walls and ceiling made entirely of gnarled trees and branches. Only the faintest light broke through its cracks, and as Barclay’s eyes adjusted, he made out the shape of something in the enclosure’s center. Something very big.
He roared again, and though it was still loud enough to rattle Barclay inside and out, much of his breath had transformed into a white smoke.
“There!” Barclay said, pointing to the edge of the den.
“Mitzi, light!” Viola said, and a flash swept across the cave—not so bright for Barclay to squint, but enough that he could see clearly.
He wished he couldn’t.
Gravaldor loomed above them, taller than the tallest building Barclay had ever seen. Like in the illusion he’d seen fighting Klara’s Hocus, Gravaldor resembled a bear, with mangled brown fur and legs the size of oak trunks. His eyes were an earthy green and sunken, with strange markings around them like the inner swirls and grooves of a tree. Large stone plates covered in moss lay across his back like armor. Of his many gigantic claws, one of them on his front paw gleamed of solid gold.
Barclay could scarcely believe any Lore Keeper had ever bonded with the Beast, even if only in legends. There was something ancient and wild about it. A power greater than anything he’d ever imagined.
Staring at it, Barclay waited for the rage about his parents to sweep over him, but it never came. It was like being angry at a storm, a blizzard, a drought. Gravaldor wasn’t a monster—he was part of nature itself.
The realization left Barclay suddenly empty. His anger atGravaldor, at Beasts, at Lore Keepers faded, and it hurt to feel it all go. He’d clung to that anger for so long like he’d tried to cling to his parents’ memory. But blaming Gravaldor felt like looking at a mountain and blaming it for a landslide. Barclay had spent his whole life cursing the broken land when he should have been building on top of it.
