The ground leveled out, and Damien blew out a relieved breath. There was a faint glow ahead that Amma led them to, finally coming to a stop, a small cluster of mushrooms at her feet. She spied another group of the shining fungus and went to it. “It may be a little…challenging,” said Amma as she reached another, larger cluster of mushrooms.
Damien swallowed hard, casting the spell to search his surroundings for the blood of other creatures so weakly it was useless, though it should have been simple. “This is no time for a challenge, Amma.”
In the dark, The Innomina Wildwood all looked the same, but Amma had brought him to a stop in a place that was slightly brighter, blue mushrooms clustered about to form a ring that the two had entered, a tree standing in its center. There was a smell, like well-spiced meats but with an undercurrent of something unpleasantly sweet, and when Damien squinted into the dark, the shadows moved like they were in a gentle wind even though the air was stagnant.
“I know it might be a questionable idea,” said Amma, releasing his wrist and kneeling at the base of the tree as she shifted which shoulder Kaz lay against, “but we could use the Everdark.”
“Oh, fuck.” The realization of what they stood in hit him all at once, eyes falling on the pitch-black hollow she knelt before, shocked he hadn’t sensed the intensity of the shifting magic sooner. Again, he tried to ignore the wetness still dripping down his arm.
“Em has been pointing the portals out to me,” she explained, staring into the unending darkness at the tree’s base like she couldn’t look away. “She says they close behind anyone who enters them. We won’t be followed if we go in.”
“Portals like this close so that you can’t get back out,” he scoffed. “It’s another plane, Amma, and it’s bloody dangerous. I should be leading those idiots away, and you should take Kaz and go back to the witches where it’s safe. If the Sentries are only able to track me, I can lead them out of The Wilds at the very least, and—”
“No.” Amma reached up and grabbed his hand once more. “We’re not separating.”
The squeeze of her fingers was almost painful, but it was adamant. “Itisdangerous though,” Damien reiterated, softer. “Magic is different there, and the fae are different—they don’t know death like we do—and when we find our way out, we could end up anywhere in existence.Ifwe find our way out.”
Amma had set her jaw hard, staring up at him, a pall of silvery moonlight falling over her face, obstinate and beautiful. “We will find our way out. When it’s safe.”
It was absolutely foolish, but Damien believed her.
A branch snapped in the darkness beyond them, and be it one of the Righteous Sentries or something baring fangs and talons, it made Amma tug Damien to his knees beside her, and they both moved toward the hollow. He hated that it was their only choice, but with his unmending wound and the forest’s looming threats, he supposed the fae could be somehow less bad. If they were lucky, they could immediately find an exit and be set back in the realm somewhere too far for the Reckless Simpletons to catch up.
“It’s going to be a tight fit,” mused Damien, squinting at the narrow tunnel.
“Well, if experience has taught me anything,” said Amma, handing Kaz over to him, “a little preparation makes a world of difference.” She pressed a hand to the apex of it, and the edges of the entrance actually swelled wider, the tree groaning loudly into the other sounds of the night. Amma gestured for him to go first.
Damien laid Kaz over his shoulder and, on all fours with excruciating pain up his injured arm, went forward into the darkness. The ground was wet and soft under his hands as he angled downward, and the meaty smell intensified, undercut by a sweetness like overripe fruit yet it made him nearly salivate. Fae magic, he thought, and pushed the hunger out of his mind. On his shoulder, Kaz mumbled and shifted, still alive but clearly regretting it.
If it had only been a hollow under a tree, he would have already reached a very angry critter at its bottom, but instead Damien’s hands pressed into firmer, dry earth, though it was shockingly cold. His next blind touch fell on a too-smooth surface, and with the angle, his arms began to slide.
Damien pushed up onto his knees to keep from toppling forward, but the movement was too quick, and his head slammed into the earthen ceiling. “Fuck!” His knees, however, just kept going, and the very sudden steepness took him.
He tried to steady himself against the sides of the tunnel, but everything was slick and frozen in the pitch darkness, and he was unable to do anything but grab onto Kaz to keep him safely pressed to his chest. And then there was nothing below him, and Damien was falling.
CHAPTER 24
A COURT OF ICE AND IRRATIONALITY
It wasn’t the falling that was bad, even though one’s stomach shot up into one’s throat, and one’s mind flooded with fear. No, it wasn’t the falling at all, but the landing.
For Amma, at least, she landed not on the hard ground, but on the slightly less hard form of Damien who had found the earth first. That didn’t make it not painful, just less so, but for Damien, she imagined, significantly worse.
“Sorry,” she croaked out, rolling off of him. Then the cold hit her. Frigid and wet, her hands sunk into the soft ground differently than the pliability of the jungle floor.
“Bloody wonderful,” Damien groaned. “Winter.” As he sat up, white crystals fell from his shoulders and dusted his black hair.
They’d landed in the middle of a wide trail lined on either side by pines, everything covered in a blanket of white. Thickly, the snow hung from the boughs like linens, still in the breezeless air. Amma’s breath swirled before her as she blinked up at the night sky. Though dotted with many stars, there were no moons, yet the pall of snow that coated everything shone with its own, faint light. The hollow they’d fallen through was nowhere to be seen.
Standing slowly, snow crunched beneath them, the only sound in the frozen stillness all around. The prickle of unseen eyes climbed up the back of her neck. Each movement too loud, the eerie quiet echoed back as Amma tried to fall as still as the trees, tethered in place by their heavy, white cloaks. The road stretched smoothly away from them in both directions, undisturbed by tracks since the last snowfall.
Something fell at her side, and there were splinters of wood piled there. Grabbing for the crossbow, she could feel it was broken before she looked, and sighed. At least she still had her dagger.
“This is the Everdark?” she asked, never imagining it to look so much like the world she already knew.
“The Everdarque, yes,” Damien said, picking up Kaz awkwardly with one arm from where he’d landed. “Still alive?”
Kaz managed a noise of sorts, though he only seemed to have the energy to shiver.
