I was covered in sweat, freezing.
“If I do not find it?” I said through chattering teeth.
“Then I will tear out what remains of her heart, Lulaah, Lulaah,” she singsonged, “and devour it raw.”
She bit down, and the echo of her snapping jaw cracked back at me from the ceiling, the walls, the floor.
“I promise you nothing,” I said.
“There is no need.” She glided backward, and was taller, darker, shedding light as if it had been a temporary cloak. “I take what I want.”
More hands grabbed me, my upper arms, my thighs, plucking at my clothing, my skin.
I opened my mouth to yell, but another voice cut in.
“Be gone!” the creature that held me roared.
Fingers and hands fell away, then I was moving, stumbling forward, his palm against my throat shifting to the back of my neck, the other hand binding my wrists, pushing me from behind.
“You must go far from here,” he said, “and not return. When you find the book, when you find its binding, that which Mother Hush searches for, return. If you return before then, or empty handed, you will be torn and shredded. It will be your death.”
His hands dropped away. I nearly fell trying to catch myself on the uneven ground.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The creature was a shadow in the shadow. But he pulled light onto himself, bits and sparks, like stars falling from a low-hung sky, that gathered around him, revealing his form.
He was more man than creature, slimmer and shorter than me. His skin was gray, his eyes tepid orange, his hair long and twisted to fall behind his pointed ears.
I’d have thought him fae, if he hadn’t just proved he was acting as a bouncer for the mother of all Hush.
“I am Thrum.”
“Are you trapped?” I asked.
It surprised him. “Am I trapped?” He lifted his hands, palm up, fingers straight in a tall cup. Somehow I knew that motion was amusement. “I am not the lost one, man of two souls. I am not the one stitched and bound.”
“You said you would keep me safe. She marked me.”
His sharp chin tipped to one side so he could regard me through one eye. “Do you not breathe? Do you not stand? Do you not think and feel?”
“I do.”
“Then you are safe.” He chuckled through bared teeth. “Perhaps not smart.” He blew toward me, across his palms, as if freeing a gently-held moth.
* * *
Ijerked and opened my eyes. The stars wheeled overhead, sparkling through the trees, the moon long since set. Lu pressed against me, her arm over my chest, her head resting on my shoulder, which had gone numb.
Crickets and katydids chirped and chirred, while frogs croaked and chortled in the mud of the river I could smell.
The wind had cooled slightly, and I adjusted the quilt, making sure Lu was covered.
Lorde, who had moved to the other side of Lu, lifted her fuzzy black head to watch me.
Nothing was wrong. Lorde wasn’t in high alert. Lu wasn’t awake. The night was calm, filled with nature going about its business without fear of a predator nearby.
But my neck felt bruised, my lips swollen. Ankles and wrists hurt too. The chill on my skin warmed like I’d just walked out of cold storage and into the temperate world.
