“Can you smell our sex?”
Even Evander is surprised by my bluntness. “No.”
“Good.” Hopefully it works on Conri too. “You are going to go outside your tent and pretend to have fallen asleep.”
“What?”
“You’re just waking up, you heard the howls,” I keep instructing, short and to the point. “You’re going to run to him and say that he must come quickly. That you were unable to get through to me.”
“Conri is?—”
“Unless you have a better plan now is not the time to argue,” I interject. Evander opens his mouth and promptly shuts it. Answer enough. “Right then, trust me.”
“With my life,” he says, and leaves the tent.
For a second, I stare at where he was just standing. There’s something odd about the knight that’s been sworn to protect me saying that he trusts me with his life. But we are playing a dangerous game. One that will threaten both of us, should it unravel.
Shaking my head and dismissing the worries for now, I kneel and draw my cape around me. Lightly, I grab at the small tree I most recently stitched among all the other embroideries. I sigh heavily. I truly hate to go back on my word.
“Brundil, I need you,” I say softly as I press my fingers back into the ground. “Please, come to my aid.”
Nothing happens for a long, held breath. Hope threatens to leave me. But then the earth shifts. A clay figure wrapped in roots emerges, drawn up by invisible hands. Brundil has taken a slightly different shape this time—more plant and less human. But I still know her in my bones.
“You don’t seem to be fleeing with Aurora.” She tsks, looking around the tent. The weight of her final judgment lands on me. “Witches. All the same, wasteful.”
“What I will ask of you will help me flee with Aurora,” I say quickly. She blinks her river stone eyes. The dull look is all the prompting I get to continue my plea. “I’m going to summon you for all the lykin to see. I need you to come and make some kind of grand display.”
“What sort of grand display?” She sounds mildly intrigued.
“That’s up to you. Just…don’t hurt anyone?” As much as Conri has proved to be my enemy—alongside some of his alphas and knights—there are innocent lykin here, children. I’m not going to risk harming them.
“You ruin all my fun.”
“Apologies.” I hear a raucous collection of voices nearing. Conri’s chief among them all. “Will you do it?”
“My power to impact the world, while great, is limited,” she cautions. Grandma had warned me as much with spirits, especially greater ones. Spirits aren’t meant to take corporeal forms and influence the world. Doing so exhausts their powers—much like how Folost and Mary were worn down from having to exist in the Natural World. Different spirits have different strengths, and limitations. “Are you sure you wish to exhaust my strength, here and now? It will take some time for me to recover.”
“Yes.” I hate to say it, but if I don’t get out of this predicament then Brundil’s strength won’t matter.
“Very well then.” She leans forward, her unseeing eyes peering into mine. As if she can look into the very fabric of my being and judge me. “I will. But you’d best live up to your word and get Aurora out of this mess. Or I will make sure that, when you die, not even the maggots will touch your corpse. You will lie cold, dead but undying, never returning to the earth from whence you came. Your flesh will rot, but the soil will not absorb its nutrients. I will place a curse upon your body so great it will taint your very soul.”
I shudder. She leans away with a look of approval. Her words had the desired effect, I see.
“Good, then we have an understanding. I will await your call, little witch.” Brundil seeps back into the ground. Leaving me in the cold darkness.
But I’ve little time to process the threat. The voices are almost upon the tent, close enough now for me to make out individual speakers. Conri is among them. I stick all my fingers into the ground and hunch over. Luckily, my hair is still a mess from Evander’s pulling and raking through my tresses. It will help sell my claims.
The tent flap is nearly ripped in two when it’s yanked open. I can feel Conri there. His charm slams against me like a wave crashing upon the shore. But I am a breaker rock. Steady and unyielding. The magic pools around me but doesn’t seep in. The feeling of Evander within me, of his mouth on mine, of the sweetness of his skin, is far better than any fantasy I could ever concoct and it fights off the charm.
But I do not look up, as tempting as it is. I stay hunched over, swaying slightly. I murmur to myself old chants Grandma taught me. They’re words of protection—old spirit names for those long gone, she said. Hopefully Conri does not recognize them.
“What is the meaning of this?” Conri barks.
“She said she needed time and space,” Evander says, unflinching, even in the wake of Conri’s palpable rage.
“Time and space in my tent wasn’t good enough? I demand an explanation.Now!”
I tip to the side, letting my body go limp. Conri moves, but he’s not quite fast enough. My teeth slam together with the impact but I don’t let the stinging pain show as he pulls me off the ground. Instead I murmur incomprehensible words, forcing shivers, fluttering my lids.
