The river, at least, was familiar. I reached the path Ezra had led me on, though we’d been farther upriver. Clanging metal and hollow thuds sounded in the distance, but the trees were too high on the bank for me to make out the walls of the Mission. I consulted my directions once more, paying mind to the hand-drawn flow of the river, and headed downstream toward the mill.
The path was easier with shoes on, but more difficult than I preferred in my unnecessarily full skirt.
“I’ll never be rid of this dress,” I muttered to myself, before letting out a frustrated, unseemly moan.
A bee buzzed by my ear, and I shied away like a startled horse, tripping on the hem. When I tried to right myself, I merely succeeded in tangling myself further in the infernal fabric. The momentum sent me hurtling toward the steep bank and the sharp rocks below. I had only enough time to curse my dress one last time before I pitched off the edge.
CHAPTER SIX
Branches snapped as I fell, sharp thorns tearing at my hands and arms. I didn’t struggle so much as flail—desperately grasping for something to stop me from bashing my skull against the rocks far below.
It took me several long, gasping seconds to realize that the saplings wereactuallygrabbing me.
That I was no longer falling.
A twisted hammock of straining branches cradled my trembling body. I hardly dared to breathe. Clay and dirt rained from the roots along the bank as every plant that held me threatened to dislodge from the cliffside. Panting wildly, I looked around as best I could without moving. Above me, a flushed face peered over the edge of the bank.
“Hold still, Apprentice Haven,” Ezra said softly, his voice strained—as if he held me with his own strength. He swore under his breath and wiped his forehead, leaving a smudge of fresh dirt like a bruise across his brow.
He didn’t need to tell me to hold still. I knew without looking that I was high enough to break my back if I slipped out of the brush.
“Easy,” he whispered.
I started to tell him that I wasn’t going to struggle when the branches themselves began to move. He was talking tothem.Bit by bit, the branches pulled me up the bank, vines and twigs gripping me like fingers to hoist me from one thorny bush to the next.
“You’re an Animator,” I blurted, feeling the vines wrap around my hips like a harness.
His eyes met mine for a moment, a flash of anguish running through them before his gaze hardened. “I’m an Animator who will drop you to your death if you don’t let me concentrate.”
I forced myself to freeze, but I could not quiet my mind. Magic of this sort was not compatible with modern life, too wild and chaotic to coexist with Progress. When the House had tried to regulate this dangerous power, the Animators had lashed out violently—only proving they could not remain among innocent people.
But Ezra …
Ezra wasn’t hurting me.
He wassavingme.
I forgot to be silent. “You asked me if I could unlock latches with magic,” I said in a hissing sort of whisper. “You failed to mention you can talk to plants!”
“Do youwantme to drop you?” The strain in his voice convinced me to hold my tongue until his hand gripped mine and he pulled me off the edge of the bank and onto the path, where I promptly sank to the soft bed of pine needles. I dug my fingertips into the solid ground. My body hurt, aching with panic and fear.
To my surprise, Ezra stumbled and fell to his knees beside me, breathing raggedly.
“Are you—” I started to ask.
“Don’t.”
The quiet pain in his voice silenced me. Trembling, I wiped my bloodied, filthy hands off on my skirt and scraped the tears from myeyes. My heart beat as if I’d been running for hours, and no amount of careful breathing would slow it down. Ezra was an Animator.
He’d saved my life.
I’d nearly died.
I would have been dead.
And he wasn’t supposed to exist.
“Does anyone know?” I finally asked.
