On the way back to her apartment, she dialed both LeeAnne and Law but got no answer. She scowled. That wasn’t like either of them, especially when they would want her to report in as soon as she had news.
She tried again then rang the front desk. They tried and had no better luck.
“I’m sorry, Miss Jade, but they must be in a meeting. I can leave a message for you—”
Mal hung up, worry chewing at her. Not for the first time did she wish she could mindspeak with the ghosts.
What the hell was going on?
Panic bubbled inside her, and she pushed it down. Panic rarely helped. The only reasonable thing to do was go look for them and see if they needed help.
She called the desk back. “Where is the Leshiy family staying?” She asked before the clerk could get off a greeting.
“I’m sorry but—”
“I’m on staff now, so if you’re going to tell me you can’t give out that information, it’s bullshit. I need to know, and I need to know it now. Where is the Leshiy family staying?” Mal kept her voice quiet and even, which anyone who knew her would have known meant she was about to pop the last rivet on her temper and go ballistic, all safeguards abandoned.
“Oh. I see. Let me check… Oh, yes. I’ll text you that information, Miss Jade. Right away.”
The phone cut off, and a moment later, the text came through. South copse resort, specially designed for forest dwellers on vacation. She should have known.
Mal had made it only as far as the first floor of the main tower before contacting the main desk, so she wheeled around and returned outside, crossing the courtyard, striding through the formal gardens, winding through the waterpark and other amenities, until eventually she came to the forest-land resort.
It looked like it had come from an enchanted forest movie set. Huge trees rose higher than skyscrapers and wove together with the rooms created both inside their trunks and from their interwoven branches. Rivers rose up and created impossible waterfalls. Moss dripped and lilies filled pools. Starflowers dotted the ground and sparkled high up in the trees, creating a faerytale atmosphere. Behind the large trees ran a wildwood, untamed and bound only at the edges by LeeAnne’s power.
That’s where Mal headed. If there was trouble here, that was the place to find it. Anything could happen in a wildwood, including something that would keep LeeAnne and Law too distracted to answer Mal’s call. She refused to consider that they were anything more than distracted. If that was the case, she’d have to break her vow against killing. If someone had hurt Law or even LeeAnne, that someone was going to pay in blood. A lot of blood.
Chapter Four
It turnedout that Mal didn’t have to kill anybody after all.
She marched along a cathedral-like walkway leading into the wildwood. Overhead, tree branches curved like flying buttresses and starflowers gleamed in the green gloom. The ground changed from cobbles to moss then to leaf meal. She was aware when she left the ordinary magical world and entered the wildwood when she stepped over a line of purple mushrooms with little yellow spots.
The air bent around her, and the trees swayed. The earth rippled and a monstrous figure grew up out of the ground. It was made of dirt and twigs and had no discernible face. Its legs were thick lumps of clay and its arms were ropey roots woven together, the ends forming something suggesting hands.
“Leave,” it said in—surprise! —a dry, dusty voice. “Not welcome.”
“I have friends in here, and I’m going to find them.” Mal had already shielded herself against an attack. “Once I find them, I’ll take them and leave.”
“Stay and be dead.”
Thick, wet mud swirled up and closed around her legs all the way to her hips.
Rude.
Mal wasn’t in the mood to play polite. She cast a spell to dry the mud and exploded it away from her.
“Mistake,” said the creature.
“Damn straight it was,” she said. “And I’ll thank you to stop making them. I’m going to look for my friends, and I don’t have time to mess around. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I swear to all that’s holy and all that’s not, I will wipe this place off the map if you try to stop me.”
The creature didn’t seem to understand, or maybe it just didn’t care. Hard to say. How much intelligence did mud creatures have, anyway?
Mal took a step forward, and the creature oozed toward her. Magic flared around her hand. She was feeling a lot like hitting someone, and wasn’t it convenient that this creature was asking for it?
“Mal, stop. It’s okay. We’re here.”
Law sounded exhausted, his voice gravelly. He came out of the woods on the right, following someone else.
