***
Surrounded by piles of discarded paper in the sheriff’s abandoned office, Felipe jolted at the distant kick of panic lancing across the tether. His hand stilled on a note from Mrs. Stills as he focused on the weight beneath his heart. He waited to see if any tugs of distress or further alarm came, but when nothing followed, Felipe hesitantly went back to reading. Sighing, he set the finished pile aside and reached for the next. So far, all he had found were letters from Mrs. Stills acting as her husband’s secretary, what looked like gambling tabs for half the town, and absolutely nothing of use.
“Miss Jones is—”
Before Mr. Allen could finish, the door banged open, and Gwen toppled inside. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a rough, wheezing breath. Felipe scrambled around the desk and leapt over the low rail to steady her, but when she raised her wet gaze and locked eyes with Felipe, he knew. He knew before she even said it.
“Oliver’s— Oliver’s gone,” she cried as they ushered her onto a bench.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” Mr. Allen asked gently.
“We,” Gwen paused to suck in a breath, “were in the cemetery, looking at graves by— by the woods. We split up. He was right there, I saw him, and then, he was gone. I looked. I looked everywhere for him. He— he would never leave me like that.”
Felipe had felt it. He had felt the moment Oliver slipped into the Dysterwood, and he had been powerless to stop it. Desolation held Felipe’s body in an iron grip. Oliver was gone. The words made no sense. Theycouldn’tmake sense. Mr. Allen laid his hand on Felipe’s shoulder and offered his condolences. He didn’t want to hear it. As long as he was alive, Oliver wasn’t dead. Felipe’s fist tightened as despair hardened to anger, and he resisted the urge to slap the man’s hand away.
“Mr. Allen, go to the tavern and get Miss Jones coffee. She needs it to help her asthma,” Felipe ordered without looking at the innkeeper. He feared if he saw the look on the other man’s face, he would snap.
Mr. Allen hesitated a moment before patting Felipe’s shoulder and slipping out the door. The moment they were alone, Gwen’s face crumpled, and she threw her arms around Felipe’s neck as she let out a rough, wheezing sob.
“I lost him, Felipe. I lost my best friend. I only took my eyes off him for a second. I shouldn’t have—”
Felipe held Gwen tightly, biting his lip so hard to keep from making a sound that he tasted blood. He couldn’t give in, not now. Tears scalded his eyes as he whispered, “It’s not your fault. We’ll find him. Remember, if I’m alive, he’s still alive. There’s still hope.”
He wanted it to be true. It had to be true, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Mr. Allen had stressed that once something went into the Dysterwood, it didn’t come out. The other investigators never had, and Sheriff Ridder had come out dead and reanimated. But none of them were his Oliver. He and Oliver had gone into the desecrated cathedral and made it out alive when no one else had. He had to believe the man who brought him back from the dead could make it.
Gwen coughed against his shoulder and pulled back as she drew in a shuddering breath. Felipe patted and rubbed her back as he had seen Oliver do and blinked away the wave of tears threatening to come. Things weren’t hopeless, not yet. He would walk into the Dysterwood and burn the whole thing down if that’s what it took to get Oliver back, but he couldn’t leave Gwen like this. Sinking back on his heels, Felipe carefully pulled off Gwen’s glasses and wiped her cheeks with his sleeve. The crackle in her breath was getting louder, and the dusty office certainly wasn’t helping.
“First things first, we need to get your asthma under control. Oliver will have our heads when he finds out you had an asthma attack over him, and I let you get worse. What does he always tell you? Long, slow breaths.”
Felipe breathed in time with Gwen until her chest no longerheaved with sharp sucks of air and he could finally think straight. Helping her up, Felipe led Gwen back to the steamer and ushered her into the passenger seat. Rain pattered a steady tattoo on the windshield, but Felipe could barely hear it over his pulse pounding in his ears as he started the steamer. He was about to pull away from the curb when he spotted Mr. Allen walking back as quickly as he could manage with a flask dangling from his pocket.
“Get in,” Felipe ordered.
“You aren’t leaving, are you?” Mr. Allen asked as he slid into the backseat and shut the door. Handing the flask to Gwen, he scrambled to add, “I know this is a shock to you, to lose your friend this way—”
“We haven’t lost him yet. I’m dropping you off at the inn. Then, I’m going to the cemetery.”
Felipe listened to the distant, steady metronome of Oliver’s heart on the other end of the tether and counted the beats. As long as he was alive, Oliver was alive.
Chapter Fourteen
Nothing to Lose
By the time Felipe reached where Oliver had last stood, the occasional drop of rain had grown into a steady patter. Thunder rolled over the woods as Felipe checked that his knives and gun were in place before stepping closer to the trees. This time, there was no siren song, but he could sense the change in the aether. How had he not noticed before that the shadows were wrong beyond the tree line where everything looked as uniform as a mirage? Inhaling a steadying breath, Felipe drew on the adrenaline coursing through his veins. All it would take was a brief plunge to follow Oliver to the other side. Felipe said a silent apology to his family for what he was about to do. As he tried to take a step, the air coalesced and tangled around his arms and legs. His feet slid on the wet grass as he thrashed harder against the wall of pressure. No, not now. Not when Oliver needed him. Choking on a ragged breath, Felipe backed up and rushed toward the trees only to be ensnared by unseen hands once more.
“No,” Gwen yelled behind him, her voice tight, “absolutely not.Felipe Galvan, you need to stop and listen to me.”
With a final thrust of her powers, Gwen knocked him back. Scanning the cemetery, Felipe found her running up the hill with an umbrella. In the chaos, her hair had come loose from one of her braids and her coat was only half on. While each exhalation still came with a wheezy echo, Gwen looked far more angry than she did winded.
“I should have known you would have run off on your own the first chance you got. If you had waited one minute before slipping out the back, you would have learned something important.”
“Just let me go, Gwen,” he said between his teeth as the invisible binds pressed against him like an embrace.
“No, not until you’ve listened to me.”
His hand twitched at his side, itching to grab his knife and slice through her magic. “What else is there to say? Oliver’s in there. If I can’t save him, at least I can die trying.”
“You know Oliver wouldn’t want you to do that.”
