“Coming with,” Lucien replied without looking at them. “If what you say is true, Mother needs to be stopped once and for all.”
“Good. Then, let’s get going.”
Ushering the cousins forward, Felipe focused on the tether running from his heart to Oliver’s. Somewhere nearby, Oliver was waiting for him. He clung to that as the paths darkened and the shadow creatures encroached. The Dysterwood might be treacherous, but there was no path back to Oliver he wouldn’t follow.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On the Other Side
Oliver could feel they were getting closer to the glade at the center of the Dysterwood before he saw it. The boards sank further into the muck, and the cloying scent of rot had only gotten stronger. As they rounded a bend, he finally saw the massive oak towering over the center of the swamp. In the stormy, evening light, it loomed even larger than it had the first time. Oliver drew in a tight breath. Soon, he would see his mother again. He still didn’t know if he could free her, but he had to try. He just had to deal with Daphne first. Her gaze swept over the paths ahead as if looking for something or someone.
“Why are you doing this?” Oliver asked when she jammed the gun into his back again. “You have everything you could possibly want.”
“Because your selfish father thought he was too good for our family and this town and ruined everything. This ring and the ability to speak to the Lady should have passed tomeafter our father died, not you. I am the next oldest. I was the most loyal child. This should be Lucien’s inheritance, not yours. I have given up everything for thisfamily. And what have you done to deserve this sort of power? What have you sacrificed?”
Oliver’s heart pounded in his throat at the lurch of her hand. She pressed her weapon hard against his skin, and for a heart-stopping second, he thought she might pull the trigger. The creatures under the water stirred at his feet in warning, though he didn’t know if that was to attack her or to feast on his corpse. He didn’t want to find out.
Looking over his shoulder at his aunt, Oliver said flatly, “You can shout and wave your gun around all you want, but if you kill me, no one will listen to you. My mother made sure of it.”
“Your mother? What does Joanna have to do with this?”
“She was the one who made a new bargain. She made certain the ability to speak to the Lady would die with me.”
Daphne paused as if the revelation made no sense. Taking the opening, Oliver stepped toward the tree while reaching for the tether.Bring Felipe to me.Between one step and the next, the Dysterwood folded in on itself, and Oliver stood at the end of the path with the oak towering behind him. Last time, there had only been one path leading to the tree, but running perpendicular to his path, treads floated into place. Felipe was coming. Oliver’s ribs loosened for the first time since he entered the Dysterwood. They were so close.
Daphne pushed past him to stare at the massive oak, still keeping the gun trained on him. Her eyes ran over its twisted limbs, laden like a willow with glowing hyphae, to the bunches of mushrooms sprouting down its trunk. It might have been beautiful if Oliver couldn’t sense the legion of dead that lurked at their feet, but all he could see was the woman trapped in the tree bark. She still stood in the same place with the carved ivory handle sticking out of her ribs and one gnarled hand clutching the wound, but her eyes were locked onto him and frightfully alive. Following her gaze, Oliver caught the glow of golden eyes in the dark and the ripple from Felipe’s steps. The grin that rose to his lips fell away as Lucien and Will appeared through the fog.
***
The moment Felipe entered the glade, his eyes immediately went to Oliver. His partner stood tall before the giant oak even with his hands bound by roots and a gun leveled at his heart. Daphne Stills looked remarkably well-preserved for being in her sixties, but like Elizabeth Bathory, blood and money seemed to do that. A swell of panic flew from Oliver’s end of the tether as Lucien waded through the bog toward his mother. When she dropped her gun a fraction, Felipe nearly took his shot, but she was a Jarngren in the Dysterwood. He couldn’t risk that he or Oliver would be punished for slaying her.
“Mother, stop!” Lucien cried. “This isn’t the way—”
“This is the only way,” she said, her voice a low growl. “Did you bring Willard?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good, bring him to me. It’s time you learned what must be done, Lucien.”
Stepping into the center of the glade, Daphne tried to call to the Lady again. Lucien and Will exchanged a nervous look, but there was no change in the aether. When it was obvious nothing was going to happen, she rounded on Oliver. As she stalked closer, Oliver backed away until he was nearly flush against the tree.
“I followed you here through that godforsaken forest like you told me to, and it still isn’t working. Tell me why it won’t work.”
“Because you don’t have the right ring, madam,” Felipe called, stepping from the shadows with Will at his side.
Her gaze swept from the gun in his hand to the carnelian and gold ring on his right hand. A venomous look crossed her features as she ripped the ring from her finger and thrust the gun under Oliver’s chin. “No matter. You will call the Lady for me, then, or he dies.”
Oliver’s pulse pounded in Felipe’s ears. “Do it, Felipe.”
Like we planned, hung silently between them, but this was nothinglike the plan. A serial killer with a gun and nothing to lose had not been in any of Gwen’s contingencies. The glade had gone silent apart from a loud crack in the bark behind Oliver. Felipe held Oliver’s storm-tossed gaze and nodded.
“We would like to make a bargain with the Lady,” they said in unison.
The temperature dropped and the wind picked up as if a storm had rolled into the glade. In the space of a heartbeat, a woman appeared between them. Felipe’s brain struggled to keep up with what he saw. The Lady was simultaneously old, young, monstrous, beautiful, tall enough to block the sky, a statuesque queen no bigger than him. The shifts were so fast he thought he had imagined them until she settled into the form of a blonde woman. Her face was unmarred by time, but her age showed through the gravity in her expression. Around her neck sat a dragon-headed torc, but Felipe couldn’t look at the rest of her clothes. If he looked too closely at her hems, he saw monsters, hunted animals, and death dancing through the embroidery. The Lady’s pale gaze slid over Daphne with a sneer before landing on Oliver and Felipe.
“The child of the little thief has returned,” the Lady said to Oliver, her voice cutting like a knife. “I knew you would come back to bargain with me.”
Stepping in front of Oliver, Daphne hungrily gazed up at the god. “It is I who wants to bargain with you.”
