“He’ll never hurt you again, you know,” Slaide said, as if he’d heard her thoughts.
Hazel rubbed her arms and looked away. Even if she never saw Oswald again, she was certain he would haunt her nightmares.
“How? Something tells me I haven’t seen the last of Ravenhold. And I’m sure he’ll be waiting to give me a warm welcome if ever I return.”
“Maybe not. I can’t predict the future, and you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble.” A sly smirk graced his face. “But I can assure you the bastard will not so much as look at you again.”
“How do you know?” Hazel frowned, although she thought she knew the answer.
“Well for one, I cut out his remaining eye.” He smiled at Hazel’s grimace. “And two, I taught him a lesson before leaving him tied up in a sorry state in that dungeon. It’s unlikely anyone ventured down there before the collapse.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged as though this was just another day for him.
But it was, wasn’t it? Slaide Elias was a killer by nature. She shouldn’t be surprised when he reacted in violent ways. And she should be grateful. She was grateful. Now Oswald One-eye would be a monster in her nightmares and her nightmares alone.
“We need to get going,” Slaide reminded her as he turned his back on the sight. “Nightfall is coming, and I know you wellenough to know you won’t want to see the things that haunt these woods at night.”
“You mean hunt?”
He leveled a glare at her. “No. I meant what I said. If you care to stay here and find out, be my guest.”
Hazel scurried to his side again, not wanting to be left behind.
“Where are we going, anyway?” she wondered, keeping a close pace to his long strides.
“To see a friend. It’s a long way to where we’re going, and I prefer not to wear holes in these boots just yet. I happen to like them.”
Hazel looked at Slaide’s feet. His boots were nothing spectacular. Was that an attempt at a joke?
He stopped and stared at her, assessing. She wanted to shrink under his gaze for some reason.
“What? Is it something I said?”
“No. It’s just… fucking Hel. This is all such a mess.” He propped his hands on his hip. “Before we go there, I need to visit someone to fetch Phillip. They don’t take kindly to strangers, and they’re going to be completely sideways with me for bringing you.”
“Then why are we going?” she countered, brows raised.
“I already told you. I’m not walking. And the only solution to not walking is by taking my horse, who is currently in the care of anotherverydefensive friend,” he explained. “And no, before you ask, I’m not flying us all the way there or rift-jumping. One of those would be far too exhausting for me, the other?—”
“It’s somewhere you’ve never been. I get it,” Hazel interrupted.
“Wrong. I have been there. And I know for a fact that making an entrance via rift without being invited is a sure way to get us both killed.”
Why were they going there again?
Something screeched in the woods, and Hazel’s hair stood on end. She watched Slaide roll his eyes, because of course only he could be inconvenienced by monsters coming out to play in the night.
“And on that note, we’re no longer walking,” he concluded. Moments later, he’d opened a rift.
Hazel’s stomach did a flip at the sight of it, every fiber of her being protesting.
“Come on,” he huffed. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
Hazel took one last look at the castle of horrors. With any luck, she would never lay eyes on it again. Then she stepped beside Slaide, who wrapped an arm around her as he stepped inside the rift. The last thing she witnessed before the darkness consumed her was the rift closing bit by bit, as though the world was stitching itself back together.
The ground rose upto meet Hazel quickly, folding her knees into her chest and forcing the air from her lungs. Slaide, as usual, stepped from the rift with practiced grace. Her cat, again, pranced out of the rift with veteran swagger. Slaide shook his head and laughed.
“At least one of you is getting it,” he mocked.
It was darker there, wherever there was. The heart of a forest, no doubt, but who could say if it was even the same one they’d been in moments before?
