Wait…is heprotectingit? This dog confuses me more and more.
Beside it, Hazel and Sophia are struggling, Hazel shrieking as she tries to pull away. Oaklyn watches them, her expression torn.
Terror floods through me, icy and dizzying. I need to get to Hazel. I need to take her back from them.
But the distance between us feels impossible to cross. The battle rages on all sides, witches and chimeras locked in combat.
I inhale deeply, feeling the connection to the chimeras pulse through me like a second heartbeat.
“Help me reach them,” I whisper.
Slowly, a path clears before me as chimeras shift their positions, creating a corridor. Bears, foxes, birds, and creatures I have no names for move in synchrony, holding back the Shadows.
I run, my legs finding new strength as I race toward Hazel. The ground beneath my feet seems to propel me forward, as if the earth is helping me move faster.
Sophia sees me coming. Her eyes widen. She yanks Hazel against her front, pressing Oaklyn’s dagger to her throat. “Stay back!”
I skid to a halt, my heartbeat frantic. This woman has taken too much already. I’ll die before she takes Hazel too. “Let her go.”
“Or what?” She smiles. “You’ll set your pets on me? I’ll slit her throat before they reach me.”
Hazel’s eyes meet mine, full of fear. A trickle of blood oozes down where the blade has broken skin.
“I’m sorry,” she mouths, her face twisting as she fights back tears.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Sophia laughs, the sound harsh and grating. “Nothing is going to be okay for either of you. Oaklyn, pick up our prize and clear a path. Let’s go!”
My heart pounds so hard I can barely breathe. The chimeras are with me, listening and ready to spring, but I mentally caution them to stay back. One wrong move and Hazel dies.
Oaklyn is frozen, looking from Wyatt to the surrounding brawl. Her fists clench and unclench, her hands empty. “I need my dagger,” she says tightly.
Sophia’s face clouds over, a snarl on her lips to match the dog’s. “If you’d opened my gift, you ungrateful brat, you’d be in a better position right now.”
Oaklyn furrows her brow. “What?”
Keeping the knife on Hazel’s throat, Sophia rummages in the pocket of her crimson trench coat. The fabric flaps against Hazel’s side as she extracts something and throws it at Oaklyn.
It’s a gift-wrapped ring box—purple paper with a bow on top. It bounces off Oaklyn’s chest before she catches it. She stares down at it, her face blank.
I’m too confused to do anything. What gift could possibly matter at a time like this?
“Open it and help me properly,” Sophia says, her voice eerily low.
Wait.
No.
With trembling hands, Oaklyn tears away the wrapping paper and opens the box.Inside is a tiny glass vial of liquid—shimmering, iridescent, and as bright purple as crocuses at the beginning of springtime.
As purple as the gemstones I’d seen Natalie slip into her pocket countless times.
Even from here, I can feel its power radiating, making the hairs on my arms stand on end.
My blood turns to ice.
Is that…?
