I touch my wet, bloody face. He’s right. Our blood would have been dried on us by now. And everyone was unconscious.
“Then how did we get here?” I ask.
Niklaus shakes his head, having a thought that disturbed him too much. “We need to find Aunt Ruth and Uncle Warrose now.”
I’m yanked backward by my hair. Sharp, stabbing pain splinters across my scalp, and I yelp. “Hey!”
Niklaus is grabbed from behind, knocking the sword out of his hands.
“Demechnef vizezës!” a man yells behind me.
It’s the mob of soldiers. Too many of them. People in the carnival turn their heads. Animals bustle in their cages. And even though I’m too sore to fight, I remember my mother telling me the story of when she was stuck in a drainpipe in Vexamen. That if she didn’t keep fighting, she would have starved and died down there.
I throw my head back, feeling a crack as those arms release me. Niklaus does something similar, maneuvering his way out of their hold. But they come at us too quickly, swords and sickles, whips and blades.
Two against dozens.
We back away in a panicked shuffle. My heart rattles inside my chest. I can’t catch my breath. This is it. This is it. This is it.
But that familiar, agonizing hook slices back into my core. A stabbing puncture. And that world of black fog and starry night appears behind us, full of glittering pinholes of white light, and cosmic powder. Without any warning, a charcoal animal dives from its opening, dragging a trail of onyx smoke as it soars through the air. A small, shiny wolf made of dust and stars and the night sky.
Go now!I hear it speak to me in a small, inhuman voice.
The small shadow wolf attacks the soldiers, giving us enough time to…
“What the hell is that?!” Niklaus shouts. But the call of that tunnel, that astronomical mist is having me heave in torment. It blasts up my spine. A lightheadedness sways through my brain cells. Instinctually, I latch on to Niklaus’s arm, and the sparkling black sky swallows us whole.
Bile spills from my mouth, leaving the taste of cognac to burn the back of my throat.
And…everything feelswrong.
I’m profoundly out of place, delirious, confused, and in shock.
A tremor runs through my systems, prickling my skin, jolting me awake. I reach up to my face, rubbing away the fog, and it stings. My face is pressed against the sharp ground, going numb and lighting up each individual nerve.
What just happened?
Cold. So cold.
Sleep is ripped from me as I stare at the endless sea of white on the ground and blasting in my throbbing face like a dust bowl through the hazy air.
Snow.
I shiver like a wet dog. Every muscle in my body begins to shudder at the sudden drop in temperature.
Glorious evergreen trees line the skies overhead. White capped mountains cascade in the horizon. I spit the rest of the bile out, using my arms to rise from the biting snow.
“We must have been drugged,” I mutter to myself.
This has to be a drug-induced trip. What else could it be? We’re clearly hallucinating. But then, why does it feel so real?
As I stand, still wearing my terribly uncomfortable red high heels, I see Niklaus already standing, staring off into the storm of snow with an unreadable expression.
“We’re in the North Sapphrine Forest,” I say quietly. “We must have been drugged.”
Niklaus keeps his eyes forward. “I’m the only Blackforth family member who has never heard the prophecy of the seven forests. My mother would never tell me why…”
Has he lost it? How is this relevant right now?
