I almost went through. Almost.
Then the wolf on my arm clenched, a spasm under the skin, and I remembered what Vin always said. “Don’t chase what you can’t bring home.”
I let the air snap shut, stepped back, and the world righted itself.
The trees stopped buzzing. The ground cooled. But the circle still held its charge, like a coiled spring waiting for someone else to set it off.
I looked up at the moon, let it bleach the fear out of my bones, and exhaled slowly.
No sign of her. Not even a footprint, just the burned-in memory of her voice, and the warning she left behind.
“Don’t follow.”
I wiped my palms on my jeans, left the circle, and headed back to the bike. It was only when I hit the edge of the woods, the place where the road met the real world, that I realized my wolf tattoo had stopped burning.
But it still watched. Always.
Scarlette
The moment my feet found purchase on the far side of the stone circle, my legs buckled. I made it only as far as the tree line, half-crawling through bracken and ice-rimmed nettles before I collapsed. The air here was thinner, raw, full of pine and the distant smoke of burning, and it stung my lungs as I tried to fill them. My whole body shook, not from the cold but from the memory of what had just pursued me through the moonlit woods, the beast made of iron and bone-shaking thunder, and the man astride it, covered in marks like pagan tattoos, eyes lit with some unnatural fire.
I pressed my palm to the moss, trying to ground myself. The earth felt wrong. It buzzed under my hand, a low and sickly hum that vibrated through bone, leaving my teeth on edge. I scraped the back of my hand across my mouth, and the taste was coppery and sharp, as if the air itself had become metallic. With every heartbeat, the memory of the chase flashed inside my head: themadman’s eyes, the roar of the beast he sat upon, the shriek of the black circles on the front and back on wet leaves, all coming for me at the very last. If not for the circle, I would be in pieces, scattered through these trees like a gutted rabbit.
I forced myself to sit, arms wrapped around my knees, chin pressed hard against the bone. My body would not stop shuddering. I remembered stories from Old Nan, tales of men who saw into hell through their own foolishness, who returned forever marked. I could not say if what I saw was hell, but it was nothing born of sense or nature. A part of me still believed, even now, that I’d gone mad and this was the fever dream before death.
I did not have the luxury to go mad.
After a few minutes, maybe more, the time slid in and out of meaning, and I willed myself to my feet. The trembling remained, but I could walk. Each step was agony, as if my skin was too tight, as if something inside me was still stretched between the worlds. I moved through the undergrowth, using familiar paths, counting the trees that had guided me since I was a girl. The pain receded, but the taste of metal would not leave my mouth. Nor the memory or the shimmer in the air, the impossible shiny beast, the man who had looked at me like he might eat me whole.
I put my hand against the old birch, my birch, I had called it, as a child, and forced myself to breathe. The forest was colder than I remembered. The sun had vanished behind clouds, and dusk thickened around the trunks until it was hard to see where the path led. But I knew where I was going. The only place I could go.
It took longer than I’d hoped, every root and stone sending up fresh complaints from my abused limbs. Once or twice, I caught myself looking over my shoulder, sure that the man and his machine had followed me through the stones, that they wouldcome barreling out of the dark at any moment, bringing their hot, unnatural light and the stench of burning oil. But there was nothing behind me. Just the wind, and my own shallow breath, and the hush that fell when birds left the trees.
The hunting lodge waited at the top of the next rise. It had been abandoned since the old earl died, a relic of better times, half-swallowed by bramble and rot. I had found it years ago, when hiding from Father’s fists or Mother’s scorn, and made it my own. The walls leaned together for warmth, the roof missing whole patches of thatch, but it was shelter. More than that, it was a place where the world’s eyes could not find me.
I ducked through the half-collapsed door, every muscle protesting, and pulled the remains of the canvas across the gap. It didn’t stop the wind, but it made me feel hidden. Inside, the scent was mold, old straw, and something musky, a fox, probably, or a badger who’d claimed the lodge as his own. I crouched by the stone hearth, fingers seeking the secret place where I’d stashed tinder and flint years before. They were still there, though the leather pouch was eaten through with mildew and mouse holes.
I set about the task of making fire, hands numb and clumsy. I struck steel to flint, watched the sparks fall and die, struck again, teeth gritted. My mind kept replaying the sight of that man and how he had moved, how his eyes had fixed on me with the unblinking focus of a hawk. There was something about him that did not belong in this world, not even the world I’d just fled.
Once I was certain the fire would not gutter out, I forced myself upright. The shivering had passed, replaced by a sour ache deep in my shoulders and thighs, but movement helped. I swept the corners of the lodge for branches and dry bracken, my hands working by memory. There was no thought, only the need to keep moving, to build a wall between myself and the memory of pursuit.
The floor was thick with last year’s leaves, softened by rot, but here and there I found branches dry enough to burn. I gathered them in bundles, careful not to disturb the nests of mice or the clusters of spider eggs that webbed the rafters. Each trip outside, I scanned the edge of the woods, half-expecting to see a lantern moving among the trunks, or worse, the glint of metal in the last of the light. But the forest was empty, as if the world had emptied itself to watch me alone.
Back inside, I worked branches into a pyramid over the first flames. My hands only trembled when I stopped to watch them. The rest of me hummed with a cold, clear purpose. I broke the bigger limbs over my knee, stacked the pieces in the hearth, and coaxed the blaze higher with careful breaths. The fire responded with a low, greedy sound, casting the walls in a flickering dance that made every shadow seem alive.
The lodge was small—a single room, once meant for trappers or shepherds, now a grave for old straw and the bones of things that had died trying to shelter here. The straw pallets were rank with mold, but I shook one out by the fire and layered it with my cloak, grateful for even the illusion of comfort. The table, rough-cut and splintered, stood at an angle, legs gnawed by rats or the memory of rats. The scent of old smoke and animal shit fought for dominance with every breath I took.
I peeled off my sodden stockings and propped my feet near the fire, wincing at the blisters starting to bloom. I flexed my toes, watched the skin go from white to angry red, then forced myself to ignore it. I untied my bundle, laying out the contents one by one: the spare shift, torn at the hem but clean; the water skin, half-full and sweating with cold; the knife, small enough to hide in a sleeve or boot, sharp enough for what mattered. I set them in a row, counted them, counted again. Then I took the bread, two stale heels, crumbling at the edges, and broke off thesmallest possible piece. My stomach growled, more in protest than hope, but I chewed slowly, making it last.
Rationing. That was all there was, now. I had escaped the wedding, yes, but in doing so had traded one set of shackles for another, the laws of hunger and cold, the inevitable hunt. They would not call it that, not in the language of men, but there was only one end for a girl who fled her master’s house. She could be returned to it, or else delivered up to the church as a warning to others. There was no third fate, unless I found it for myself.
I let my back settle against the wall, the stone still cold despite the fire’s best effort. In the shifting orange light, the cobwebs above me gleamed like strings on a harp. Outside, the wind picked up, and a dry rattle of branches clattered against the roof. I pulled my knees to my chest and watched the flames, counting each pop and hiss.
When the food was gone, I licked the crumbs from my fingers. Hunger became a sharp clarity, focusing my thoughts to a point. I looked at the knife again, turned it over in my palm. It was not a weapon, not really, but it could be if I had no other choice.
A part of me, the part that had survived this long, began to list the dangers. There was hunger first. Then cold. Then the men who would come looking, armed with torches and piety and the certainty that girls like me needed to be tamed. And if it wasn’t the men, then perhaps the thing from the circle. No, not a thing, a man, though not any sort I had ever seen. A man with a metallic beast and eyes that saw through lies and flesh. Would he come for me again? Had he crossed into my world, or was I safe here, alone with the ordinary threats of winter and woods?
I did not have answers. I had only the fire, the knife, and the memory of running until my feet bled.
