Figures—more than one, she realized—moved with a quiet precision that made Isla’s skin prickle. They had been waiting. Aman stepped closer, his coat collar up, his face masked. He did not run toward them; he simply walked. Close behind him the others followed, each with the easy, practiced motion of men who had rehearsed such a scene before.
“Andrew,” she said, her voice quiet and frightened. He didn’t hear her as he tried to wake Edmund.
She opened her door and pulled herself from the car, her heart hammering, determined to assist in defending her friends.
“Andrew,” she said again, this time louder, her back to the wreckage.
“Isla ...”
Before any of them could follow her, something slithered quickly through the door she’d left open, toward Andrew and the broken window on Juliette’s side. Plant vines—green, glossy, and impossibly quick—snaked first around Andrew. A muffled cry escaped him as a length of leafy rope jammed against his mouth. He fought at the restraints, but his hands were pressed uselessly to his sides, the vines squeezing like a python. Juliette’s startled scream told Isla at once that she’d been ensnared in the same way.
The creeping plants whipped around the car’s wheels with terrible speed, ensuring it wasn’t drivable even if it had survived the accident. Isla turned back to the approaching group; four figures stood, eerily still, fanned out around her. Only the Terra Summoner moved, his hands aglow with the same green light that now animated the plants.
What could she do? Why weren’t they attacking her? She frantically looked around. Thorns, she thought. Blackthorns from the hedgerow. They were vicious and barbed, a potential wall of defense between her group and their attackers. Her mind slid back to the pottery lessons. Body. Mind. Heart.
Isla’s hands shot forward, fingers trembling as she willed the roots to twist and rise. Sharp, glinting barbs erupted, thrusting skyward in a jagged, defiant line. For a heartbeat hope flared; the green wall took shape and lurched into being. Then Juliette cried out behind her, and the hope faltered.
The thorns stuttered mid-movement, their leaves curling weakly. Her mind strained to focus, but the barrier shivered, then buckled. She tried harder; the vines she sought out to help her paused, but only briefly, almost taunting, before sliding back over the crumbling wall where they’d come from.
Her body shook with the effort; her head throbbed. Muscles screamed—her thoughts were frayed. The black ice still glittered on the road nearby. She turned back to the car: Andrew and Juliette were held fast, their struggles muffled. Andrew’s face had gone pallid. He was being choked and had no defense without the use of his hands; Isla’s eyes met his—raw fear poured from them and she rushed to help.
Before she could take more than a step, a hand clamped over her mouth and nose, the fingers pressed hard against her like iron. The breath she drew came damp with the scent of crushed leaves. Someone’s breath warmed the skin at the back of her neck; a man’s voice whispered close, terribly calm.
“Miss Cole,” he said, almost politely, “you’ll find this unpleasant, I’m afraid—but it will do you no harm.”
At the same moment, a green glow radiated in front of her eyes as she tasted a faint bitter tang that made her tongue go heavy. Dizziness rose, a tide at the back of her vision. The pressure on her chest tightened; her knees went soft. Sounds turned thin and distant. The world narrowed to the rhythm of the hand on her face and the green light from the Terra’s palms.
Her limbs felt leaden. She fought to drag a breath in beneath the hand, and then the world folded away into a spreading blackness ... again. When would this nightmare stop?
Chapter Eighteen
Darkness pressed in from all sides, thick as cloth against her skin, even as she tried to rouse from her sleep-induced state. Isla strained to hear past the pounding of her pulse, panic clawing up her chest. She was tied to a chair, blindfolded, but not by fabric.
Then she heard a noise. Tap ... tap ... tap. It drew closer with every strike, and her heart rate spiked. Whatever was making that sound, it was getting closer.
The last sharp tap seemed to stop right in front of her, so close she felt the skirt at her ankles sway. A stick striking wood. Fear crawled beneath her skin, echoing in the hollow space where her sight should have been.
The air shifted as someone leaned in. A whisper, soft as breath, brushed her ear.
“Such a bright young woman, Isla Cole. I have studied you for quite some time.”
The thought that that was a rather creepy confession came to her. Her voice trembled as she asked, “Who are you?”
“Ah, yes. I would love to introduce myself to you, my dear, and I will, in due time, but for personal protection, I need to keep the identities of everyone in this room confidential—at least until we come to an understanding of sorts.”
Others—there were others in the room. Isla shifted, trying to move away from unseen faces. She heard movement and flinched as an unseen bony hand rested on her shoulder. Shegasped as she felt a hot flame approach her head. The fire didn’t burn her flesh, but the heat was unbearable.
“What are you doing?” she yelped, trying to pull her head away from the flame.
“Hush, child,” the voice soothed, as one comforting a child during a nightmare. “My flame will not burn you, I promise.”
Isla sensed another figure draw closer. It felt as if the rim of a glass was pressed to her temple, where sweat trickled down her face from the heat. As the glass moved away, so too did the flame.
Silence descended, thick and waiting, as if the room itself held its breath for what would come next.
“So, Professor Cole,” the woman said, her voice elderly but honeyed and eloquent, “I have brought you here tonight to offer you a position.”
Isla’s mouth must have opened on its own. “A position?” She didn’t understand.
