He grasped both sides of her face, his Princely power pulling her away from the pain. It felt as if she were rising high up over the clouds into the stars and darkness.
“Honey,” she croaked. “Is she alive?”
A grieving wind, cold and inescapable, swept through her—from him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“She’s not dead,” he said, looking away. “I just can’t... Sleep now, Magda. I can’t help her, but I can help you. Sleep.”
And she did.
She dreamt of a thick black mist coiling around her. Through the mire, she heard Endreas calling her name. She ran and ran, but never came any closer to the sound of his voice, never found him.
She woke, cringing against cracks of pale light weeping through woven branches surrounding her. The bed, soft and scented of lavender, groaned as it swayed.
A twitchy pink nose popped up at her side. He placed his little paws on her breast, looking into her eyes.
She almost sobbed. “Hello, Hero.”
“I am glad you are awake.”
“Me too,” she said.
“I must apologize for my cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” She grimaced, pushing up onto her elbows, displacing him. The room around her continued to rock. Only it wasn’t a room. It was more like a basket cocoon, barely big enough to hold her.
“I ran. I should’ve fought at your side. You were wounded.”
“Don’t worry about it. There was nothing you could’ve done.” She touched his furry head lightly. “Where are we?”
“The door is there. The Prince lofted us, so you will have to use the ladder.”
Hero bounded over her lap and pressed his paws against a simple loop and clasp on the wall of the basket, and then he scurried up her chest and onto her shoulder, his tail curling around her neck. She grasped the branch that served as a hitch and freed the bit of twine lashed around it, opening the hatch.
Her hand locked around the edge, clinging as the cocoon swung with her shifted weight. Far, far below the forest floor sprawled, a dark green swatch some fifty or sixty feet down.
She leaned back, wrestling the vertigo.
Across the space before her, enormous branches sprawled, some as wide as she was tall. Purplish-green leaves, dappled by orange flecks of sunlight, whispered in a soothing hush all around as a cool breeze worked its way through the labyrinth of the treescape. From the edge of the opening, which was hardly wider than her shoulders, a rope ladder hung. It was fastened, not to the ground, but to a wide branch fifteen feet below.
Her heart leapt into her throat. She scrambled back from the opening. The basket pitched as she moved. Her stomach mimicked the motion.
Hero’s claws dug into her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Just need a moment to catch my breath.” And to stop her head from spinning.
With gentle fingers, she prodded the place where she’d been stabbed. A hole remained in her shirt, stained pale pink where, clearly, someone had tried to wash the blood away. As for the wound, it was healed, but tender. More than anything, she was parched and ravenous. But thoughts of slipping and falling kept her huddled in the back of her cocoon. She could just picture herself, having survived a killing blow, only to die toppling from a ladder that any seven-year-old could’ve climbed without a second thought.
But then the straining moan of the ropes holding the basket started to grow louder in her ears. What if the rope snapped and the whole basket fell?
That was enough to get her moving again.
Pushing back the door so that it remained open, she eased herself out of the cocoon and onto the ladder. The rungs were rope too and gave under her. She clenched her teeth, struggling to keep her breath steady.
“Is something wrong?” Hero asked when she remained half in and half out of the cocoon, attempting to convince her fingers to release the edge of the opening.
“Pixies don’t do heights,” she said.
