“The Rift,” Sarah said, one hand on her headset. “Ten blood witches. We’ll need backup. Contact the winter residence. We can drop the kid off there and take on more people.”
The queen’s winter residence was in Asheville. “You don’t have time to get help,” Mud said. “They’re cutting her, taking her blood. She’s healing, but she’s in trouble and she’ll be dead as soon as they get enough of what they want.”
Mud studied the people in the helicopter. Besides being the pilot, Eli was a master at killing. Alex, in the seat beside Eli, could do amazing things with electronics and she had heard he practically made money grow on trees when it came to investing. He was also a great shot with a handgun. They were the queen’s brothers, adopted, more or less. The third man she recognized as the Queen’s Consort and husband. Everyone in the helicopter was royalty except Sarah and her.
Sarah was human, but covered in weapons, now that Mud looked her over. She was muscly. Athletic. They had weapons, and Mud had her gift. Adults always discounted her gift. But they needed it. They needed her.
They were talking, but her headphones were not letting her hear anything. They were arguing and intense, and they weren’t going to let her help, she just knew it. Adults were silly sometimes.
She reached around the dragon and poked Sarah. “How many can you take on and win? If the rest were tied up and couldn’t fight?”
Sarah checked the headphones, probably to make sure Mud wasn’t able to hear the big bad adults talk aboutimportant stuff.
Lip reading wasn’t a skill Mud had perfected, but growing up in the church had taught her how to read body language and some words. Sarah repeated the question to the others. She and the others were worried.
Mud poked Sarah again. “I can tie them up.”
Well, her acre of Soulwood, the dirt in her pocket, the Green Knight, and she, all together, could, if her gift could reach the farm and the knight from here. Or there, wherever this rift pool of water was.
Sarah’s already steely eyes went harder, narrowed with concentration so sharp it wanted to cut Mud’s bones. “How?”
“My gift is growing plants. Fast. If there’s an inch of root of a vine in the ground, I can make it grow and wrap them up.”
“How many? How fast?”
“I can handle three easy. Three in three minutes. Then once I get them tied down and have a brain free, at least two more, but that’ll take longer.” After that Mud would be tapped out, her middle would have turned to wood, and she’d have to sleep for a week. She didn’t offer that information.
Sarah turned away, as if she knew Mud was trying to read lips, and talked to the others.
The noise in her headphones changed and Eli said, “You can do this? With no damage to yourself?”
“I’m already a plant woman,” Mud said with asperity, to keep from answering his question. “What are they gonna do? Trim my leaves? Three minutes. I just need three minutes to get to work before you attack.”
“We’ll have to hike in to keep them from hearing the helo. I’ll carry you,” Eli said. “You’ll be above them on a rock ledge.”
That sounded kinda weird. Like, a man touching her, weird. But no one else seemed to find it strange. “Sure,” Mud said, not being sure at all.
???
The helo landed at what Eli called the LZ—which meant the landing zone—and they all got out. The red dragon took off flying and disappeared so fast Mud couldn’t tell where it went.
“We’re a good half mile from the rift,” Eli said, as he gathered weapons and amulets and a strange pile of straps.
The rift was where the queen was, in desperate danger. Where the witches were. Fighting. Where Mud was going to try to trap the witches. Worry wiggled in her belly like worms. The thought of worms in her stomach made her a little nauseous.
Mud wasn’t excited at a half mile run hanging on Eli’s back. It sounded bouncy.
He slipped on a headset. So did the others. No one bothered to give Mud one, and they took back the ear protectors with built in communications. So not fair.
Eli said to the queen’s consort, “I can feel Jane now. It’s bad. We need to hurry.”
Mud didn’t understand why her brother could “feel” the queen and the consort couldn’t, but no one informed her. No one ever informed kids.
Eli hooked weapons into pouches and loops and straps on and in his clothes, then stepped into thicker, wider straps that formed a sort of harness, before he buckled the harness around his body. Mud recognized it as climbing gear. Even a church-girl couldn’t live in the Appalachian Mountains without knowingwhat rock-climbing gear looked like. The others each had straps, ropes, climbing harnesses, and weapons too. Lots of weapons. The consort was wearing armor, though Mud didn’t remember seeing armor when she got into the helicopter.
Eli held out a hand to Mud.
She scowled like her sister did, with her whole face and body. Eli’s hard, dark-skinned face softened, his greenish eyes twinkling just the littlest bit. “If I do anything that bothers you, I am well aware that you can, and happily will, strangle me with your vines.”
