It wasn’t a man that had gripped Reggie by the neck, no.
It was a timewraith.
Time moved in slow motion again, but only for me. The world followed my pace, too, and so I saw it with my unblinking eyes how the creature had leaned over Reggie’sbody, and how he’d wrapped those long fingers around Reggie’s neck, how he wassalivatingall over Reggie’s chest while he drained the time out of him.
The wraith was draining the time out of Reggie right before our eyes.
Something moved in my peripheral faster than a shadow. Silasflewat him with his arms wide open, slammed onto the wraith and pushed him back with all his strength.
This can’t possibly be real,went the thoughts in my head, as they rolled on the floor together, as Reggie sucked in a deep breath, moved his hands up to his neck. It couldn’t be real, yet I was already near him, my instincts divided between helping him up and going to Silas.
After all, he’d run and slammed onto a timewraith, so I already knew he wasn’t well in the head. To leave him alone would be to kill him myself.
But then again,Iwasn’t the only one there, was I?
“Get Reggie up and walking!” March shouted as he jumped right over Reggie’s body and to the other side, to where Silas was trying to get away from the timewraith, and failing. Obviously.
“No magic!”I shouted, and I, too, jumped over Reggie’s body. The others would get him on his feet. I’d decided I was helping March with the timewraith.
I could have been another person in those moments. If there was fear inside me, I didn’t feel it—or maybe I felt too much of it, had been completely consumed by it, so I could no longer tell it apart. Timewraiths had been the subject of my nightmares ever since I’d first laid eyes on a drawing of them in our Anatomy book at school. Those gray skins and dull eyes full ofhunger.Those old rags that covered parts of their bodies. They were tall, skinny—bones protruding everywhere, and they had patches of black hair all over their heads, sharp teeth in their jaws—but their hands.Thatwasthe most terrifying part of a wraith. Their fingers were twice the size of ours, no fingernails, the tips of them bruised a deep black. Thosefingertips enabled them to draw time from another person, or from their magic. That’s why you couldn’t even use it against them, because they could transform any kind into raw energy and feed off it, too.
Impossible to defeat.
Yet I was two feet away from it now.
March raised his hands above his head. They glistened under the lanterns because he had something in his fists—the climbing axes—and he brought them down onto the side of the timewraith while he was still squeezing Silas’s arm, trying to pull him closer.
I didn’t see Silas at all. I didn’t even think. I was reaching for my own axes in the thigh pockets of my suit, so damn thankful that we’d magicked them to climb the slide tree. They were in my hands in a second, and then I was slamming them down onto the body of the wraith without really thinking.
Black blood, the smell of it like rotten fish, sprayed my suit. I could have been screaming but I no longer heard or saw anything properly, just gray skin and black blood. Someone was on my other side, too, moving with the same rhythm, slamming their own axes onto the body at our feet.
Screams and shouts.
My arms moved and I never planned to stop, not until this creature was in pieces. I was angry, so damn angry that they’d alloweda timewraithin here with us. So damn angry that it had gotten to Reggie when we’d all been so sure he would be safe. So damn angry that it could kill me any second if it could just touch me with those fingers, and not even a thousand axes were going to help me then.
A hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me back.
Levana’s face was splattered with black blood, too.
“Help us with Sy!”
A blink and two and three. The view came back to me slowly, and I looked around—March was dragging the wraith that was basically in pieces now, with too many holes to count in its body, closer to the thicker branch, and he wasnailinghis arms to the wood with his axes. The wraith could hardly raise its head.
Russ and Cook were already on it, too, helping him with their own axes, and I finally turned to Sy—to Seth, Levana and Mimi trying to help him up.
I went closer, looked down at my hands, the axes in them, all that black blood. Bile rose up my throat, but I swallowed hard—not now.I put the axes away in my pockets, and?—
“Don’t you dare touch me with that blood,” Silas said, his voice weak, dry—but he was already standing, his arms around Mimi and Seth.
He was standing and his eyes were open, and he seemed to be perfectly conscious, too. Definitely not dead.
“Let’s go-go-go! Everyone,run!” March.
“I’m okay. Let go—I can run,” Silas said, and he could. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been on that wraith before March and I got to them, but it must not have been long at all.
My heart still slammed in my chest. March had Reggie by one arm, and Russ was on his other side, carrying half his weight.
Reggie’s eyes were open, too, on Silas. He looked so pale.
