“We need to get help.”
“I know, but … Shit, never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Kessian had never struck me as the sort of person to faff about in a survival situation, so the fact he was holding back at all alarmed me. “What’s wrong?”
“Never mind. It’s stupid. I was just thinking that I’m shirtless, and my top surgery scars are still really obvious, and I didn’t like the idea of coming out of the closet like this, but we don’t have a whole lot of choice right now.”
“Yes, we do,” I said, and gathered him close to me. He went rigid with surprise as I leaned past him to pound on the door so hard I could hear the exclamations of shock from the men inside. I hugged Kessian so we were chest to chest, as if protecting him from the cold. Or the wraith. “We can ask to borrow clothes.”
Kessian, who could flirt and say the sort of lascivious things that’d get you excommunicated, looked more flustered now than I’d ever seen him.
The door opened. Briar, wearing a housecoat and flanked by Rowan in nothing but boxer shorts, did not ask why we were there. He ushered us inside.
“Did the wraith come?”
“Yes. It tried to take Kessian.”It nearly slit his throat, I couldn’t say.It has my eyes.
“I’ll get you something warmer to wear,” Rowan said.
“So much for it being a curse and an easy fix,” said Briar. “Well, this establishes one thing for certain. The shadow isn’t a curse, and it isn’t a completely separate entity from you, either.”
My stomach sank. “What do you mean by that?”
Briar pointed to my wrist, wrapped around Kessian’s shoulders. The runestone bracelet was still tied around it. “Nothing can get through the wards into Coill Darragh without one of those, or without becoming a part of the local community, whether by marriage or just … love, really. If it got through, that means it’s a part of you. You granted it access.”
Despair hit me square in the chest. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Rowan said, “Don’t worry yourself. It’s not us it’s after.”
“Did your amulet not banish it?” Briar asked.
“Only temporarily. Lunaris’s engine wouldn’t start. She tried to slow it down. I’m afraid it hurt her.”
Kessian’s arms squeezed around me. I’d never been so grateful for an excuse to hold him. As the reality of what had nearly come to pass washed over me, crushing him against my chest grounded me better than tapping my thumb and ring finger, or counting backward from a thousand.
Rowan appeared with clothes. Briar’s would have been too small for me, but Rowan’s were huge. Likewise, Briar’s were slightly too big for Kessian. I didn’t care, so long as he felt more comfortable. Rowan and Briar retreated to give us privacy, and when they were out of sight, I released him so we could get dressed.
He mouthed,Thank you.
Briar’s voice carried from the kitchen. “Perhaps get a move on. We may need to visit the forest before dawn.”
We dressed quickly and found Briar and Rowan both looking out the window over the sink. They backed away to give us both a view of thefields. In the distance, I could see Lunaris. It was hard to tell if she was all right, but a great, ashy stain rose up her back wall as if she’d been burned.
And in between her and the cottage, the wraith shambled over a fence, half walking, half crawling. It twitched fully upright when it seemed to lay eyes on us.
“Out the back door,” Rowan said.
Kessian still limped, so I kept an arm around him for support. We emerged into a garden, though not like one I’d ever seen. Alien plants festooned the flower beds and pots, and it had a smell unlike any greenhouse I’d been to—loamy, sure, but eye-watering, too. As if someone had cut many onions. We borrowed their wellies and followed them out through a back gate, across the fields, heading to the forest. To our right, the shadow put on a burst of speed, aiming to cut us off before we reached the tree line. It melted low to the ground and swept forward like a dark fog of spidery limbs and broken antlers.
We all put on a burst of speed. Briar moved more slowly with his cane, and Kessian couldn’t run, hobbled by his injury, but we had a head start. Blood thrumming in my ears, we reached the trees before the wraith.
It felt like walking through a portal from one world into another. When I looked back, the shrubs and trees and flora of the woods fanned out, crowding together, forming walls. We couldn’t be more than six steps within the tree line, yet I couldn’t see the cottage anymore, or Lunaris.
Or the wraith.
“What happened?” Kessian asked. “Did we teleport?”
“No. The forest is protecting you,” Rowan said.
