Jax makes Simeon walk in the middle of our procession, slightly behind me, but ahead of himself. He keeps his sword drawn, guarding Simeon’s back with a muttered, “Don’t try anything stupid down here. You’re going to be a married man soon.”
Usually, Simeon would punch Jax and have a joking response at the ready, but today he just nods and sticks close behind me and the dragon.
“Look,” Simeon gasps a little while later, pointing to something in the distance. “Some friendly faces we can ask. You’ll do the talking, right, Sparrow?”
Up ahead, many spirits flit like butterflies around the garden’s edges, their toes just skimming the grass. We try approaching some of them, but any time we come within reach, the spirits scatter likeminnows darting away from a child’s careless foot in a lake. I don’t like it. The spirits know us. They usually don’t avoid us unless they’re hiding from something else—like a Shade. But when I came here last time, looking for Jax, they gave me this same strange treatment.
Even spilling a little blood from the vial on my belt doesn’t bring any of the spirits a single step closer to us, and it’s usually irresistible.
By the time we’ve crossed the garden, looking for a friendly spirit, the scenery beyond its hedges has changed from a star-flecked mountain range to a dense forest of pines. It’s one of the things that still amazes me here—how the Deadlands never rests, constantly fitting its pieces together in new ways like a patchwork quilt that, no matter how it changes, always makes sense when it’s done.
“Shall we?” I ask my companions, gesturing to a yawning black gap between two pines where I sense movement.
“Looks dangerous,” Jax mutters, raising his sword and grinning. “Why not?”
Simeon looks less thrilled, but follows close behind me as we step into the deeper darkness. “There had better be a talkative spirit waiting on the other side of this murder forest,” he grumbles resentfully, pushing a branch out of his face.
Once our eyes have adjusted, we can at least see the shadows of tree trunks to avoid bumping into them, though it’s strange being deprived of both smellandmost of my sight. It reminds me of how Lyda left me for dead here, bleeding and blinded. Suddenly freezing, I wish I could reach for Simeon’s hands, but I can’t let go of Nipper’s lead for even a moment after what happened last time.
As if to confirm my worst suspicions, Nipper barks, a sharp sound almost as high-pitched as the wailing Meredy and I have been hearing at night—though without the beautiful melody to accompany the ear pain.
“I really want a dragon of my own now,” Simeon remarks. “Think your friends in Sarral would send me—?”
He stops talking as I’m thrown forward onto my knees. Nipper bounds through the trees, barking again, and this time I decide to let go of the lead rather than being dragged over fallen branches and probably getting some new scars.
Jax and Simeon help me to my feet, and we take off running after her through the dark, silent forest that looks and smells like nothing from our world.
Cold air stings my nose and eyes as I chase after the sound of Nipper’s lead rustling among a bed of dry pine needles on the forest floor. My lungs and throat are burning by the time the dragon leads us to a break in the trees, to a glen where spirits sit on either side of a small stream, but I don’t stop until my eyes are back on my dragon. I can’t lose her. She’s one of the best things about Karthia changing.
Nipper coos at me and charges toward the stream where a few spirits are standing knee-deep, letting the current wash over them.
As we make our noisy arrival, a shadow darker than the trees themselves flees into the blackness of the forest on the other side of the glen. It looks vaguely human.
“Did you see that?” I gasp.
Jax shakes his head but takes a step toward the spot where I’m pointing. Simeon grabs his shirt, holding him back before he can break into a run.
“Could be a Shade. You’re so not going after it,” Simeon declares, staring disbelievingly at Jax. “We’ll just keep an eye out from here, where we can actually see what’s creeping up on us, all right?”
Jax and I both nod as I finally grab Nipper’s lead.
“Sorry if we startled you, by the way,” I tell the spirits, pleased to finally find some that aren’t running away from us on sight. Spiritsmight not be able to speak, but there’s nothing wrong with their hearing, so it’s strange when none of them turn to acknowledge me.
Simeon pokes the nearest spirit in the shoulder. It’s a young boy, the dark stains around his mouth suggesting he died from the black fever.
Nothing happens. The boy doesn’t run away or even blink. I don’t think he can.
Gazing around at the ten or so spirits gathered here, I don’t think any of them can move. They’re frozen, just like the one I found before. Even the ones standing in the stream, already stripped of most of their memories, usually sway slightly with the current. But now, they stand as rigid as the metal soldiers.
“This is just like what I saw last time,” I whisper. I don’t know why, but whispering feels like the thing to do here. Gooseflesh runs along my arms, and it isn’t from the cold. Whatever this is, I don’t like it. I don’t even understand it.
Jax starts pacing, scowling at nothing, as Simeon and I sink to our knees on the stream bank between a few of the spirits.
“Did Master Cymbre ever teach you about anything like this?” Simeon asks, gesturing to the immobile spirits.
I shake my head. “I take it Master Nicanor didn’t, either.”
“Maybe something is wrong with the Deadlands itself,” Simeon muses in an unsteady voice. “Maybe now that we’re not raising the dead—”
