And then Dani said, very quietly, “We’re dead if we stay.”
No one argued.
One of the Juneau witches shifted closer, ropes chafing against her wrists. “We can’t wait for rescue,” she murmured, “Arthur and Dominic and the rest…they’ll come, but by the time they reach us…we’ll be gone.”
“Or used,” Edith said darkly. “Broken.”
Dani swallowed hard. Snowflakes clung to her hair, melting against her too-warm skin.
She didn’t want to die in this forest. She didn’t want Aurelia growing up without her because she’d been too afraid to act.
“Then we fight,” Dani said.
Every head turned to her.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She felt the power humming under her skin—still unfamiliar, still volatile, still frightening. She didn’t know how strong she was now. She didn’tknow how long she could hold the burn without it eating through her veins.
But she knew one thing.
If she did nothing, none of them would make it out.
“We fight,” she repeated, breathing past the terror. “We take out the ones closest to us. We run for the trees. We scatter. If even a few of us make it out, if we get word back to the packs, then he loses his witches.”
The younger ones looked terrified. But they looked hopeful, too.
“There are too many of them for us to win,” Edith said.
“We don’t need to win,” Dani said. “We just need to give them something they don’t expect.”
Edith’s eyes gleamed. “What are you thinking?”
Dani looked at her hands.
They were shaking.
She forced them still.
“I can make fire,” she said quietly. “Big fire. Bigger than I ever could before.”
Edith inhaled sharply. “Dani—”
“If I can get it up between us and them, that buys us time. They can’t cross open flame. Their instincts fight it.” She swallowed. “We make a wall. Then we break the bindings and run.”
The witches exchanged looks, fear, disbelief, and beneath it, a kindling spark of resolve.
“If we die,” Edith said softly, “at least it won’t be on our knees.”
“No,” Dani said. “It won’t.”
Something settled in her then. Sharp as a blade.
She looked at the others. “On my signal.”
***
They waited until Fenred drifted far enough that his attention turned elsewhere. Until the hybrids closest to them relaxed fractionally, believing their prisoners too tired, too cowed to resist.
Dani exhaled slowly.
