“Is this where I say ‘I told you so’?” Reeve asked, his lips twitching as he flicked the ring on her finger.
She swatted his hand away. “Arrogance is unattractive.”
A knowing smirk. “Apparently not to you.”
Viri refused to rise to his bait this time, knowing it would only fuel his humor. Instead, she unfolded the map again, frowning when she saw the line through the Mistwood now led due west rather than angling north toward the tower.
She halted abruptly. “What does this mean?”
Reeve looked pleased as he inspected the path. “Ah, good. I was right.”
“Aboutwhat?”
“My theory.” He tapped the line. “We know the map is meant to show us the most direct route to the Guardian, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to walk the whole way there.”
“What do you—”
“The story your parents told us,” he interrupted. “I never understood how the husband could have hiked through the Mistwood if he was as weak as the legend claimed. Even with his wife and friend helping him, the journey would have been impossible for anyone siphoned within an inch of their life. I asked your mom about it once, wanting to know if anything had been left out of the tale, and she just smiled and said, ‘Anything is possible with magic.’ ”
Pain stabbed at Viri’s chest, since she’d heard her mom use those words more than once, always in a sneaky whisper, as if sharing a secret.
“I didn’t dwell on it at the time,” Reeve went on, “and just enjoyed the mystery of it. But after Brae and I found the map, and especially more recently, I considered what other possibilities there might be and came to one obvious conclusion.”
“Which is?” Viri pressed.
Reeve tapped the line again, right at the very end. “There’s a wayportal out here—or some equivalent of one that’ll take us directly to the tower.That’show we’re going to beat Braedan there. He’s been stuck walking for days, while we’ll only hike a fraction of that and portal straight over.”
Viri squinted down at the map. “That’s a lot of speculation.”
“Maybe,” Reeve admitted. “But the way I see it, we have two options: We do what Brae is doing and find our own way to the Guardian”—he indicated the northwest corner of the map and the miles of woodland between them and Nevarnost Tower—“orwe follow the magical path and hope I’m right about there being a wayportal at the end.”
“I don’t likeeitherof those options,” Viri said, before sighing and making her decision. “If we try to find our own way, we’ll still be days behind Braedan. We have to follow the map.” She started forward again, her eyes tracking the moving line on the parchment as she mumbled, “Let’s just pray this isn’t a fool’s errand—and that our talismans don’t run out of juice before we’re done.”
“Talismans or not, the blackmist isn’t the only thing to fear out here,” Reeve said, peering into the thick trees. “I’d say it’s fairly low on the list, actually.”
Viri kicked a rock out of her path. “What do you mean?”
Reeve answered, “Did you ever hear that old nursery rhyme, ‘Beware the Wood’?”
The words pulled a memory from the depths of Viri’s subconscious, prompting a startled chuckle out of her. “Elders, that takes me back. I used to sing it so much that I drove my family crazy.”
She could still recall it with ease, and quietly recited the two simple verses:
Beware the wood
Beware the mist
Beware the danger
In its midst.
Beware the beasts
They lie in wait
Beware the wood…
Or meet your fate.
