“Your sister chose her path. As you must choose yours.” She gestures toward the back of the tavern. “The forest entrance lies beyond those doors. We cannot accompany you. But Whispen knows the way.”
On cue, Whispen revives with a dramatic gasp. “I heard my name! Yes! I know many things! Some of them even useful!”
“Can we trust him?” Orion mutters.
“We need him anyway.” I grab my pack. I’m running on fury and fear and the fumes of whatever stubborn refusal to quit my mother bred into me. “What else do we need to know?”
“The Dark Forest does not forgive hesitation.” Macha’s voice carries through the merged form. “Move forward. Do not stop. Do not listen to the voices. The rib will protect you from my creatures, but the forest itself answers to older things.”
“How comforting.”
Dagda hands Orion a pack. Inside: supplies, weapons, a jar of something that smells like death and sulfur.
“Whispen’s suggestion,” Dagda explains. “The forest dwellers hate it.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t ask.”
I decide not to ask.
“One more thing.” The Morrigan’s gaze finds mine, and for a moment all three sisters look out through those ancient eyes. “The dream-walking. You reached her. Continue to do so.”
I did. And I’d reach for her again and again and again.
Before I walk away I pause, and then turn back to The Morrigan, “Dragons?”
The sisters merge and smile, all teeth and excitement. “Oh yes.” They purr. “It has been quite some time since dragons have arrived.” She sighs almost wistfully.
“Dragons.” Orion’s voice cuts through. “Coming to Faerie. Coming for her.”
“The last time dragons walked these lands, they burned three courts to rubble over a territorial dispute.” Dagda chuckles, rubbing his hands together. “Did she mention which realm?”
“Tartarus.” I don’t want to answer but Finnian would say knowledge is power, and we need all the knowledge we can gather.
Dagda chuckles loudly. “Splendid.”
And Ash has one for a cousin. Has a whole family I knew nothing about. People who love her. People who would burn worlds for her.
Just like us.
Something ugly twists in my chest. Jealousy. That she has people. That she never told me about them. That maybe she doesn’t need us as much as we need her.
I shove it down. Now is not the time.
At least she’s not alone. At least someone else is fighting for her, too. Even if it’s a dragon who threatened to eat me.
“Ready?” Orion checks his own pack. His jaw is tight. His eyes are steady. His wound is seeping again. He’s pretending it isn’t.
I’m pretending I don’t notice.
“No.” I adjust my pack. “You?”
“Not even close.”
“Let’s go get our queen.”
The edge of the Dark Forest looms through the tavern’s back windows. Trees that shouldn’t move shift at the corner of my vision. Something screams in the distance. High and thin, like a child in pain.
