“She’s there,” the beast said. “If that’s what the basin showed you, she’s there. One way or another.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t see her.”
“If—” Charlotte’s arms tightened around Elspeth “—if it’s a body you’re looking for, it might be buried.”
Elspeth sagged against her. Then, straightening, she pulled away. A lump swelled in Charlotte’s throat. Elspeth had already stayed here longer than she’d wanted because Charlotte had asked her to.
“Lottie—”
“I know. Go.”
Elspeth unclasped the chain from Maggie’s acorn and hung it around Charlotte’s neck.
“We’ll find each other again,” she said in a low voice.
Charlotte nodded, wanting to cry. Elspeth kissed her once, hard.
“You take care of her,” she said to Calyx. It touched her hand.
She nodded at the Lord of the Wood and stalked outside. A moment later, the horse raced around the side of the house and galloped through the brambles and over the bridge, with Elspeth on his back. Then they were gone.
Charlotte swallowed. The spot over her left eye started throbbing. “Calyx, can you get my painkillers?”
The plant creature crept away, to root through her medical kit, and back.
The beast’s expression was unreadable. “I see Calyx has taken a liking to you.”
Charlotte took her painkillers, patting the creature swaying beside her. “I found it outside, half frozen. I think it was grateful someone brought it in where it was warm.”
The beast ran a clawed hand through his hair.
“I banished it from the house. It... didn’t take to Arthur like it has to you.” He emptied the basin and filled it with freshwater. “If you look—if you describe what you see—we might be able to find him.”
Charlotte’s fingers curled into fists. “You know where you left him, don’t you?”
The beast closed his eyes briefly. “That was yesterday morning. He might be anywhere by now.”
“But you know where he was, and surely you know where he was going?”
“To the heart of the wood. What your companion called ‘the first tree.’ But many paths lead there. And for all we know he may have lost all of them. But if you look—”
“Can’t you do it?” Charlotte’s stomach churned, thinking of Elspeth unnaturally still until she’d wrenched free of the vision. A vision that had not shown her Maggie. “You’d likely recognize the place, surely you know this forest like the back of your hand—”
“I won’t be able to see him. I’m not his blood.”
Charlotte sucked in a breath and stood beside the basin. The beast handed her the knife. Her fingers were stiff; she did not prick so much as dig into her fingertip. Her head fuzzed—silly, she thought blearily,I’m a healer, I can stand the sight of a little blood—but she managed. A single drop of blood dripped into the water.
She was in the forest, alone.
Charlotte froze, disoriented by the change. Trees surrounded her, their leaves edged in unseasonable frost. The temperature had dropped drastically, but, to her surprise, her body did not react. Her pain hadn’t lessened, but the cold hadn’t worsened it as it so often did.
“What do you think of all this cold, duck?” a voice said, and Charlotte’s heart leaped. Arthur, scratched and dirtier than she’d ever seen him but all in one piece as far as she could tell.“Doesn’t it make it feel like Christmas?”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. Clutching his hand was Jonas. Sasha rode alongside them, atop the same massive horse that had pulled Arthur and his cart into the wood in the first place.
“Children?”
“It’s September,” Sasha said. Jonas merely pressed into their uncle’s side. Kitty Tierney ought to have taken the children to the convent, but here they were in the forest.
