“Go on,” she spat at Charlotte and Arthur, and she raised her knife at the other workers converging on her. They backed her into the mossy trunk of a stunted tree—one of them struck at her—but Charlotte clenched her jaw and tugged Arthur onward.
Two workers abandoned Elspeth and jogged after them, but ravens burst from the trees and descended upon them. Charlotte cowered. Arthur spotted a tiny brown rider with a shock of white hair riding the largest bird.
“Maud!” he cried.
“Go on, boy,” she called back, in her voice like a tree’s creaking. “My birds’ll keep ’em busy.”
The pair of workers sprinted away, swinging shovels fruitlessly.The ravens clawed at their hair. Maud cackled and swooped away to help Elspeth.
Another bugle. Calyx had been netted and was trying to tear itself free. Ira was a stag, mossy and fanged and alone, surrounded by woodsmen.
A hand gripped Arthur’s shoulder, yanking him back. “What—”
One of the workers, trying to stop him from replanting the tree. Charlotte tugged the worker’s arm, but he threw her off. She hit the stump with a yelp.
“Lottie!” Arthur cried.
Halfway across the clearing, the stag’s head whipped around at him. Ira kicked free of the woodsmen and raced toward the stump. The worker gripping Arthur’s arm swore, let go, and fumbled for his abandoned rifle.
A shot rang out. Ira collapsed, legs kicking uselessly, and shivered abruptly back into a beast. Arthur’s breath caught.
Everything fell silent, as if the forest were inhaling.
When it exhaled, it exhaled explosively.
Trees burst from the ground, growing ten—twenty—fifty feet in a matter of seconds. Branches speared woodsmen through the stomach. Vines whipped around their ankles or wrists and dragged them away. The camp rang with their screams. Maud’s ravens wheeled through the sky, croaking.
In seconds, the clearing was regrown. In seconds more, the new trees and flowers drooped and died, dripping black ooze.
The woodsmen and their machines were gone. Birds sang in the canopy as if nothing had happened, but their song cracked and broke and went silent. One at a time, they fell from their perches, their small, translucent forms showing delicate skeletons.
In a flurry of black wings, Maud’s ravens landed in the dying greenery, but they had a faded quality. Calyx shrank untilit was nothing more than a sprout, a single vining tendril with a handful of thin, pale leaves.
In a patch of sunlight, collapsed against the silver stump, Ira slumped with blood blooming across his side. Maud hobbled toward him. Calyx slithered out of the net and followed.
Arthur jerked toward him, but Charlotte, getting to her feet shakily, said, “The acorn.”
Arthur nodded, clutching the acorn tight. The tarnish spread before their eyes, but the stump’s heartwood was silver. It would have to be enough.
He knelt with difficulty, pulling off the acorn and its chain. Without it, the thin black veins threading from his wounds unwound farther across his skin, so much faster than they’d spread before. Charlotte sucked in a breath.
“It’ll be all right,” Arthur told her, but without the acorn breathing was a lot harder. “It’ll be fine.”
Praying he was right, he pressed the acorn to the heartwood. The acorn glowed, then melted into the stump. They waited, holding their breath.
Nothing happened.
xlii. In which there are multiple transformations
Panic welled in Arthur’s chest. He pressed the spot where the acorn had vanished, but it was gone. Tarnish still spread. Ooze still dripped down the dying trees, same as the black veins creeping across his stomach and chest and up his throat. Blood still spilled from Ira’s side.
“No.” Arthur’s breath rattled. “No. No, this isn’t—”
“Maybe something was wrong with that one,” Elspeth said doubtfully. “Maybe mine—”
Charlotte was already clasping it around Arthur’s neck in place of their father’s. “Absolutely not. His sickness has spread quite far enough.”
“What do you want to do, Lottie?” Elspeth asked. “Acorn’s not gonna stop his sickness spreading, just slow it down some.”
