With a roar, the stag shivered into a wolf. He lunged at Arthur—Arthur moved his hands aside with a muffled squeak—the wolf’s jaws closed around the creature’s body.
For a long moment, the three of them were locked together: the wolf holding fast to the creature, the creature holding fast to Arthur’s neck, Arthur’s fingers at the creature’s mouth. The wolf growled. Arthur reached for him, a hand clenching in Ira’s fur. He couldn’t breathe.
The creature’s hold slackened. Gasping, Arthur pried the creature off. The wolf shook it between his teeth and flung it away. It crumbled into dust.
Arthur’s heartbeat pounded in his ears; his breathing was harsh. He pressed a hand to his mangled flesh, fingers slick with blood. He retched into the soil. Nothing came up.
Freya crept down from the tree and wound around him, mewling anxiously.
Ira was a man again. He knelt at Arthur’s side, pulled his hand from his neck. His mouth twisted.
Arthur tried to ask how bad it was, couldn’t. He gurgled.
Ira swore. “Can you stand?”
Arthur nodded but stumbled. Ira steadied him.
“I know somewhere safe we can take care of this. Come on.”
Arthur took a step and crumpled. Cursing, Ira hefted Arthur over his shoulder and limped through the forest, flowers blooming and dying behind him.
xxiii. In which Charlotte and Elspeth escape a muddy ending
They found the shovel at the foot of a tree.
The tree drooped, veined in black and dripping. The shovel’s tip was corroded, but Charlotte recognized it nonetheless; it had come from her garden shed.
She stumbled from the gig in a daze.
“Lottie,” Elspeth said, but Charlotte grabbed the shovel.
“Arthur?”
The forest was silent.
“Arthur!”
Charlotte reached for the tree, like it might provide a clue to where her brother had gone, but Elspeth’s fingers closed around her wrist. She yanked Charlotte back. The shovel clanged on the ground.
“For the love of God,” Elspeth said, “don’t touch it.”
Charlotte lunged at the shovel, but Elspeth held her back. “It’s ours.”
“What’re you on about?”
“The shovel. It’s ours.” Charlotte tried and failed to wrestle free. “From our shed. Arthur took it with him. To unstick the cart, he said.”
She swallowed.
“The wheel tracks end here, don’t you see? And here’s our shovel at the foot of this tree.”
Elspeth’s grip didn’t loosen until Charlotte stopped fighting her. “Then we know he passed by, don’t we? Leave it, Lottie, there’s a good lass.”
Silly to cry over a shovel, but Charlotte wanted to. She wanted to cry at the nickname, too. It reminded her so much of Arthur because he was the only one left who called her that.
She wiped her eyes and left the shovel, but she wouldn’t let them move on until she’d dug the vial of black ooze from her medical bag. To her relief, the glass was undamaged. The shovel’s corroded tip had made her worry the vial might’ve been damaged, too, but it seemed the ooze had different effects on different materials.
By the time she’d clambered back into the gig, the path had vanished. Charlotte gasped, but Elspeth shrugged.
