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“Tell me.”

“She said she did, but what she came home with was a crate of eggs.”

“What?”

“Massive eggs, Silas.”

I look beneath his words to what he may be saying, to the stories that have haunted our past, most of all Gabriel’s.

His father was a tracker, a collector of fantastical beasts. And like my father, one day, he was just dead. He died by fire in the middle of the woods with no one else around.

“How massive?”

My brother doesn’t answer me.

“How massive?” I shout.

He dodges to his right and scoops up the axe, racing back to the tree, and I have no choice but to race after him.

FORTY-TWODorothy

Tin and Rook fight beneath the swinging branches of the trees.

Urgency is drumming up my spine.

I have to do something and quickly.

I look down at the axe in my hand.

I hear Aunt Em’s voice …

Trust what you know.

I go to the middle of the Ancient Forest where the path meanders through the trees.

On the far side, Ty and his soldiers. To the left, Rook and Tin fighting beneath the tree that is barely holding on, half its trunk cut through.

Wind whistles through the branches, lifting my hair.

I glance at the axe again.

It feels warm in my grip.

I claimed the axe. And maybe it’s silly, but I feel like it claimed me too.

I will forever be haunted by the image of me using my magic to protect Blue, when that magic ultimately spun Rook’s axe across the stage where it hit Gabriel.

I had one single intention with my action and that was to protect Blue. In that, I achieved my goal, but at the expense of someone else.

I don’t want to think that way ever again.

I always want to consider the well-being of others with my actions.

The wind kicks up, and as it does, I feel buoyant, almost weightless.

And then I’m floating.

I flail for a second and the wind shifts and I pinwheel backward, catching myself at the last second before I fly into another tree.