uncertain, no longer able to hear him running. A moment later she heard the crashing of glass far off in the direction of the greenhouse; by the time she reached the spot, it was obvious what had happened. Sebastian had managed to find the greenhouse, shoulder the door open and had thrown himself through one of the panes to escape out into the snow.
There was no trace of him but the footprints — dark pits in the drifts, heading into the forest.
She stood uncertain in her bare feet, holding her aching side, staring, her heart pounding like a mad drum and fear making her want to burst into tears and sink down helplessly to the ground. But she didn’t dare do that. He was all she had, the only hope he had. She fought down the tears and clasped her fists to her temples, trying to think.
A flood of Spirit Elementals poured into the greenhouse, probably attracted by the noise. Several of them — ones she recognized by their colors as being in the “not very bright” category — began working on a makeshift patch for the broken pane to keep the cold from pouring in; two began sweeping up the glass. The rest milled uncertainly. But some were intelligent ones, and more than that, were outdoor workers. She’d actually seen their little bunches of leaves floating on the verge of the forest. Could they follow him? “You!” she snapped, pointing to ribbons holding leaf bundles. “Oak, Ash, Thorn, Birch! Track him! Find Sebastian now!”
The four designated stopped milling and rushed back out the door.
She headed for her room, sure of only one thing. She had to get out there and find him. Find him, before Eric did.
Sapphire already had one of her breeches outfits ready, and a pair of sturdy boots. With the clothing was her hand-crossbow, a quiver of bolts meant to go on her belt, another for her saddle and two knives.
“Follow Thorn” was already written on the slate.
She scrambled into the clothing with Sapphire’s help, and belted the crossbow quiver and one of the knives on a second belt over her coat. There was something nagging at her, something very wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it —
It was nagging at her so badly that before she ran out the door, she stopped, and snatched up her mirror, flinging magic and the demand for the Servant or the Godmother to appear into it.
The Servant appeared in it almost immediately, looking startled. “What?” he exclaimed. “Your summons was very urgent — ”
“Sebastian’s gone!” she interrupted him, explaining quickly what had just happened. Her hands were shaking as she held the mirror.
The Servant’s lips thinned. “Your intuition is correct — something is wrong. It is more than Sebastian transforming out of season — much, much more. Someone has altered the curse on him. I will inform Godmother Elena. Find Sebastian. And at all costs, keep Eric from him.”
She didn’t even bother with saying farewell; she just left the mirror on the table and dashed for the stables, pulling on her gloves and tying her hood around her face as she ran.
A wide, cream-colored ribbon with thorns stuck through it like pins bobbed beside the nose of her horse; the horse was already saddled and ready. She only paused long enough to fasten the quiver to the saddle, then used the mounting block to get in place. The ribbon dashed ahead; the gates were already open. Not a good sign. Eric must be ahead of her.
But Eric didn’t have the Spirit Elementals helping.
She urged the horse into a canter; he didn’t like running in the dark like this, but he obeyed her. They sped down the edge of the forest — this was definitely Sebastian, and not a wolf, for a wolf would have gone to cover immediately, but Sebastian was trying desperately to find something he recognized as a trail. Thorn’s ribbon flew on, as fast as a man could run, or faster, and he didn’t seem impeded by the snow at all —
She made another and tossed it above her head; now the horse could see where he was going. He snorted, and answered her rein and heel with eagerness instead of reluctance.
She had never seen one of the Spirit Elementals out in the snow before; it left no trace on the top of the snow, and sped along as if it was completely unimpeded. The horse caught up to the ribbon just as it flitted through a gap in the underbrush and down a trail. The horse was barely keeping up. It plunged through snow that was at times chest-high, but her urgency had passed to it, and it did so without hesitation or complaint.
Thorn seemed to know exactly where to go, and the few times that Bella was able to spot anything like a track, the prints did look like wolf tracks, and there was blood spotting the snow, black in the dim light from her orbs.
Chill that had nothing to do with the cold wind cutting through her coat and numbing her hands and feet came over her.
But the Spirit Elemental was still speeding over the snow, and there were three more out there somewhere, tracking Sebastian. Sebastian wouldn’t see them, not in his panicked state, and she didn’t think he would scent them, either. She had to believe in them, believe that they could keep up with him, that they could find him, if he got out of their sight.
Then, abruptly, the track turned off the path and into the deeper snow. The track twisted and turned and doubled back on itself; if the wolf wasn’t in charge, then Sebastian was using incredible cunning. That wasn’t likely; the man had fled Eric in fear of his life, but this was the sign that animal terror was driving him now.
So again, it wasn’t Sebastian, it was the wolf. That made it doubly dangerous, not just for her, but for him. Sebastian would surely have stopped somewhere and hidden if he were in command, knowing that the more he ran, the more blood he would lose. The wolf didn’t know that. All it knew to do was flee.
Her heart contracted with fear, and she sobbed.
The horse’s sides heaved, and there was a foam of sweat on his neck as he labored through the snow. How
