High up on the far wall stood Morg, her jagged wings outstretched.
‘Welcome to my Night Garden,’ she crooned. ‘A place full to the brim with dark magic.’ She tilted her masked face. ‘I see you have laid eyes upon my Forever Fern.’
Deepglint snarled. ‘That is no Forever Fern.’
‘Perhaps not in the way that you think,’ Morg replied. ‘But it sprang from the deepest of curses. From a seed soaked in poison and wrapped in a strand of the night. And I was only strong enough to perform this curse because I’ve been swallowing the tears of the Unmappers and creatures of this kingdom. Now, as long as this fern exists and grows, so, too, will my power.’
Morg launched off the wall, her wings rippling through the night, and glided down to her throne. As she sat there, breathing in the fern’s horrible power, Fox felt the ground beneath her feet tremble.
Fox reached under her chin and clutched the sloth’s paws. Then Heckle shifted even closer to Fox’s neck and Fox, in turn, shifted even closer to Deepglint. The flagstones around them broke apart and a cluster of enormous black roots burst out, spraying soil and stones into the air.
Deepglint gnashed at the roots with his teeth, Fox darted this way and that, the sloth tore with his claws and Heckle flapped furiously. But the roots grappled through and fastened round the panther, the girl, the sloth and the parrot and began hauling all four of them through the Night Garden towards the harpy.
Fox dug her nails into whatever she could – plants, vines, soil and leaves – but this garden and its plants belonged to Morg and they seemed bent on dragging her victims towards the throne.
‘No!’ Fox cried. ‘It can’t end this way! Not when we were so close!’
A lump lodged in her throat as she thought of how far they’d come, how much she’d changed and how many people – both here in the Unmapped Kingdoms and back home in the Faraway – she’d be letting down if she lost to Morg now. Not least her brother. Would he stay a sloth for ever because she’d failed to stop the harpy in time? Then there were her parents. They had lied to her. They had pitted her against her brother. And yet, despite all that, she still wanted to see them again and to save them from the terrible fate Morg had in store for Fox’s world.
The harpy’s cackle echoed through the garden. ‘I told you before: worlds are built by people of power, not by insignificant little girls like you! You never, ever stood a chance of beating me!’ Morg tilted her skull mask as the roots of her fern heaved Fox closer. ‘I see you for what you are, child. A miserable wretch with a thorny heart who lived unloved and will die unloved.’
Fox’s tears fell fast now. ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘Stop it!’
Heckle screeched in fury and Deepglint roared, but the roots only tightened round the panther and the parrot as they were thrust, along with Fox and the sloth, into the folds of the fern itself.
‘Don’t listen to Morg!’ Deepglint panted as the fern began wrapping its leathery fronds round its victims. ‘You are loved, Fox. You—’
His words were smothered by the fern, which had now closed so tightly round its prey that Fox could no longer see or hear Deepglint or Heckle. She clung to the sloth’s paws with all the strength she had left. But through the tiny crack in the plant she saw only Morg, her wings outstretched in triumph.
‘Feast on them!’ the harpy shrieked to the fern. ‘Feast on them all!’
Fox’s pulse thrashed beneath her skin. She was terrified of the fern and of what it was about to do to her and her friends, but she was also terrified by what Morg had said. That Fox had spent a lifetime being unloved and would now die that way, too. That she had never stood a chance of finding the Forever Fern and saving the world. That she was foolish to even think she could.
Fox felt her limbs slacken and her breathing slow as a soul-shuddering despair overcame her. And, though she could feel the sloth clutching her hands, she no longer had the strength to twist and turn to try and break free. This was the end. She could feel the fern sucking at the life inside her. Tears rolled down Fox’s cheeks as the air turned cold and fizzed with curses.
But sometimes, as an adventure draws to a close, we find unexpected things. Tiny jewels almost completely buried in the shadows. And somehow, somewhere – though she was bound in the clutches of the very worst magic – Fox found a flicker of hope still burning in the dark.
Her whole life she had buried her heart beneath thorns and hidden it behind walls, but something had changed out here in Jungledrop the moment she’d seen the quest for what it was: not some selfish opportunity to make a fortune, but an important mission to save two worlds. And she had seen her relationship with her brother more clearly, too. They weren’t rivals or business competitors. They were siblings and they had a lot more in common than either of them had realised. Fox couldn’t predict how the quest would end, or even if she’d manage to persuade Fibber to come home from Jungledrop with her, but she did know this: she had a brother who cared for her and she, in turn, cared deeply about
