I haven’t found even a t-shirt before the light in the room suddenly grows. I peer around the wardrobe-door, expecting to see Tiffany with her lantern in hand. But no one else is in the room with me, and the light isn’t coming from a lantern.
I freeze, my blood running cold, and my heart suddenly jumps into a hammering rhythm. My grip on the door tightens, my nails leaving crescent-dents in the wood.
With my heart leaping up to my throat, I slowly turn around and face the opposite wall. Windows stretch from floor to ceiling, and the bright orange light is piercing in through them.
It’s firelight. And it’s not coming from one of our own.
4
A frightening gasp escapes me. I drop to the floor in a blink.
I can feel every violent punch of my heart beating against my ribcage. I lie on my back, hands pressed to my mouth, as I try to think.
The light is faint for fire, which means whoever is coming into this village is far away enough that I have time to escape. But I won’t have time to save anyone. Everyone will have to realise what’s happening on their own.
Slowly, I push myself up to look over the bed. The windows flicker with orange hues, not yet red—not yet here. And with the faintness of the light, I imagine its source is fire-torches, not the village burning to the ground. Only the dark fae would carry fire-torches…
I don’t give myself another moment. I’m scrambling to my feet suddenly, then tearing though the wardrobe.
I grab whatever I can, then sweep up my bag and torch from the floor. It’s all bundled in my arms as I race out of the room and stagger into the corridor.
“Tiffany!” My panicked voice carries through the apartment as I drop my things on the floor.
I’m hidden from view of the windows in here, and I make quick work of stuffing my feet into the pair of leggings I snatched up.
“Tiffany, we’ve got to move, now!”
I’m tugging on a too-big cardigan when she comes tumbling out of the bathroom. In her hand, stacks of toothbrushes and paste stick out, her lantern in her other hand.
“What?” she says, but then her gaze lifts to behind me.
I turn and trace her stare to the wall opposite the bedroom door, where orange light is climbing up to the ceiling. I look back at her as her face crumples, and she drops the toothbrushes. The paste hits the carpeted floor with a muffled thump.
“We need to go,” I tell her again.
Tiffany looks at me, frozen for a moment.
I can see the same fears in her eyes as I felt when I first realised the firelight, the same questions I asked myself as I lay on that bedroom floor.
Who is coming?
Will they mean to harm us?
Is it the dark fae, here to burn and destroy everything in their path? Will we lose our group, be separated forever, or can we find a few before it’s too late?
And the kicker—is it already too late?
The moment cracks and she’s scrambling back into the bathroom for her bag. I tie up my boots then hook my arms through my bag straps. With one measly torch in my hand, I’m ready to go.
Tiffany nearly runs into me, she comes out of the bathroom that fast. I hit the wall to avoid her. She mutters no sorry before she’s running ahead, and spears off into the kitchen.
I shadow her, keeping close to her heels. But she stops in the kitchen and rips open one of the drawers. I stare at her, wide-eyed, as she yanks out two kitchen knives and passes me one. With a shaky hand, I grip the faded handle. Then she turns her lantern off.
We’re submerged in darkness.
It takes our eyes a few moments to adjust—the light starting to rise up from outside certainly helps—and we’re rushing out of the apartment. The front door to the building opens up right onto the street. We stagger down the path and push out the iron gate. It creaks, loud. I stagger to a stop, a cringe seizing my whole body, and I look back at the source of the light. It’s coming up the hill that leads to the village, and it’s coming fast. We have minutes, if that.
And then I hear it.
Battle cries.
The foreign sounds rise up in the darkness and, like claws, rip up along my shivering spine. The dark carries the cries all over. They sound like they’re coming from every direction. But it’s just a trick, just a trick of the darkness.
It’s the dark fae. No doubt about it. They’ve come, an army of them, to destroy this village and everything in it. If God is real, then I pray she has mercy on all of our souls.
We won’t survive this.
Even with the orange glow of fire starting to swallow the village, I can barely see. I just run ahead, following the rapid thumps of Tiffany’s footsteps. But the light is gnawing at my heels, and we’re too exposed. In moments, the feral beasts descending upon us will spot us on the road.
