“I’m okay—” he grunted, but the moment he tried to put weight on the leg, it betrayed him. He stumbled, and Evie caught his arm.
“What’s going on out there?” he managed when he was steady again.
“I don’t know,” said Evie. “Everybody’s gone except for Cole and Fable and Mr. Hill. They’re just . . . talking.”
Tinn peered out through the gap. “Something . . . doesn’t feel right,” he said.
“Has any of this felt right?” Evie said. She squeezed through to see what Tinn was seeing. “Does Mr. Hill look . . . bigger to you?” she whispered.
And then in a burst of motion, Jacob Hill reached down from the tree stump and hauled Fable up roughly by the neck.
Evie gasped.
“No!” Tinn yelled.
They watched as Cole leapt up after her—but Hill batted him away with an iron rod, and Cole spun heavily to the ground.
“We have to do something!” Evie scanned her feet and reached to pick up a sturdy piece of wood to use as a weapon. It wasn’t even half the width of the beam that had crushed Tinn’s leg, but her arms quavered as she tried to lift it. She could barely get it off the ground, and once she had, she dropped it with a heavy thud. “I . . . I think it’s wearing off already,” she said. “I’m just me again.”
“I have an idea,” Tinn grunted.
Hill’s fingers felt like steel around Fable’s throat. She swung and kicked, but he held fast. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cole hit the ground hard on his side. She tried in vain to force Hill’s fingers apart with her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to summon a breeze or a web of vines, but the forest did not respond. Ugh! Why did magic have to be so difficult? She swung wide with both hands and then slapped them together beneath Hill’s arm. A spray of sparks bounced feebly off of the man’s chest.
He shook his head, unimpressed. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
Fable couldn’t breathe. She felt her vision starting to dim. She struggled and scratched, but Hill’s grip was too strong. She twisted and squirmed, and in a muffled whumpf, Hill found himself holding not a girl but a bear, fangs bared and fur bristling. Fable’s transformation caught him off guard, and she clawed at his arms. He recoiled, and Fable tumbled backward, rolling off the stump onto the roots of the old Grandmother Tree, gasping for air.
Hill hopped down from the stump, taking unhurried steps as he approached the gasping cub. He regarded the rod in his hands. “Iron,” he said. “Versatile material. Always liked it.” Fable flinched as he bent the rod into a smooth U with a squeal of protesting metal. “Also good against many of your lot, or so I hear.”
He lunged, and without enough time to scramble out of the way, Fable could only brace herself for the blow. Hill drove both ends of the rod into the dirt, piercing the ground on either side of her. She felt the cold metal press her down into the soil, stapling her to the earth. Her lungs protested under the pressure, and her arms were too tight against her sides to pull them free.
Hill’s mouth twitched in a smile as she struggled, turning into a girl and back again to a bear in vain. It was no use. Fable was caught tight.
Cole’s whole right side pulsed in agony with each beat of his heart. With tremendous effort, he pushed himself upright, ribbons of tight pain running up and down his side, meeting at his rib cage. “Ow,” he groaned.
From the hills in front of him, he could see his neighbors, just beginning to venture back down the hillside. He turned his eyes to the forest, where tentative hooves and pads were moving out of the shadows once more. The spell holding both sides back appeared to have broken.
“Now stay put,” Mr. Hill was saying.
Cole blinked. “Fable?” he called, weakly.
Hill straightened up, and his gaze turned to Cole. “Don’t think I’m done with you,” he said.
“Jacob?” called a voice from behind them.
As one, Hill and Cole turned to watch Oliver Warner hobble forward, his cane catching here and there on the rocky terrain.
“Oliver? What in blazes are you doing here?” Hill’s voice was tight, and Cole could sense his fear. Hill’s whole plan hinged on the townspeople believing that he was the noble hero. But if Mr. Warner learned the truth—if he knew Hill had manufactured the whole thing . . .
“Mr. Warner,” wheezed Cole. “You have to stop him!”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Hill. “Don’t trust either of them, whatever they say.”
“I . . . I don’t understand,” said Mr. Warner. “These are Evie’s friends.”
“They only want you to think that,” insisted Hill, urgently. “They are beasts!”
“I . . . I thought I saw that one turn into an animal,” Mr. Warner said.
“That’s right, she did!” Hill nodded. “Believe the evidence of your own eyes, my friend, not what these monsters would have you believe. They are the worst sort of deceivers!”
“Don’t listen to him!” Fable growled from the dirt. “He’s lying! He caused all of this! He’s a bad man!”
“See what I mean?” Hill shook his head. “Feeble, obvious lies, but sinister ones if you allow them to poison your mind. Now, really, Oliver, what are you doing here? You’re in no shape for a fight.”
“I just wanted to help.” Mr. Warner took another wobbly step forward, glancing at Cole nervously.
“You were already helping me, Oliver,” Hill said with the barely patient tone that a parent uses on a child. “I told you to keep an eye on those containers, remember? It’s not safe for you to be out here, and it’s not safe for those samples to be left unguarded.”
The powder! Cole’s heat beat faster, and his chest throbbed all the more painfully.
Mr. Warner nodded and allowed himself to be turned around. He leaned heavily on Hill’s shoulder, his leg nearly giving out on him. “Yes. I remember
