Hill ignored the noise. He reached to uncork a vial, but Fable caught his free hand with a whippy vine and held it back. “I think you’ve had enough,” she said.
Hill tugged against the winding cord, but his power was waning. With his free hand, he drew the vials to his mouth and ripped the wax off one of them with his teeth—but before he could tip the precious powder into his mouth, another leafy vine yanked that arm back. He shuddered with effort as he tried to pull free, but the cords held tight to both wrists now.
Hill was trapped, his chest heaving, his feet barely visible within a tangled web of roots that climbed nearly to his knees, his arms pulled tight in opposite directions. Struggle all he might, the restraints held fast.
Fable panted. Her arms fell limp at her sides. The earth settled once more, and the winds died away. With weary, stumbling steps, she staggered at last to the figure lying still and silent on the broken earth.
Head swimming, Fable collapsed to her knees at her mother’s side. She could still feel the heat rising from the woman’s body.
Get up, she thought. Move.
Hot, heavy tears ran down her cheeks, but Fable could not seem to find the strength to wipe them away. Get up. Please.
Her chest began to shake with heavy sobs. Fable could hear her mother’s voice, chiding her. You are the future queen of this forest, and it is long past time you began to act like it. The memory only made it worse.
In spite of his unyielding position, Hill’s lips drew back in a sneer and he laughed. The sound made Fable’s stomach turn. She heard a soft crunch and a tinkle of glass.
“This isn’t over yet,” the man whispered.
Numbly, Fable turned. She blinked away hot tears.
Blood was dripping from Hill’s closed fist. He grimaced and clenched his fingers around the wet shards.
Fable’s mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Her eyes widened. The vials. He’d crushed them all at once. Their contents were now coursing straight through Hill’s bloodstream. Jacob Hill began to shudder.
Evie scrambled over the broken earth as quickly as she could. The skies boiled above her. She could hear Mr. Hill’s furious growls behind her, but she dared not look back. The man she thought she knew was gone, replaced by something awful. Her searching eyes finally locked on to a miniature gray figure in the dust ahead.
Flinty tore his eyes away from the battle as Evie neared.
“You,” the spriggan rasped.
“Me,” panted Evie, and with one hand she reverently held out the vial.
Flinty’s eyes widened. He looked at the tube, his deep scowl carving hard lines into the rocky ridges of his brow. “You know what it is?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“I know,” said Evie. “And I know what it does.”
The spriggan drew in a sharp breath, his beady eyes narrowing in indignation.
“It was an accident,” Evie explained. “But I felt it. It made me strong.”
Flinty’s scowl deepened.
“I didn’t know what it was,” said Evie. “But I understand now. I’m sorry.”
The field had fallen silent once more as Flinty reached gingerly up and took the vial from Evie. The tube was easily half his height, but he held it like it might blow away in the wind at any moment.
“We’ll help you get the rest back, too,” said Evie. “I promise.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “You will help us defeat the humans?”
“No,” Evie said. “Not like that. Not through fighting.”
The spriggan’s lips sank into a scowl.
“Listen,” Evie insisted. “Those people didn’t know. None of this is their fault. Well, except for one of them. You don’t need to defeat all the humans. Just help me stop that one.”
Behind her, in the distance, there came the quiet tinkling of glass and a cruel laugh. Evie looked over her shoulder just in time to see the transformation.
Jacob Hill shook. He bellowed—it was a raw, animal sound of pain and wrath and unbridled power. It echoed across the hills. A ghostly apparition materialized around his body, and then it was no mere glimmer of light, but a material form, growing and bulging outward, solidifying until it was as dense as rock and as tall as a pine tree. The vines that had held him prisoner now snapped and fell away like cheap twine. The enormous figure that towered over the clearing looked like Hill, but also like something else at the same time—a grotesque, inhuman version of the man he had been.
“Just one?” rasped Flinty.
“Yep.” Evie gulped. “Guess which one.”
Fable stood up. Hill was four stories tall, his body hideous and undulating, too much magic trying to contain itself in too small a package. A fist like a slab of granite slammed into Fable before she saw it coming, and suddenly the girl was airborne. She was falling, tumbling through empty air, plummeting toward the Wild Wood. As she fell, her mind cleared.
The forest caught Fable. The ground rose to meet her, and she landed gently on her feet. She swayed for only a moment and wiped her nose. It was bleeding, but only a little. She was going to have a wicked bruise later. It was oddly peaceful here, just a short way from the battlefield. The monstrous figure of Jacob Hill was visible over the treetops, silhouetted against the white smoke of the battlefield.
“Thanks, trees,” Fable breathed.
The branches rustled.
“You ready?” she said.
A pinecone bounced off her shoulder and landed beside her.
“Me, too.” Fable cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this.”
“Too much,” Flinty croaked. His eyes were
