Now he did stop, turning to glare at us intently until we signalled our compliance with his commands. We might have been sceptical earlier in the morning but with the encroaching darkness and our earlier experiences, we were no longer so dismissive of his warnings.
I frowned as I caught the sounds of battle coming through the trees. The noises made by a large group of men attacking each other, faint clashes of swords and battle cries, roars of pain, screams. Had sentinels pursued us into the no-entry zone of the borderlands and been met by the Britons, alerted by their magical alarms? I looked at the boys to check that they could hear it too. Marcus looked similarly apprehensive.
“I was sure the city would think we were dead,” he said to Devyn.
“They do,” he assured us. If the noises weren’t sentinels in pursuit and Devyn didn’t indicate that it was Wilders looking for us, that only left things that went bump in the night. My heart started to sound awfully loud as we stood frozen in the darkness of the forest.
Hoofbeats had us whirling around. Someone was coming up the path behind us. I started to run to find cover, but Devyn gripped my hand and stood unmoving. My nerves jangled as I pulled at him to come with me. What was he doing? They were nearly here. I turned to watch the horses approach, my heart now beating so loud and fast it threatened to explode out of my chest.
The horse burst through the brush, its body covered in blood, its eyes wild as it galloped right towards us. I pulled Devyn with all my strength to step out of the way as the crazed horse surged past us. He stumbled at my unexpected burst of force.
“What?”
Was he losing his mind? Hadn’t he seen it? If I hadn’t pulled him out of the way, he would currently be lying broken in the path. Marcus and I exchanged glances. Had the man we were relying on to get us through this nightmare lost all sense of reality?
“I told you not to engage with them,” he said, nodding at the retreating horse which was heading straight for a huge tree trunk. I cringed. It was going to hit… It sailed right into the tree, through, its body insubstantial. It wasn’t real. I drew a shaky breath.
“Oh.”
Devyn looked down at me, his dark eyes serious. “Yes, oh. The more we engage with them, the more attracted to us they’ll be. That horse probably rides that course every year. Nothing changes, but we just acknowledged its existence on this plane. That’s what they crave; they want to touch the living. We need to act like they’re not there.”
I looked at Marcus to see if he was struggling to comprehend Devyn’s lesson in the paranormal as much as I was, but he was looking at something behind us. Under a tree lay a little boy, wrapped in a blanket. He was unwell, and the larger shape beside him was still. Too still.
Marcus took a step to go to the boy before Devyn stood in his way. “No. Marcus, it’s not real. We need to keep going.”
Marcus dragged his gaze from the sick boy to Devyn.
“How can you be sure?” his voice was strangled.
“I’m sure,” Devyn assured him. “It is Samhain. We will see a lot stranger before the night is through.”
At this, he retook my hand and continued on into the increasingly dim twilight. I forced myself to look away from the boy who, noticing us, had reached a thin, pale hand out of his blankets to stretch it imploringly in our direction. Grimly, I steeled myself to ignore him. Marcus finally took a step to follow us, his mouth set as he, too, forced himself not to go to the boy.
We pushed forward. Unable to help myself, I glanced back just as we were about to lose sight of the child. The thin bundle raised itself up, and in the blink of an eye, the boy had sped through the air to hover in front of us.
“You could have saved me!” he shrieked, his eyes wide and accusing, his face all the paler for the dark crimson streak that ran from his mouth down his chin. And then he was gone.
Devyn ground his teeth in frustration at my action, which had triggered the boy. My entire body was trembling. I looked to Marcus who stood in shadow, his whole body tense in response to an accusation he must have thrown at himself many times over the last months. How could he bear it?
I glanced up through the trees. I could just make out stars in the sky; twilight was almost past, and the sun must have set. We were in real trouble now.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled to Devyn. “I promise, I won’t look. I’ll stop.”
Devyn looked at me strangely. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head, as if dismissing my presence, before glancing around him.
“Cass?” he called into the cool air. “Marcus, where did she go?”
Marcus snapped out of the reverie that had held him since the bloodied child screamed at us. “What?”
“Cass,” Devyn roared into the darkening woods. His entire body was tense, poised, as if he were about to break into a run. His eyes were searching wildly around us looking everywhere but at me.
Marcus frowned at me, then at Devyn. “Devyn, she’s right there.”
“She isn’t,” he gritted, his eyes flinching from where Marcus pointed to me.
“She is.” Marcus looked at me, baffled. “She hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“No.” Devyn shook his head, still scanning all around him, his movements growing frantic as
