I curled my fingers around my palm and the agony slicing through it. A drop of blood glistened between my fingertips. I pulled my sleeve hastily over it.
“Varian!” I said. “Keep going!”
Then I saw why he had stopped.
The entrance to the tower room was covered with thorn branches. They crisscrossed and covered the doorway, so thick I could barely see the room on the other side.
Varian lifted the sword over his head. “Stand back—”
A branch snapped from the wall and tore through my sleeve. I pulled away with a shriek, knocking Edwin in the face with my elbow. He yelped and jerked back, bumping into Rosalin, who cried out as she fell. She rolled down a few steps before managing to stop herself.
“Rosalin!” Varian cried, turning toward her. His sword dipped low.
And the thorns attacked.
One branch slammed down on the hilt of Varian’s sword, knocking it out of his hand. Another slithered across the stairs at Rosalin and jabbed several sharp thorns into her calf. She screamed, high and terrified, and pulled away. The side of her calf, beneath her shredded stocking, was smeared with blood.
For a moment, the stairwell was completely still. I thought I could hear the branches breathing.
Then they all struck at Rosalin, streaming toward her like they were drawn to the scent of her blood. They shot past me, scraping along the stone, whooshing through the air.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Get away from her!”
Varian tried to dodge past me and get to Rosalin. I forced myself to look away from my sister and grab his wrist.
“Get the sword!” I said. “Or there’s nothing you can do for her!”
Varian looked back helplessly. The sword was held down by vines twined together so thickly they formed a solid mass.
Rosalin screamed again. I let go of Varian.
Then Edwin dashed past us and threw out his hand, throwing a spray of white salt onto the sword.
The vines hissed and shrank away, shriveling as they went. Varian swooped and grabbed the sword hilt.
“The door!” Edwin shouted. “That’s almost all the salt I’ve got!”
He upended the jug over the thorns that were holding Rosalin down.
I couldn’t hear them hiss—Rosalin’s screams were too loud—but the branches shrank away. Not as completely as they had before, though, and after just a couple of seconds, they shot back.
I lunged for them and grabbed the largest, pulling at it with my bare hands. It could have encircled me easily, but it was too busy trying to get at Rosalin. The bark was rough and slippery, and a thorn scraped painfully against the side of my hand, but I hung on tight, bracing my feet against the stairs. Edwin’s hands clamped down next to mine, and with his help I managed to hold the branch still.
Rosalin scrambled to her feet and up the stairs just as Varian cut through the branches covering the door. Through the thin opening he created, I saw the tower room, filled with golden light and completely free of thorn branches.
“Get through!” Varian shouted.
Rosalin hesitated, turning back. “Briony!”
“I’ll get her!” Varian said. “I promise! But I need to know that you’re safe first!”
Rosalin dashed through the opening. A branch struck out, tearing off the hem of her gown. A pink ruffle fluttered from a thorn as the branches grew back.
Varian slashed through them again.
“You two! Come on!”
Edwin turned. His blue-gray eyes met mine.
“One…,” he said. “Two…”
“Three,” we said together, and at the exact same moment, we let go of the branch and raced up the stairs.
The branches were closing together, faster than before. Edwin dove through. I heard the branches slide against his boots, but then there was a thump on the other side.
“I made it!” he shouted.
A vine coiled around my ankle. I slipped my leg free before it could tighten. “Varian—”
He looked down at me, and his expression froze me. There wasn’t a hint of fear on his face. There was something else, something like triumph.
Before I could think about it, he turned and swung the sword again, slicing through the branches. This time, he didn’t stop; he chopped again and again, sideways and diagonally, until almost the entire doorway was clear.
The second he stopped, I ran through. I almost wasn’t fast enough. A thorn snagged on my hair and pulled several strands out, with a burst of pain that brought new tears to my eyes. I wrenched myself free, into the golden light.
Something was crawling through my hair. I reached up and yanked out a twig. It writhed in my hand, tilting its tiny sharp thorns toward my skin. I threw it at the spinning wheel, and the second it hit the polished wood, it disintegrated into a sprinkle of dust.
I took a few heaving breaths, then turned around.
The doorway was once again covered with thorns. Beyond it, the darkness was so thick that I knew the entire stairway must be covered, too.
There was no way Varian was going to cut through that. The doorway was sealed, and we were trapped.
I took several quick steps to the window and looked down. The branches had grown high enough for me to make out individual thorns.
“My fairy godmother isn’t here,” Rosalin said shrilly. “How do we make her come?”
I turned away from the window. Rosalin was clutching Varian’s hand, and he was looking at her protectively. Edwin had that set, blank expression that I now understood: he was terrified, and hiding it.
“Maybe,” he said, “she’s not the one you want.”
“What are you talking about?” Rosalin demanded.
“Your fairy godmother keeps talking about how to get rid of the Thornwood. But it’s not the Thornwood we need to defeat, is it? It’s the fairy queen herself.” He leaned forward. “Maybe we need to
