“But why? Doesn’t she want to win?”
He sketched a frown, but just looked tired. “That’s the thing about the faeries,” he said. “They always win.”
Poppy grimaced.
“Listen, Poppy. If you don’t get the Valkyrie song before this evening, she wins, and gets to take whatever she wants from you—including you, by the way. You remember she wanted you to join her court, right?”
Poppy swallowed.
“And if you do happen to succeed, she gets the Valkyrie song without risking anything herself. She wins no matter what.” Mack dropped his hand to her shoulder, then snatched it back again. “We do have one small advantage.”
“What?” Poppy heard the tremor in her voice.
He brushed dirt off the backs of his legs. “I thought about it last night, and I think I know where the bluff meadow is.”
They moved quickly, passing lone thorn trees—the first Poppy had seen since the ones that had sprung up to put out the fire.
For the whole first hour they walked, Poppy talked. If she kept the words flowing, she didn’t have to think about her parents, or about her argument with Mack. If she kept talking, she didn’t even have to think about what might happen if the Faery Queen won.
She told Mack and Nula about the thorn trees being part of the Holly Oak. When Mack walked ahead, she talked to Nula about the weather and the trolls until at last, Nula fell silent, and then Poppy talked at her.
Nula caught up with Mack and, after a long look over her shoulder at Poppy, gave him a glare that held at least two lectures about something. Mack shook his head, and continued to keep his distance.
Though she’d never been a nervous talker, Poppy grew chattier than she’d ever been in her life. She made observations about the forest as they walked. She wondered out loud about different species of tentaculars. She wondered out loud about the migration patterns of Mogwen. She wondered out loud whether it would rain, and how the thorn trees knew about the fire, and how they had put it out.
She wondered out loud about anything and everything that might distract her from the fact that her parents’ souls were stuck somewhere and maybe injured, and maybe worse. She didn’t want to think about how Mack was angry with her, and how that was her fault for always pushing her way through. She tried to push away the passage of time, and the possibility of failure. She wanted to hide it all under a thick pile of questions the way a squirrel buries a nut for the winter.
The wall between her and Mack wouldn’t budge, and she didn’t know how to fix it. He was only here because of his promise to Jute. They were running out of time … and they hadn’t even reached the bluff meadow. Her stomach churned, and her problems wouldn’t stay down. Instead they grew, like the heat of the day, becoming more real with every mile. Sweat dripped down Poppy’s back.
When two hours had passed, and they were still surrounded by trees, she began to panic. There was no chance she could win against the Faery Queen. She walked faster and faster until Nula got exasperated with trying to keep up and turned herself into a deer, sprinting ahead into the wood. Mack walked behind her and said nothing.
After the third hour, Poppy had to slow down again, her breath ragged. The panic that had been fueling her began fading into despair. She had a stitch in her side, and her throat was raw from breathing fast. Mack was right. Dealing with faeries was a really bad idea. Foolish.
Like her.
If she lost, they would have to run—hide somehow, or at least she would. She wouldn’t drag her friends into her mess. And then what about her parents? And she still didn’t have any of the answers she needed.
They had been walking for almost four hours when they came to a full-fledged grove of thorn trees, stretching into the distance. Even Dog seemed to tiptoe as they skirted the edges. In the stillness, Poppy’s renewed effort at distracting herself with chatter clattered to a halt.
The smell was rank—thick and rotten. The black trees sparkled beautifully in the glimmers of late morning sunlight as it sifted down through the canopy, but the whole place felt somber and sad, and almost smothering. It was as though someone had dropped a heavy blanket over the whole grove.
Bones littered the ground, some old and crumbling. Poppy could make out … other things, wrapped in the whips—things that were long past help.
There were several holes in the loose rich soil under the trees, as though something had pushed up through the ground to escape.
Maledictions, Poppy thought, her pulse hammering.
Fifteen minutes later, Mack broke into a run. Poppy exchanged looks with Nula, who had become herself again sometime in the previous hour, and ran after him, her heart lifting as the forest opened up onto a huge meadow. Tall grasses stretched out to the edge of a cliff. A huge bird circled in the distance.
Eta and Brutus barked happily, their tail wagging. Two woke up, tongue lolling as his head jostled between his two siblings like they were playing monkey in the middle. They all disappeared into the tall grass.
Poppy couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up. She took a deep breath. The air was sweet and smelled of dust and sunlight. She hadn’t realized how closed in the Grimwood had become—how stifling.
She laughed again. “Now what?”
“We should go west,” Nula said. “Wood folk always like the west.”
Mack shook his head. “Valkyries are immortal battle maidens, not wood folk … and this is the perfect place for a battle,” he argued. “This is the meadows. We should wait for them here.”
Nula scowled. “You think they’re just going to show up?”
“Okay, well, it’s a better idea than just walking west.”
Poppy followed the trail of bent grasses that Dog had left in their wake, moving
