“And you let them?”
“Arick all but forced me out.” Despite the blade of his tone, there was sadness in Raffe’s face. Arick had been his friend, too. “He said I had nothing to gain by getting embroiled in Valleydan politics, and he said it like a threat. I rented a room in the city, kept an eye on things as best I could. It’s all I could do.” He ran one hand helplessly over his shorn hair. “It wasn’t enough.”
Red took her grief and buried it deep, something to be dealt with later. For now, her mind whirred through possibilities, solutions.
One clicked.
“I know how to find her.” She spun on her heel, toward the back door. “Come with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
T he mirror was propped against the same wall where Eammon had first left it. Red half expected the glass to be clear, the healing of the Wilderwood reflected in its relic. But the surface was still matte and gray, touched by the subtly sinister twist of smoke. Maybe it would take time to heal, or maybe it was something that would always look foreboding.
Red swallowed. She wasn’t sure which option disconcerted her more.
“This . . . shows you Neve?” Apprehension made Raffe’s voice brittle. He’d balked at the sight of the tower, wrapped in vine and branch, bursting with as much golden autumn as the rest of the Wilderwood. Now he held himself carefully, arms crossed so he didn’t touch anything.
“Gaya made it so she could see Tiernan.” Red untied her braid, shaking her hair over her shoulders. She pulled out one strand, hesitated, then tugged a few more. Neve might be harder to find this time.
“And it works?”
Eammon’s eyes flickered from Red to the mirror, the same nervousness she felt etched into his face. “Mostly.”
“Strange magic,” Raffe murmured.
“An understatement.” Despite his nonchalance, Fife held himself stiffly against the stair railing. Lyra had gone to the Edge to tell Valdrek what was happening, to finally make good on his promise of help if the need ever arose. Red knew Fife would be nervous until she returned.
With one last reassuring look at Eammon, Red wound the strands of her hair through the mirror’s frame and sat back on her heels, waiting for the smoke and shine, waiting for her sister.
When the vision finally came, it was blurry, even more than usual. Wherever Neve was, it was dark. She lay on her back, unmoving but for the slight rise and fall of her chest. Indistinct shapes flickered around her, but Red saw a flash of an auburn braid and a white robe, and someone tall with a face like smeared paint, shifting between one thing and the other.
Kiri and Solmir.
As she concentrated, the darkness above Neve slowly coalesced to a night sky, midnight blue, scattered with stars. Valleydan countryside sky. A line of deep violet split the horizon— the edge of the Wilderwood.
Slowly, Red came back to herself, relief making her breath shudder. “She’s alive. In Valleyda, but near—”
The words choked off into a scream of unexpected pain. It flashed down her spine, the roots around it twisting, branches spearing across the inside of her skin. Eammon’s eyes flashed, his hand reaching out as he tried to come toward her, but his knees buckled before he could, hitting the floor with a muffled groan.
“What are they doing?” Raffe’s voice, somewhere between shock and fear.
“The roots,” Fife breathed, face blanched.
Outside, a low keening noise, a gathering wind, and a crack of falling branches. The autumn colors muting, fading, winter seeping in again.
Eammon was on his knees, fist pressed against his side, jaw an agonized ridge. He tried to move, but another slice of pain lanced through them both, turned his forward motion into a fruitless spasm. Something cut away, something taken.
Raffe backed against the wall, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“Wilderwood.” With teeth-baring effort, Eammon lurched toward Red, pulling her up with a steady hand despite the pain. His palms ran over her arms, looking for wounds. “They’ve taken more sentinels.”
It felt like a hundred knives, the way the forest skittered in her chest, the way it fought to close itself around the unimaginable tear— dozens of sentinels, ripped away at once. Her veins were a rush of sap, her heartbeat clattering against stretching branches, all of it agony.
At the bottom of the tower, the door banged open, footsteps rushing up the stairs. Valdrek topped the rise, Lyra behind him, both of them out of breath. “What is going on, Wolf? The Wilderwood was open when we entered, then an awful—”
He stopped cold, eyes wide as they took in Red’s and Eammon’s drawn faces and what they must mean. “Kings and shadows.”
“Apt.” Eammon’s lips were white. He steadied Red against him.
“They’re doing it,” she murmured. Words in a dungeon, before she took the roots—the Wilderwood will fall, the Kings will be freed. “Solmir is freeing the rest of the Kings from the Shadowlands.”
Outside, the Wilderwood’s keening had subsided, but the silence it left was almost worse. They’d left the tower, unsure how its magic-heightening influence might be affected by such violence done to the forest. Red leaned against Eammon, all but limping. Eammon walked tall, but pain lived in the line of his mouth.
Raffe pushed open the door to the Keep, and Red nearly collapsed on the bottom step of the staircase, teeth clenched against the sting of so many missing sentinels. Eammon leaned against the banister, his fingers white-knuckle on the newel post.
Lear had accompanied Valdrek and Lyra, and took a place near the wall, armed to the teeth with weapons that should’ve been ancient, glinting in the light of the burning vine. His blue eyes were sad and tired. “When I said you could always ask for help, Wolf, I was thinking more about finding material to rebuild the Keep, or maybe getting your input on crop rotation. Not the whole damn Wilderwood collapsing.”
“We were halfway here before it started.” Lyra, voice low, fingers
