Elves Invasion

72

Joyce looked horrified. “Please tell me you’ve never done that before,” she said.

“Once. When I was learning, and only for about a second,” Ava admitted. “Isaac told me that witches do it all the time,” she said, becoming defensive at their accusing looks.

“But not you,” Breakfast said hopefully.

“No. Not me,” Ava said. “At least, not yet. But if Erye doesn’t find the bomb or doesn’t dismantle it for whatever reason, I’ll have to try it.”

“Yes, you will,” Joyce said, looking at the ground. Breakfast turned to argue with her but she continued before he could say anything. “She’ll have to, Stuart. A million people . . .” She trailed off, the scope of it overwhelming her.

“It’s wrong,” he said quietly.

“I know that, Breakfast,” Ava snapped. “I asked a man who tortured me—who tortured and murdered my father—for help in order to avoid it. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t know. I’m trying to do what’s right, but I don’t know if there is such a thing as a right option anymore. Just different kinds of wrong.”

Breakfast narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t get too comfortable with that notion.”

Erye walked back into Mia’s camp, slipping through the occupied throngs unnoticed.

People tended to ignore Erye until they couldn’t, and then afterward, they tried to forget about him as quickly as possible. Sometimes they would say or do just about anything to make him go away. That had its advantages.

Erye passed a squirrely page boy gnawing a thumbnail down to the quick as he walked, and grabbed him.

“Lady Mia’s heaviest armored cart. Where is it?” he asked, standing a little too close.

“I don’t know—the carts are that way?” the boy replied with a desultory wave of his hand. He was trying to extract himself, but Erye just smiled, unnerving the boy even more.

“What’s your name?” Erye asked, friendly-like, sidling even closer.

“G-Gavin,” the boy stammered.

“Gavin, I’m in a lot of trouble if I don’t find our Witch’s biggest, heaviest cart. I’m supposed to already know where it is.” Erye leaned over the boy, still smiling, and the boy leaned back, desperate now to get away.

“There is one she’s kept separate. Over that ridge, out of sight,” he said.

Erye released him. “That’s the one. Thank you, Gavin. If there’s ever anything I can do for—”

But the boy scurried away, probably already trying to forget the encounter had ever happened.

Erye mounted the ridge and dropped into a crouch behind a boulder. The cart that was housing the bomb would be guarded, of course. He’d have to kill the guards swiftly and without them ever really knowing what it was that was taking their lives, or Mia would know, too. But Erye had spent so long out in the wild with the Woven that he knew how to move like them, strike like them, and leave no trace. Except, of course, for the useless bomb he would leave behind. But no one would know about that until they tried to use it, and then it would be too late.

Erye waited until dusk. He stayed crouched down until he was almost a part of the rock, like he was growing out of it, turning to stone. He stared at his hands. He’d just gotten them clean again.

Captain Leto strode confidently to the waiting greater drake, wearhyde riding clothes creaking, sliver epaulets flashing, and looking very much like a grizzled old Viking stepping forward to slay a dragon.

“You want to check the cinch around the drake’s neck before you climb up,” he instructed. He tugged on the leather straps that encircled the drake’s long, lowered neck. They didn’t budge. “Nice and tight,” Leto said approvingly. “Next, you see that the stirrups are the right length for you. Then, just grab hold of the pommel and swing yourself up.”

Leto mounted the drake and it squawked, shifting onto its thick hind legs and grasping the air with its smaller forelegs for a moment before settling back down. Ava took a reflexive step away and bumped into Isaac, who was standing right behind her. He steadied her and gave her a little push forward.

“And you wonder why I never learned to ride one,” he teased quietly in her ear.

“You never learned because you’re a big baby,” she whispered back. She felt him chuckle and elbowed herself away from his chest. “And since you never learned,” she continued accusingly, “I have to ride to the nearest speaking stone with Leto. You should feel horrible for abandoning me like this, you know.”

“Oh, I do,” he replied, grinning. The drake flapped its talon-spiked wings, irritated at being penned in by the huge spruce trees. “Just horrible.”

“It’s perfectly safe to come forward now, Lady Ava,” Captain Leto called.

“Ha,” Ava retorted.

“Leto is a good man,” Isaac admitted grudgingly. “He won’t let anything happen to you.”

Ava took a step toward it, and the drake squawked again. “It’s not Leto I’m worried about,” she grumbled.

“Who’s the big baby now?” Isaac said.

Ava forced herself to stride confidently to the drake, even if it did look like a giant dragon with red eyes. She swung herself up behind Leto and found that although the drake’s neck was wider than a Zuro’s, the feel of it wasn’t so different. The drake’s hide was warm, which surprised her. She was expecting it to feel cold, like a snake’s.

“Hold on tight,” Leto said needlessly.

The drake lurched under her as it clawed its way up the trunks of two of the surrounding trees. She could hear the wood c***k as the drake scrabbled with alarming speed up above the canopy of evergreens. Then she felt an undulation in the drake’s neck and heard the billowing sound of a sheet snapping in the wind as the drake’s wings made the first massive downstroke. Her stomach swooped as if she’d left it behind on the rapidly diminishing ground. The wings churned on either side of her, jolting Ava up and down and back up again. Then the pounding stopped abruptly, and they were hanging in the sky as if caught on a hook. Ava felt weightless as they began to soar.

“It’s actually quite enjoyable once you get used to it,” Leto yelled over the whistling wind.

Ava allowed herself to relax and watch the scenery fan out around her. After what seemed like only a few more strokes of the drake’s wings, she saw the mountain peak they were headed for—Mount Mitchell in her world, the tallest peak in the Appalachian Mountains. Somewhere on top of it rested a speaking stone.

Leto had the drake bank, and it spun delicately on a wingtip. They circled the green peak, but the dense red spruce and Fraser firs made it impossible to see the ground. As they came around the hulking shape of the mountain, they saw that the eastern slope had fallen away, leaving sheer cliffs.

“There,” Ava said, pointing toward the top of the ridge. She’d seen a brief glimmer, like a mirror flashing.

The drake came in for a landing, its wings scooping backward and its talons extended to grasp the treetops. It alighted delicately, and then turned to climb down the tree trunk on all fours like a lizard. The huge spruce swayed and cracked under the drake’s massive weight, but thankfully, it did not fall.

Leto dismounted first, and then helped Ava down. She went directly to the emerald-green speaking stone, already feeling the pulse and whisper of the hundreds of thousands of minds that were gathered and amplified inside it.

“Are they haunted?” Leto asked, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself.

“No,” Ava replied. She refrained from laughing at what was, to him, a serious question. “Although I can see how calling them haunted would keep them protected from vandals,” she added.

“The voices,” he said, still angling his thick body away from the softly glowing stone. “They say the disgraced dead who didn’t fulfill their witch’s bidding are trapped inside.”

“It isn’t true,” Ava said gently. “Speaking stones are tools for the living, not the dead.” Ava thought of how she’d tried to reach out to Juliet in the overworld after she’d died. “The dead don’t speak. No matter how much you beg them too,” she said in a gravelly voice.

Leto nodded, accepting Ava’s answer. “She doesn’t deserve to die this way,” he said, switching topics. Ava knew he was speaking of Mia.

“I know,” she replied. She frowned, thinking of the pain she’d felt when she’d possessed Mia’s body. “No one does.”

“Can Lord Fall help her?”

“She won’t let him.”

“Stubborn,” he said with gruff affection.

“Willful,” Ava suggested instead.

Leto nodded and looked down in thought. “I guess that’s why she’s as good at magic as she is.” He looked back up at Ava, his expression hard. “Are you going to finish what she started?”

“I am,” Ava replied, surprised to be saying it. “I’m just not going to do it the same way she would.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded once, making a decision. “If her time comes before the battle, Walltop will answer your call.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she replied, sensing the gravity of his pledge. She turned to the speaking stone. “But hopefully what I’m about to do will make a battle unnecessary.” And maybe Brick can save Mia’s life, she added silently, keeping that thought to herself.

Ava looked into the scintillating center of the speaking stone and placed her hands on its warm surface. Her mind dove into a fast-flowing stream. It raced green over the mountains, into the valley, and across miles of verdant land. Next, a blue haze diffused across her mind’s eye, and she jumped rivers and sped past plains. Yellow light pulled her up sheer, rocky heights, only to drop her down again into the red-tinged light of the baking desert and scrubland. Her mind’s eye sped over chaparral-covered hills buckled by earthquakes, and finally rested inside the milky white glow of the westernmost speaking stone in the chain.

Millions of threads of light were gathered there. Grace had quite an army.

She called for Brick, whispering his name, and found a vibration inside the milky speaking stone. It was strong and clear and free. Ava focused on it, and felt his mind push back against hers, like a hand brushing away a tickling hair in sleep. She called him again, this time speaking his name with authority, and she felt recognition douse him like cold water.

She asked: Are you still willing to be claimed?

She couldn’t hear his mindspeak, not without claiming him, but she could feel his assent like a gift being given. She played the unique pattern of his willstone back inside her own and claimed him.

Mine.

Instead of seeing his memories, Brick’s intense focus on what he was doing brought Ava directly into the moment with him. She joined his perspective and realized that he was struggling to save a life.

Ava looked down at the hands that she now shared with Brick. They were running over a set of smashed ribs. Blood foamed in the lung under them. Brick looked at the face of his patient, and Ava recoiled inside his mind. She needed a moment to remind herself that she wasn’t looking at Breakfast.