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“You don’t hear that?” Grey breathed, licking his lips as he swung his head around to find the creature taunting him.
“Hear… what?”
His stomach sank like a stone. “I-I…”
Noel cursed under his breath and sped up, but the giggling continued.
Reign.
The word stretched into the void with how many cheerful voices whispered it in unison, making his head spin from the sheer force of magic pressing in. Sweat started to bead along his brow, and it felt like his sinuses might pop.
Call for Reign.
“What?” Grey whimpered just as Trin’s words crashed into him: Don’t reply to anything you can’t see. He swallowed back the rest of the questions lingering on his tongue: what did ‘Reign’ mean? A person? Fair folk? Was that the name of the fair folk hunting him?
A darker, velvety chuckle bubbled up over the others, the voice dipping into a coo like a hand caressing his cheek. You’re delaying the inevitable, little finch. Call for me, and I’ll relieve you from this burden.
Grey gritted his teeth. “Drive faster.”
And just like that, Noel leaned forward, launching them further into the woods.
19
NOEL
Have we seen that tree before? Noel scowled as he flew past a trunk carved with two long claw marks ripped down to the roots. He shook his head. He was imagining things again, clearly. They’d been going in a straight line for the past hour, so there was no way it was the same tree.
Was it?
“Noel?” Grey’s voice was barely above a squeak.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
He kept his gaze pinned dead ahead, straight into the foggy trail that would eventually dump them out into a field or a road somewhere—something that wasn’t trees and brush for a change. Another tree with two long claw marks.
“What the hell?” he mumbled.
Faster. He shot forward, and sure enough, the damn tree sat dead ahead, mocking him. The bike coasted to a stop, and he sat up, feeling Grey’s arms loosen around his torso. “What’s going on?”
Noel pointed at the marks along the trunk, frustration building. “We’ve passed this damn thing at least three times now.”
Grey shifted behind him, his browns knitting together in the mirror. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent.” He reached into his bag and tore out the map while they idled. The shadows at the edge of his vision undulated, making his stomach twist as he panicked to find where they were on the page. “Fuck.” He flipped it over like the answers might be marked on the next panel, but it was impossible to tell.
Grey’s arms moved in the mirror, and Noel tensed as something slipped over his head. The iron key he’d found for Grey.
“Calm down,” Grey said quietly. “Maybe this will clear your head.”
“What? No—” He grabbed at it, trying to pull it back over while Grey tugged it back to stop him. “You need it. What if?—”
“I’m with you, and I can take your knife if we think we might be in danger, but it won’t do us any good to keep roaming aimlessly around the woods with fair folk creeping around. Take it.”
Noel forced out a shuddering breath as the key clinked against his jacket zipper. Inhale. Exhale. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, looking up at the overlapping branches. Small silver and wood medallions swayed against the ribbons strung from one tree to another with braided twine, feathers, and blown glass baubles alternating between each one.
“Talismans,” he whispered, pointing upward. “But why would someone put these all the way out here?”
Grey softly hummed behind him. “Maybe someone was being followed and put this up? Or maybe there’s a secret path someone’s trying to hide?”
