It was only a matter of time before he fell.
Soft tissue crunched as his ankle rolled off a smooth stone. Vatii took off, screeching wildly. Briar crashed to his knees, the lichen branch bouncing away from him. His magic light went out. Grit bit into his palms and broke skin. A scream tore at his throat as he felt the forest drinking blood out of the scrapes.
Let me go, he thought. He scrambled to right himself.
Ours. Cursed, said the Coill Darragh woods.
Briar tried to get up, but something coiled around his ankle. It swept his feet out from under him. Ivy twined around his arms and legs, the sibilant sound of it like a snake’s oily body gliding through dead leaves. Vatii snapped at the ivy, trying to sever it, but she couldn’t land for more than a second before the forest tried to claim her, too.
Briar’s eyes fell on the bracelet around his wrist, the stone that kept him safe from Coill Darragh’s wards. The sight filled him with dread as the ivy tangled around it in tight coils.
And began to tug.
“No!” Briar shouted. If the forest severed that bracelet, he was done for. He could sense the wards pressing in, their teeth at his throat, waiting to bite. He tried to unwind the ivy. The magic charm keeping the bracelet from falling off his wrist dissipated. A bit of leather twine broke like a violin string.
“Vatii, get help!”
“I can’t leave you!”
“Please, Vatii.” One of the wires on his bracelet melted at the ivy’s touch. The wardstone vibrated. “Get—” He shouted the first name that came to mind. “Get Rowan!”
“He won’t get here in time!”
“Then get my charcoal.”
He didn’t know what spells he could use. Wishbrooke hadn’t taught him how to combat a malevolent forest intent on devouring him. Vatii danced around the swiping vines and pecked a stub of charcoal from his pockets. She deposited it in his hand. He clutched it fiercely but could hardly move. Flat on his belly, ivy crawling over him, it took colossal effort to bring his arm close enough to draw on. His hand shook with the strain.
The first mark went down in a shivering scrawl. Then his bracelet gave an audible whine of tearing leather, and the last piece snapped apart.
The wards clamped shut around him. His vision went black, the forest obliterating the sunlight. Vatii called to him, desperation in her voice. He could feel her plucking at him. Then hovering over him, wings spread protectively.
He must have passed out and dreamed.
He dreamed one of the trees pulled up its roots and slashed away the vines. He dreamed it picked him up, cradled him to its trunk, and bore him away.
Then he truly blacked out.
CHAPTER 6
Briar awoke in a room he didn’t recognize.
Judging by the chaotic collage of toys that made up the floor and the rabbit painted on the wall, it was a child’s room. He sat up in a bed with fairies on the covers and groaned as pain lanced through his ankle, which was bandaged. Vatii landed in his lap, clucking about him like a mother hen.
“Whoa, there,” said a woman’s voice. “Take it easy, like. Or I’ll get it in the neck from my husband for letting you ruin his handiwork.”
Briar’s gaze settled on a woman sitting in an rocking chair next to him. She was a couple years older than him, her auburn hair in a plait, her square features oddly familiar.
His experience in the woods washed over him in a wave of nausea. The forest. Its grisly confession about the curse. And—he grasped his wrist. Scratches from the ivy remained, but the wardstone bracelet was gone.
“What happened? How’d I get here?” he asked.
“My brother brought you in looking sick as a small hospital, all scraped up. Said he found you in the forest, your familiar hollering over you, and the ward bracelet broken.” She crossed her arms, looking formidable and stormy. “He didn’t tell me why he was in the woods, so I’ve a mind to give him a bollocking. It’s lucky he found you. Connor—my husband, he’s a physician—said there was nothing wrong with you besides a sprained ankle, but to keep an eye, so we brought you here.”
Briar’s head spun. “How am I even alive? The wards—”
“Should have torn you to pieces.”
“Why didn’t they?” Rubbing his wrist absently, he allowed Vatii to climb onto his shoulder and preen the twigs out of his hair.
