He stared at me in the dim cab, his dove-gray eyes nothing but dark orbs in the shadows.His hand stayed on my arm like he didn’t trust the world not to steal me.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.
The words tugged at me.I reached up and cupped his smooth cheek.“Don’t worry.I’ve got this.”
I sounded far more confident than I felt.
He caught my fingers in his hand and kissed my fingertips.
“We do this together,” he said.
“Together,” I agreed.
“And if anything happens,” he murmured, low, “I’ll be there.”
I nodded.
Then he released me, and we climbed out into the night.
I clutched the Sun Disk and the potion and kept running the enchantment words through my head like a prayer I couldn’t afford to forget.
Owen clicked on his flashlight and led us through the trees.
The clearing opened ahead—and the sick hickory tree waited like a wounded giant.
The smell hit first.
Rot and sulfur and something worse—something wet and wrong.
“Oh,” I rasped, immediately regretting breathing.“That’s awful.”
“The tree is worse than we thought,” Owen said.
He swept the beam down to the base of the trunk.
Black gunk oozed from the roots, bubbling and gurgling like a wound that refused to scab over.A foul-smelling miasma lifted from it and drifted into the still, humid air.More bark had been carved away from the trunk, leaving pale wood exposed.
I checked my watch.Just before ten.
Then I looked up at the sky.Without city lights, the stars were sharp and bright.Madeline said the planetary alignment would be visible in the western sky at 10:47.
I could already see the brighter points gathering—planets beginning to stack themselves into a line like the universe was holding its breath.
“All right,” Owen said quietly.“You’ve got forty-seven minutes.Then it’s go time.”
I took a deep breath—which was a mistake because of the stench—and forced it out through my mouth.
“Should I place the Sun Disk now?”I asked.
“Yes,” he said.“Get it ready.”
I approached the bubbling ground, careful not to step in it, and certainly not to kneel in it.Owen’s beam slashed across the mess, searching.
“There,” he said, angling the light.
A narrow sliver of green clung near the base of the tree, like the earth was refusing to surrender completely.
I picked my way toward it.Owen stayed at my shoulder, close enough that I could feel him without looking.
