Not that she could. She couldn’t even conjure up a damp napkin right now, let alone summon fire.
She batted wildly at her face, trying to wipe off the clingy strands while her long, blonde braid snagged on a hanging vine. Her fingers caught in the webbing, and she let out a frustrated cry as she backed up—and immediately tripped over a half-buried root.
Her body hit the damp forest floor with a thud, leaves and soil puffing up around her like startled spirits. She sprang to her feet, red-faced and seething, then bent down and snatched up a nearby branch.
“Okay, you want to fight? We’ll fight! You’ve messed with the wrong Curizan princess!” she hissed, brandishing the stick like a sword. “I’m going to burn every single spider web the first chance I get!”
Alice spun in a tight circle, her heart pounding against her ribs like a drumbeat in a war march. Her wary gaze scanned the darkening landscape. A light breeze caused the thick, broad stems of the ferns to rustle softly. Moss clung to every tree trunk. Strange, wide-leafed plants unfurled with whispery sighs. Everything was green. Too green. Too still. Too enchanted.
The energy here is so wrong! she thought with a shiver of fear.
Thirty minutes ago, she had woken up in the middle of a fern bed, dirt smudged across her face, and her hair tangled with twigs and leaves. There had been no familiar voices. No friends. No flicker of energy she could control. Just this eerie, otherworldly forest that pressed in around her like it knew she didn’t belong.
She had tried—over and over—to gather the surrounding energy, to make something. A simple hat. A sparkle of light. Even a damp cloth to clean her face. But the energy she usually summoned without a thought was slippery here. Unruly. Every time she reached for it, it shifted like mist between her fingers. It was like trying to paint with watercolors on glass—pretty, but impossible to control.
And now, to top it off, she was lost and covered in spider web goo.
She swiped the sticky strands off her cheek with the back of her hand and groaned. “This is so not what I signed up for.”
Her voice startled a flock of tiny sapphire birds from a nearby tree. They launched skyward with sharp cries and sparkling wings.
Alice yelped and bolted. She gripped the branch tightly in her right hand. Her soft, brown boots thudded against the mossy ground as she tore along the narrow, winding path. Panic surged through her. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow.
It was getting dark.
The light that had filtered through the canopy only minutes ago now dimmed, turning gold into gray.
“Bálint?” she called, her breath ragged. “Adaline? Zohar? Phoenix? Roam? Anyone!”
Her voice echoed off the trees, swallowed by thick silence.
Tears pricked at her eyes, but she shoved them back. “Someone say something!” she begged.
No one answered.
The ground sloped suddenly, the earth slick from the nearby creek. She tumbled down the embankment, arms pinwheeling, and splashed into the ankle-deep water below.
“Seriously?” she muttered, soaked and miserable.
She staggered across the shallow stream, her feet slipping on smooth stones. On the other side, she clambered up a small rise—but stopped cold when a crack shattered the silence behind her.
She spun around, her heart pounding in her ears.
Branches snapped. Leaves rustled. Something growled in the shadows.
Alice stumbled backward until her spine met the rough bark of a colossal tree. Her fingers clenched tighter around the branch in her hands.
“Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared. You’ve faced worse,” she whispered to herself, her voice quivering. “You’re not afraid. You’re not afraid.”
The growl came again—low and bone deep.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She wiped them away with a furious sniff and dropped into a crouch, holding the branch like a spear.
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered again. “Everything’s going to be fine. It’s just… just forest noise. Forests have noises. Bálint is always talking about the hullabaloos he hears when he is out in the woods.”
Alice froze when a movement behind her pushed her forward.
The ground gave a gentle tremble under her feet, and the bark groaned. The leaves above her whispered in the breeze.
