Something brushes my shoulder and I shove it out the way, earning myself a branch twatting me in the face as it fights back.
There’s a crack behind me and I spin around, on high alert even though we’re safe here.
There’s a thick ring of wards and curses surrounding the island, set to attack anyone who’s not the crew.
We’re safe. Protected.
So why do I feel like I have to keep looking over my shoulder?
My head’s a mess. I suppose that once someone plays around with your mind like the sorceress did to me, it’s hard to trustyour own thoughts. The whole time I was stuck with her, my gut instinct was screaming that something was wrong. My gut screaming, mind muddled, body paralysed.
It was not a good combination.
There’s another sharp crack nearby, and I spin around. I’m half expecting there to be no one there. For it to be another sign that I’m losing my mind here.
“Got something for me?”
I practically jump out of my skin at the familiar voice, especially when Finch’s tentacle claps me on the shoulder before he steps out of the trees’ shadows.
“You scared the shit out of me. Why are you creeping around the woods?”
“You know you do this thing when you’re surprised, where you clutch your chest like a maidenly aunt with her delicate sensibilities upset.”
“Yeah, yeah, very funny. Did you follow me down here? Or have you been waiting around in the woods for hours?”
He shrugs, adjusting his hat to a jaunty angle, and I realise he’s in one of those moods. Like he’s a cranky toddler you can’t get anything useful out of.
“How long have you been out here?” he asks, eyeing my sodden shirt. “You’re soaking wet.”
I glance down at myself and see that he’s right. “Not long,” I reply.
Although now that I think about it, I can’t remember walking down here. Couldn’t say for exactly how long I’ve been standing here either.
I must be more sleep-deprived than I realised.
“I’m heading out,” Finch tells me. “Got anything for me?”
“Uh.” I pat my pockets and try not to let my surprise show when I find a small, neatly wrapped package in my pocket. I couldn’t tell anyone what’s inside as I can’t strictly rememberputting it there. Or putting a curse on whatever thing is inside the wrapping.
But still, I hand it over.
“Good night for it,” I comment, nodding toward the water. Even when the moon appears momentarily, it’s still impossible to see anything. Not with the thick sea fret that’s taken over the entire region, spreading at least a mile out to sea and covering our tiny island entirely.
Finch just grunts and we peer out at the fog for a moment before he gives me a swift pat on the shoulder with one tentacle and a jaunty salute with the other. “Don’t stay out here too long.”
And then he steps into the mist, disappearing entirely within seconds.
It’s an oddly disconcerting experience to be surrounded by so much fog creeping around me. When I turn around, the darkness of the forest is absolute. I take a tentative step and then another, feeling branches I can’t see brush against my legs and arms with spindly caresses.
There’s a gnawing sense of anxiety that if I make one wrong turn, I won’t know which way to go toward the house. There are plenty of steep edges if I head too close to the western side of the island. A rocky cliff that’ll have me tumbling into the unforgiving water before I know it. And right now, I’m unable to tell my arse from my elbow, let alone in which cardinal direction I’m headed.
I’m concentrating so hard on blindly moving through the forest, and the fog is so thick, I almost miss the small black bird flying overhead. It circles uncomfortably close to my face, flapping its wings before landing just in front of me as Jack retakes his human form.
“Where’ve you been?” he hails me.
“Checking the perimeter,” I reply dully. It’s the same answer I’ve given over and over for however long we’ve been here, because that’s all I’ve been doing.
I never thought of myself as an anxious person, but it’s almost become an obsession for me to check the countless wards and curses we’ve etched into the land. Every check confirms that the barrier between us and the outside world is still in place. All we need is a single breach, and it’ll all collapse. And after Aster broke my decades-old curses on the Deadwood Cove with relative ease, I have to admit my confidence has taken a hit.
