Even if it is, I can’t make myself care all that much.
We work in tense silence for another few minutes, stuffing books into Gray's baskets with little regard for organization. Every creak of the old building makes us both freeze, ears straining for footsteps that might mean discovery.
"I think that's enough," I whisper finally, eyeing the bulging baskets. We've taken maybe a dozen books - hopefully enough to find something useful, but not so many that their absence will be immediately obvious.
Gray nods, shouldering the baskets with practiced ease. Even in her partially transformed state, she's far stronger than any human woman, and the weight that would stagger me barely seems to register.
We slip out the same way we came in, through a window I'd pried open earlier while Gray kept watch. The night air feels sharp against my skin after the stuffy interior of the building, and I take a moment to orient myself in the darkness.
That's when we hear the voices.
Gray and I both freeze at the same instant, pressing ourselves against the side of the building. The voices are coming from the village square, perhaps fifty yards away, but in the still night air they carry clearly.
"...can't keep ignoring this problem," someone is saying. I recognize the voice—Elder Morrison, one of the village council members. "The attacks are getting worse."
"Three farms hit this week alone," another voice agrees. Elder Hendricks, I think. "Livestock killed, crops trampled. And that's just what we know about."
My stomach clenches. They're not talking about Gray—she hasn't been anywhere near the farms. But clearly something has been, and of course the village assumes it's connected to her.
"The forest has to be cleansed," Morrison continues, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty. "Burned out, root and branch. It's the only way to be sure we get all the monsters."
All the monsters.
My blood turns to ice in my veins.
Gray makes a soft, wounded sound beside me, barely audible even to my ears. I reach out blindly and find her hand, squeezing hard.
"When?" Hendricks asks.
"Tomorrow night," Morrison replies. "We'll start with the eastern edge, where most of the attacks have been centered, then work our way through systematically. By week's end, the whole cursed place will be ash."
I have to bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Our cave is on the eastern edge of the forest.
Our home.
Everything we've built together.
And the only place I’ve ever felt safe…until now.
"What about the witch?" a third voice pipes up, younger, nervous. "She's still out there somewhere."
"If she's in the forest when we burn it, then the problem solves itself," Morrison says coldly. "And if she's not, well. A witch without her familiar spirits is just a woman. Much easier to deal with."
The casual way he talks about my death makes rage flare hot and bright in my chest. But it's the sound Gray makes—a broken whimper like a wounded animal—that decides for me.
I press the baskets of books into her hands and whisper urgently in her ear. "Take these. Get back to the cave. Start reading. Find something, anything that might help."
"Maris, no," she breathes, understanding immediately what I'm planning. "Come with me."
"I can't." I pull the pouch of spark powder from my pocket, weighing it in my palm. "They're going to burn our home, Gray. Burn the whole forest. I can't just let that happen."
"Then we'll find somewhere else?—"
"Where?" I demand, my voice barely a whisper but fierce with desperation. "Where can we go that they won't follow? How long before every village for a hundred miles knows about the monster and her witch? How long before there's nowhere left to run?"
Gray's eyes are wide and frightened in the moonlight, but I can see her understanding. We've reached the end of running.
The end of hiding.
