“You seek it out. All of this, and then you make it into a story to tell on a stage. It didn’t seem too far-fetched to think you were some daredevil, tornado chaser with a fascination with death and darkness.”
“Do you drink?” I asked.
She frowned. “What? Why?”
“After this is over, I want to buy you a drink,” I said. “Talk to you without all this background noise. I’m a little tired of all these assumptions about one another. What about you?”
“Yeah, that sounds…nice. And I’ll say yes under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You let me come with you guys to look.”
I shook my head before she had even finished the sentence. “No. Wedon’t need your help.”
Her expression hardened. “I know these grounds like the back of my hand. And I have another means of transport. You all can’t take the RV. It’s too slow and the terrain’s too bumpy. Without Esther, we only have one truck.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Was all the stuff you said about the woman you think I am just an attempt to get on my good side?”
I frowned. “Of course not.”
“Then, according to both our notes, I don’t back down from fights. I need to do this. See it through. The world…my world has been split open. And I can’t sit here doing nothing, Rae. I need to get answers before this fear starts eating me.”
Octavia’s voice had become steadier than my own. I’d leaned into her, finding a stable pillar amid my exhaustion. Of course, I pulled back in a heartbeat because she couldn’t see the fear buzzing behind my eyes. Couldn’t note that I saw her as a source of support. I only offered her a smile of admiration and a nod of approval.
“I’ll get Kat and Frog ready.” She pushed out of the seat, descending the stairs without another word. This woman’s tenacity tugged on my heart. As she disappeared into the stable, I willed myself to remember my job was to anchor, not the other way around.
December rodeon Frog with Octavia, and I took Kat. Jonah hopped in the back of the truck with the guys.
“You don’t have to push her too hard,” Octavia saidbefore we set off. “You’re still new at riding, and she’s faster than Frog. I don’t want to have you falling off.”
“Got it.” There was no time to argue, and she was right; we didn’t have the bandwidth to add a grievous injury from a horse fall to our list.
We split from the guys, cutting through the wind to our first target. I dug my nails into Kat’s rein, doing everything in my power to keep looking forward and not thinking back to the distorted voice in the hall. Octavia rode with a straight body, mouth pulled tight in focus.
“Hey!” December’s voice cut through the galloping hooves. “Stop, stop!”
Octavia pulled on Frog, and he yielded. I had a harder time getting Kat to stop, but once she noticed her companion doing so, she gave in.
“What’s wrong?” Octavia asked.
December pointed a few yards away. “That tree.”
“Yeah?” Octavia followed her finger.
“What is it?” I knew full well when December stopped to share something in times like these, it was best to listen.
“Is it an American elm?” she asked.
Octavia shrugged. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”
“It looks like an American elm,” December insisted.
“Point,” I told her firmly. “Get to it.”
“Elmwood,” December started. “Elm trees are associated with the Underworld. Death and transition. They’re used as landmarks or boundary markers. There’s not a lot of research in the Guild’s database, but some of it shows the tree could be another source of power. Spirits could harvest from them.”
