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Who’s there, who’s there, who’s there …
The words echoed back at me, fading into oblivion.
The laughter came again.
The clouds above darkened to soot, and the thick fog seeped from the trees. Thunder rolled on the horizon. I took a few steps backward in the water, keeping one eye on Raven as I tried to figure out what was happening. My toes had already gone numb from the freezing water.
“Lila, get out of here!” I called back to her.
She didn’t move. She didn’t even seem to hear me.
“You were a tricky one,” a female voice said.
I whipped my head from side to side, looking for the source of the voice.
“Either that, or I’m losing my touch.” The words weren’t coming from one direction; they were everywhere at once, like the wind itself was speaking. “But I don’t think so.” Laughter followed, deep and threatening.
“Who are you?” I said, my jaw tight. Slowly, I inched back toward the shore. My staff was lying at Lila’s feet, and I had a strong feeling I was about to need it.
“I think the better question is: who areyouto come to my lands? Because I don’t recall inviting you here,Kovak.”
“Yourlands?” A sickening sensation filled my stomach.
“Though I do enjoy a challenge now and again. Others who stray here, they’re so pathetic, so easy to manipulate. As was your friend Raven.” Her laughter swirled around me like a whirlwind.
“Show yourself!” I demanded, panic rising in my throat at the mention of Raven. What had happened to her? Why wasn’t she moving?
The water between me and the boulders began to bubble. I stumbled backward as a large figure ascended from the depths, water streaming down like a waterfall. My heart came to an abrupt halt.
The owner of the voice looked half Magi, half monster. The water was waist deep around her, but she loomed over me. Her skin was the color of the liquid-metal lake, sallow and tinted blue. Her fingernails were shaped like talons. Her face was sharp and hardened like the facets of a diamond cut by grief and pain. But hidden in it, I could see a fierce beauty that kings would have once bowed down to.
Cursed skies, this was not good. The legendary Magi queen was still alive—or a decidedly lifelike ghost of her was—and the centuries of grieving had not turned her into a gentle soul.
“Is this better?” she taunted.
“What did you do to Raven?” I said, standing my ground. Underneath the water, I pulled a knife out of my bracer.
“Same thing I do to all my unwelcome visitors. Wrap a string so tight around their hearts that I can pull them to their death with my little finger.” As she spoke, long tentacles rose from her back like a spider uncurling its legs.
For a second, my mind flashed back to the stories my friends and I used to tell around the fire. What if the forest was playing tricks on me? What if this wasn’t real?
If it was real, I was going to need more knives.
“Butyou, Kovak,” she continued. “You were a challenge. The first string I tied around your heart wasn’t tight enough.” Her dark eyes glinted in amusement as she looked past me toward Lila.
“Lila, go—!” I was cut off as one of the Magi’s tentacles shot through the air, wrapping around my neck, and pulling me deeper into the lake. I let the knife in my hand fly toward her chest, but one of her other tentacles easily knocked it out of the air.
The Magi’s laughter rose and fell in ghostly echoes around me. Her tentacle squeezed my throat until I was gasping for breath. I grabbed at it, trying to pull it off, but my fingers found no purchase on the slippery, scaly skin.
I couldn’t do anything but watch in horror as more tentacles shot out and coiled around Lila and Raven, dragging them both into the water. Raven was now awake, fighting to get free. The Magi thrust her under the water, holding her there.
“No!” I rasped. I tried to reach for the next knife in my bracer, but another tentacle twisted around me, pinning my arms down.
The situation was quickly deteriorating. If this was a hallucination, it was very, very real.
The Magi dragged the two girls in front of me. Raven coughed and sputtered when she resurfaced, her wet hair plastered to her pale skin. Lila stumbled and lost her footing, struggling to keep her head above water.
“Does your betrothed know you have feelings for another?” the Magi said with a delightful sneer.
