Page 114 of When the Woods Go Silent

“Can we sleep out here tonight, like both of us?” I ask, feeling kind of silly, but not willing to let Ruby out of my sight even if my eyes are closed.

“Sleepover party,” Ruby says with a grin that turns into a yawn. This has been a long fucking day. The whole world, turning inside out for us. It’s something Ruby searched for, and I dreaded her finding. But here we are, still best friends after the madness.

All the same, I can’t help giving voice to one more worry before we give in to sleep.

“We won’t let these guys get between us, right, Ruby? If there is another world out there, fae and gobbelins fighting some stupid war. And Torrence and Kier on opposite sides. Kier wants me because he thinks I can help win. Torrence wantsyou because you’re amazing. We’re going to be drawn into this, aren’t we?”

“No, it won’t come between us. We’ll be the ones to figure out how to end it. Best friends, pulling the world together with love.”

Ruby snuggles down into the pillow and blanket nest, turning on her side to look at me. She stretches out her hand to link pinkies with mine in a silent promise, and her expression settles me for now.

This is why I love her, why I need her friendship. No matter what weird, crazy, or shattering situations we find ourselves in, she can always find hope enough to share with me.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

ROSE

It’s velvety black outside the windows when I sit up, heart pounding.

What woke me? The room is quiet, and although clouds are covering the moon and stars outside the windows, there’s a soft glow coming from our hallway light. I can see Ruby sleeping peacefully on our pallet of blankets, a soft smile on her lips. I watch her for a second, feeling a swirl of emotions ranging from gratefulness to fear to wonder that she actually can sleep so soundly after everything yesterday.

She saw dead bodies, decapitated heads, pools of blood. She watched a man get gutted. I can’t get the images out of my head, and I wasn’t even there.

She talked to trees, walked away from a car crash unharmed, and stuck around when the guy she was dating admitted to being part gobbelin. I know this means he drinks human blood, because Kier told me.

Does she even know that yet?

Whatever this is between her and Torrence, it’s strong. I still don’t want to believe Torrence’s claim that she would choose him, but after yesterday, I could imagine her trying to find a way to avoid the choice - to choose both of us. If that happens, it will rip her in two, and I can’t let that happen, either. As much as Idon’t trust him, I have to let her follow this thing with Torrence through, to whatever end it has.

It sucks so much that the only way for me to avoid hurting her, is to allow her to get hurt by him.

Extricating myself slowly from the blankets, careful not to wake her, I pad to the kitchen for some water. I doubt I’ll be able to go back to sleep again. The cool liquid slides down my throat, soothing my nerves a little, and I drain a full glass. The darkness outside is nearly complete, shadow layered on shadow, but I can still see the sway of branches in an invisible wind.

I’ve never felt the pull of the woods like Ruby does, but some part of me is desperate to be among those trees right now. Would they speak to me? Would I want them to?

I unlock the balcony door and step out onto the narrow space, leaning against the railing. The breeze ruffles my hair gently, and I breathe in deeply, scenting a storm on the edge of the night. Leaves rustle against one another, and when I focus on it, the sound is different, too. My mind begins to recognize patterns - repeated syllables, structure to the whispers, as though it’s a language I simply don’t know.

Ruby said Torrence spoke fae words to the trees, but she spoke English and they understood her.

“What do you want from us?” I ask softly, because as much as I might want to hide from everything that’s happening, Ruby and I were led here for a reason. I need to find it.

I imagine the words being carried out across the treetops on the wind. After a minute, the rustling changes, giving me new repeated sounds, new grammatical structures. Something that sounds a little like my name, but could be nothing more than a sigh on the wind.

An image surfaces in my mind like a video, of me dressed as I am now, in sweatpants and bundled hair, walking through the woods. Eyes open, not sleepwalking. The feeling of safety mixedwith the champagne bubbles of excitement that come when I’m learning something new and exciting.

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