Page 139 of When the Woods Go Silent

I race back through the shop, grabbing the keys to the car Torrence left and peeling out of the parking spot. The roads are mostly empty, the night dark around me.Goblin Marketis dark, like I expected it to be. I pound on the door anyway, rattling the handle and pressing my ear to the metal, yelling for Torrence. Nothing.

I can’t waste time on a locked building. If Ruby’s in there, I’d need a battering ram. If only I had more knowledge of my own magic. Creating a fucking flower isn’t going to help anyone now.

The trees blur past as I speed my way to Torrence’s house, following the GPS on Ruby’s phone to her recent location. The building looms out from the clearing, hulking dark and silent.

I can already tell nobody’s here. There isn’t even a speck of light. No cars. Still, I check every door. All locked.

Turning to the woods beyond the yard, I try to keep my shit together.

“Have you found anyone? Kier? Ruby? Answer me, please!” I end on a shriek, smacking my palms against the nearest trunk.

Silence.

The woods have gone silent again.

Frustrated and terrified beyond reason, I let out an anguished scream, pouring my fear and regret into the sound and offering it to the night sky.

“Ruby, where are you?”

The sound ends on a sob, because I know she isn’t going to answer. I know I’m not just being dramatic, and she’ll turn up in a coffee shop or hotel tomorrow morning. I know, with thehuman magic of being tied to someone so special, that you’d give your life to save her.

Gone. The fae man is gone, across his Path.

A thin branch curves around my shoulder as though the tree is trying to give me a hug, and I’m caught between despair and gratefulness that at least I know that much. Kier is gone. Torrence is gone.Rubyis gone.

It’s just me, now. I pull out my phone and dial 911.

“My friend has been kidnapped,” I tell the operator, but I’m unable to answer any of her follow-up questions. I didn’t see it happen. I don’t know anything, other than the sort of information that would get me a lobotomy in the not-too-distant past.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve alerted the police to your call, but until she’s been missing at least forty-eight hours, a search can’t be authorized. She’s an adult,” the calm voice adds, as though telling me that Ruby chose this.

I smash my finger on the screen, ending the call before I start taking my night out on the poor operator.

Ruby chose, yeah. But not this.

She chose to see good in the world, good in the magic, good in Torrence. And everything repaid her with terror.

The rage builds inside me until I can’t contain it any longer, and I tilt my head back to the empty sky and scream. This fucking house is so isolated, nobody will hear me anyway.

“What the fuck am I going to do?” I yell, throwing my arms wide.

A burst of magic leaps from my fingers, and huge, twisted vines spring from nothing, growing up and over the gobbelin house in minutes. I sink to my knees as my energy disappears, replaced by disbelief at the power I must have, and how little good it does me now.

I can turn a mansion into Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but I can’t rescue my best friend.

What the hell good is magic, anyway?

The thick vines continue to grow beyond my control, crawling in and out of every window as glass pops and shatters, braiding themselves into an impenetrable shield of green. The magic has surpassed me now, like I’ve let a beast out of its cage. I have no idea what it’s doing, and none of this makes any fucking sense.

Sitting in the grass at the edge of the woods, a useless brick of a cellphone in each hand, I watch as my world turns into a dreamscape.

“That’s quite the show, little human.”

I jump to my feet, holding those stupid phones in front of me like they could be weapons.

“Ronan,” I hiss, recognizing Kier’s brother. At least he isn’t trying to trick me with glamor this time.

“I felt your burst of magic. I admit, I didn’t think you had that kind of power. How did you do it?” he asks, stepping past me toward the vine-covered house. The building is creaking now under the added weight, and I wonder for a second if it might even collapse.

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