Page 69 of When the Woods Go Silent

All the weird things I’ve been imagining. The impossibly broken glass, the horror of knowing I was sleepwalking in the forest at night, the alarms that were triggered for no reason, the books out of place. All the times I’ve felt like I’m being watched.

What if it never was my imagination?

My knees really do buckle beneath me this time, and my eyes slide closed as my brain tries one last time to block out the outside world and the possibility that I’m slipping into an alternate reality where Ruby has been right all along.

Where science and math, spreadsheets and careful accounting, all fail in the face of something truly unexplainable.

Magic.

It feels stupid to even think the word, but now that I have, I can’t stop thinking it. What else could explain all these oddities? The word beats behind my eyes like the pulse of a telltale heart, knocking the truth into me even when I don’t want to hear it.

Part of me feels Kier sliding his arms around me and hefting me up the stairs, even though my mind is dark and fogged over with an unexplainable exhaustion. Part of me registers the softness of my bed, and the familiar glow of moonlight through my windows, even though everything is layered with a film of confusion and doubt.

I squeeze my eyes tightly closed against the figure of Kier standing above my bed, his fingers still holding a handful of rose petals as he stares down at me. The sweet scent of them reaches my nose, though, and as much as I want this to all be a dream I’ll wake up from later, part of me knows that’s not going to happen.

Part of me knows that everything is different now.

Part of me has broken, and the rest of me knows that nothing will be the same again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

KIER

I have no idea what to do next.

Every hopeful moment I’ve had since being forced to rule Aralia with my brothers is crowding together in my memory, and I desperately want to believe that Rose could be the changeling we’ve been searching for. But every fact I’ve ever uncovered in my search tells me it’s impossible.

She’s completely and wholly human. Even now, with the petals crushed in my palm, I sense no magic from her.

One moment, she was flushed and beautiful with pleasure, and the next, magic had touched her. I didn’t feel it come from her, but what else could have created these roses?

Her reaction gave me no new hope, either. She was frightened. Angry. She’s like every other human who loves to read about magic but doesn’t really believe it can crawl through the cracks of her imagination or bleed off the printed pages. When she wakes, she might have even suppressed the memory completely, rewriting history to something much safer than roses growing from the soft skin of her palms.

Is it possible that I made the flowers without realizing it? My magic could easily have done it, but I have decades of training and mastering every element of control. There’s no way I used my magic without knowing it. Is there?

A thorn from the roses digs into my palm as I pace her room, watching her sleep. She practically passed out once I put her to bed, which could be a natural human reaction to being faced with the sort of secret that would upend her world. Or it could also point to the sort of exhaustion that comes with learning to use magic.

I tuck the bruised blossoms in my pocket and wipe the droplet of blood on my pants, making a decision. She’s sleeping for now, and I could use this time to take the flowers to Aralia and have someone look at them. I need the court doctor, Marcel. He spent half a lifetime on Earth, studying humans and half bloods, and the other half in Aralia learning every line of fae history. He’ll be able to tell something from the flowers, at least.

Even better, I could take him a sample of Rose’s blood.

He can analyze it as well, and I think he would keep my secret until the time is right. He’s kept bigger secrets than this in his career, and he’s no fan of war, either.

Bending over my sleeping beauty, I slip a razor-thin blade across the pad of her thumb, soaking up the bright red droplet with the hem of my shirt. Even now, I don’t scent fae magic in the fresh blood. Only the light sweetness of roses and her particular human scent.

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