Page 15 of The Iron Flower

Jarod glances toward the wilds and takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel confined here, too. With everything that’s happened.” He squints up at the Northern Spine. “Like there’s no escape.”

The trees,I want to tell him,they want to kill me.But I hold my tongue. It’s bizarre to be afraid of trees.

I flex my hand instead, wishing I still had my white wand—the wand I gave to Trystan. I know it’s impossible, and yet more and more, I imagine my wand to be the actual White Wand of myth. Increasingly, I dream about it, along with ivory birds on branches made of light.

The wand would take care of me. Protect me from the trees.

“Where are you going?” Jarod asks, examining my carefully made-up face, glittering jewelry and styled hair.

I glance uncertainly toward the spires of the University as my heartbeat slows to a more normal pace. “To the Yule Dance.” I reach down and brush snow off the side of my cloak, my dress unharmed.

A glimmer of confusion passes across Jarod’s expression. “Who are you going with?”

I hesitate to meet his gaze. “Lukas Grey.”

Jarod’s eyes widen. “But... I thought you and Yvan...”

“No,” I cut him off sharply, a stinging flush rising along my neck, remembering his Lupine ability to read everyone’s attractions. “He doesn’t want me.”

I can see Jarod biting back disagreement, but like my brother Trystan, he’s not prone to judgment or prying. He quietly extends his arm out to me. “Come on. I’ll walk you there.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “You want to escort me to a Gardnerian dance? Are you sure, Jarod? You know how they’re likely to react. I don’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf.”

Jarod gives a slight, resigned smile. “I can take care of myself. And I’m curious about your mating rituals.”

I raise an eyebrow at his blunt phrasing.

Jarod’s smile disappears as he glances down at his feet. “And...maybe...”

Aislinn. Maybe Aislinn will be there.

My dear friend Aislinn Greer, who yearns for Jarod as much as he does for her. Whose strictly religious Gardnerian family would never allow them to be together.

Who’s promised to another.

When Jarod looks back up at me, there’s undisguised longing in his eyes, and it pains me to see it.

A hard gust of wind bends the trees and flattens my skirt against my legs.

Black Witch.

Panic gives a hard flare inside me, and I whip my head toward the forest.“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Jarod cocks an ear and listens.

The wind dies down, the world silent once again.

I have to be imagining this.If Jarod can’t hear something with his heightened senses, then it isn’t there.

I narrow my gaze on the forest. “Do you think she’s out there somewhere?”

His brow tenses in question. “Who?”

“The Black Witch of Prophecy.”

Please, Ancient One, don’t let it be Fallon Bane.

Jarod’s expression turns somber as a lone snowy owl makes its way across the darkening sky and the first stars make their showing as pinpricks of light.

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