Page 104 of Fae Crown

“Maybe I could, uh, cast an illusion so they think we’re all gone?” Ryder said in a hurry.

“Do it,” West urged immediately.

“No, don’t do it,” Edsel said while he edged closer to me. Rush’s friends formed a protective half circle around Saffron and me—and Zafi too, I supposed.

“It’ll just make ‘em angry,” Edsel finished. “They’ll be able to see through any illusion and they won’t like being tricked.”

“So then what?” West asked.

The branches closest to him lurched forward, fast as a striking snake. Shaped like a giant, bony, gnarled hand, the branches wrapped around West’s torso. They shook him hard to dislodge his blade, and when he didn’t drop it, they shook him harder.

I winced at the sight of him flailing around as if he were a boneless ragdoll.

“Drop it, West,” Ryder said urgently.

West didn’t. The branches shook him more. The lumoon bobbed above his head, illuminating how violently it swung to each side.

Cringing, I worried his neck might snap.

“West!” Ryder bellowed. “Drop it.”

Metal clanged to the ground that I couldn’t much see now that Zafi’s little light was invisible like her and West’s was so far above us.

“Let him go,” Hiroshi yelled at the tree-ish creature.

The arm-like branch raised West up, up, upward with a moaning groan of creaking wood.

Shit,upwas probably where the arbosaurus’ teeth were.

Despite my beaten body, I found myself on my feet, already guiding the dragonling onto my battered back, just as I’d done so many times before when a fight was inevitable. I had no idea how to defeat this tree beast. But when the others fought to save West, so would I.

A startled wail swept swiftly upward as the spot Edsel had only just occupied emptied. Another tree arm was lifting him up into the dense tree canopies.

“Let them go!” I cried as the others called out similar pleas.

Shocker—the arbosauruses did not obey. Edsel and West disappeared from sight.

West’s lumoon vanished behind the tree line.

“By the Ethers,” Ryder swore as he sheathed his sword and marched in their direction.

“Where are you going?” Hiroshi asked.

“To get them back. I’m going up.”

Hiroshi flicked a glance at me, then his friend. “I’m going with you. Elowyn, you stay put. Rush will kill us if we let anything happen to youuuuuuuuuu…”

Hiroshi was swept away in a blur of wood and shadows, a rustling of leaves and a groaning creak.

“Fuck,” Ryder cursed as he backed up toward me, as if meaning to protect me with his body.

“Ach,” came a gruff snarl from too far off in theforest to be one of us. “Put ‘em down already, ye daft tree stumps.”

“Roan?” I asked, shock lacing the one word. What washedoing here? And why was he insulting teeth-wielding, murderous tree-like monsters? Did he not know better? Jeez.

“Where are ya, lassie?” he asked.

“Over here,” I called, and not all that helpfully. But I wasn’t about to wave my arms about with motion-triggered arbo-fuckers!

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