Page 76 of With Wing And Claw

By nightfall she was no longer feeling anything but numbness, an apathy that kept her rooted to the soil as if she’d joined the trees around her.

She ought to return to the castle at some point, presumably. See if Thysandra had returned from wherever she had gone. Make sure that Bereas and the arseholes he called his friends hadn’t taken over the court yet. But if she returned, she might find the redwood door with its magical lock still closed – and then where would she go next, if she wasn’t able to enter the only rooms that would truly keep her safe?

Around her, the forest was almost entirely dark. Only the thinnest drips of moonlight came seeping through the foliage, drawing silvery blots on bark and leaves; she watched them move over the clearing as the hours went by and the moon slowly crept across the firmament. Maybe she could just stay here. Slowly turn into a tree herself and stop bothering with such infuriating things as humans and their fears – or maybe …

Something moved in the corner of her eye.

She froze.

But it wasn’t a hound or a smirking fae warrior with a knife in hand, and it wasn’t Thysandra either, having magically found her in this desolate spot. Instead…

A ribbon of light.

The softest, sweetest shade of blushing pink, emerging from the moonlit shadows of the wood and looping between the gnarled trunks towards her.

It was pretty and delicate like the first flowers of spring, that ribbon, alluring like the singing voices by the Elderburg cliffs. Naxi stared at it as it floated closer and drew a slow, wide circle around the clearing – no doubt about it, the light was here for her somehow. Which she should have known from the start. Itwasher favourite colour, after all.

There weren’t many people who’d ever asked her that, though.

Lyn, probably. A handful of nymphs, maybe. Apart from them … the Labyrinth.

All of a sudden, it was no longer so hard to move.

She jumped to her feet, avoiding roots and tangled branches instinctively as she dashed after that twisting ribbon of glowing pink. Could the mountain even reach so far? But then, it had been able to enchant fae and lure them in as well, and that seemed significantly more complex than flinging some light around – so she rushed on, ignoring the distant howls and the sharp pebbles beneath the bare soles of her feet. There was the outline of the mountain’s slope, drawn sharp against the starry sky. There was the entrance of the Labyrinth, a many-coloured glow lighting up the trunks around it. At long last, the foliage parted, the moonlight spilling in …

And there she was.

Whetted blade in one hand, bunched-up coat in the other – Thysandra of Echion’s house, in all her breathtaking glory.

She stood straight and tall in the arched doorway, eyes narrowed at the forest, the glow of a thousand colours playing over the rich umber of her skin. Her feelings came through a moment later, bewilderingly different from those with which she’d flung herself from the archive window mere hours ago: wariness, yes,alwaysthat same court-bred wariness, but mixed this time with a whiff of something Naxi could only describe as … resolve?

Confidence, even?

And then Naxi staggered out from between the trees, and Thysandra’s every other emotion was swept aside in a surge of vast, exquisite relief.

‘Naxi!’ There was a perplexing crack to the sound of her name – something that sounded close, really suspiciously close, to concern. ‘Oh, thank the gods, it worked. What are you doing here, of all places? Inga said you were—’

Some fairytale monster.

Inga was the last person she wanted to think about.

‘I was just resting,’ she squeaked, making a brave yet doomed attempt not to sound like a whiny wreck. Not that shewasn’ta whiny wreck, but there was no reason Thysandra needed to know that, was there? ‘Taking a nap with the trees. Just … just taking a break from people trying to kill me all the time.’

Thysandra’s eyes narrowed. ‘You look absolutely dreadful.’

‘That’s not a very nice thing to say,’ Naxi tried, voice far too high-pitched for the humour to sound at all convincing. ‘I was really just—’

The most unnerving thing about Thysandra’s speed was that it didn’tlooklike she was moving swiftly.

From her expression, her bearing, the casual way she sheathed her knife, one could have thought she was simply … ambling forward. Barely getting into motion, even. Yet she crossed the clearing in less than the time it took to blink an eye, centuries of honed battle reflexes contained in three lightning-quick steps – reducing the distance between them to a foot at most, a twitch-forward-and-touch distance.

Her free hand grabbed the collar of Naxi’s dress.

Her cedar scent turned every breath into perfumed agony.

‘I never thought I’d hear myself say this,’ she muttered, and hell have mercy, thatwasconcern hiding behind the brave attempt at wry amusement in her voice, ‘but am I the one supposed to torture you for the truth now?’

Naxi’s mouth had abruptly gone dry.