Page 46 of The Tree of Spirits
Then they just stopped. They hovered in the air, frozen, suspended in time for a few moments.
Time sped up again. The blossoms swirled into motion once more, streaming past us like a swarm of butterflies.
The spectacle was so mesmerizing that I nearly missed the cloaked figure skimming the shadows. I started humming. The invisible fingers of my spell snatched the wayward petals out of the air, molding them into a net. I hummed faster, and the netshot toward the cloaked culprit. It scooped him up and dropped him at my feet.
“Whoa, where did you learn to dothat?” Ansel gaped at me.
“From a Knight.” I blew air through my teeth, and the net of petals dispersed like dust in the wind.
The cloak stirred, and a man emerged from it. I knew his face.
“Xael,” I said.
He spat a petal out of his mouth. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“Why do you think I had my friend send the message toeveryoneat Raytan’s Removals and Intelli-move? I was sure whoever stole those trucks and set the explosion worked for one of the two companies. And I knew if the culprit thought the Watchers were about to expose him, he’d rush to the Spirit Tree and escape this world. I wanted to see who ran. I thought it might be you. You sure went through a lot of trouble to avoid fighting in that war.”
Rane’s eyes went wide. “Oh, so that’s what this is about. I’ve heard stories of Metamorphs hurting themselves to avoid conscription. So many have tried it, in fact, that their leaders have grown suspicious of any so-called accidental injuries that befall a Metamorph about to ship out.” She looked at Xael. “So you decided if you got a bunch of gung-ho recruits injured along with you, it wouldn’t look so suspicious after all? Shame on you!”
He gave her an icy look. “Wouldyouwant to fight in a stupid, pointless war?”
“No.” She scowled. “Not really. But I’d at least try to find a less cowardly way to get out of it.”
“He’s not a coward!”
A young woman peeled out of the shadows, her hood folded back from her face.
“Hey, I know you,” Rane said, frowning at Xael and the woman, who were now holding hands and giving each other googly eyes. “But that would mean…whoa!” She started laughing. “Your families are totally going to freak out!”
“Care to fill in the rest of us?” Ansel asked her, serenely braiding his fingers together in his lap.
“That’s Miatrix.” Rane pointed at the woman. “She’s Isidora’s…niece or something. I can’t remember. But the point is she’s an Elf. And her sweetheart there—” She pointed at Xael. “—is a Metamorph.”
I remembered what Rane had told me earlier about romantic relationships between the supernatural races. “So…this isn’t about the war.”
“Of course it’s about the war. Our clans are on opposite sides of it. That makes our families sworn enemies.” Miatrix gingerly stroked Xael’s broken arm. “And I refuse to call him my enemy.”
I looked at Xael. “So this is why you did all of this? For love?”
“I can’t let them send me to the war!” His voice was savage, his eyes desperate. “If I do, I will have to fight her people. I will have tokillher people.”
“Please just let Xael step through the Spirit Tree with me,” Miatrix pleaded with us. “Then we’ll disappear. You won’t ever see us again. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We only want to be together!”
“What about the stolen trucks?” I asked.
“I parked them somewhere safe,” Xael told me. “Raytan has trackers on all of them. He’ll find them in no time.”
“And the explosion?” I pointed out. “Are you really sure you don’t want to hurt anyone?”
He winced. “I made sure no one got seriously injured.”
What a mess.
“Believe me, I wish there were another way,” Xael said. “I wish our clans could forget their hatred and their prejudices.But that just isn’t going to happen. The six races tolerate one another, but they don’t like one another.”
“Truth,” Rane muttered.
“Please,” Miatrix said. “We’ve been trying for so long to figure out a way for us to be together. Neither of us has had a good night’s sleep in months. I’m always jolting awake, afraid that my family’s found out about us, that they will take me far away while I’m sleeping and lock me up. And Xael’s been having terrible nightmares.”
