Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 11 of 29

Beth's hands were raw where the bark had taken her skin. She sat in the moss with her back to the anchor tree and tried to breathe past the ringing in her teeth. The scream from the other side had gone quiet, but quiet was not the same as gone. Something had heard her. Something knew where the door was now, even if the door was ice. Ferns snapped somewhere past the smoke line. Not one set of footsteps. Two, moving fast. Wanda had already melted back into the trees on her own errand, and the fire witch's absence felt like a lamp going out. Ember, her cat, was gone too — off on whatever road cats walked when the fight got serious. "Someone's coming," Elizabeth said. She was still kneeling by the roots, ginger hair stuck to her cheek with sweat. Her blue dress was soaked at the hem. "They heard it. That thing screamed loud enough to pull half the woods." Elijah stepped between Beth and the sound. The vampire hunter had not left her side since Ember slipped away, and Beth was too tired to be suspicious of why. Blanchard drew his gold dagger and held it low against his white coat. "Move her," Blanchard said. "She cannot fight." "I can fight," Beth said. "You cannot stand." She tried. Her knees folded. Elijah caught her elbow before she hit the ground. "The tower," Beth said. "The crystal one. Star doors. If it lets me in, it heals faster than anything out here." Elizabeth's head came up. "Prismatic. I've seen it. It doesn't let just anyone in." "Then it'll turn me away and I die in the grass. Move." Elijah lifted her. Blanchard took the rear, walking backward through the ferns with the dagger out. Elizabeth ran ahead and cleared a path through a patch of pale blue grass dotted with white berries. The berries chimed against her boots. The tower stood in a clearing Beth had never let herself walk into. Crystal spires. Star-crusted doors. It hummed at a pitch that made her wings twitch. Beth pushed off Elijah and set her bloody palm flat on the door. She had nothing left to bargain with. She said the only true thing she had. "I built a world. Half of it's sealed off from me. I need to live long enough to finish it." The door was warm. Then it was open. Light fell over her like clean water. She felt the raw places on her hands close a layer. Not healed. Started. Behind her, Blanchard lowered the dagger a fraction. Elizabeth was staring at the doorway with her mouth open. Elijah did not follow her in. "I wait here," he said. Beth nodded once and stepped inside. The door shut behind her. The witness in the woods, whoever they were, would find only three guards and a locked star.