Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 10 of 24

The ridge road bent into pine shadow. Lena and Nell caught up to Linny and Forge at the edge of the mushroom circle. The pale caps glowed low in the moss. Linny held the red crystal in her fist. Forge stood behind her with an iron blade bare across his forearm. The fox sat at Nell's heel, ears flat, its green tail twitching. A small chipmunk with pink flower ears clung to Linny's collar, shivering. Linny handed the crystal back to Lena. "They lost us at the creek. We doubled twice." "Good thing you had help," Forge said. He rolled his shoulder. "Me." Linny cut him a look. "Why are you here? You don't owe us this." "I owe myself a proper test of my blades," Forge said. "Fae will do." Lena stepped to the tree line. The pull of the crystal dragged her palm toward the deep woods. Nell caught her wrist before she crossed. "The moment your foot lands past this line, they smell you," Nell said. "Both of you. My mother's barrier is at the village edge, not here. I can slow them. I can't stop them alone." "Then we mask the scent," Lena said. She knelt in the moss. She held her hands over the ground and let the air behind her eyes open. Threads came, faint, silver at first, then dulling to gray. She saw the shape of it before she made it. Four narrow bands. Woven tight. A cloak that would sit over skin like a held breath. "I can do it," she said. "Four bands. One each." "How long do they hold?" Nell asked. Lena watched the pattern in her head. The threads frayed at the edges even as she imagined them. "They wear off. An day. Maybe less past the ridge. Once they thin, the scent comes back." "And knitting them?" Linny said. She already knew. "It will take from me. I won't have much left after." Forge glanced back down the ridge road. "Hild's men will find the shop empty by now. They'll come up the path." "Then I start," Lena said. She pulled the first thread from nothing. Her fingers moved fast. She had made a jacket for the chipmunk without thinking. This was harder. Each band drank a little more warmth out of her chest. She tied off Linny's first, then Forge's, then Nell's. She fumbled her own knot twice. Her hands went still at the end, not from fear, but empty. Nell caught her under the arm. Linny took the crystal from her palm. "It worked," Nell said. He held the band to his nose. He smelled nothing. "Move now." They crossed the tree line together with the bands around their wrists. No fae came. The woods stayed quiet. Lena walked between her sister and the woodcutter, breathing shallow, counting the minutes she had already lost against the minutes she had bought.