Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 6 of 24

Polona opened the cottage door and the warmth went with her. She stepped into the trees and did not look back. The runes on the frame went dark. The table was gone. Lena and Linny stood in wet leaves with the cold biting through their coats. "Move," Linny said. They started down the slope toward the glen. Lena kept the witch's directions in her head like a thread she could not drop. Fern Nattle. The librarian. Home before dawn. A branch snapped behind them. Then another, closer. Lena's hands went still at her sides. "Run," Linny said. They ran. The frost trees closed in on either side, icy branches raking Lena's sleeves. Something pale moved between the trunks, keeping pace. Then two. Then more. Lena counted five before she stopped counting. The mushroom ring appeared ahead, blue and pink caps glowing at the base of the twisted trees. Linny grabbed her wrist and yanked her inside. They stumbled into the center of the ring, blades out, backs together. The fae stopped at the edge. Long limbs. Wet black eyes. They circled the mushrooms and did not cross. "They can't come in," Lena whispered. "We can't stay in." One fae reached a thin arm across the ring, testing. Linny cut it. It hissed and pulled back. Two more pressed forward from behind. Lena looked at her own hands. She thought of the chipmunk's jacket. She thought of thread from nothing. "Keep them off me," she said. "What?" "Just do it." Lena knelt. She pulled thread from the air between her palms, blue and fast, twisting it into a strap thick as her wrist. Linny turned and slashed at the nearest fae, opening its shoulder. A second lunged and she drove the iron blade through its throat. Lena stood with the strap in both hands. A fae reached across the ring for her. She whipped the strap around its wrists and pulled. The thread cinched tight and held. The fae shrieked and thrashed and could not break it. "It works," Linny said, breath ragged. Her blade caught a third fae across the ribs. The edge came away dull. She looked at it. "Lena." Four more stepped out of the trees. Lena started another strap. Her fingers shook. The thread came slower. A blade flashed from the dark and took the nearest fae through the neck. Then another. Sterling Forge stepped between two trunks with a short iron sword in each hand, sleeves rolled, apron gone. He moved through the fae like he was finishing a piece of work. Linny stared. "You came." "Blade needed testing." Forge cut down another. "Yours is dull. Trade." He tossed her a fresh one. She caught it. The last fae broke and ran. The woods went quiet. Lena's strap lay across the moss with the bound fae still twitching inside it. "Librarian," Lena said. "Before dawn." Forge nodded once and led them out of the ring.