Luna Brightwood's Arc

Chapter 16 of 22

The pines swallowed the cloaked man, but his words stayed with Luna. The owl will not land. She looked up. The sky above the field was pale and empty except for a thin dark curl far to the east, moving in slow circles. That was the owl. Somewhere between it and her, something was waiting for it to come down. "I need it lower," Luna said. "Now. Before whatever he sent gets close." She had no whistle for the bird. It was trained to fly to the castle, not back to her hand. The card was in a pouch tied to its leg. If it landed in the open field, the cloaked man's next hunter would take the card off its body. Silvain lifted the sword. The blade threw a straight column of white and gold into the sky, brighter than anything else above the trees. "It knows this light," he said. "It flew under it from the castle. Call it with your voice. The light will hold its eye." He did not lower the blade. He did not explain more. Luna cupped her hands and called the owl's name up into the column. Her voice cracked on the second try. The dark curl in the east broke its circle. It tipped, straightened, and came toward the light in a long glide. Behind it, the sky was still empty. Then it was not. A lattice of pale blue and pink lines unfolded above the treetops, wide as a barn door, hanging in the air where nothing had been a moment before. A snare, opened between the owl and the field. The white wyrm above the hut moved before Luna could shout. It poured up out of its coil, gold horns first, and drove straight through the lattice. The snare broke around it in bright shards that fell and went out before they touched the grass. The owl beat once, twice, and dropped through the gap the wyrm had opened. It came down the column of light and struck Luna's raised forearm hard enough to bruise. Its claws caught her sleeve. The pouch was still tied to its leg. Luna's knees folded. She sat down in the grass with the owl against her chest and pulled the pouch free. The card was inside, dry, whole. Behind her the hut door cracked open and eight small unicorns pushed their noses into the light, pink manes and white manes together, wings folded tight. The fairy landed on the owl's back and stroked its feathers flat. "Send it again," Silvain said. He had not lowered the sword. "He knows the card is on the ground now. He will come here for it before it can leave." Luna closed her hand around the card. The sky was clear. The field was not.