Edie

Leila told them that it would now be safe to climb down out of the tree, and everyone did so with various exclamations of relief. Edie and Leila let everyone else climb down first—after all, they were the best climbers. And Edie was enjoying sitting here with Leila’s hand in hers.

Naomi yawned and said that she was going right back to bed when she got back to Gilkey. Edie remembered that she had planned on doing the same thing when she had been awakened so early by Dawn’s summons. It seemed like a long time ago now—which it was, of course. She was too alert to go back to sleep now.

“I hope she’ll be all right,” said Edie nervously. She didn’t like the idea of Ever getting in trouble because of humans—even if she’d given herself to the faeries because of humans in the first place.

“She likely will be,” said Leila, leaning forward slightly as though she could see Ever running through the woods. Maybe she could. “Anyone who would likely be interested in punishing her will be distracted by the discovery of Mardalan. Is she a friend of yours?”

The woman at the bottom of the tree looked up, her leaf-green eyes wide. That was definitely Leila. But just as Edie came to that conclusion, Naomi grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave the tree,” she whispered.

“I’m not going to,” Edie said, but she reached down toward Leila. “What’s going on, Leila? What are you doing here?”

Leila smiled briefly and reached up to clasp Edie’s hand. Edie felt warmth run through her from that touch. They hadn’t been touching nearly often enough recently. “Is it you that set off the alarm? I suppose I should have known.”

“What’s it to you?” Naomi snapped.

Everyone was silent for a little while after that. There was nothing to say about the prospect that Mardalan was dead—Edie was sure they were all thinking about it separately, like she was, but she couldn’t come up with anything to say about it, either. Would it be a good thing or a bad thing for them if it was true? Probably a bad thing, if Belara and Feloc working together was anything to go by—but she could be wrong about that. And would Leila be more happy or more sad about it?

They were all silent for a few moments, listening to Tom’s noisy footfalls and wild noises grow softer and farther away. There were other noises, too, but they seemed to follow him and fade away, as well. Edie knew Tom could move silently when he wanted to; he was making noise deliberately so the hunt would follow him. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

Dawn finally broke the silence with a whisper. “Will he be all right?”

Edie thought they were running north, or close enough to it; she’d wandered through these woods a fair amount with Leila, so she had a pretty good sense of where they were. She noticed when they ran past the ruins where the theater students often partied. They hadn’t gone much past it when Ever stopped. “Can all of you climb trees?”

“I can,” said Edie. After all of Leila’s lessons, she was pretty confident in her abilities.

“I think I can,” said Naomi, who was bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. “What’s going on?”

Edie hated early morning. She wasn’t a morning person to begin with, but when she had to wake up excessively early like this the world always seemed colder and more hostile. Plus, once she started moving quickly, she started feeling really hungry, even though she normally wouldn’t be eating for another few hours. She pushed on anyway, but she quickly fell behind to the back of the group.

Before they reached the woods, Roe slowed down to keep pace with her. “Are you okay?”

Edie nodded. “Just cold, and tired, I guess. What about you? Are you worried?”

Tuesday, December 2

There was a banging noise somewhere. At first, it seemed obvious that it was a helicopter far above. Then it was a car door slamming again and again. Then it was something falling down the stairs.

Finally, Edie woke up the rest of the way and realized it was someone knocking on the door, just as the knocking stopped and the door opened. She sat up in confusion, pushing her blankets half off and squinting at the door. Who would be knocking at this hour? It wasn’t even light out. Or was it raining, and the clouds were what blocked the sun?

Edie zipped up her coat, grabbed her flashlight, and nodded to Corrie and Naomi. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Bundled up much?” Naomi teased as they left the dorm room.

“It’s cold out there!” Edie said. “I hate being cold. Doesn’t it bother you?”

Naomi shrugged. She was wearing a wool pea coat—it was probably warm, but not as much as Edie’s puffy down coat, and it didn’t have a hood. “I guess not.”

Dawn watched with mild interest as Roe flipped over a few of the cards and moved them around with the tip of one finger. One of them was the Eclipse card, but she didn’t immediately recognize any of the others—Minor Arcana, she decided, from what she could see of them upside-down. Then Roe abruptly gathered them up and pushed them back into the box. “I’d better not get any soup on them.”