“Come on.” I tumbled out of the pile. “We have to move. Kitsuna said to meet her in the forest so that’s where we need to go.” I stood and looked back at the house, now totally engulfed in flames, before taking off at a run beside Mercedes.
I spotted the woods in front of us and tried to run harder, pushing my legs to get me from the field to the tree cover as quickly as they could. The faint beat of wings sounded behind me, and I looked up to see Kitsuna’s mother hovering low over the forest entrance. Once we had broken through the tree line I heard a raspy roar and then felt the heat of the world behind me exploding in flames, blocking anyone who might have tried to follow us. Mercedes and I ran into the forest, both of us searching for a place to hide.
“There!” She pointed to a patch of thick plants and high grasses among a group of trees. “Come on.”
“Are you sure?” I asked as she started toward the patch of underbrush. She didn’t bother to answer as she led me into the waist-high grass, holding her hand out so that the plants would lean out of the way and give us a clear path.
“Here.” Mercedes stopped in front of a large tree with several thick, low-hanging branches covered in leaves. “You’ll be safe here.”
She pushed me forward until I was standing next to the trunk, and then dropped to her knees, urging me down beside her. She grabbed a handful of mossy dirt and smeared it on my face and arms, covering all my exposed skin.
“Don’t make a sound. Stay still,” she said before standing and moving away from me.
“What are you doing?” I asked as she raised her hands and chanted in a language I didn’t understand.
“Mala he onohie,” Mercedes said, touching the tree’s trunk. “Mala te omate. Mala te omate.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as the entire tree seemed to sway with her words.
“Mala te omate,” Mercedes repeated, louder this time.
The tree began to shrink in on itself. The drooping branches brushed past Mercedes, who was still kneeling in the same spot as they drew inward and cradled my body against the tree trunk. The branches imprisoned me in their grip, wrapping around the trunk like a flower closing for the night. Instead of crushing me with their weight, the branches shifted and moved, forming a tiny nest for me to hide in.
The dull thump of footsteps moved away from me, and the woods fell silent. No chanting. No birds. No tiny animals moving around in the grass. Just the distant roars of Winston and the raven battling each other.
I wanted to cry out but knew that would just bring the wizard directly to me. So I stayed quiet and tried to find a comfortable position inside the tree. The branches nestled closer to me, and I brought my knees up to my chest, hugging them close as I waited out the battle.
Chapter Fifteen
My mother had always said there was nothing worse than waiting. Personally I’d always thought there was nothing worse than biology on dissection day, but it turns out that Mom was right. There is nothing worse than waiting to find out if your friends are dead.
I shifted in my tree cocoon and listened for any sounds coming through the forest. Something. Someone. Winston. Kitsuna. Mercedes. A crazed, homicidal wizard intent on causing mayhem. Anything was better than sitting here alone, not knowing what had happened to everyone else…well, except maybe the “getting caught by a homicidal wizard” thing.
“Your Majesty?” a faint voice called. I shifted to my knees from my seated position to peer between the intertwined branches at a small girl with the same red curls as Kitsuna and her mother. “Queen Alicia, are you in here?”
“Hey,” I whispered, my voice thick with nerves, as I pressed my face against the tree branches. “I’m up here.”
“Queen Alicia?” The girl looked up at me and then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh no! The tree ate you.”
“What? Wait. No, the tree didn’t eat me.” I tried to throw a hand out to stop her as she turned on her heel and took off at a dead run, bolting in the direction of Dramera.
Crap. So much for getting rescued any time soon. But the little girl had known to come into the woods to look for me. That meant the battle was over and someone would figure out what she was talking about and come for me. Although maybe—now that the danger had supposedly passed—the tree might be persuaded to let me save myself… Just for once. Sort of like a test. Could the princess be self-sufficient? My vote was for absolutely. I could only hope the tree agreed.
I moved back, closer to the tree trunk, and rubbed my hand along its bark. “I think I’m safe now.”
The tree pulled its branches more firmly around me.
“You were very brave.” I stroked the tree again, trying to act reassuring and more than capable of kicking butt all on my own. “Now it’s time for me to go back and find my people.” Most importantly Winston, to make sure he was okay, that he was safe and the raven had been taken care of.
The tree tightened its grip, and a branch snaked up to wrap around my ankles as another slid around my waist and a third tightly bound my shoulders. The rest of the branches moved away from us and I drew in a breath as the three branches holding me began to lower, carrying me toward the forest floor. I held as still as I could and tried not to look down.
When we reached the moss growing along the tree’s trunk the branches slithered away from me and I stood, brushing dirt and green flakes of moss off my clothing before turning to the tree and bowing my head. “Thank you for hiding me. I won’t forget it. I need you to do me one final favor.”
I pulled the crown box out of my shirt and held it up for the tree to see. “I need you to keep this safe for me. No matter what. Can you do that?”
The tree swayed toward me and then back like it was nodding, and then two branches came forward, like hands, cupped in front of me.
“It sounds cliché,” I said as I placed the box onto the cupped branches. “But the fate of our world sort of rests inside that box. So keep it safe. For all of us.”
The top of the tree dropped forward, bowing, and then the branches that it had used as arms retreated slowly, the case with my crown and the Dragon’s Tear disappearing from sight.
“Thank you,” I said before I turned to run back toward the village, following the path of broken twigs that the tiny dragon girl had left in her wake. I searched for Mercedes as I ran. Surely she wouldn’t have gone too far.
Nothing but trees greeted me. That wasn’t good.
I stopped and turned in a circle. Giant trees were covered in glossy, dark-green leaves, and tall grasses and scraggly undergrowth were mired in the black mud that covered the ground. No footprints peppered the dirt beyond the tiny prints the little girl had left as she sprinted for Dramera. No markings on the trees. Nothing that my years of television crime show–watching would provide to help me figure out which direction my best friend had taken off in when she left me hidden in a tree.
Crap, crap, and double crap. Where could she be?
I could go back to Dramera, check on Winston, and try to form a search party to look for her. But then again, if I could save myself, then I could save my best friend as well.
I started into the forest, searching for a sign—any sign—that Mercedes had gone in the same direction. There wasn’t much to go on, but if Mercedes had left me here and hadn’t melded with the trees around us, then she would have gone away from Dramera. Deeper into the woods that had been her home here in Nerissette.