After fleeing from Griffin’s Edge, I found myself standing with Milo and Asher somewhere in the middle of the dark forests. One of them looked distinctly more excited about our new location than the other. I’ll let you guess which one.
We all just kind of stood there for a minute, still processing the shock and panic of what had just happened. I didn’t even realize that I was still holding Asher’s hand, or that his other gloved hand was gripping Milo’s tightly, until he noticed and quickly tugged them away.
Milo was the first to speak. “Has it gotten brighter since I was last here? Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Asher sighed, a long, exasperated sigh that reminded me of Henri. “Look, I didn’t know where else to go. You heard the fire-eyed lady trying to kill me. I’m not allowed anywhere else. Sorry if it’s not exactly a five-star hotel.”
Milo laughed. “Who needs a five-star hotel when you’ve got gnarled trees and carnivorous beasts?”
Asher narrowed his eyes at Milo, as if trying to decide whether he was being made fun of. Evidently, he determined that Milo was just being, well, Milo. He cracked a smile. “Exactly my thoughts.”
We lulled into silence again, broken only by the whispers of the wind and growls of monsters from the undergrowth. Despite the efforts to joke, I could feel the tension like a wall of bricks around us. All I could think about was Uncle Henri vanishing behind hungry flames, left fighting Sky in a blur of lilac smoke and screams. I couldn’t shake my worry about him. Sky was just as powerful and ancient as Henri. What if he didn’t win? What if I never saw him again?
“So,” I finally said. “We should probably get somewhere safer.”
Both of them turned to look at me, concern written across their faces. “Are you…okay?” asked Milo softly.
“You’re worried about your uncle,” said Asher. “I don’t blame you.”
“Henri will be fine,” Milo said pointedly, nudging Asher. “He’s the toughest being I’ve ever met. If anyone can get out of that hurricane without a scratch, it’s him.”
I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat with a great deal of effort. I knew they were trying to help. It was nice. But somehow talking about it was making me feel even worse, and now I was only thinking about it more.
Plus, Milo and Asher were both watching me with concern, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that either. Never thought I’d say this, but I’m pretty sure I preferred it when they looked at me in annoyance after I did something stupid. At least it was better than pity.
Milo opened his mouth to say something else, but he didn’t get the chance. In classic dark forest fashion, the ever-present growl exploded into a cacophony of roars, and I barely had time to react with “OH SH-” before a saber-tooth tiger-like monster with massive quills instead of fur burst from the bushes.
I cursed under my breath as I pulled Sgrios from my belt. I remembered this monster. I’d encountered it before, fairly recently; Milo had sung it—and me—to sleep. In fact, based on the anticipation in its molten gold eyes, I suspected it was the very same tiger we’d met then. And it was excited for a second chance at lunch.
Instinctively, Milo, Asher, and I moved in closer. Without taking his eyes off the stalking monster, Asher slowly reached down and pulled a thin silver dagger from his boot. I glanced at him in disbelief. “You keep a dagger in your shoe?”
“Three, actually,” said Asher, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I wouldn’t even need them if I had my flamethrower, but I didn’t bring it with me in our haste to step off a human building when we left Oasis.”
“Uncalled for,” I complained.
“Guys,” said Milo nervously, “He looks like he’d love seafood.”
“He liked your lullaby last time,” I said, still holding my knife out in front of me, hoping it would scare the tiger. It did not seem to be working, though the beast hadn’t attacked yet; it continued to circle us, growling softly, its golden stare intense and hungry.
“Yeah,” said Milo, “but you didn’t. And I don’t think I could keep it up long enough to drag you both out of here.”
“Don’t panic,” Asher said softly. “I’ve dealt with these tigers plenty. Flamethrower would help, but we’ll be fine. There’s three of us and only one of it.”
In true dark forest fashion again, the forest apparently took his words as a challenge, because they’d barely left his mouth when the growls in the trees escalated to a crescendo. I looked to my left, then to my right—I could have sworn the noise had increased from both sides. But surely I must be imagining things—
No. I wasn’t. A second later, the bushes trembled on each side of the small clearing we stood in, and nearly simultaneously, two more of the tiger-like monsters stalked out of the undergrowth. We were now surrounded.
“You were saying?” Milo whispered.
“I’m so happy for him that he has friends,” I said. “I just wish they weren’t even hungrier than he is.”
Asher rolled his eyes so hard that I sensed his exasperation without even turning my head. “Both of you, shut up,” he muttered. “This just got a whole lot harder. I wonder if I could travel with two of you…?”
Without even a conscious decision, we had rotated so that we all stood back-to-back, preventing any blind spots. The tigers were apparently friends, or at least willing to work together to get a meal, because they too had begun to circle us in sync slowly, snapping their jaws and keeping up a constant low growl.
Still, I immediately shook my head at Asher’s thought. “Oh, hell no,” I said. “I’d rather let the tigers tear me apart than let you drag me through the shadows again.”
“Well, you just might get that chance,” retorted Asher.
I guess the tigers agreed, because they chose that moment to attack.
Asher, Milo, and I all cursed simultaneously as we scattered to avoid their claws and quills. I swung Sgrios at the closest tiger as it lunged past, getting in only a glancing blow. Backing up to edge myself against a gnarled tree, I let it turn and advance, then jabbed forward, aiming for its face. It roared and managed to sink a fang into my forearm.
Groaning, I twisted against its tooth, reaching with my free hand into my pocket for my lighter. Some kind of green-black smoke was emitting from the spot where its fang broke my skin; I was already feeling light-headed. I cursed mentally. Quite possibly its fangs were tipped with venom, which wouldn’t be fun to deal with in the next few minutes.
I pulled out the lighter and flicked it on. Luckily, Henri had finally gotten me an upgrade: a phoenix-made lighter. While not quite as extravagant as a dragon’s style, anything crafted by phoenixes is a force to be reckoned with. A massive ball of fire rolled outwards from the lighter, singeing my fingertips as it collided with the tiger’s chest.
I covered my face with my arms, flinching back against the tree as the monster roared and fell backwards, flailing, going up in flames. The phoenix fireball burned it to ash unnaturally fast; I had barely clicked the lighter shut by the time the tiger that had just been attacking me collapsed to the ground, nothing but a pile of venom-tipped quills and smoldering embers.
I straightened up against the trunk of the tree, wincing as I looked down at the jagged hole in my jacket sleeve, beneath which my wound was black and green around the edges. The roots seemed to sway slightly beneath my feet. I took a deep breath to steady myself. Its fangs had definitely been venomous.
I’d have to worry about that in a minute. For now, I pushed myself off the tree, still wielding my lighter in one hand and Sgrios in the other. For the first time since the monsters had attacked, I caught a glimpse of how Milo and Asher were faring.
We weren’t near the river, so Milo had apparently tried to work with what he had: the soil at his feet had become a puddle of mud, and he stood ankle-deep in it. One of the remaining two tigers kept lunging for him, and each time it approached, he flung large, forceful balls of mud at it, sending it stumbling over roots or causing it to roar in pain as mud filled its nose and mouth. Milo’s eyes glowed deep blue. Still, even as I watched, the tiger was coming closer each time, and the puddle was dwindling. Without a larger water source, Milo wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer.
Asher, on the other hand, was—where else? —in a tree. I squinted, the whole forest tilting around me, my vision blurring as the venom began to take hold. It was getting harder to tell, but it looked like Asher was standing on a tree branch, wielding daggers in each hand, swinging at the last tiger as it attempted to climb the tree to reach him. Blood sprayed across the dark roots as he sliced its paws.
I had to help. The phoenix lighter didn’t have a large range, but if I could just get across the clearing, if I could just get closer to the two remaining tigers, I could open my lighter again and burn the other two monsters before they finished off my friends.
Easy, right?
Well, it would’ve been, if the venom wasn’t rapidly spreading through my body. I made it a few steps, trudging through the ash and bones at my feet, reaching the lighter out in front of me. The woods were truly swaying now; I felt dizzy and nauseous all at once. Everything seemed to move both way too fast and in slow motion. It was like the world’s worst acid trip.
I tried to tell Milo and Asher that I had the lighter, that it had killed one tiger and could kill theirs too, that I could throw it to them—but I’m pretty sure all that came out was a groan. And then I fell.
Everything was so blurry. I felt dull pain in my arm, saw the black-green smoke slowly wafting upwards from the festering wound there, heard the roars as the tigers continued to attack Milo and Asher. I tried to flick open the lighter, but my finger slipped, and the lighter tumbled onto the leaves beside me—my eyes drifted shut, and everything began to sound very far away, like I was hearing it through a tunnel—
I’m honestly not sure if I was conscious or not for the next few minutes. I remember it like a dream. A woman screamed. The tigers roared again, but it sounded different: anguished, not predatory. Flashes of light. And then something bitter dripping down my throat. After a few drops, as the taste sunk in, I jerked upright, coughing, retching at the bitter flavor.
“Don’t try to spit it up,” said a familiar voice by my head. “It’s an antidote. It’s saving your ass right now.”
With an effort, I stopped coughing and swallowed hard several times, wincing as the bitter liquid continued to drip down my throat. But Acacia was right: a few blinks later, my vision had cleared, and the clearing was steady around me. I looked down at my arm; beneath the ripped sleeve, the wound from the tiger’s fang was still bloody, but no longer festering. There were no traces of the previous black and green smoke. I felt…okay.
I twisted to see Acacia crouching next to me, smirking. The resemblance between her and her brother had never been more obvious. “Thank you,” I said.
She reached out a gloved hand and pulled me up to my feet behind her. I slowly glanced around. Milo was still standing ankle-deep in muddy water, looking exhausted. Dirt coated his arms and face, and his glasses were skewed, nearly falling off his face. Asher was still up on a tree branch, though he now sat on it, his legs dangling in the open air.
There were also two additional piles of ash, bones, and quills. As my gaze came full circle, I realized that a flamethrower, intricately carved with the same runes I’d seen on Asher’s, lay at Acacia’s feet. “Do all of you carry around flamethrowers?” I asked weakly.
Asher grinned, jumping down from the branch and landing lightly, as if he’d merely stepped off a ledge. “Except when we travel to the human dimension unexpectedly.”
Acacia raised her eyebrows, looking back and forth between me and Asher. “Is that where you went? I guess I was right to be worried.”
“My bad,” I said.
Her smirk returned. “You sure are an interesting influence for my brother. Good or bad remains to be seen.”
“Oh, bad, definitely,” said Milo, stepping out of his puddle with an awful wet squelching sound. “He’s a terrible influence. And I’m arguably worse. Milo, by the way. Wonderful to meet you.”
Acacia took his outstretched hand. “Acacia. What’s a merman doing in the dark forest?”
“Oh, you—you figured that out, huh?” Milo said, with a little sheepish gesture at the puddle. “Long story.”
“Not that long,” corrected Asher with a chuckle. “Same reason I nearly fell off a building in a human city: Ian.”
“Hey!” I started to protest. “That’s not—okay, well, I guess that is technically true.”
Something roared in the distance. Acacia picked up her flamethrower and slung it over her shoulder as casually as it were a backpack. “Come on. I don’t have any more of that antidote on me, and those tigers aren’t even the worst things that could find us out here. We should head home. It’s not far.”
“‘Not far’ meaning we can walk there?” I asked hopefully, remembering Asher’s shadow travel with a shudder.
Asher laughed out loud at the look on my face; Acacia smiled and said, “Not a fan of our methods, huh? You’re in luck. It’s close. As long as we hurry, we’ll be fine.”
“What are we waiting for, then?” interrupted Milo. “Let’s get away before more monster friends show up.” He hurried forward to fall in beside Acacia, who was already strolling out of the clearing and making her way into the trees.
As they vanished into the mess of dark, gnarled trunks, Asher turned to me, grinning. “Hurry now, Ian. Wouldn’t want to resort to shadow travel.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I muttered. He began to pick his way over twisted roots, pushing branches out of his way, and I followed, half a step behind. We’d already lost sight of Acacia and Milo, but I was sure she’d take care of him. Plus, they had the flamethrower.
However, this just left me and Asher, cautiously clambering over roots and through bushes in the darkness.
“So,” I said as I focused on stepping exactly where Asher did, assuming he knew safe footholds. “You know what I do. How I exist in both dimensions. How I—unintentionally—do what you said was impossible.” I took a deep breath, feeling awkward. “What about you? What did you mean when you said your people exist on both the Alive and Dead planes?”
Asher shrugged, glancing back at me over his shoulder as he held a thorny branch out of our way. “We just do. Not exactly like you, though. I mean, I don’t just hang out in the afterlife. It’s more like…the division is thinner for us. I can sense death. I know when someone is closer to the border than usual. Which means I can tell when someone is about to die.”
My head was spinning; I barely noticed when the latest branch swatted me in the chest as I pushed past it. “Harbingers.”
Asher grinned. “That’s right. They called us that because we’d show up when we sensed someone close to death. To wait for their demise, and then guide them over the border between Alive and Dead. So if you saw us…”
“Not good news,” I finished. “No wonder they considered you bad omens.”
Asher looked at me sharply, hopping over a massive root without even paying attention. I kept a closer eye on my feet, not trusting myself to stay upright if I lost focus. “We weren’t bad omens or evil presences or whatever they believed. Superstitions, that’s all. We didn’t make anyone more likely to die; we just made sure we were there when they did.” He paused, considering. “Okay, I suppose I can see why they thought of us as omens of death.”
I laughed. We fell silent for a moment, listening to the hisses and growls from the undergrowth around us. I could hear rustles and faint whispers up ahead from where I was sure Acacia and Milo walked, though it was dark enough that I still couldn’t see them.
Suddenly Asher stopped moving; still staring intently at my own feet, I ran directly into him. His gloved hands grabbed my arms, steadying me, and I looked up to see that he had turned around to face me, his dark eyes intense. “We don’t kill people, you know,” he said abruptly. “Not usually, at least. Despite our connections to death, we’re not evil.”
I met his stare evenly. “I know,” I said. “Like I told Sky, I don’t think you are.”
He let his hands fall, giving me a tiny smile before he turned back and continued to pick his way across the blanket of crisscrossing roots. “Thanks for that, by the way. It’s nice to have someone on our side. Weird, but nice.”
I resumed walking, too, staying only a step behind. “I know the feeling.” Then a sudden thought occurred to me, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t considered it earlier. “Wait! If you can sense when someone is close to death, did you…did you sense that with my Uncle Henri before we left the bar?” My voice caught on Henri’s name. I had no idea what I’d do if he said he had; it just seemed like I had to ask.
Asher didn’t turn around, but he shook his head as he continued forward. “No,” he said softly. “He wasn’t near the border.”
I’m not sure I’d ever breathed a bigger sigh of relief in my life; I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath. Thank God. For the first time since leaving Griffin’s Edge, my worry lessened a little.
“Almost there,” said Asher.
I barely even registered this, because another thought had occurred to me, and once again I found myself wondering how the hell I hadn’t put it together before. “That’s how you found me, isn’t it? Those times you magically seemed to know where I was in the dark forests? Because I was getting closer to the line between life and death!” I simultaneously felt like a genius, for finally snapping the puzzle pieces into place, and an idiot, for taking this long to do it.
I heard the amusement in Asher’s voice and, even without seeing his face, knew he was smirking. “You really just say whatever comes to mind, don’t you?” A pause. “But yeah. As someone nears the edge, I can sense that. And it guides me to the source.”
I said the first thing that came to my head. “That’s pretty cool.”
He laughed. “No one’s ever had that response before.”
“I like to stand out.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. Then he suddenly held out an arm, halting me in my tracks. As I looked up, I realized that we had finally caught up to Acacia and Milo, who stood only a few steps ahead. Past them, I could make out houses between the thinned trees. We had reached Oasis.
“Quickly, now,” whispered Acacia. “Bringing not one, but two outsiders in—especially after the scene we made earlier—won’t be a popular move. We’ll have to be careful.”
We all looked at each other. Varying levels of concern were reflected on all of our faces; Milo seemed terrified. I nudged his shoulder with a small grin. “Come on, Milo. You’ve been through way worse during your association with me.”
He smiled nervously, running a hand through his already-wild blue hair. “I’m used to you. It’s new dangers that scare me.”
Asher said, “You just walked barefoot through a forest full of thorns and monsters. You’ll be fine.”
Acacia shrugged and said, “You’d better get used to it.”
I looped my arm through Milo’s, winked at him, and said, “It’ll be fun. And we probably won’t even accidentally jump to the human dimension.”
Milo looked at me, and his smile widened. His blue eyes seemed to sparkle behind his glasses. “Promise?”
“Never,” I said solemnly.
“Well, come on then,” said Acacia, rolling her eyes. “May as well get it over with.”
With a deep breath, trying to ignore the lingering soreness of the ashen handprints on my neck from the last time I’d been seen here, I followed her out of the trees, Asher and Milo beside me.
At least whatever came next, I wouldn’t be facing it alone.