I’ve already brought down on you. Thank you for this. And thank Sylas and August for me too, when they realize—tell them I know they tried to do right by me, and I really was happy here some of the time.”
Whitt stares at me for a long moment. Has his face paled? Maybe he’s thinking forward to when the others discover my disappearance and how they’ll react. I can’t imagine they’ll be pleased, even if it’s for the best.
“Yes,” he says. The word comes out strained. He clears his throat and goes on. “Yes, I’ll do that. Go on now. If we’re lucky, they won’t notice you’re missing until morning when you’ll be well away from here.”
I nod. He steps into the hall ahead of me, checking that the coast is clear, and motions me out.
“It’s for the best,” he mutters, so low I’m not sure whether he’s talking to me or to himself. “It’s all for the best.”
And that’s why I have to do this. I hustle down the hall, setting down my foot in its brace as lightly as I can manage without sacrificing too much speed. Whitt meanders off toward his room.
Down the stairs, through the kitchen, my heart thumps faster. I’m still half-expecting to find out this is some hugely elaborate joke.
It isn’t. The handle on the parlor door turns smoothly in my hand. I push the door open.
A light wind tickles over me. The long sprawl of the field lies ahead, the forest thick with shadow beyond it. My legs momentarily lock. Then I propel myself forward with a sharper skip of my pulse.
For the first time in more than nine years, I emerge into the outside world. The scents of hay and wildflowers that lace the warm evening air are familiar from the breezes that’ve carried through my bedroom window. They fill my lungs more swiftly out here, though, wrapping around me, teasing through my clothes and hair.
It’s overwhelming to the point of dizzying me, but I can’t let myself linger. As long as I’m in view of the keep and the pack’s houses, someone could spot me and raise an alarm. Training my gaze on the dark stretch of the forest, I hurry toward it as fast as my limp allows, worrying less about stealth on the soft grass that muffles most of the sound of the brace.
I’m going home. I’m really going home. Whatever that might look like after all these years. A giddy tremor shoots through me. I can’t tell whether I’m excited or petrified.
Once I’ve slipped between the trees, the tension in my chest loosens a little. The air licks cooler over my skin but stays warm enough that I don’t regret my tee’s short sleeves. I pick my way across the uneven terrain more carefully now, squinting through the dimness as I watch for rocks and jutting roots on the forest floor.
How far is it until I reach the edge of the Mists? Will I find it in the forest or somewhere on the other side?
I should have asked Whitt more questions. But he sent me off so urgently… He must have been concerned I wouldn’t get another chance—or that even one more night with me around would push Sylas and August into a fight they couldn’t come back from.
I won’t think about how disappointed or worried or—being realistic—angry Sylas will be when he notices my empty room. I won’t think about all the uncertainties that await in the world I was stolen from. Better not to think at all.
Just keep walking. Just keep going forward, and somehow this insane scenario will sort itself out. It has to.
An ache starts to creep through my warped foot despite the brace. It wasn’t meant to support me on a hike through the wilderness. But ahead of me, through the twilight, I can see the trees are thinning. Strands of mist trail around them, glowing in the moonlight.
My spirits leap. I’m almost there.
I take several hasty steps and stub my toe on a fallen branch. As I catch myself against a tree trunk, hissing at the pain, a rustling sound from somewhere to my right makes me freeze. I hold totally still, listening, straining to see through the thickening darkness.
Nothing moves in my view. It must have been a deer or a squirrel or some faerie equivalent.
I move to keep walking, and a figure materializes out of the shadows just a few yards away.
A long hooded cloak covers her from head to