“What do you sense? Danger?” Tor whispered in my ear, his arm fiercely tight at my ribs.
“No,” I whispered back. “Aggie.”
Then I broke from his arm, slid off the side of Salem, landed on my slippers and immediately darted around the front of the horse and ran toward the trees.
“By the gods, Cora! Stop!”
I didn’t stop. Instead, I shouted, “Aggie! Aggie, is that you?”
I kept running and heard the hooves of a horse and the boots of a man behind me but I no longer heard the chirps.
“Aggie!” I screamed then let out an, “oof,” when my running was halted by an iron arm around my stomach and I was hauled into a hard body. “Let me go!” I yelled, pushing at his arm and pressing forward.
“Cora,” he ground out in my ear, “don’t ever –”
“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” I heard faintly and I knew it meant, “Cora, help me.”
Oh God.
I twisted in Tor’s arm to face him as he dragged me toward Salem who’d run off the road with Tor and I.
“Tor!” I cried desperately, tipping my head back to look at him, struggling against his arm and dragging my feet to stop him from dragging me. “I hear Aggie.”
“Who?”
“Aggie!” I yelled.
Tor stopped and stared down at me. “Who’s Aggie?”
“Aggie, Aggie, Agglethorpe! The bird!”
His brows shot together. “The what?”
“Bird!”
“Chirp,” which meant, “Help.”
“Tor! I think something’s wrong. We have to do something!” I lifted my hands to his jaws, got up on tiptoe, leaned in and begged, “Please!”
He stared into my eyes then he muttered, “Gods,” let me go, grabbed my hand and jogged into the wood, pulling me behind, Salem following on a trot.
“Aggie!” I called. “Chirp for us, sweetie, so we know where you are.”
I listened. Nothing.
I lifted my hand, cupped my mouth at the side and yelled, “Aggie, honey, please. Give us something!”
Then I heard it, a close, weak chirp right above us. I stopped, tugging on Tor’s hand making him stop and Salem stopped with us. I looked up and saw the bright feathers of Aggie about ten feet up in a tree.
“I see you!” I shouted, jumping up and down and shaking Tor’s hand as I did. “I see you! Hang on, Tor’s going to climb up and get you!”
“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” which meant, “Thank the gods.”
“I’m going to what?” Tor asked at my side and I turned my head to look up at him.
“You have to climb up and get him,” I explained.
He looked up at the tree and then down at me. “Who?”