Page 53 of The Girl in the Forest

My lungs jammed until I couldn’t breathe. Heat leached from my fingers, but I wasn’t doing it. Could these witches draw the energy from me the way I did from everything?

I pulled in a hard breath. “Where are the other failles?”

“He must not read the book… he will use it against you… betray you the way wolves betrayed your mother.”

They would not speak of my mother—I wouldn’t let them. “You know nothing of my mother.”

“We are seers. We see what is hidden. What is to come.”

I took a step back. Grayson had been right. I’d never encountered illusion like this, and I couldn’t trust myself. Not with these witches. Whether they were syphoning, or I was, it didn’t matter when the pressure inside me was rising faster than I could push it down. My entire body was heating, shaking.

The fumes from the vent had turned stark white, and my fingers clenched as if I still held my bow. But it was several feet away, lying on the mica-spangled sand.

I needed to warn Grayson.

Something wasn’t right—

The witch in black said, “He must protect you.”

The witch in white added, “You must not protect him.”

“He will face his enemies and you will do nothing.”

“He will die and you will be free.”

I shuddered at what sounded like a prophecy.

The images shown to me—what had I been watching?

History—or my future?

Would I stand at the top of a blackened hill and watch while Grayson battled below?

Ice slid across my skin, colder than the ice I’d felt from Metis.

The ice of glaciers and unending night.

Ice that froze my veins. That mocked the arrogance in killing pigs and setting forests on fire.

The ice of evil and a thirst for revenge, and a book written by a queen and protected by blood magic.

I stared at the black wolf rune that remained silent, and said, “I put a gold coin in the collection box. But bartered truths are no more reliable than lies, and I don’t believe you.”

“Fool,” the witches answered in perfect unity. “Pour water into the scrying bowl and see what we see.”

The pressure to do so was crushing, but I felt that odd tapping, there in my mind.

Fight them, Noa!

I turned my head. I’d found a passage in the old watchtower and I’d warned about creatures in a sunlit meadow because I could see the flickering light of magic. My gaze skimmed the walls, the pillars, the thrones, searching for the gleam of proof, telling me none of this was real.

And there—the smallest of shimmers near the scrying bowl. Fallon’s advice ran through my mind: when you understand the game, you know how to cheat.

I stumbled across the sand until I reached the marble pool. A wide-mouthed cup waited. The water was frigid when I dipped, but as I struggled back to the scrying bowl, I paused as if I’d gotten out of breath.

With the cup in my hands, I tipped it enough to see watery reflections. The hand of the closest witch looked long and bony against the armrest of her throne. When I tipped the bowl to see the second witch, I barely breathed.

As I feared, she looked as age-spotted as her sister, but perhaps they were merely vain and hid their fading youth.

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