Page 99 of The Girl in the Forest

Did that extend to Brin? I’d picked up nothing of her thoughts, and I wasn’t even sure if Mace was right in his description of a faille bond. What if that bond existed only between the queen and me, and what if Brin had told me exactly what she was here to do? Get me to show off. Reveal what I could do.

Once again, I was unsure of her. “I can’t hear anyone in my head,” I said. “No wolf, no pack bond.”

“I get that.” She sounded disappointed, but I would play this game. Teach her, the way Caerwen taught me during my time in the wrinkle. See what she could handle, if her attempts at fumbling would give off an ability she wanted to hide. Brin needed to convince me whether she was an enemy or friend, and I’d take a page from Grayson’s book, test her.

I explained how failles drew energy from everything, held it deep inside, then let it flow outward. I showed her how to move small rock chips hidden in the littered straw. Murmured encouragement when she spread her fingers and huffed with the effort.

Training helped pass the time, and Brin learned quickly. I warned her manipulating energy came at a cost. Each time we did it, we weakened ourselves. I hadn’t forgotten the image projected on the cave wall of the failles, using their energy during battle until they collapsed, no longer able to defend themselves.

I felt more in control. The food improved. Levi no longer moaned in his sleep; I knew because he stayed in the cell with us. It was Laura’s night to have the blanket since, despite my requests, they limited us to one. Levi slept, while Laura curled at his side. They both needed to recover from the beatings.

I was relieved to see them finally resting while I sat with my back to the stone and stared at the corridor, unable to sleep. Brin was restless, moving around in the straw.

The chill seeping from the stone into my back wasn’t normal. I was used to the temperature in the dungeon. Within a few degrees, it was tolerable and rarely changed, unless someone left a distant door propped open and a breeze swept through.

The lights had dimmed again, as if the electrical grid was unreliable. I stared at the shadows that gathered in the corridor, in the cracks between the stones. What was it keeping me on edge? The shadows darkened along the corridor wall where it joined the floor—but they were moving. I had the sense of something evil slithering across stones. Seeking, searching like the tongues of mist I’d witnessed in the witch cave. Tasting the air.

The hair at my nape rose. Alarm tingled. Shadows crept up and outward, crowding the corridor. A dark fog now, or a mist, but sentient. Aware.

“Brin,” I hissed. She didn’t immediately answer. I crawled across to Laura. Shook her shoulder to wake her. “Hurry.”

“Noa?” She pushed to her elbows, her brown hair a riot around her face.

I turned to Levi and shook him, my fingers clenching in his shirt. “Hurry.”

He was slower to move because the wound in his leg made it difficult for him to crawl, but they needed to get away from the bars. From the front of the cell. I gripped Laura’s hand.

“Help me move Levi,” I hissed, frantic. “Hurry.”

He struggled like a dead weight. Laura’s eyes had widened with worry while every nerve I had danced with the jolting need to get away, get away.

I glanced back at the corridor. The miasma carpeting the stone floor was thickening and inches deep now, oozing through the bars of the cell two doors to our right. Dark tentacles wrapped around the iron, slid through and crept across the floor, rolling up the stone wall with gathering momentum, as if scouring for a scent.

A rat dashed from the corner, tearing headlong into the murky shadows. An instant later, it squealed.

I scrabbled faster in the straw. “Brin.”

She looked at me, then toward Levi’s old cell where the fog was rolling into the depths, a black flood. The grated dry well in the corridor disappeared beneath the thickly layered mist. Tendrils poured between the bars of the cell next to us.

The momentum never slowed, and there was no way to get above the sinuous flow.

“In the corner, closest to us,” I hissed to Brin, waiting until she looked at me. “Up against the bars. As small as you can get. Laura.”

I was gesturing wildly, but she’d already understood and struggled to shift Levi into the corner. He leaned against the stone wall with his knees drawn up, pressed hard against the bars separating our cell from Brin’s. Laura huddled against him, protective. Brin was crawling into place.

The mist churned through the empty cells, having found nothing but the rat, and was now seeping into our cell, shifting the blades of straw, lifting them before consuming with a palpable hissing. The stench was corrosive and different, nothing like what I’d experienced in the cave leading to the Gemini Witches. Already, the sting was pitting my skin. My lungs spasmed. Like the rat, we would not survive whatever this was, not if it found us. Touched us.

I looked at Brin. “Reach through the bars and grip my arm. Flow as much energy as you can into me, and don’t let go.”

Her face paled, but she did as I asked, and I relished the first hot threads of her energy. Bright and young. I pulled heat from the floor, from the rock walls against my back. I dug deep into my faille center, gathered the energy, then spun it out in a circular shield that surrounded us from one stony wall, through the bars, and to the other stony wall.

The wavering light slowly formed, thickening, rising as I pushed the energy higher. The first gray tendrils of mist reached the wall with an evil I could feel as well as sense. And not only me—Laura shuddered. Levi sucked in a stiff breath. Only Brin was silent as the malevolence gathered and bunched. I didn’t like thinking she knew what this mist was—but she’d known what to expect from the vampires, and she’d been in this dungeon for weeks. Months. Perhaps I wasn’t guarded enough around her.

We huddled on our side of the energy wall, counting the inches as the tendrils snaked higher. I could sense frustration and rage—from a sentient mist that couldn’t find its way in or over a barrier.

My skin chilled while heat writhed in my fingers. I dug deeper. Pulled more energy from Brin even though she weakened.

When my muscles spasmed, fear exploded. I forced it down, summoned every ounce of control. Focused on holding the energy in place. Spinning it. My legs trembled. The burning in my eyes wasn’t normal. My muscles cramped again, jolting with contractions.

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