Page 67 of Strength of Desire

“Can you imagine staying out here all night?” Ash said with a snort.

“Or hunting alone?” Felix added with a shudder.

“Come on,” Ash said to me. “The sooner we get into the trees, the sooner people will lose sight of us. Then we can wander around until you get cold, and go inside.”

“No,” I said, continuing my slog through the snow. “I’m really doing this. By myself, until dawn. I meant what I said.”

“Oh, come on,. Ash cast a glance over his shoulder at Monica, still standing in place, watching the circle of students disperse. “You can’t be serious, Cory. Literally no one will care if we stick together. And I think most people will give up after a few hours.”

I saw Sean’s back disappearing into the trees in front of us, his dirty blond hair bobbing through the darkness—alone. Heat rose in my chest.

“Sean’s not sticking with his friends all night,” I said. “So I’m not either. I’m not a coward.”

“Sticking with your friends doesn’t make you a coward,” Felix said. “It makes you smart.”

“Soyoudo it, then,” I told him. “I’m going by myself.”

18

CORY

With that, I broke into a jog, leaving my friends behind. I didn’t stop until I’d been swallowed by the forest. At first, I could see and hear dark shapes moving through the shadows in front of me, and off to the side. But I was surprised by how little time it took for me to feel completely alone.

It didn’t take me long to start feeling silly. It wasdarkin the woods, and Min had been right—the night was frigid. I wished I’d gotten a better look at the maps Sean and his friends had been looking at. But when I’d gone back to check them a day later, I wasn’t even sure I was looking at the right maps, let alone how I was supposed to triangulate them.

Nothing in the rules said we couldn’t walk on any of the paths that crisscrossed Vesperwood’s grounds, but I didn’t think a magical spring was likely to appear in the middle of one of them. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to stumble my way through the trees, my feet catching on rocks and roots, my hands constantly flailing for the nearest trunk to hold myself upright when I tripped.

What was I proving exactly, if I stayed out here all night, by myself? It wasn’t like Sean was around to see it. All I’d managed so far was to get my shoes and the cuffs of my jeans wet with snow, and to inconvenience my friends, who I wasn’t even with now.

I hoped they’d decide to give it up soon. None of them had seemed all that excited about being out here. I was sure if Ash suggested they go back inside and join Min, Keelan and Felix wouldn’t be hard to convince. I smiled, thinking of them back in the ballroom, the bonfire roaring, fiddles playing into the early hours of the morning. I hoped they had a good rest of the night.

It was hard to mark time out here in the dark. If I’d been smart, I would have brought a watch and a flashlight. As it was, I was walking by the faint light of stars that shone down through occasional breaks in the tree cover. If there was a moon, I had yet to see it.

I crossed paths sometimes, sinuous ones that curved through the woods on campus, but I never turned to walk down any of them. Something told me to keep pressing into the woods.

The air was still and silent. If I weren’t out in it, rapidly growing colder and more nervous, I might have said it was a beautiful night. Dark, sure, but peaceful. The kind of night you wanted to wrap yourself up in like a blanket.

I shook my head, trying to focus on the task at hand. The problem was, the task at hand was likely impossible.

God, you’re stupid.

The words echoed in the back of my mind, and for once, they didn’t come from the traitorous little voice I carried around with me. No, this time, I heard them in my father’s voice.

I shuddered.

To the best of my ability, I was walking in a straight line, but I didn’t know if that was even a good idea. If it wasn’t, then I supposed I should be grateful for the hummocks of earth and long, downed tree trunks that lay in my way, forcing me to go around them when I couldn’t scramble over. A compass would have been a good thing to bring, too. Too late now, though.

I couldn’t tell if I’d been outside for fifteen minutes or an hour. Time bled into itself in the dark. I couldn’t hear the Vesperwood bell, and I stopped for a moment, trying to work out when it should ring next. As I paused, I heard something.

A crack of wood, and a crunch of snow, followed faintly by awhoosh-whooshthat was a little too rhythmic to be the wind.

My mind conjured up a menagerie of horrors. Moraghin, tenelkiri, nightmare shapes I’d never seen clearly. Who knew what could be lurking out here, hunting us as we hunted the spring? Something could be stalking me right now.

Thewhoosh-whooshgot closer, and louder, and up ahead, in a tiny patch of starlight, I caught sight of—was that someone’s jacket?

Relief washed through me, though I felt like an idiot. A jacket made way more sense than anything else I’d imagined.

If Felix were here, he could probably have told me exactly how much more likely it was that I’d hear another student, rather than an unknown monster. The snap I’d heard was probably a footstep on a twig, and thewhooshingsound had been someone’s thick jacket sleeve brushing their torso as they worked their way through the forest.

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