Page 207 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“We are going to die!” wails Agatha.

“Are we truly going to die?” asks Becky softly.

My jaw flexes, fire erupting in my gut. “No one is going to die. We’re going to figure out a way out of this. Rahk, how did you navigate the Wood when you were chasing me? You can navigate the Wood without a Path, right?”

Rahk’s face is pale. “The Wood cannot be navigated without a Path. I used a spell. You take an object of the earth and place your destination inside it. It guides you through unnavigable places.”

“That’s perfect!” I cry, searching the ground. “What do you need? A stick? A rock? Are these pine needles enough?”

“You cannot set the spell inside the Wood.”

I go still.

Rahk rakes a hand through his hair. “When I saw that you had gone into the Wood, I retraced my steps, worked the spell, and returned. That was how I could hunt for you and then get us both out.”

I hold his gaze for a long moment. “So you are saying we cannot get out of the Wood.”

He does not answer. Not even a small shake of the head.

Agatha’s wails crescendo. I curse, pacing in the small clearing we stand in amid an endless death forest in every direction.

“Can we not just . . . pick a direction and head that way?” Oliver asks. “We can keep going the way we were heading. Surely we will find our way out somehow?”

“That is not how the Wood works,” Pavi whispers quietly.

“My mother got out somehow,” I say to Rahk. “Surely there is a way.”

His voice is so low, a deep rumble in the curious silence of the Wood. “I do not know how anyone can navigate this place. You cannot control it. It decides where you go and what you encounter.”

“So if the Wood wants us to go back to the very frightening queen who wants all of us dead, it will take us there?” asks Oliver.

“I should have known she would destroy the Path.” Rahk clenches his fists. “I should have taken the precaution of making the spell. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I never should have sold that horse!” wails Agatha. “If I hadn’t, we never would be in this mess!”

That—is actually very true. Here I have been, blaming myself for all these woes, when other people have had equal responsibility in these crimes.

Kat. This way.

I turn toward the shocking familiarity of that voice. A voice I have not heard in so, so long. A voice that cracks my heart in two.

“Kat?” asks Rahk.

This way. I will take you home.

There. Between the trees about a stone’s throw away, is a small, blue light. Hovering in midair.

“Do you see that?” I point to it.

Rahk tenses. “It is probably a lure for a spirit to trap you.”

“Yes,” I reply, even as I take a step closer. “But Iknowthis voice.”

It is a woman’s voice. Soft. Tender.I know the way out.

My legs begin shaking. I take one step toward the glow, almost too terrified to say aloud the name I long to call.

You do not need to be afraid, my sweet. I came here to find you. Now I have found you, and I will take you home.

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