Page 19 of Ozma

Why is she doing this to me?Stirring up old feelings. Playing games with him. It wasn’t fair, nor was it in the least bit kind. He’d had enough cruelty in his life to allow for any more.

Jack growled. “Speak.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” she said quietly.

“The truth!” he demanded. “You storm onto the farm, lie to my face, then get it in your head to run off—throughthattunnel, no less—and you think I don’t deserve to know what you’re doing here? What if I hadn’t found you and you’d died? What then? I would be forced to wonder what happened to Tip’s sister for the rest of my life. Forced to worry if you were still out there, in pain, and if there was something I could do to stop it.”

“Okay, okay,” Ozma said quickly. “I’m going to kill Mombi. Happy now?”

Happy? Was he fuckinghappythat she was embarking on a journey to get herself killed? “You are nothing like your brother,” he seethed.

Ozma’s jaw dropped. “Wh… What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He was never this insufferable,” Jack snapped, letting go of her arms. “Or this stupid.”

“Perhaps because he wastrappedin that patch. Perhaps you didn’t truly know him,” she retorted.

How dare she… Clenching his jaw, he stormed around her toward the tunnel and kept going without looking back. He was nearly halfway to the entrance when Ozma caught up.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Going with you. Obviously.”

“You can’t—”

“I can do whatever the fuck I want, Blossom. No one has a claim over me anymore.” Not since Mombi’s barrier dropped and Tip died. Jack was a completely free fae—his bodyandhis heart.

He picked up the pace, making it to the foreboding tunnel much faster than he expected. It was eerily silent there. Long, sweeping vines swooped down over the oblong entrance and moss clung to the large rocks peeking out from the packed dirt. A musty, metallic scent wafted from inside.

“You don’t have to come,” Ozma whispered.

Jack ground his teeth together and reached down to grab a thick branch from the dirt. It was better than going in there with only a small carving knife, dull from use on so many pumpkins. At least the branch gave him range. “I wish that were true, but Tip would never forgive me. And that Ido knowabout him.”

Ozma looked up at him, blinking, unspoken words filling the space between them. Jack cleared his throat to distract himself from studying the shape of her lips. He was havingnoneof that bullshit. Did he want answers? Yes. Did he have an unexplainable urge to kiss some sense into her? Also, yes. But, that was a hard no. If only she were anyone besides Tip’s sister…

“Damn,” he muttered and headed inside the tunnel. He had to calm himself before he did or said something completely moronic.

Before the light faded behind them, he took note of the thick wooden beams running across the ceiling and down both sides of the tunnel, holding everything up safely.The only safe thing in here,he thought. Scratching sounds filled the darkness. Dubious laughter bubbled. A muffled scream.

There was no telling if the creatures lurking around them could see in the dark or not. But on the off chance the predators were equally blind as them, there was no sense giving away their position with a light.

“This way,” Ozma whispered, tugging him along, when they’d been walking for what felt like hours.

Jack stumbled over something on the ground—a root perhaps, or a severed body part. He winced at the thought. “How do you know? I can’t see shit.”

“I used a spell before I left the patch,” she admitted.

Jack stumbled to a halt. “A spell? One ofMombi’sspells? Isthatwhat you were looking for in her room the other night?”

There was a long pause before Ozma asked, “You followed me? That’s how you saved me at the lake.”

“Of course, I followed you. Not only do I not trust you, but you went out the window. There’s no reason to sneak about unless you’re up to no good.” He huffed out a breath. “But to use one of Mombi’s spells? She uses dark magic—tinkers with forces that should never be messed with.”

“It’s just a tracking spell,” she scoffed. “It’s leading me to Mombi with a trail of light.”

A tracking spell usingdark magic. That was probably why nothing dared attack them—the beasts could sense whatever evil was at work. But it was too late to talk Ozma out of it, so he kept his thoughts to himself. “This isn’t some wild guess, then?”

Ozma snorted softly. “Not so stupid after all, am I?”

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