Page 65 of Echo North

“I’ve been watching you. Waiting to see what you would do. Have you figured it out?”

Danger crawled along my skin. The noise of the fairies’ laughter grew harsh in my ears. “Figured out what?”

She smiled again, and her eyes sparked orange as flame.

Realization wrenched through me like an earthquake. I took a step backward, the sense of danger sharpening into fear. “You.You’rethe ‘she’ the wolf spoke of. The one who controls the wood. The one who gathered the pieces of the house. The one who trapped him there—maybe even the one who enchanted him in the first place.”

She watched me with amusement. Fire crawled hot just beneath her skin, and I felt the sudden, awful heat of her.

She was the roaring fire behind the bedroom door. The wood that had tried to devour me.

I took another step back.

“Poor scarred girl. Lost and broken and unwanted. Marked by the Devil for his pleasure alone. No thought to how to change your fate. You haven’t figured it out at all. I am surprised.”

“Figured outwhat?”

She lifted a finger, and flame burst bright from the tip, a tiny flare of yellow that vanished again the next moment. “How to break the enchantment.”

The whole world stilled around me. My throat felt ragged and raw. Horror and hope warred within me, a lion raging against a bear. “Tell me. Tell me how to break it.”

She laid her hands back in her lap. “There is one thing that you must not do, one rule you must not break. You must break it.” Her eyes were dangerous, specs of blackness from the heart of the earth. Flames seeped from between her lips. “That will nullify the enchantment. That will free him.”

I thought of the lamp, a spark of light in the dark. “I don’t believe you.”

Fire danced around the ends of her hair. “You are thinking it is too simple an answer.”

Her heat bit into my skin, and I took yet another step back.

“You were looking for the truth. The truth is always simple, but that does not make it easy.”

Anger burned. “Who are you? Why have you trapped him?”

“My dear, Echo.” She rose from the throne, sparks raining down from her hair and searing black spots in the grass. “It is not of my doing. He chose this. He choseme.They always do, in the end. He came to me, in the wood. He loved me. And so I saved him. Preserved him. So he could live forever.” She held out a hand, flames curling through her skin. “What about you, Echo Alkaev? Would you like to live forever?”

The fairies surged around me like a sudden ocean tide, drawing me into their swirling, tangled mass. Stars wheeled bright above my head, close enough to touch. I moved with the dancers, straining to understand the words in the fairies’ voices, sweet as honey, sweet as rain. They folded over me, and I thought it would not be so bad to stay with them, forever, forever.

Heat pulsed behind me, and I turned to see the Queen of the Wood wreathed all in flame. She smiled as she stared straight into my eyes. “Make your choice, Echo Alkaev. Won’t you stay with me?”

I opened my mouth to answer her, to sayYes, let me stay.

“No!” came a sudden voice at my ear, “No, she will not!” A hand closed around my wrist and I turned to see Hal, wild-eyed and dirty. “Run,” he breathed.

He jerked me forward. For half a heartbeat I stumbled and thought I would fall, but Hal held tight to my hand, and the next moment I’d found my feet and was running with him.

We ran and ran and ran, twisting through the ranks of the dancers, fleeing from the queen of the wood. I could hear her roaring behind us, sense the heat of her unquenchable fire. She did not want to let us out.

But we broke through the last of the fairies and dashed across the border of the forest, a wide meadow stretching forever beyond. The sun shone brightly here, though it seemed pale compared to the starlight we had left behind.

I gasped for breath, still clinging to Hal, whose jaw was tight and hard. His eyes burned with fury. “What were youthinking?” he cried, grasping both my shoulders and shaking me, hard.

I cringed away from him and he let go, swiping one hand across his eyes and cursing vehemently.

“I’m sorry, Hal,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry. Please—”

He turned back to me, his face twisting with a sadness that seemed even stronger than his anger had been. “It’s not your fault, Echo. It’s not your fault.”

“I wanted to help you. I was only trying to—”

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