Page 121 of By the Orchid and the Owl
I shifted my glance from her to Lander, who sighed, then reformed himself so fast, I gasped. Once second, he was the dark-haired, ebony-skinned boy I’d grown up with—albeit a bit taller than when we’d left Alderwick—and the next, he’d shrunk and bubbled and sprouted into a giant black panther, not quite as domineering as Jagaros himself, but with just as many teeth and claws.
“Get on,”Lander growled at us.
Another shock. I was hearing him talkas an animal.God, the magic mathematics required to understand that concept already made my head burn.
But Emelle was already hoisting herself up onto his back (which made me think she’d done this before), and the butterflies had almost disappeared through the tree line now, so I didn’t hesitate any longer.
I grabbed Emelle’s hand and scrambled up Lander’s flank, settling myself into the dip of his back behind her.
He bounded after the butterflies, and I shrieked as my head swung back from the force of it. When I lurched forward to fix my balance, I slammed into Emelle.
The ride jostled us the entire way into the jungle, through the trees in seemingly chaotic maneuvers. Mr. Gleekle’s magic-enhanced commentary faded into the background before I could hear Coen’s name, and soon the song of the jungle cocooned us fully. Kapoks and elderberries hummed softly. Thistles purred out silky tunes. Monkeys quarreled with each other about this or that.
But my eyes stayed on the butterflies, on the soft whispering of their wings as they plunged onward. I’d been so worried about seeing Coen again, but now my own heartbeat was cracking the ice in my veins as fear and dread slammed against my chest over and over.
Where was Jagaros? Where was he, where was he?
What hadhappenedto him?
I couldn’t imagine how a beast as swift and powerful and dangerous as Jagaros—a beast who’d once been a faerie king—could get tangled up in any kind of life-threatening situation.
Unless… my gulp stuck in my throat… unless Dyonisia had discovered the truth about his past…
I instinctively hummed at a tree up ahead, and it jerked one of its low-hanging branches out of the way before Emelle and I could hit it head-on.
If that was the case—if Dyonisia held Jagaros hostage right now—how couldIhelp Jagaros? What could I do against the Good Council?
It was a good thing Lander had donned his panther form. From the bunches of muscles tensing and stretching beneath us as he carried us deeper into the jungle, I knew there was a horribly real possibility I would need them: his teeth and claws.
Finally, even the chittering of the monkeys faded, and the cloud of butterflies slowed. The hum of the jungle was deeper here, more slumbering. It felt like we’d walked right into a cave where a monster snored, from the way the canopy above us shielded us from a single drop of sun.
Here, there was just green darkness and…
“Jagaros?” I called.
The butterflies were fluttering toward a figure bathed in shadows. The figure stepped forward, and they swirled around her head, haloing her, swaddling her in their flickering colors.
“I told everyone over and over,” came a steely voice that reminded me of endless gray mist, “that the butterflies love me. But did anyone listen? Did anyonecare?”
I slid off Lander’s back, falling into the rotting undergrowth beneath, where only the most festering flora could survive with such little light: snake plants and philodendron and devil’s ivy. I squinted at the figure within the butterflies.
“Jenia?”
Her answering tut was all I needed to confirm it. Jenia Leake washere, in this long-forgotten pocket of the Eshol wilderness, instead of at the pentaball game.
“Where’s Jagaros?” I demanded, my voice fracturing when I said his name.
“He’s not here,” came a new voice. “But I am.”
And from behind Jenia, from between trees cloaked in moss and stitched together with vines, a grinning Fergus stepped into the green-tinted hue of dying light.
CHAPTER
46
My breath snagged in my chest, but only for a moment.
The next moment, it positivelycollapsedas two more people stepped out alongside Fergus and Jenia: that Object Summoner who’d sent sticks to poke at Gileon’s back so long ago, and… and…
