Ness stopped midsentence, her eyes hard as she turned on Fi. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“After everything we went through to get you home? Fi, our fight is here.”
Fi shook her head, struggling to catch her breath. “You thought it was me that was special. It’s not, and you know it. I don’t understand the green magic like you do. I can’t do a fraction of the things Val can. And yeah, maybe someday I’ll be as powerful as Great-Aunt Una. But I’m just a kid. I can’t save everyone. I can’t.”
Fi gulped. She loved it already, the magic of her green world moving through her. She turned to her aunt, pleading. “You know me. If there’s anything special about me, it’s that I’m stubborn. I never gave up hope of coming back here. I never gave up on our family the soldiers captured. I still believe some of them are alive somewhere on the raze crews, waiting to return to us.”
Liv stepped forward, laying a hand on Fi’s shoulder. “You have to let that go.”
“No.” Fi shrugged off her hand. “We have to bring them back. They are the answer, not me. Or maybe, yeah, me—because I’m the only one who won’t forget about them.
“Just listen. The raze crews have been sowing a net of seeds all over Somni. The seeds have been incubating, waiting for the right time to burst into life. Waiting to be called.” Fi whirled on Ness. “Think about it—here on Vinea, there are seeds everywhere, even where all the green has been burned to the ground. I can list a hundred plants that only come to life after a fire, the ones that need heat to break open their hulls to let the first bit of green through.”
Ness pursed her lips. “Greenwitches can’t speak to a seed, Fi. I told you there are limits to what we can do. We need shoots and buds, vines and roots. We can’t call the green into being. We can only work with what’s already alive.”
The more Fi spoke, the more certain she became. “You can’t. But what if they can?”
Ada crossed her arms over her chest. “You think there are greenwitches on the raze crews? Impossible. Fi, the soldiers would kill them. The green awakening in their veins—the glow—it would give them away.”
“Maybe. But maybe not. The green doesn’t glow in me like it does in the rest of the greenwitches. It’s dimmer, hardly there at all. Face it—something about being on Somni changed the way the magic works in me. But that doesn’t have to be all bad, not if it helps us when nothing else can.”
“Fionna, don’t be foolish,” Ness pleaded.
“What if you’re wrong? What if it’s not that greenwitches have all the power and no one else has any? What if every Vinean has a pinch of the green magic in them? What if it’s not about who’s the most powerful, or about one person saving us all?” Fi took a deep breath. “I have to go. I have to find out.”
“Absolutely not. We need to retreat, and we can’t afford to waste time arguing. We have to face the fact that Somni has won.”
Fi planted her hands on her hips and her feet in the soil, trying to sound braver than she felt. “I’m going back to Somni whether you believe me or not. What—are you going to spell me again? Go ahead. Try.”
Aunt Ada crossed the ground between them and settled her arm over Fi’s shoulders. “I’ll go with you as far as the tower.”
Relief sighed out of Fi’s lungs. She wasn’t completely alone, then.
Liv threw her hands in the air. “She’s your problem now—but you should know that soldiers have been crawling all over the tower since the greenwitches came through. I can’t spare a single fighter to protect your passage.”
“I won’t need it,” Fi said, thrusting her chin out. “The green is with me.” As she spoke, the ground beneath her shifted, broad leaves turning flat like a shield behind her, vines unwinding from their perches and twining around her slight form.
Liv quirked an eyebrow at the others. “You wanted a sign from the green? I think you just got it.”
21
FI
AFTER SOLDIERS HAD raided the cave where their family lived, Ada and Fi were the only family the other had. They were terribly lonely and stricken by grief. In every shadow, Fi imagined soldiers waiting to snatch them. Each night, death lurked in her dreams. Within weeks, bold little Fi had been reduced to a frightened child.
And so Ada set her own fears aside, beating back monsters real and imagined, teaching her niece to stand and face the thing that terrified her, again and again, until she was master of her own mind. Soon both of them possessed a strength of will greater than Ada had imagined possible. They were everything to each other, their suffering and their survival binding them together every bit as much as their love.
Just as she had done so many times as a child, Fi reached out and took her aunt’s hand and they walked alone through the wildlands. They traversed the undergrowth together, winding their way through shaded glades and over trickling streams.
Ada’s jaw was set, but worry creased the skin around her eyes and pinched her lips together at the edges. Fi should have refused when her aunt offered to come. But they had been apart for two years already, and here she was, leaving again. She’d take whatever time they could get together.
The closer they drew to the edge of the wildlands, the more the air clouded, the more their long journey weighed on them both. A grim coating of ash smeared across the face of the leaves and dusted the soil. Each breath became strained. They stopped beneath the broad branches of an old sycamore and Fi sank to the ground, leaning against the solid trunk and letting it prop her up for a few breaths.
Ada settled beside her. “You know I want our family to be all right, to have survived the ambush all those years ago. But are you certain you want to do this?”
Fi tilted her head back, peering through the lattice of branches overhead. “I have to.” She grimaced, searching for the right words. “I met this boy from Earth named Griffin. When he first showed up on Somni, he did everything wrong—I thought he was going to bring the whole resistance down.”
She shook her head. “But he was so sure that was exactly where he needed to be. He would have done anything to save his dad. And nothing I could say, or Liv, or Eb, or Arvid, or anyone else would stop him. It’s like that. I can’t explain why I’m so sure we need the raze crews. I just know it.”
Aunt Ada dropped her head to the side until it rested against Fi’s. “Sometimes it’s easier to believe in someone other than ourselves. You believe in the raze crews. Okay. Well, I believe in you.”
Fi tucked herself under her aunt’s chin, wrapping her arms tight around her waist. “Thank you.”
A forest is a symphony of sound, if you know how to listen. Trees groan and shift in their own time, petals rustle as they splay open, and pollen splatters every time it touches down. Fi and Ada listened with their whole beings, soaking in the little noises of the forest that had been their comfort in those early years.
Fi pulled away at last with a sigh. “I know my great-aunts and -uncles might not have made it, and even Aunt Gee or Aunt Nan. I do know that. But I have to try.”
Ada stood, brushed the dirt from her leggings, and extended both arms to Fi. “Then we’d better get you there, quick as we can.”
* * *
They crouched in the undergrowth, watching the tower for any sign of the soldiers Liv had warned would be on patrol. But there was no movement in the burned-out fort or the tower at its center.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until dark?” Aunt Ada twisted her lips, her face creased with worry.
Fi let out a mirthless laugh. “They’ve got goggles for that, remember? No, I need to go now. Either the green will protect me, or it won’t. Waiting won’t change that.”
Ada clasped her in a tight hug. “Be careful. Please.”
“I will,” Fi whispered.
Her aunt backed away as Fi crept forward, darting behind bits of rubble strewn around the remains of the fort before dashing forward again. She was halfway to the tower when she heard a twig snap
behind her. Fi whirled around.
Four soldiers tracked her, the closest one a single step away. Each pointed a matte black weapon with a hollow snout straight at her. Fi froze. Ness had taught her what to say if she needed protection. It had only been a few days before. But in that moment, she couldn’t call a single word to mind.
The soldiers closed rank, their eyes dull and their faces blank. Fi backed away from their advance, glancing around the rubble. The priest controlling them couldn’t be far. Terror seized her, the same terror she’d lived with all that time on Somni, certain that a single misstep, a look, even, would mean the end for her.
Just then, a breeze rustled through the trees at the edge of the wildlands. It sent the smell of wet soil and newly opened buds and fresh blossoms wafting across her face. Her eyes drifted closed, and the green was there—at a distance, but close enough. It reached for Fi, burning away the fog in her mind. And she remembered.
Shield me?
The green answered with an audible crack, then a peculiar whistling sound. It took Fi a moment to place it, and when she did, her eyes grew wide. She bit down on her lip until she drew blood.
A healthy forest is home to all kinds of trees: saplings stretching skyward for a sliver of sunlight, young trees learning to withstand high winds and harsh droughts. And old growth, holding space in the canopy for the youngsters who will come after. When it’s time for one of those giants to topple? It’s a mighty thing to see.
Air whistled past the trunk and between the broad branches as the old tree shook the soil from its roots and crashed toward the ground. Fi watched it fall, watched the soldiers halt their advance and cock their heads, listening. Understanding dawned far too late.
Fi spun away, cringing away from the sound of splintering wood and breaking bones. She ran for the tower with everything she had.
22
GRIFFIN
GRIFFIN SHOULD HAVE been terrified. He was riding the backs of the biggest rays he’d ever seen, over the biggest waves he’d ever seen. Anything could be beneath the water—creatures with teeth as big as trees, or microscopic bugs that paralyze you if you swallow even one. Or sharks. Plain old sharks.
But as the giant ray rode the swells, calm settled over Griffin. The rays were protecting him and his parents, that much was clear. He didn’t have any idea why, but much as his brain tried to come up with reasons he should be scared, he simply wasn’t.
The trip was long, and after a time, the song of the sea and the rising and falling swells lulled him into a nodding near-sleep. The waves were black except where a glimmer of starlight caught the crests, and the stars winked above, muted by the dust of long-dead galaxies. Every so often, a flock of fish would break out of the water, soaring on the night winds before plunging down into the depths again.
The moon had set by the time the Fenns reached the docks suspended above the waves like a water skipper. Griffin had read about the aquaculture beds in the library back on Caligo, how the invading soldiers had forced the Marisians to cultivate a massive field of seaweed. They needed it to supply Somni with nutrients that that world could no longer produce on its own since, after the priests destroyed Somni’s sjel trees and their dream clouds, hardly anything grew there anymore. After all, the priests needed to feed their army, even if they half-starved their own citizens.
The aquaculture beds were built like an upside down skyscraper. Towers of trellised seaweed reached deep into the water, their bulbous arms branching out and connecting the entire structure like steel triangles reinforcing a building. Bulbs lit from within bobbed and dipped with the current, dangling from every node.
On the surface, a series of docks stretched out from a central hub. Guard towers stood at the tip and bend of each dock, with the Marisians in the middle of it all, living beneath a sprawling roof they built to feel like the cabins of the boats they used to call home.
That’s where the Fenns were headed: straight for the roof at the center of the docks. Griffin flexed and shook out his hands, trying to prepare himself for whatever they found up there. He startled, rubbing his fists into his eyes before shaking his hands again, directly in front of his face this time. Griffin nearly slid off the back of the giant ray in shock. He couldn’t see his own hands. He could feel them, and the air where they should have been sort of wiggled. He looked down at his elbows, which flickered in and out of sight.
Griffin gasped. The crypsis juice—it was working!
He peered over his shoulder, and sure enough, his parents wavered in and out of view. How were they supposed to stay together if they couldn’t even see one another?
The docks were balanced on sturdy pillars that allowed the waves to roll past with little to hinder their passage. When they drew near, the giant rays slowed their approach until they barely broke the water, their passengers flat on their backs, hidden under the cover of the cloudy predawn. Griffin’s ray began treading water, pumping its fins against the current and raising its broad back to the height of the elevated docks.
Oh. Griffin swallowed hard. We’re supposed to jump.
Griffin tucked his feet beneath him, crouching like a frog on the ray’s broad back. When it followed the rolling wave to its highest point and lifted out of the water like a catamaran, Griffin sprang toward the docks. He bit down on a scream, pinwheeling his arms and legs as the planks reared up to meet him. Just when he thought he would crash, his parents caught him—his invisible parents. His mom’s hand clamped over his mouth and his dad’s arms steadied him.
The rays dipped beneath the waves one last time and were gone. Slowly, the Fenn family lowered themselves to the planks. The crypsis juice would camouflage them, but it couldn’t disguise the sound of their footsteps or erase the wet marks they left behind. If the soldiers were looking closely enough, they’d spot the intruders.
So Griffin and his parents crawled across the dock, making for the thatched roof at the center that sheltered a web of hammocks stretched in overlapping spirals. As he drew closer, he could make out a central hearth, its smokestack venting through a wide hole in the roof’s peak. Patterned mats blanketed the planks, littered with discarded children’s toys and lumps of netting waiting to be mended.
Suddenly people tumbled out of the hammocks, lifting spears and sharp-tipped tridents at the Fenns’ approach. A man and woman stepped out from under the roof’s shadow, moonlight settling on circlets of glimmering shells over their temples.
“Who’s there?”
Griffin froze. The voice was impossibly deep, and no wonder—that man’s chest was huge. Griffin felt his mom pull away, and heard her deliberately cross the last few steps to meet the Marisians.
“Mom!” he whispered, reaching out to pull her back. But when his hands closed on air, he panicked. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t feel her.
Philip’s hand cupped the back of Griffin’s neck, steady and calm. “This is what she does best.”
The Marisian woman was every bit as tall as the man, her voice pitched only slightly higher. “Why can’t we see you?”
“We’ve come from another world, from Earth,” Katherine began. “Caligo’s magic worker gifted us the ability to shift our skin to hide from Somni’s soldiers, so we could meet with you.” When they didn’t respond, Katherine pleaded. “We need your help. Desperately.”
Griffin and his dad rose to their feet, tiptoeing the last few steps until they stood shoulder to shoulder with Katherine. The Marisians squinted, seeming to barely trace their outlines. Katherine extended her hands, and the woman, wary but willing, reached out to grasp her forearms.
No one spoke, and so the rolling waves and the moaning docks and the beseeching song of the sea filled the air. Griffin watched the faces of the strangers all around him. They looked every bit as scared as he was. And a few seemed just as curious, too.
“We need your help. Please,” Katherine urged. “We share the same enemy, and I’m convinced that we must join the magics of our worlds to defeat them. It’s the o
nly way.”
The man glanced warily toward the nearest guard tower. “Come with us.”
They stepped into the shadows beneath the thatched roof, and Griffin and his parents followed. They kneeled on patterned mats blanketing the ground in front of the cookfire. A few coals still burned, red and glaring against the shadows all around.
All around and above them, Marisians stepped out of the darkness. They were barefoot, their hair shorn close to the scalp so nothing could tangle in the water below. Their shoulders were broad, supporting impossibly barreled chests. Each one wore a necklace woven of clever knots and dangling shells. The weave tightened as it stretched over the torso and down to the tops of the knees.
Griffin tilted his head back to look into their faces. Though Somnites were pale, and Vineans had those bright green veins, the people from those worlds still looked human. Not the Marisians. They seemed ill at ease on their feet, like seals or penguins far more comfortable beneath the water. Their skin was a deep bronze, and it was tough, even the children’s roughened by the sun and salt water.
The woman placed a hand over the shell-and-bone necklace that cut across her collarbone. “I am Seiche, and this is Guyot.”
She placed five cups on the mat and dropped a pinch of green into each while Katherine introduced her husband and son. Guyot lifted a kettle off the coals and poured a stream of water over the herbs. Steam rose into the space between the people from Earth and those from Maris. Griffin shivered despite the warm night air.
A frown crossed Seiche’s face. “It would be easier if we could see you.”
Griffin glanced around him. “How about blankets?” All eyes dropped to him, or at least to the space around his head. “I mean, you’ve got blankets in your hammocks. If we pulled them over our shoulders, you’d see our outline at least.”
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