“Fast as you can,” she whispered, prodding them forward. “We have to get to the green so it can protect us.”
Their first steps faltered, but they made their way down the spiraling stairs and halfway out of the fort before the soldiers on patrol spotted them. This time, Fi didn’t even need to ask—the trees dropped their leaves, swirling around the soldiers, blinding them.
“Run!” Fi shouted.
They couldn’t actually move at anything close to a run, but the green covered their passage until they reached the shoulder-high ferns beneath a stand of ash trees. The wildlands swallowed them, hiding their passage until they’d left the soldiers far behind. When Fi was certain the soldiers had lost their trail, she closed her eyes and let the green lead them to the outpost. It sheltered the travelers, easing their path forward, leaving pools of water and clusters of berries and root vegetables along the way.
Fi put her shoulders back, trying to silence the doubts that hounded her with every step. The umpteenth time she peered over her shoulder to check on Aunt Gee and Aunt Nan, the women shooed her away. “We’re fine. We survived the raze crews. We’re strong enough for this.”
They pressed on, all of them, showing no sign of stopping, though their progress was painfully slow. After two days of travel overland, they arrived at the battle site. The outpost was abandoned, the resistance gone deep into hiding.
Fi cast around her, at a loss for how to begin. Twenty-three people, counting her. That was all they had against Somni’s army. Had she only brought them here to die? Was she only prolonging the end of Vinea? Was it all for nothing?
No.
If Aunt Ada were here, she’d say that she believed in Fi. If Liv were here, she’d clap Fi on the back and tell her to do what needed doing, and well. If Griffin were here, he’d take her hand and walk with her, even if he didn’t have the first clue what to do. Suddenly Fi didn’t feel so alone, so much like she was setting out on a fool’s errand.
She led the raze crews up the low rise to the copse of trees where they could see the soldiers guarding the camp in the distance. “The priests are there,” she explained, “and the kidnapped Vinean children too.”
“We’re ready,” Aunt Nan said.
Fi cleared her throat. “I can cover you—but you’ll have to trust me. Stay close together. And keep walking forward, no matter what.”
She didn’t have to say it—she didn’t need to ask for their trust. She already had it. The people who followed her had resigned themselves to never being freed, never coming home, never being able to fight against those who imprisoned them. She’d already done so much for them. They trusted her because she’d earned it.
Fi gathered the folds of her tunic into her fists and closed her eyes. The green leaped into her vision, stronger than it ever had—the lifeblood of the trees above, the ferns blanketing the ground, and the dense thicket like a rear guard at their flank. The green was so vivid she staggered back, and a dozen hands were there to catch her. With her eyes closed, she could see the soldiers, and the priests, and their prisoners within the walls of the camp.
When she was a little girl in hiding, Aunt Ada had told Fi about the marvel of living architecture—how the greenwitches had called up chapels and schools and bridges to span untouched swaths of the wildlands, and how the green had collapsed those bridges the moment the invaders had stepped onto them. All through her exile, Fi had lain in bed at night, trying to imagine wonders she thought she’d never witness.
Fi never dreamed she’d be the one to call something like that into being.
Shield us?
She stumbled, bracing herself against Aunt Nan as the green thundered into her, through her. The wildlands responded with an audible whoosh. She could feel the will of the green life all around her, and of the Vineans who came with her, lending her what strength they had. Sticks flew through the air, and logs thicker than her wingspan. Vines lashed it all together until a floating wall preceded the raze crews as they marched down the hill, toward those who had chained them for decades, who stood between them and freedom.
The soldiers’ attack was ruthless. They gave no thought for their own safety, or for the violence in their hands—the priests had taken all their own thoughts from them. Against a human defense, the soldiers would have been unstoppable. But the green wall shifted and swelled to meet everything they threw at Fi and her companions. Fi had called the shield into being, but it had taken on a life of its own. Having finally been given a shape to fight Vinea’s invaders, the green seized its chance to attack. The raze crews didn’t need weapons, they didn’t need a war cry; they simply walked with Fi up to the camp gates.
Fi didn’t ask the gates to open. She didn’t need to. Her will and the will of the green were the same. The wooden pikes surrounding the camp called on a trace of green at their cores and splintered until sawdust was all that remained of the priests’ barricade. They had built their fortress from the very thing that would destroy them.
The raze crews swarmed the fort, their whispers filling Fi’s mind. The seeds beneath the soil became their weapons, and they called up life from the ground beneath their feet. Tendrils snaked out of the ground, hunting down the priests in their red robes. They screamed, shouting commands, but their brainwashed soldiers could not protect them from this. The green poured out of the ground seed by seed until it covered the priests’ mouths, closing off their throats and wringing the life from their bodies.
As the priests were snuffed out one by one, their hold on the soldiers snapped. The soldiers dropped their weapons, stumbling away and falling to the ground in horror at what they had been made to do. The green drained out of Fi, leaving her mind empty and every inch of her throbbing with spent power.
* * *
Days later, Fi was still too tired even to raise her head to look around the chapel where the resistance had gathered to see to their wounded and to care for the frightened children. Her aunts Ada, Gee, and Nan surrounded her. They swept the hair from her brow, lifted water to her lips to drink, and held her hand while she fell again into a deep sleep, not because of what she was or what she could do, but because she was their Fionna, and they loved her no matter what.
29
GRIFFIN
THE GROUND BENEATH Griffin rocked gently. The ocean’s song rolled past with the waves, keening softly in time with his throbbing heart. Griffin opened his eyes in a squint. The sun was high overhead. He could feel the pale skin of his face burning. His right cheek was swollen and aching, his lips cracked, the metallic tang of blood seeping into his mouth. Griffin swallowed. There, under his tongue, was something hard. A round, smooth something sticking stubbornly to his gums. The song.
Griffin’s arms were strung up over his head, lashed to one of the pillars lifting the docks high above the water. His feet were bound too, his anklebones mashed painfully together. Griffin’s chin dropped to his chest. He’d never felt so alone.
He’d been so close—seconds from escaping through the portal. At least his parents were together—and safe—for now. His eyes burned, and every inch of him ached. Footsteps pounded along the dock and Griffin bit down on his tongue, blinking back tears. He wouldn’t cry in front of them. He would not.
The swaying red robes of a Somni priest wavered into view. Griffin turned his face away. A soldier grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up, but Griffin stared stubbornly at the button on the priest’s collar, refusing to meet his eyes.
“You,” the priest snarled. “We heard all about what you did on Somni.”
Griffin sucked at his cheeks. He wouldn’t say a word. He wouldn’t help them, no matter what.
“Oh yes,” the priest continued. “And I know all about your parents. I imagine they’ll be coming back for you. When they do, we’ll be ready.”
Not one word. The priest was only trying to bait Griffin, and he wouldn’t give in. He wouldn’t.
“Isn’t it wonderful how useful you are to us? First you open the way back to Ear
th. We might have been defeated without Earth’s soldiers to add to our army. Your people have such a skill for violence—once you snip away the inconvenience of independent thought, that is.”
Griffin bared his teeth like a trapped animal. “No one would ever do a thing you said if they had a choice.”
“Ah, well, you will.”
“You’re wrong!”
“Oh, no. You will be the one to return your parents to us. What useful trophies Philip and Katherine Fenn made. Of course, we know all about your father’s skills. He’ll do as we ask this time, and no world will shut us out again.”
“He won’t help you. No matter what you say,” Griffin shot back. If there was ever a time to hide how scared he was, it was now.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. We lacked the proper inducements before. But your father will do whatever we ask now that we have you. Such a weakness, sentimentality.”
Griffin squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t like Fi. He couldn’t hide how he felt, not even to save his own life. The priest was right. His parents would come back for him—they were probably already scrambling to get back to Maris. And they’d do anything to keep him from suffering. Anything.
Beneath the docks, the ocean’s song shifted, no longer grieving. It modulated into bright, angry notes that whipped the waves into a frenzy. Once again, the planks beneath Griffin rattled with pounding footsteps. Uncertainty crested over the priest’s face, and the soldier gripping Griffin’s chin let go, whirling to face whoever approached. The priest turned too. But no one was coming for them.
Griffin craned his neck, peering between the soldier’s muscled legs. The Marisians lined the docks, all facing the same direction, toward the origin of the waves rolling past. Hope tore holes in the despair smothering Griffin. Maybe they could help him. Maybe they would get him out of this mess somehow.
The song rose to greet the Marisians, fierce and full. And they opened their mouths and sang back.
It wasn’t like any singing Griffin had ever heard—no one on Earth had lungs like that. They poured every ounce of life into their song. Rage from years of oppression. Reverence for the power of the sea. Grief for all that was stolen from them. And love—so much greater than fear or anger or sorrow. Love, lashing like a sea serpent from their mouths.
The Marisian song met the song of the sea. The troughs of the waves fell, and the crests shot up. The priest backed away. Soldiers grabbed for their weapons, as if they could slash apart the oncoming wave, which gained height and speed until it reared twice as high as the tallest soldier. The Marisians dove from the docks, slicing through the looming wave and into the safety of the water below.
“To the boats—quick!” the priest shouted.
But it was too late. The wave crashed, sweeping everything with it—the priests and their soldiers, the guard towers, the children’s toys, scattered fishing nets, and boats drying belly-up on the docks. Anything that wasn’t tied down was simply gone.
The water tore at Griffin, stripping away the sweat and the terror and all remnants of the priest’s threats. Griffin thrashed, trying to lift his head above water. The wave finally passed, dropping him onto the planks once again, somehow still alive. Griffin sputtered, coughing the water from his lungs and nose and sobbing in relief.
The water sluiced off him as the song of the sea calmed once again. The sun bore down overhead. Griffin’s shoulders strained against the cords that lashed his wrists to the pillar. All around him, the docks groaned, split and straining against the ropes that bound them together, near collapse. Capsized boats sank beneath the water, the bubbles that rose to the surface the only sign of the priest and the soldiers sunken with them.
Thumps sounded on the planks as one by one the people of Maris vaulted back onto the docks. Guyot and Seiche rushed to Griffin’s side and pried loose the knots at his wrists and ankles.
Griffin dropped his arms, shaking them out. His hands were swollen, purple gouges in his skin where the cords had held him. It was a good thing the knots had been so tight, though, or he’d have been swept away with the rest.
“Thank you.” Griffin coughed, sputtering and choking up water with his words.
“Breathe,” Seiche said. “We can explain later.”
Griffin felt like he’d drowned and been brought back to life. He dropped his head onto his knees, still gasping for each breath. The docks moaned, the ocean bubbling as the last guard tower toppled and sank, lost to the deep.
Guyot and Seiche knelt beside Griffin. He raised his head reluctantly, looking around at what little was left of the docks. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “But why now? If you could sing up the waves like that, why didn’t you destroy the Somnites when they first showed up?”
“Calling up the sea is not something to be taken lightly. The ocean is a raw, primal power.”
“Look.” Guyot pointed to the capsized boats, sinking as the waves carried them away from the docks. “Our boats have been destroyed. The docks are breaking apart. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to lash together a barge of sorts. The rays and the fishes will do what they can, but we can’t live like this.
“In calling up the sea to save you, we’ve tied our fate to yours. We won’t survive without the help of our sister worlds.”
Griffin accepted their offered hands, pulling himself to his feet. “I won’t let you down. I promise.”
30
GRIFFIN
WHEN GRIFFIN LANDED in the lantern room, a cry of joy escaped his lips. Somehow the impossible had actually come true. He was home. He ran his fingers along the brass fittings in the lens and wiped a trail of residue from the glass. This wasn’t just any lighthouse. He’d spent nearly every day over the past three years taking care of the place with his dad. It was theirs, as much as it belonged to anyone. His parents should be here already—maybe they’d heard the alarm sound in the cottage when he came through the portal and were on their way to meet him at this very moment.
A knot formed in Griffin’s throat. He turned to face the bank of windows and there it was: the cloud-covered sky, the restless gray ocean, and the impossible green of the dense forest climbing up the headland. The best of all the worlds, here, on Earth.
But something was different.
Griffin eased open the glass door and strode onto the gallery. The wind slapped his cheeks, carrying the smell of the little sail jellyfish that had washed up on the beach the night before. Gulls flapped and swerved in a sudden gust, squawking their indignation. Below, the water churned, pounding against the rocks. It was all so familiar, but the lighthouse felt smaller, the ocean tamer.
And then it struck him—it wasn’t the lighthouse that had changed, or the rugged coast. It was him. Griffin had traveled to strange and distant worlds. He’d survived so much more than he’d ever imagined possible.
He was different.
A commotion at the base of the tower drew his attention and Griffin leaned gingerly over the railing. Coasties in crisp uniforms spilled out of the oil houses, pointing to where he stood and sprinting for the guardroom door.
“Don’t move,” one bellowed, adjusting a pair of bright yellow earplugs and lifting a set of bulky headphones to cover them. It was exactly as Beatrix had said—they had nothing to protect them from the priests’ mind control except earplugs and some noise-canceling headphones.
Griffin reached under his tongue and dug out the pearl. Footsteps pounded up the spiral stairs. He didn’t have time to take the song down to the beach like he’d planned, lay it in the sea-soaked sand, and let the lapping waves gradually make their introduction. The coast guardsmen were going to reach the lantern room any second and they wouldn’t understand, not if they were expecting Somni priests coming through the portal. They definitely weren’t going to give Griffin a chance to explain.
He had to trust that Beatrix was ready—that she’d found a way to spread the song inland. All he needed was to get it into the water. He balanced the pearl in his pal
m for a moment, then he took a step back, lunged, and hurled it over the cliff. The pearl arced through the sky, swelling and wobbling as it fell. Griffin strained, listening for the plunk when it hit the waves. But next thing he knew, he was thrown facedown on the steel floor, his arms pinned tight behind his back, a knee jammed into his spine.
Griffin cringed when his bruised cheek hit the ground again. He should have been scared, or worried, at least. Instead, all he felt was relief. He’d done all he could. Their fight against Somni was finally finished. Laughter shook through him as he remembered the day not so long ago when Fi had knocked him flat just like this.
“Hey—this is no laughing matter,” shouted the Coastie pinning Griffin to the floor. “And this isn’t a costume party. You think this is some kind of prank?”
There were a dozen of them now, crammed into the lantern room and staring menacingly at Griffin.
Why were they yelling?
The first one lifted his knee and tossed Griffin onto his back. “Oh.” He paused. “I know that face.” He grabbed Griffin under the arms and hefted him onto his feet. “Look! It’s the kid from the photos in the cottage, the kid that went missing.” He yanked the headphones off the guy closest to him. “Hey, aren’t those his parents we’ve got at the station for questioning?”
A man with an impressive number of bars pinned to his lapel and a funny-looking hat on his head cut him off with a stern look. “What’s your name, son?”
“Griffin Fenn. I’m the Assistant Lighthouse Keeper here. Or, at least, I was.”
The guy in charge made a waffling motion with his hand and the guardsmen peeled off their ear protection. “You’ll need to come down to the station to answer some questions, I’m afraid.”
Griffin was about to begin explaining about the portal and the priests and all the rest when a sound floated in through the open gallery door, interrupting his thoughts. He started, like when you see your teacher at the hardware store in a ratty old pair of jeans—you’d recognize that face any day, but it’s still the strangest thing to see it somewhere you don’t expect.
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