“Then it’s some walk she’s taking,” Tyson muttered.
“At least let Theo know what’s going on, and that we are looking for Rose, but she doesn’t have to rush back,” Beth said. Bryan nodded but didn’t meet her gaze. “Bryan. You can reach her, can’t you? You’re better at mind speaking than the rest of us.”
“Sure.” Bryan followed Tyson into the kitchens. Beth felt better about Theo at least knowing what was going on … the guilty feeling that she was somehow responsible for everything was making her sick, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. At least not that she knew.
Beth glanced back to see that Finn hadn’t followed them to the castle’s kitchen entrance. He stood halfway between the yard and the stables, holding Rose’s brush in one hand as he stared out at the forest beyond the field.
Beth had a sudden impulse, seeing him standing alone like that, to join him. She would curl her hand into the crook of his arm and lean against his shoulder. The feeling was sudden, but, oddly, not unfamiliar. Like it was something she always did, and had always done, even though they’d barely just met.
He turned back to look at her, his gaze so serious that Beth felt her stomach bottom out. She didn’t know what he felt when he held Rose’s brush, but something told her it wasn’t good. She suddenly didn’t want him to be alone with whatever he was feeling.
She let the kitchen door close behind her and stepped back out into the snow to stand with Finn. Ari would bring her something to eat.
“The sun is rising,” he murmured as she approached.
She nodded and stood close enough to touch him, but didn’t.
Finn turned back to stare out at the forest. Beth followed his gaze but saw nothing beyond trees and snow. “Things always get better when the sun rises,” she said in the hopes that she’d believe it herself, that she was just being overly dramatic, that she was just reading her own fear into his body language and the situation.
“Do they?”
She didn’t answer. She really didn’t know.
CHAPTER SIX
It felt as if they’d been walking for hours through the woods. As the elevation increased, the snow rose as deep as their knees. Last night’s soft flurry coated the crusty layer underneath that had been building up for a week or more. Each footfall took a moment to break through the harder layer, and that somehow made it extra exhausting. Everyone, except for Tyson, was freezing. He had the benefit of constantly rolling a small fireball in his hands, which, Beth assumed, he must at least feel the warmth of even though the fire didn’t burn him.
Large cedar and fir trees, their branches weighted in snow, grew on the edges of the trail, spreading out beyond for miles and miles. Without the undergrowth and extra greenery, the mountain felt even more formidable to Beth than it ever had before. The trail also wove around craggy rocks that sporadically jutted out from the mountainside. With the snow changing the look of everything so completely, Beth would have been lost without the others to follow, even though she’d walked this trail for many summers. She shuddered at the thought. These woods were no place to get lost, not with the rumors about the darkness that dwelled off the trail paths.
After stuffing a bunch of food in backpacks and making sure everyone was outfitted for a cold hike — with goose down-lined jackets, hand-knitted hats, scarves, and mittens — they had followed Finn into the woods. Beth had double checked to see that her dagger was still in her boot holster. She always carried it, but for some reason felt it necessary to check. Finn was still bothered by the fact that the trail continued to be inconsistent, and that he kept being drawn to different points along the way only to arrive there and find nothing except some trampled snow.
“There should be more tracks,” he would mutter each time they arrived at one of these points. And, indeed, the trampled sections of snow had no tracks leading to or from them.
The farther they moved from the safety of the castle, the more uncertain Beth became about not waiting for their parents to return, or at least answer Bryan’s message, the moment they’d determined that Rose wasn’t in the castle. But it’s not like they could just leave Rose wandering out in the snow … Beth tugged her black cashmere ribbed hat farther down over her ears, and trudged onward.
“Why does it feel like we’re being lured from the castle?” she asked, finally giving in to the doubt nagging her every step. The others stopped tromping through the snow and huddled around her. Ari took the opportunity to cup her hands around Tyson’s fireball, while they all caught their breath.
“It feels exactly like that,” Finn answered, completely frustrated.
“And we’re just falling for it,” Bryan added. “Maybe we shouldn’t have all come.” He kicked at the snow in frustration.
“You thought it better to keep us all together,” Beth reminded her brother. “It’s annoying that none of us are mind mages.” If there had been someone in the group who could telepathically link them all, they wouldn’t have to worry about being separated quite so much.
“Do you still feel her, Finn?” Bryan asked the tracker.
“Yep. Just up ahead like all the other times.”
“We’ve been walking for hours,” Tyson complained.
“Two hours, actually, by the rise of the sun,” Ari said.
“Does anyone know where we are?” Beth asked. “With all this snow, it’s hard to tell.”
“Baden Powell trail,” Bryan answered, though his mind was obviously elsewhere.
“I’m not stupid,” Beth snapped. “Are we near the lakes yet?”
“Should be, we’ve walked far enough,” Tyson answered.
“She wouldn’t have come all this way by herself,” Beth said for what seemed like the sixth time.
“Not without tracks,” Finn agreed.
“Fine, Beth!” Bryan exploded. “Do you have some other ingenious idea? Instead of just constantly pointing out the flaws in mine?”
They all stared at Bryan. Beth’s mouth actually hung open in surprise. Bryan was not known to be so temperamental. Even with Rose’s disappearance, this was an extreme reaction from him. He twisted away from their group, trying to pace, but the snow impeded him.
“I know we’re tired and cold, but she’s my sister!” Bryan continued his rant. “I can’t just wait around the castle for her to show up or for our parents to come home and discover I’ve lost her!”
“She’s all our sister, man,” Tyson said. This quiet remonstration cut through the cold air, and Bryan at least had the decency to look sorry.
“Theo could find her in a second. She always knows where any of us are. She’d probably be wondering why we’re wandering through the forest right now if you hadn’t told her ahead of time,” Beth said, as nonconfrontationally as she could.
“Theo, as you insist on calling her, is not omniscient!” Bryan sneered. “And she’s kind of dealing with a city in ruins right now, not that you’ve noticed. Hundreds of people could be injured, but if it isn’t about you Beth, it doesn’t even rank.”
Beth could feel the sting of tears at the edges of her eyes, and was thankful that the cold stopped them from falling. “I … I … thought it wasn’t that bad …” Bryan never spoke to her this way. Never spoke to any of them this way.
“Something’s wrong,” Ari murmured, and Bryan rounded on her.
“Oh, yeah? You just getting that?”
“No, man. Something’s wrong with you!” Tyson spat. “You’re attacking Beth for no reason. We’re all worried about Rose here. If it was up to you, you wouldn’t have even noticed she was missing until this morning.”
Beth caught sight of Calla moving behind Finn in her peripheral vision. When she turned to catch her eye, the young healer looked away guiltily.
“Calla?” she asked gently.
“I’m sorry,” Calla all but sobbed.
“Oh, Calla,” Finn said, and closed his eyes in frustrated disappointment. “This is so not the time.”
“I don’t want
to marry him, Finn,” Calla whispered fiercely as she gripped her brother’s shoulders. “You heard what he said in the hall. Plus, look how nasty he can be if you strip away all the charm, and I’m too young, and … and …”
“And … you can manipulate feelings?” Beth asked, even though she was already pretty sure of the answer. She should have known a Spirit Bound healer would be more than what she seemed. Every one of the Spirit Bound had extraordinary powers, all except her.
Calla nodded reluctantly.
“So, you decided this was the right time to make him seem like an ass? With his sister missing?” Finn said, stating the obvious more than asking a question.
“Well … I … thought if he —”
Rose screamed from somewhere far away. The sound reverberated through the trees so much that Beth had no concrete idea of where it had originally come from. In fact, for a moment she thought she might just be remembering the dream she’d had of Rose right before the earthquake.
Then Rose screamed again.
Finn took off. They all followed, but he ran so fast they could barely keep their eyes on him. It was easier to simply follow his tracks through the snow.
Just as Beth’s lungs felt like they were about to burst, the trees opened up to reveal a frozen lake. She wasn’t sure which it was — either West or Blue Gentian, where Theo often took them for summer picnics — but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Rose had seemingly fallen through the center of the iced-over lake and was clinging to the remnants of a wooden boat.
At a guess, Rose had attempted to cross the snow-covered ice toward shore. How the boat came to be frozen in the middle of the lake, and how Rose came to be in the boat, were questions Beth had no answer to, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Rose’s heavy clothing — she had obviously changed out of her bedclothes at some point — were soaked with water and weighing her down.
Finn stepped onto the ice, but it instantly cracked under his weight. Bryan tried to follow but heard the ice crack as well. He swore as Finn started digging around in the snow at the base of the trees that bordered the lake, perhaps looking for a fallen branch.
Rose twisted her head around at the sound of Bryan’s voice, and started wailing the moment she laid eyes on them. She had some sort of metal circlet around her forehead.
“It’s okay, Rose. We’re here now,” Beth called.
“No,” the girl sobbed. “No, no, no. It’s not safe.” Her hands slipped off the edge of the boat and she fell back into the water, then surfaced and struggled to grab hold again. Even from this distance, the skin of her hands and face looked tinged with blue.
“What are you all doing?” Finn yelled. “Help me.” He was still searching for and rejecting short bits of branches hidden in the snow. Bryan started digging around as well, but the rest of them ignored the tracker.
Tyson leaned down to the edge of the lake and faced his palms toward the ice, which instantly melted before him. He stepped into the water he’d freed along the shore. The lake continued to melt outwards in a large circle around him.
Ari stepped forward, still behind Tyson as he waded farther into the lake, but she walked on the water, rather than in.
When Tyson was up to his waist, Ari stepped past him and continued toward Rose, walking steadily along the path that her brother had melted. Bryan and Finn stopped scrambling in the snow to watch.
From the corner of her eye, Beth could see that the water actually rose up as if to cushion each of Ari’s footfalls, but she was focused only on Rose, clinging to the boat with one hand now. She had gone awfully quiet, her head slack and rolled over on her left shoulder, but her bright eyes never left Ari’s face.
Beth didn’t like the look of the metal circlet around Rose’s forehead. The skin around it looked reddened and puffy. She wondered why Rose didn’t pull it off. Maybe she couldn’t?
Ari reached for Rose, who was no longer sobbing as her sister neared. Rose wrapped her free arm around Ari’s neck, and Ari lifted the girl out of the water and placed her into the boat. Now freed from the ice, the boat rocked with Rose’s weight but didn’t tip. Ari cooed to her sister as she carefully disengaged the frightened girl’s arms from her neck. Rose settled back into the boat, warily glancing around with wide eyes.
Ari bent forward to grab the stern of the boat, and, still walking on the water, began to push it toward the shore.
Then Ari disappeared.
She didn’t fall into the lake. She didn’t scream. The air simply blurred for a second around the edge of the boat, which briefly dipped as if some added weight had dropped into it. Then Ari stumbled sideways as if pushed, and disappeared.
Beth could only stare in stunned silence. Tyson shouted, then dove into the lake to swim for the boat. Rose shrieked, but the sound of her scream was abruptly cut off.
Rose had also disappeared.
Tyson paddled around in the middle of the lake, now unsure of where to go. He dove as if searching underwater, then frantically surfaced to look around him. “Ari!” he screamed, but the lake was empty except for the old wooden boat. “Ari!”
“Tyson,” Beth yelled, “get back here now!” She tried to fling herself into the lake even though she wasn’t a strong swimmer, but Bryan held her back. “Tyson, stay away from the boat! Tyson!”
Tyson ignored her, as if he couldn’t even hear her through his panic. Beth twisted in Bryan’s arms, trying to get away from her brother, who could only stare blankly. “Bryan, he’s got to swim back!”
The air blurred around the boat again. Beth screamed.
“Tyson!” Bryan’s voice boomed across the lake. “Come to me.”
Beth fell to her knees as the wave of Bryan’s compulsion hit her from behind. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, she dimly realized that she was clinging to Bryan’s legs. This was her brother’s secondary gift, the one he rarely used. The one with all the moral implications and ramifications. The one that leaked out of him, made him impossible not to like … made him question the truth of every relationship in his life.
Tyson’s head jerked to look at Bryan, twisting so hard it must have wrenched his neck muscles. Then he started swimming vigorously to shore.
Bryan’s hold on Beth eased only a few seconds after it hit. She noticed that Finn stood, sword drawn, at the edge of the lake. He didn’t seem affected by Bryan’s compulsion. It must be nice to have a warrior’s shields, she thought.
Her heart in her throat, she waited for Tyson to disappear as he swum back to them, but he didn’t. His feet touched ground, and he waded out of the lake, collapsing at Bryan’s feet. Beth tried to hold him but he shoved her roughly away, hunched over as if trying not to cry.
“Now we go get our parents,” Bryan spoke through clenched teeth.
Finn nodded, holding out his hand to Beth to help her to her feet. She wasn’t completely sure she was up for walking, but her legs held when she stood. She tried to think of nothing but this moment — focusing on the warmth of Finn’s hand — rather than dissolve in fear over her sisters’ disappearance.
Finn released her, and he and Bryan hauled Tyson to his feet.
“We’ll find her, Tyson,” Bryan vowed. “Someone is playing games with us, but no one plays games with the Spirit Binder.”
Theo. Yes, Theo could fix this all. “You’ll call her, Bryan? Tell Theo to come now?”
“Yes, Beth. I will try again.”
“What do you mean, try again? You reached her before, didn’t you? You said —”
“Enough, Beth, we need to keep moving. Finn, you still tracking Rose?”
“Yes, she’s back at the castle, or in that direction, as best as I can tell,” Finn replied, but kept himself slightly turned away as if not wanting to get between her and Bryan.
“You didn’t try to call.” Beth felt like her heart was in her stomach. Theo didn’t know anything was wrong. Bryan had lied.
“I didn’t try to reach her before,” Bryan answered her through clen
ched teeth. “And I can’t reach her now. I made a judgment call and I screwed up. If it was so important to you, you should have called Mom yourself.”
Bryan spun stiffly away from her, then he crossed to their snow-beaten path back to the castle, just expecting them to follow. She could feel Finn watching her. Tyson also waited. She fell into step behind Bryan. She had no idea what else to do …
Then she noticed that Calla was missing.
“Where’s Calla?” she asked, fighting to keep the edge of panic out of her voice.
“She headed back to the castle before we found Rose,” Finn answered without slowing his pace. “And, yes, before you say anything, she heard a child screaming and chose to head in the opposite direction. She’s perfectly fine.”
Bryan’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t speak. In fact he might have quickened his step.
As he led them, Bryan kept a hand on his sword and continually scanned the woods for danger. Though Beth was unsure what he could actually do with the weapon if he drew. She followed behind him, Finn keeping pace with her. Tyson was soaking wet, lumbering along behind them and grimly staring at the path. She kept glancing over her shoulder to check that he was still there.
Beth couldn’t imagine what terror Tyson was going through in his head. He and Ari had never been separated, not even for a few hours, not since they’d found each other when there was no one else to care for them. They had wandered alone for weeks except for each other, and when they’d found Hugh in the woods, they’d been clutching each other’s hands like they’d never let go. Hugh had brought them home to Theo, and they never had found any birth family for either of them. Ari’s memory was so badly wiped that Theo worried that the girl wouldn’t remember how to speak. And, Tyson … well, best they could figure out, Tyson’s entire family had been consumed in a fire. That was why he was so afraid to be without Ari for more than a couple of hours.
“Tyson.” Beth spoke sharply so he’d hear her through his fear. “You have to dry your clothes. We need you to function. Ari needs you to function.”
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