Chapter 29
Saffron
Saffron was never so glad to touch the earth.
Until it turned into a weapon too.
Birch trees shot up like spears. Branches scraped at them, knotting together to stop their escape. Saffron turned sideways, her pack catching. Twigs pulled savagely at her hair. The trees kept growing, faster and thicker, pressing into them until it was hard to breathe.
“Leaf mask,” Jane squeaked.
Saffron glared at her between yellow leaves. “I knew you were after the jacking mask.”
“Yes, being crushed by birch trees was my cunning plan,” Jane snapped between wheezes of breath. Her throat was bloody with scratches. “Put it on! This is the Spirit forest, isn’t it? Home of the Green Jacks? And numen responds to numen.”
She twisted, narrowly dodging a branch before it could poke her eye out. “I can’t reach it.”
Jane stretched, grunting with the effort. The trees were like swords slicing at them, like the bars of a cage. She contorted, just reaching Saffron’s pack. It was limp, too long denied a host. And it was in someone else’s hand. Saffron froze.
Jane gave it to her without a word.
Saffron lifted it to her face. Burrs and thistles snagged onto her hair. Her face tingled all the way up into her scalp. Green sparks exploded behind her eyelids, anise on her tongue. It wasn’t painful exactly, but it wasn’t pleasant either. She pulled the tobacco Oona had given her out of her pocket and dumped it on the ground. “Hello, please and thank you.” As a ritual it left something to be desired.
Still, the birch trees shrank into themselves. They left a narrow path, leading deeper into the forest. Saffron pushed the mask up over her hair, already feeling suffocated. She decided to ignore the fact that her hands were trembling.
The forest went on forever. She’d never seen so many different shades of green, even with all of the trees in Elysium City. It was just as crowded as the jostle of skyscrapers and bridges but it was a crowded silence. The air tasted different. But the leaves all looked the same. “Now what?
Jane squinted into the scrubby undergrowth. “That way.”
Saffron frowned. “Why?”
“Look at the grass there, and the way the ivy is growing mostly over your right shoulder.”
“So? It could be a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence. At least not at the Collegium.” Jane replied. “I’m trained to notice and interpret patterns and this is a pattern.”
“Fine,” Saffron grumbled. She didn’t know why she was arguing. She’d been scared to never reach the forest and now she found she was just as scared to enter it. She never dealt well with fear. It couldn’t be stabbed or sold in underground markets. What was it even good for?
Still, she couldn’t deny that she felt lighter, like pollen, but also more grounded and energized. As if she had roots that stretched down into the earth, feeding her whatever it was trees and plants fed on. Sunlight filtered through the branches, dappling everything it touched. A honeybee flew passed, drowsy and drunk with flower wine. Saffron stared at it.
Jane stopped a few feet ahead and looked over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“I’ve never seen a bee before,” Saffron replied, feeling reverent despite her very irreverent self. Maybe the leaf mask was already changing her. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought.
Jane cupped her left hand over her right fist and lifted them briefly to her forehead. “It’s how the bee-priestesses greet a honeybee.”
“Oh.” No leaf mask in the world was going to change her enough to have her genuflecting to a bee, no matter the strange peace she felt. She watched it hover over a yellow weed before flying away.
They followed whatever symbols Jane read in the shadows and the pollen and the flight of crows. Jane spotted the first mask, tied around the trunk of a maple tree, at eye level. The leaves were carved, gilded wood, and clay, pointing the way. “Another trap,” Saffron decided immediately, even as a thistle bent from her hair to touch a carved lily. The wooden mouth laughed at her.
More and more masks led them on, until it was as though a hundred eyes watched them. Some were delicate, others rough-hewn, more of a suggestion than a depiction. “It’s beautiful,” Jane said softly.
Right before someone dropped out of a tree and knocked her on her ass.
Saffron counted three men and two women, but there could be dozens more behind the branches. They carried bows on their backs and daggers on their belts. Saffron was both fiercely envious and fiercely pissed off.
“Get off of her!” She shoved the guy standing over Jane so hard he stumbled. She heard the sound of edged metal scraping out of scabbards as he grabbed the front of her shirt. Burrs scraped at his hand. He released her almost as quickly as he’d grabbed her, and the expression on his face was such a combination of shock and confusion it was nearly comical. But fast as a storm cloud, it went back to cocky poorly-restrained violence. That, at least, she understood.
The others lowered their weapons. Saffron reached down to help Jane to her feet. “Are you with the Greencoats?” Jane asked.
“Of course,” he smirked. “I’m their leader. Roarke. You need a better guard,” he jerked his head in Jane’s direction. “She’s weak.”
Jane didn’t say anything. It made Saffron as angry as the insult did. “She’s fine,” she snapped. Roarke swung out, knocking Jane back. Saffron hooked her leg around his ankle and tossed him into the air. “Leave her be.”
He flipped to his feet, showing off. “She’s meant to protect you, not you protect her.”
“She saved my life,” Saffron retorted. “Twice. So back the hell off.”
“Saffron, don’t bother,” Jane said quietly.
“And she’s an Oracle.” She never thought she’d see the day where she not only defended a girl from the Enclave, but she used a Collegium title to prove her point. The others threw curious glances at Jane and she flushed. Roarke kept his eyes on Saffron. She raised her eyebrows in challenge.
The side of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll take you to the camp and get you sorted out.”
“So you really are Greencoats?” Jane asked, falling into step with Saffron. She clearly didn’t know how to hold a grudge. Saffron would have to teach her.
Roarke turned his arm out. The left was clasped with a leather archer’s bracer, the right tattooed with a Green Jack tattoo. “I’m not sure that proves anything,” Saffron said drily.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I guess you’ll just have to brave.”
She bared her teeth. He laughed. Her legs and feet were tired from walking so much in combat boots. She was painfully aware of every sound. She tried to memorize the route they took but all the trees started to look the same. She couldn’t help but feel more caged than safeguarded as the others closed in, obviously in formation.
“This was definitely a bad idea.”
Green Jack Page 29