Page 18 of Too Hexed to Handle

He eyes my towel again. ‘Get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs. Don’t think about climbing out of the window.’

I’m offended he thinks I would abandon him in such an undignified manner. I’m also, if I’m honest, a little bit flattered he cares enough to offer to do this, that my safety and survival has become important to him over the last two years.

And I wonder if whatever it is driving him to protect me would be enough to override his desire to kill me, if he works out what I am before I get my hands on the cure.

7

‘Are you ready yet?’ Astin adjusts his pack and throws me a glare.

Apparently, I’m dawdling. So far, he’s taken offence at my packing speed (is it my fault one of my boots had rolled under the bed?), my determination to write a list of explicit instructions for my parents (excuse me for wanting to make sure Basil doesn’t trick anyone into overfeeding him), and now I’ve committed the ultimate faux pas of hovering on the doorstep, key in hand.

There’s something final about locking up. Grandma died a few days after I became hexed, and inheriting this place felt like serendipity. I finally had somewhere to hide.

‘If we haven’t left in the next thirty seconds, I’m going without you,’ Astin warns.

I twist the key.

‘Ready,’ I say, perfectly casual. Like I’m not terrified of what being on the open road might make me do. Basil brays loudly in the distance. ‘We should say goodbye.’

‘We are not wasting time with the donkey.’ Astin starts walking. In the opposite direction.

‘He’ll be alone for hours.’ We got lucky and managed to stop a traveller, but he was not the speediest walker. Who knows when my letter will reach my parents? ‘We should at least tell him –’

‘Basil is a donkey. There’s no point talking to him at all.’

‘But he understands me!’

‘I’m glad someone does,’ he mutters, stomping down the path and unlatching the gate. My last safety net before the great unknown.

I trot after him, struggling to lift my bag over my shoulder. Astin may have had a point when he berated me for bringing a nice dress for the evening (in my defence, we don’t know what kind of event we’re attending. The Emerald King mentioned a gathering, which to me means a party).

‘How many wolves do you think Wolf Forest has?’ I ask as we enter the woods. The path is wide enough for a cart, but the main reason we’re leaving Basil behind is because he can’t outrun what we might meet in there.

I’m not sure if I can outrun a wolf. Astin’s comforting reaction when I mentioned this was to tell me that wolves can’t climb trees, forgetting to ask whether I could. Just because he spends all his time around shrubbery doesn’t mean the rest of us do.

‘Enough that we should walk faster,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘If we travel through the night, we should make it to Rerta by morning. It’ll give us time to scope out the ruins for traps.’

I’m less concerned about traps and more concerned about being in the woods at night. Wolves may not be the only thing within. What if a wild Souleater has made their home in a cave somewhere? Nobody caught the one who attacked us. Maybe they’re on their way to Shiverholde for a repeat performance, and we’ll bump into them along the path and –

I jump as a twig snaps beneath Astin’s foot.

Focus, Daisy. I look around, trying to find something nice about this place. Moisture hangs in the air like cobwebs spun from fresh water. Branches block our way, forcing Astin to swipe them aside. But along the ground, red and gold leaves litter the path like bonfire sparks. They’re beautiful.

‘The woods are pretty, aren’t they?’ I say.

A grunt. Some leaves get trampled on harder.

‘This might be my favourite time of year,’ I go on. ‘Everything erupting into colour for one brief moment in time.’

‘Until they shrivel up and die.’ The next branch he comes across is swept away with such force I fear it may snap. ‘This isn’t beauty, it’s a death rattle.’

Well. How lovely.

We descend into silence once more, travelling deeper into the woods as the day drags on. It’s hard to tell if the increased darkness is due to the hours passing, or the way the trees are clustered so tightly together that only thin slivers of light can pass through. Every attempt I make at coaxing Astin into conversation earns me a one-word answer or a comment that I would trip a lot less if I concentrated more.

‘Did you always want to be a gardener?’ I try again.

‘What?’ He punches another branch, which I take to mean no. Or possibly shut up, Daisy.