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The Iron Witches scattered around them were bad enough.

Worse yet, one of them was still awake. Her eyes were open, furious, flaring green. Roses pinned her to the ground. She struggled, thorns scraping her skin. She tried to speak but her mouth filled with rose petals. Briar hurried to pull them loose.

When the Iron Witch also finally pointed, like her sisters, it was in another direction.

Behind Briar and Ethan.

It was the only warning they had.

The arrow cut through the petal-choked air, hitting its target with brutal efficiency.

Ethan.

He stumbled back, blood oozing down his arm. The stink of burning fennel joined the smell of flowers and salt. Not just an arrow. A spelled arrow. Loosed by a Keeper.

Oliver.

Ethan had already dragged Briar behind him, even as he gritted his teeth against the pain. He yanked the arrow out, more blood soaking into his torn sleeve. He grunted in pain, shoving salt and iron dust from his pocket into the wound. Briar did not know what magic was coursing through him, only that they were lucky he was not already dead. Keepers were not particularly careful with Iron Crows.

Nor particularly smart. Killing Ethan would have been smarter. Safer.

Terror made Briar’s throat dry. Oliver would realize that soon enough. Or Ambrose would—he was currently at Oliver’s side, holding Sorcha bound with rope on his horse. He held an iron dagger to her side.

“Don’t move, Briar Foxglove, or the baker and the Iron Crow die,” Oliver called.

That was why he had not killed Ethan outright. He made for better leverage. She was not heartened to realize that Oliver was not an idiot.

“Where the hell is Coventry?” Ethan said. “He ordered you to stand down.”

“I haven’t seen Lord Coventry. We were following a lead that Petal Foxglove was spotted. And then we saw the roses. You owe me, Crow.” There was a burn on the side of his neck, and his sleeve was charred.

“I owe you a slow and painful death.”

“I’m not the one with the poisoned arrow wound.”

“I’m only here to break the spell,” Briar said, as soothingly as she knew how. She called on the calming qualities of chamomile and lemon balm and vervain. She already knew it would not be enough.

“I won’t fall for your lies,” Oliver seethed. “I might not be able to find your sister, but I’ve got you now. And I’ll break the curse by breaking you. You won’t escape me again.”

“Kick him in the stones, Briar!” Sorcha shouted loudly enough that the horse beneath her and Ambrose shifted nervously.

“I have the only antidote for that poison currently infecting your Iron Crow,” Oliver said haughtily. He had donned some kind of armor over his charred shirt, as though he were a knight in a fairy story. He gleamed in Briar’s reflected moonlight.

She vastly preferred the dragon.

Dark green lines were already stabbing out from Ethan’s wound, riddled with baneful magic. There would be iron powder, for a Keeper’s poison. Salt. He had already used those. What else? She could not create her own cure in time; she did not have enough herbs on hand, no ashes of solstice bonfires or honey. No comfrey.

She had moonlight and roses.

Hopelessness clawed at her.

No.

She lifted her chin. “I am only here to break the spell, Oliver,” she said again, willing him to believe her. “Just let them go.”

He snorted. “A likely story. I’ll break the curse myself as soon as you’re in an iron collar.”

Briar swallowed. Petals thickened the air.