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But she did not fall.

“Briar, let me.” Ethan was nearly horizontal as he pushed against the wind.

“It has to be her.” The Iron Witch tried to sit up, but could not.

“It’s hurting her.”

“What did you expect?” spat the Iron Witch. “Curses don’t die easy.”

“Neither do Foxgloves,” Briar forced out even as the wind tried to steal her breath and the petals tried to choke her and her blood dripped on the cold stones.

The roses had reached the tower, and now they were at the windows, snaking through the arched doorway. Seeking, claiming, strangling. Another witch globe popped, showering them with glass dust. A lantern toppled, candlelight extinguished.

Briar tried to ignore it all. There was only the amulet in her hand, the fire in the center of the tower, sparks glowing with the power of the Iron Witches. The taste of salt and fennel seeds and blood. The drag of her shoes on the stones as she fought for purchase.

The bite of vines snapping around her, quick as a snakebite.

Briar did fall that time, taken off balance and unable to steady herself. Her wrist and shoulder took the brunt, and her hip. The force of it jarred into her teeth. Thorns bound her ankles, biting. Merciless. She had no magic to fight them.

Ethan hacked at the roses with an iron dagger to get to her, and covered her with his body to shield her. He pressed over her, grim-faced and determined. She squinted into the petal-choked wind. The fire flared. She was close enough.

Maybe.

The sea churned out of sight, a constant thundering. The iron collar was made of ice and thorns. More blood dripped down her collarbones.

Gasping with pain, Briar tossed the amulet at the fire.

The wind roared and caught it.

Her eyelids felt too heavy even as desperation and frustration coursed through her. Her fingers shook. She coughed on a rose petal. The curse had come for her.

And then the wind changed.

Just a little.

Just enough.

Because Ethan had also come for her. As he lay over her, bearing the brunt of the attack, he continued to pull water into the tower until he filled the air with rain, sending every drop like bolts. Weighing down the wind, tearing through the roses. The sea lapped at the doorway.

The wind stuttered.

The amulet fell into the fire.

It rolled down a rowan log, perilously close to rolling clear out of the embers. The ashes turned silver. Briar could not breathe, not until the amulet teetered, but was eventually swallowed by the flames. The pearls melted. It took longer for the moonstone to crack, but when it did, the vines around Briar’s ankles loosened.

Her eyelids did not weigh as much as a castle.

The rose petals froze in the air for a moment and then dropped, all at once, all of a sudden. The silence was nearly painful, swelling in the ears. Her heart beat too hard. She felt it inside every cut and pinprick.

She lowered her head with a thump, exhausted and exhilarated. Ethan’s breath was ragged on the back of her neck.

The rain receded. The moonlight did not find her inside the tower.

The roses became roses once more.

Briar rolled over onto her back and Ethan pressed up on his hands, still looming over her, soaked through, sleeve torn, jaw hard. His gaze roamed, cataloguing her wounds, narrowing over the collar. But before he could say anything, the Iron Witch rose to her feet. She sliced a cut over her witch knot and then slapped her palm to the wall, over the triple spiral of Lyonesse carved deep into one of the damp stones.

The shields, invisible but palpable all the same, lifted.