Page 39

My own fingers try to pry her own, but they’re so bony, so tight.

Rosie’s grabbing at her arms, and I kick out, but the sludge is so thick here, I can’t get any friction. Black presses in at the sides of my vision.

The hag’s face gets even closer. A smile breaks across her face. “Yummers! Yummers! Yum⁠—”

Spittle showers my face. The hag’s fingers loosen, and blood spills over the sludge.

The hag tips forward, revealing an arrow in her back. An arrow with white feathers covered in a familiar red dust.

Then, before I can look up, Rosalina is whipped into the sky.

“Rosie!” I scream before arms band around my shoulders and yank me up too. The sound dies on my lips as I’m thrown over the soft back…of a pegasus.

Blinking black water out of my eyes, I gaze up to see the unfamiliar face of a Huntress of Aura. She looks down at me with repulsion.

“Rosie?” I ask, then pull my leg over the winged horse and sit up. White, black, and brown feathers flood my vision as we join an entire flock of winged horses and their riders. A laugh bubbles out of my throat. “You came! You came!”

Harpies shriek. Down below, the riverbank is assaulted by arrows from the best archers in the whole damned Vale.

Wind throws back my hair as another horse and rider swoop in close. I gaze at her, sitting as fine as any queen, with her arms banded around Rosalina.

My not-so-little sister Delphia, dressed in the riding leathers of a huntress.

“Hey, Day,” she calls, then wrinkles her nose. “You fucking stink.”

11

Rosalina

The comforting rhythm of the pegasus’s wings soothes my frayed nerves. I smooth my hands down its neck and close my eyes, letting the gentle movement of its body calm me.

Delphia squeezes my waist tighter. “You doing okay?”

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

Delphia’s steed—Drusilla, if I remember correctly—leads the flock away from the river. The rushing wind causes some of the sludge to drip off me, and I feel a little bad for Delphie, who must be getting a faceful of my gross hair.

“Hold on. We’re chasing some cloud coverage. It’ll be smoother after that,” Delphie says.

I cast one last look down. The Briar. Once, it was called the Queen’s Realm. Now, what do they call it? The Badlands? The Wastes? It’s nothing but cracked earth and dead briars.

It’s a welcome relief when we finally catch a dark patch of cloud and slip within it. I don’t have to bear witness to what’s become of my home.

The Huntresses rescued the others too; each one has been swept up onto the back of a pegasus. I can only imagine what Wrenley thinks. For some reason, I have a feeling she’ll love it. Not that she’d ever admit that.

“Glad we were close by,” Delphie says, her voice cutting through the wind. “Trust my brother to find trouble the moment he arrives.”

I look over my shoulder to see her flashing a grin that has Dayton all over it. Despite her smile, she appears so much older in the months I’ve been gone. I know that’s impossible. Fae age so slowly, there’s not anything different in her features. It’s her eyes then. And her outfit. She’s fully embraced her place as one of the Huntresses of Aura. She wears a white tunic, sleeveless and cut to a skirt over shorts, with metal bracers on her wrists and sandals that strap up to her knees. A thin red headband rests above her brow. Her black hair sits in two thick braids over both shoulders, and a quiver and bow are strapped to her back.

New scars I don’t recognize crisscross her bare arms, creating constellations across her brown skin. How many battles has she seen since we’ve been gone?

“Del,” I whisper.

She notices my gaze and shrugs. “Every one has been worth it.”

My throat tightens, and I turn back around.

“Justus told us what happened at Castletree months ago,” she says. “And how the underfae set you free. I’m sorry about your father.”