Chapter 23
Hours passed as they hiked through the dense forest, their talismans shielding them from the mist, rendering it little more than a dark haze—albeit a deadly, menacing haze that even the sunshine struggled to break through.
Soon enough, Viri almost forgot it was there, but that was because she was so distracted by the wonders of the Mistwood itself.
She’d grown up hearing stories of its strangeness—how the trees moved from place to place, some sprouting up from nothing, others vanishing into thin air.
She’d heard how the streams shifted, changing direction on a whim, with brooks becoming raging rivers or drying up into nothing.
Even the ground itself couldn’t be trusted, transforming underfoot, switching from solid dirt to slippery moss to knee-deep mud, sometimes all within the space of a few steps.
It was one thing for Viri to have heard the tales, but another entirely for her to witness it herself. She couldn’t help marveling at the wild magic of the wood, not even caring that it left her skin constantly prickling from all the ellixen saturating the air.
Then again, it wasn’t only ellixen that prickled her skin.
At one point, a thornbush materialized around her and Reeve, covering them in cuts and scratches as they carefully picked their way out of its brambles.
At another point, the soft earth transfigured into dagger-sharp scree that was impossible to traverse without falling, leaving Viri’s hands and knees scraped so raw that she had to use some of Wynter’s healing salve.
Farther on, branches appeared out of nowhere, smacking into them both; vines curled around their ankles, tripping them onto hard rocks; stinging nettle attached itself to their flesh, burning relentlessly.
The Mistwood was unforgiving, its magic as creative as it was cruel.
And yet, even with the pain it elicited, Viri remained awed by its power—and by its beauty, the colors bright despite being shrouded by mist, the water crystal clear, the air fresh and almost sweet.
It was like walking through a fairy tale, every step bringing a new visual enchantment.
Sometime around midafternoon, they reached a section of the forest that opened into a small clearing painted in wildflowers, with no mist in sight.
Viri had begun to notice that it came and went in waves, sometimes so concentrated that it was difficult to see through, and other times the air was clear of it entirely.
But even in those clearer patches, she never let down her guard, never moved too far from Reeve and the added protection of his ring, aware the mist could return at any moment.
“Let’s take a break,” Reeve said, gesturing to a fallen log at the side of the picturesque clearing. “A few minutes won’t make a difference.”
It could, Viri knew, thinking not just of Braedan but also of Jessalyn and the other missing kids.
But she was tired, her feet were hurting, and every part of her ached after having tripped and fallen too many times to count from the unexpected forest changes, so she was grateful for a short respite.
Part of her hoped a stream might appear so they could wash the mud and forest grunge off them, but it seemed as if the pretty clearing was content to remain as it was.
“I wish we’d thought to bring some food,” Viri said, sitting on the log and groaning in relief.
“We did,” Reeve said, dropping down beside her. He raised his arm, and from one blink to the next, there was a paper bag held between his fingers. He handed it over, and another blink later, there was a second bag that he kept for himself. “Jonas grabbed these when he got us breakfast. Eat up.”
Viri gaped from the bags to him and back again. “What—How—Where—”
“It’s called a magepocket,” Reeve said, understanding despite her lack of eloquence.
“Think of it as an intangible storage space. A place to keep things without having to physically carry them.” He pulled a seeded roll from his bag and took a bite, as if he hadn’t just blown her mind with his casual use of previously unheard-of magic.
Somewhat dazed, Viri unwrapped her own roll, finding it oozing with strawberry jam—an odd choice, but her rumbling stomach wasn’t picky—and followed his lead, the two of them eating in silence and drinking from the canteens that came with their meals.
The whole time, Viri fought to keep her mind calm, her worries about her brother and Jessalyn and the comets all pressing in on her, screaming for attention.
But she shoved them down, knowing no good would come of her succumbing to her fears.
Once they had finished eating—and in Viri’s case, licked the jam from her sticky fingers—Reeve made everything vanish back into the magepocket, before proceeding to pull more items out of it.
“I meant to give this to you earlier.” He handed over a familiar dagger—the one Viri had left skewered in the female reaper last night. “Ardin returned to the alley to deal with the bodies after he got the kids home. He figured you’d want it back.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever see it again,” Viri said in surprise as she slid the dagger into her boot, the other two already sheathed securely in her belt.
“He stopped by Jonas’s apartment while you and I were sleeping,” Reeve explained as he pulled more weapons from the magepocket: his black sword, which he strapped to his back, and a set of daggers that he fastened at his waist. “Jonas said Ardin wanted us to know that he, Sage, and Soren have picked up Jessalyn’s trail, and he’s hopeful they’ll find her and the kids from her group quickly—which should then help lead them to the others. ”
Relief slammed into Viri at the possibility of Soren finding his sister so soon, and maybe even the rest of the children. Her voice trembled with everything she felt as she said, “That’s great news.”
“He also apparently had some choice words about Soren,” Reeve added, humor threading his tone. “Jonas couldn’t tell if Ardin hates him or is half in love with him already.”
Viri’s lips curled upward. “Sor has a certain charm about him. Apparently not even reapers are immune.”
Reeve chuckled. “Poor Ardin.”
“What’s his story, anyway?” Viri asked, standing and brushing bark and dirt from her clothes.
“Sage and Jonas, too.” She might as well learn what she could about the reapers that she had somehow, for better or worse, found herself allied with.
“How well do you know them? What made them decide to siphon only from each other rather than kids?”
“Wynter told you about that?”
“She did,” Viri confirmed. “She also told me she likes all of you. Her judgment is clearly flawed, but if you’re right about her having never Imparted, then that’s the least of her worries.”
Reeve chuckled again and rose from the log, following Viri—and her map—through the wildflowers and back into the mist-covered trees.
“To answer properly, you’d need to know why they became reapers to begin with, and those aren’t my secrets to share.
What I can tell you is that they had certain regrets afterward, and those regrets were strong enough to lead them down a different path. ”
Viri eyed him as they splashed their way through a muddy brook that materialized in front of them. “Is that what made you stop siphoning? Regrets?”
“It’s different for me,” Reeve said, sidestepping her question.
“Siphoning once wasn’t enough to make me lust after ellixen the way they do.
They’ll never be able to stop needing it, their bodies too dependent on having a regular fix, even if they’ve disciplined themselves not to require it fresh from the source anymore. ”
“You mean, fresh from children.”
“Mostly, yes,” Reeve said, wading out of the water onto a bank of pebbles.
“Mostly?” Viri repeated.
“Reapers can siphon from adults—you know that.”
Viri shoved away the image of her dead parents. “It’s not a temptation, though, since adults don’t have enough ellixen to be worth their trouble.”
“Most adults,” Reeve corrected, ducking beneath a leafy branch that appeared out of nowhere.
“It’s rare, but there are others like Wynter and me, people older than fourteen who chanced burnout and never Imparted.
Most are shallows, not mages, but even shallows have more ellixen than those who have yielded to the obelisks.
And for the few of us with mage levels of power, we have considerably more ellixen than everyone else, including children, so we’re actually more appealing to steal from. A bigger meal, so to speak.”
Viri felt queasy at the thought of anyone siphoning from Wynter.
“We’re much harder to kill than kids,” Reeve went on, as if that were meant to be a comfort. “It takes longer to siphon all our ellixen, and we usually have some control over our magic, at least enough to fight back. Still, you asked about fresh sources, and we technically count.”
Viri shuddered, almost wishing she hadn’t asked.
She needed to think about something else, anything that would keep her from worrying about Wynter being targeted if her secret fell into the wrong hands, so she returned to their previous conversation.
“You didn’t answer my question before. Not properly. ”
“Which question?” Reeve asked as the ground shifted beneath them, turning into lush grass that grew higher than their heads.
Viri used her hands to push the stalks away. “The one about regrets.”
“What about them?”
Annoyed by his obvious avoidance, Viri grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt right there in the middle of the tall grass.
“You said your friends all have regrets about the choices they made in the past. What about you? Do you regret what you did years ago?” Leaving no room for confusion, she clarified, “The girl you killed, the one you siphoned from—do you regret it?”