Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Stay here,” Weston says firmly to Sig and Jorn as he grabs my hand and starts walking through the trees, back in the direction we came. “We’ll be right back.”
“Cap, I’m not going anywhere,” Sig says. Her head is still tipped back as she smiles up at the glowing trees, unable to take her eyes off them.
The glow disappears behind us, and the darkness returns as we hurry through the forest. Neither of us speaks.
The weight of everything that is about to happen as well as the urgency to get where we are going is too much to focus on words.
My mind whirls. The exact thing we’ve been searching for, and everything we thought was taken from us, is within our grasp.
The reality of our restored futures settles in my stomach like a stone in a pond. I’d been learning to accept the way life would be here in the days since Dane disappeared, but now, in this moment, tonight, it could all change.
Again.
We make it to camp quickly and don’t hesitate for a breath before barging through the portal.
The night is dark, but it isn’t late enough that everyone would already be in the bunks, especially with no reason to wake up early to search for the healing waters.
When I see a large group still settled in the clearing, I feel a small twinge of relief, accompanied by even more anticipation.
“Mara!” I scan the clearing, trying to find her among the faces shadowed by their fire’s glow. A figure stands on the other side of the pit, and I see right away that it’s Mara, with a look of confusion etched on her face.
“Lennox? What’s wrong?”
I dart toward the fire, closing the distance before calling out, “We need the pouch. Now!”
Her eyes flick between us as she hastily approaches. “Why? What’s going on?”
“We’ll explain everything later,” Weston says, stepping beside me. “We need it. Now. Then you need to gather everyone and meet us at the ship.”
Eyes widening, as if she’s already guessed what has happened, her jaw falls open and her head snaps to me.
“You found it?”
“We found it,” I say, tears filling my eyes at the hope that shines back at me in hers.
Without another word, she sprints across the clearing to the ladder, flying up the rungs before charging through camp toward the bunks.
I can feel the anxious energy pouring off Weston as he watches her race through the walkway.
He’s trying to keep it contained and in control, but I know it is killing him to stand here and wait on someone else.
I wrap my arm around his and lace our fingers together, squeezing tightly. He squeezes back and doesn’t let go, doesn’t lighten up as we wait for Mara to return.
The Voyagers in the clearing have barely noticed we are here. Rylan raises an arm at us in a wave, as if seeing us walk into camp is completely normal. I wave back weakly before sneaking a glance at Weston, watching as the muscle in his jaw works.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound reassuring as my heart pounds in my chest from both the run here, and the longing to get back to that glowing patch of trees. “Everything will be alright. We found it. It’s not going anywhere.”
“What if it does?” he grumbles back. His eyes stay focused on the wooden pathway above us, waiting to see Mara start on her way back to us.
“You think it’s going to disappear?”
He tears his gaze away and looks down at me. “What if it does? We don’t know how long those flowers will bloom. Do we want to risk missing it?”
Pressure fills my chest as my fingers tingle. The dust disappearing wasn’t something I had considered in the moments since we found it, but Weston is right. I don’t want to take the chance that we’ll miss it and lose our hope once again.
We need to get the pouch and get back there as soon as possible. Mara needs to hurry.
She appears seconds later, sprinting until she hits the platform and kicks the latch so it falls to the ground. When she reaches us, she’s out of breath, panting heavily as she holds her hand out to Weston.
“Here,” she breathes. “Go get it.”
Weston grabs it with his free hand, and gestures to the Voyagers sitting in the clearing. “Get everyone back to the ship. Wait for us there. Tell Veck to gather everyone on deck. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
She nods rapidly, no longer questioning Weston’s authority in the slightest before she turns to me. “Lennox, is this real?”
“Yes, Mara. It’s very real.”
Her composure threatens to fall, but she holds it together before spinning back toward the Voyagers.
“Put the fire out! Everyone, get your stuff from your bunk and get to the ship!”
I don’t have time to see anyone’s reactions before Weston is pulling me back through the portal, and we’re running, racing against an uncertain amount of time and hoping that the island doesn’t take away the hope it just gave us.
I breathe a sigh of relief when the glow comes into view, and the tension in Weston’s hand loosens. It didn’t disappear. Our chance isn’t gone.
We can all get home.
This is real.
“Did you get it?” Sig yells when she sees us approaching.
“Yes,” Weston grunts, coming to a stop in front of them. “Any idea how to get it?”
“I tried to climb,” Jorn says. “But the bark is so slick and the trunks are too wide, I couldn’t get a grip. I thought you could hoist me up, but there are no holds low enough.”
Weston scrubs a hand over his mouth as he looks up at the trees, still glowing brightly above us.
“It wouldn’t finally appear just to keep it from us, would it?” Sig asks.
“I hope not,” Weston says.
We can’t have gotten this far, been this close to having a way home, and can’t collect it. There has got to be something we are missing, something that we need to do to make it more accessible.
Unless this is just another way the island is protecting the magic.
The thought makes my stomach sink.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I say, as my mind tumbles over everything we know from all the searching and through all our theories.
“Jorn can climb anything, but can’t get up there.
” I turn to Sig. “You said the Guardian was a kind old man, the one who brought you here. How could the island expect him to get the dust all the way up there if none of us can?”
Sig starts to answer, but stops, her mouth closing slowly as she tries to think it through.
“We’re missing something,” Weston mumbles, and continues to look around.
He raises his hand, his gaze lowering to the pouch he has clenched in it, before looking back at the grove.
Taking slow steps toward the nearest glowing tree, he holds the pouch out toward the trunk, placing his hand on the bark.
Splitting and crunching and cracking meet my ears, and a stunned gasp tears from my throat. The tree comes to life. The bark ripples, and Weston startles back as chunks of the wood burst from the trunk, creating…steps.
My jaw falls open as a staircase forms before our eyes, winding around the trunk and weaving through the branches above.
Weston doesn’t hesitate. He dashes up the steps, and I crane my neck to watch as he reaches the first glowing branch.
Steadying himself on the trunk, he reaches out and plucks the nearest glowing bloom.
The light illuminates his face as he looks inside the petals, and immediately wrestles the pouch open with his other hand, turning the flower over in the opening.
The glimmering petals fade before our eyes, the only glow present now deep inside the pouch, the same as when Dane opened it to bring me to the fountain.
“Holy shit,” Sig breathes next to me, and Jorn lets out a loud crow.
The cheer snaps Weston out of the trance he was in, staring down into the pouch that is begging to be filled.
It’s as if a fire is lit inside him. He reaches for the next flower, dumping the contents into the opening, and repeats his steps until there isn’t a single flower left on the branch and he can move on to the next one.
He works quickly, following the winding steps up to the very top until it is no longer glowing and gallops down the steps to move to the next one.
“Here, give it. I want to help,” Jorn says, extending his hand toward Weston.
He hands Jorn the pouch without hesitation, and Jorn approaches the next tree. Steps appear just as they had with Weston, and Jorn runs, crowing again as he reaches the first branch.
Tears prick at my eyes just as I feel Weston press firmly into my back. His arms wrap around my shoulders, crossing over my chest as he squeezes me into him, the rough stubble on his cheek settling into my hair.
“How was it this simple?” he murmurs, and I can hear the awe and disbelief. “How did we never see it before?”
I stand in silence for a moment, watching Jorn scamper up the steps to the next branch and start plucking flowers.
Sig stands below the tree, hands on her hips and her neck craned to watch him, no doubt making sure he doesn’t do something stupid or risky in the excitement. I wouldn’t put it past Jorn.
“Maybe it wasn’t simple,” I say hesitantly. “Maybe we never saw it because it wasn’t ever there before, at least not until the other night. We were too busy trying to figure out how to deal with Dane’s betrayal and with telling the Voyagers that we didn’t notice.”
“What are you thinking?”
I reach up and wrap my hands around his forearms. What am I thinking? Weston was right, this feels too easy. But what if it wasn’t meant to be difficult? What if it wasn’t that we didn’t notice or weren’t worthy? What if what happened just was the way it was supposed to be?
“I’m thinking that maybe…maybe we couldn’t get it, no matter how hard we looked or how much we begged the island, because the trees didn’t bloom until the dust was gone.”
He stays quiet, but I can feel him considering what I’m saying.
“Besides the Guardian abandoning the island, the only other thing that changed was that the dust is completely gone. That’s never happened before, not since you and Dane have been here, so there was no reason for the trees to bloom.
That’s why no one ever saw it, and Dane didn’t know how to replenish it, because the Guardian didn’t tell him.
But somehow Edmond knew. How did he know? ”
“I don’t know,” he mutters, his head shaking slightly where he rests it against mine. “The good news is, we’ll finally be able to ask him.” His arms squeeze me even tighter, and he plants a firm kiss on the top of my head before his chest rumbles against my back. “Because we’re going home.”