"Go," I breathed. "Hold them back, save the others..."
"Power, power, power," Hawke told Wilder. "Just hit her with it, babe. She sucks that shit up."
"Sorry, Rain," Wilder said.
And then a chill raced down my skin. Unlike Aspen's magic, Wilder's was cold. Not horribly, but enough to make my skin prickle. It also made the shadows outside our bubble grow darker, thicker, and within seconds, they began to change.
What had previously been a tree or the shadow along a building turned into wolves, trolls, and an entire dragon. Every fairytale I'd ever read wasfilled with monsters, so I pushed those images out with my power, making my own equivalent of Jack's crow army.
"No one dies today," I breathed, and then shoved it all forward.
The shadows ran. The power drained out of me so quickly my knees buckled, but Hawke caught my shoulders. I was panting, and not just from the race we'd had to get this far. My entire body felt spent, yet I refused to look away, worried that dividing my attention would lessen my power.
But a little pop of air announced the reversal of my shadow. Where it had inverted into itself a moment before, this time it started as a single speck and unfurled. But from the center of its darkness, the thing held exactly what we needed.
My steel sword was in one hand, shoved out at me. Keir's neweltamblade was in the other, right beside Hawke's carbon fiber and bronze spear. It wasn't enough though, was it?
The thing only had one weapon for each of us. My brain registered that, wanting to demand it get the set I was used to working with, but I knew better. I should be grateful we had any weapons to fight with. But the shock of all of this made me hesitate a second too long.
Without needing to be asked, Wilder took Keir's sword and passed it over the guy's shoulder. "Peter Pan brought this," he explained.
"My..." Keir's back flinched. "Ok. Cool. How are the rest?"
"We're all armed," Hawke said, pushing the leather-wrapped hilt of my sword into my hand. "Rain, what do you need?"
I wrapped my fingers around the hilt - and paused. My pocket was glowing. The color was almost purple - that ultraviolet shade my stone liked - but now was not the time.
"I've got half a campus of shadows moving," I said. "They're looking for others."
"Then let us out, Keir," Hawke said. "Wilder, stay right fucking behind me, do you hear me?"
"On your ass," he agreed. "Normally your job, but I can switch things up."
Keir huffed out a laugh, glanced back to check on us, then pulled down his shield. "Rain, with me!"
He ran, and from the angle of it, Keir knew something I didn't. Sure enough, we passed a few more trees and came up behind Poppy and two boys cowering in the branches. All of them had green glowing hands.
"It's us, it's us," Keir said as he came up behind them. "Poppy, who all is out here?"
"I think they found Nevaeh!" she said. "I heard her scream!"
"Where?" I demanded.
Poppy just pointed. When I leaned around the tree, I saw a mass of writhing horses, hunters, and a few flashes of color that made me think students were in the middle of that.
"Shadow?" I asked, glancing down at my feet. "If you can get Ms. Rhodes and bring her back here, that would be pretty fucking cool."
It nodded and streaked off. Not ran. Not darted. The damned thing elongated in the blink of an eye, then launched like an arrow. Thankfully, it was aimed back towards the school, but it would still take far too long for help to get here.
"I think they have someone," I told Keir.
"I see Nevaeh," Wilder agreed. "Rain..."
"Oh, we're doing this," I said, securing my grip on my sword. "If you stay, keep these people safe. If you come..."
I didn't bother finishing the sentence, because the truth was, I had no clue what came next. All I could think about was the look in Aspen's eyes when the Huntsman had grabbed her by the hair. That sort of fear was the thing that haunted my nightmares. It was the kind I never wanted to see again, so I ran before I could chicken out.
My feet weren't the only ones that moved, though. I saw Keir to my right. Hawke was at my left. There were still more feet behind me, and more than just one set. Together, the group of us ran, charging at the Hunt, and I raised my voice in the kind of battle cry I thought an Amazon would be proud of.
