He stretched out his hands, then paused and looked at us. “Maybe I should wait until we’re up there? It’s going to be hard to climb and use my magic. Then again, if I wait, we run the risk of the shadows swarming us before I can allow some sun through.” He rubbed his chin. “Decisions, decisions.”
If only it were nighttime. I could use my star magic. Then again, I wasn’t sure shadows slept. My star magic might not be effective against them in the way it was against other elementals.
“Wait until we get to the top, then act fast,”I signed.
Leoni nodded. “She said?—”
Driscoll held up a hand and started climbing. “I got the gist.”
He wedged a boot into the wall and pulled himself up, and Leoni and I followed. The stone was rough under my palms, gritty—sharp. I winced, and for just a moment, doubt crept in. If I couldn’t even climb this wall without feeling pain, how was I going to handle the nettle weed? Leoni’s words had been rolling through my mind nonstop all day. I’d been so focused on getting here and getting the nettle weed, I hadn’t thought about how difficult the actual day-in and day-out task of knitting these sweaters would be. I couldn’t doubt myself now. Not after all I’d been through so far.
The future didn’t lie. I would find a way.
Rustling above caught my attention, and I glanced up as I climbed to see the shadows stirring. The palm trees shook, the shadows vibrating, their wispy forms wavering and flickering.
“Now, Driscoll,” Leoni whispered, but Driscoll was still climbing, his hands occupied.
His head whipped upward as the shadows descended upon us like a swarm of gnats. Leoni drew the sword hanging at herside, slashing at the shadows with one hand while holding to the rock with the other.
“Just throw your hand out and move the trees,” she shouted at Driscoll.
“I don’t have that kind of upper body strength,” he shouted back.
Spirits below. I tightened my hold on a jagged edge of stone with one hand while slipping the other inside my black boot and drawing out a dagger. The shadows darted at me, hands shooting out and attempting to grab me, take me from the wall. I swiped at them, and when my dagger went through their forms, they burst apart like shattered glass but quickly reformed. My arms shook, an ache forming in them as I jabbed at the shadows over and over again to keep them from taking me. If I let them have me, they’d deliver me straight to him, and then it would be all over. Leoni must’ve realized the same thing because she fought off the shadows with the same vigor while Driscoll climbed up the wall. A shadow grabbed him and yanked him backward.
Leoni cried out, and I stifled my own cry. We’d never get over this wall without Driscoll’s help, without the sun to scatter these shadows away. The shadow’s arms wrapped around Driscoll’s waist, flying him back into the jungle, into the safety of the shadows. Maybe they’d wait ’til night to deliver Driscoll or maybe they had a way of calling their master to them. Either way, this mission was already looking like it might be over.
“Your hands are free,” Leoni shouted as the shadows knocked away her sword and overtook her.
Driscoll looked down at his hands in shock, then back up at Leoni. “My hands are free,” he murmured. “My hands are free!”
“Yes, now use them!” The shadows clawed at Leoni, trying to pull her from the wall as well.
Their inky hands wrapped around my arms, cold searing me, shooting straight down to my bones.
Driscoll shoved out his hands and sunlight split through the dark. The shadows around us shrieked and hissed as the trees bent backward, allowing more sunlight through. The shadow gripping my arm let go. The sun sucked the cold from me, washing me with its warmth. All the shadows fled further under the canopy and into the depths of the jungle behind us. Leoni reached up and pulled herself to the top of the wall, and I climbed toward her. Driscoll let out a shriek, and I realized he hadn’t gotten so lucky. His captor was taking him with it.
“No,” Leoni yelled. “I don’t think so!” She stretched out a hand. “He might be annoying and conceited and talks way too much, but he’s also my best friend.”
Water formed in her palm. She launched it straight at the shadow. The water hit the shadow, and it let go of Driscoll, who fell to the ground, all while maintaining his magic and keeping the trees bent.
He scrambled out of the shadowy jungle and into the little slice of sunlight that shone over us, then looked up at Leoni with wide eyes.
“That was really sweet.”
She wrinkled her nose. “When I called you conceited and annoying?”
“What?” He shook his head. “No, when you said I was your best friend.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just get up here.”
He wiggled his fingers. “In case you didn’t remember, I’m kind of the only thing standing between you and those shadows back there in the jungle.”
I looked over his shoulder and saw the red eyes peeking out from the dark.
“Right.” Leoni laced her fingers together and stretched them out in front of her, then she flicked her wrist downward.
Water unfurled from her fingers, twining together to form a rope that dropped down and looped around Driscoll’s waist.
