She searched his face, and he gazed back at her, completely unremorseful. Garin opened his mouth to say something else cutting, but the carriage abruptly began to slow, causing Emrys to fall into Garin’s lap. The horses began to whinny and stomp.
Garin attempted to right the warlock, his head swiveling.
“Why have we stopped?” he called to the front.
Adelaide only hushed them, her hand on Giles’s mumbling mouth.
The forest had grown silent. No bird, no rustle of wind in the eaves could be heard. She expected to hear the bluejays, Kestrel’s most trusted scouts singing in the canopy, but she did not. All was still.
Garin yanked the curtain back to reveal an overcast sky quickly becoming obscured by a thick mist that began protruding from the trees. The glowing insect was nowhere in sight, but it seemed they’d emerged onto the path that ran south of Paimpont and the estate. The bug had just started to pivot them into a wide right turn.
There was a loud whistle, then the sharp cracking of wood. A searing pain—an actual heat—scorched Lilac’s knuckles, and she shrieked as the piece of bread was knocked from her hand and stuck in the plank to her right. She blinked, pressing her back against the seat. The blueberry rye had been skewered upon the shaft of a glowing red arrow.
A hole, rough and singed in its edges, smoked on the wall to her left. Warmth spread down her knuckles—a throbbing pain—and she pressed her hand into her dress as the pounding of heavy hooves neared. She startled when a tingling sensation rippled from the crown of her head, down her face and neck. The sensation was not slow crawling, like when her glamor had first materialized. This was quick, and jarring.
The beautiful dress she wore smoldered away in a violet border of flames that quickly engulfed her body, revealing her kirtle beneath.
“We found him!” came a female’s echoing voice from behind, muffled through the carriage walls—along with the clomping of several heavy hooved.
“Is the tracking spell still active?” Garin was also flat against the wall, eyeing her in alarm.
“No,” Adelaide shouted, frantically searching for something within her robes, then within her bag.
“Then onward, Giles!”
“Yes, sir. Which way?”
“Away from the arrows!” he roared as Lilac shrank away from the one stuck inches from her face.
“Back west it is.” The carriage sprang forward at Giles’s command, and without needing to change directions, he quickly got them up to what felt like a dangerous speed. “But what about the market?” Giles shouted.
“We won’t be able to find it if we’re dead.” Adelaide held on for dear life, looking like she was on the verge of trying to climb through the tiny partition. “Did none of you bring weapons? Really?”
Garin snarled in frustration. “None that are long range. What about your vials?”
“What do you think I could have picked up when I asked the carriage to stop at my house?”
Lilac was already elbow-deep in the bag Lorietta had provided. She pulled out the first hard thing she felt: a round, narrow-necked bottle that fit in the palm of her hand. It felt heavy, like there was liquid inside, except none had spilled out even in the jostling of the carriage. A piece of cloth hung out of its open mouth.
“What do we have here?” A wrinkled hand shot out. Emrys took it from her, fully awake now and leaning forward from Garin’s lap. “A light-and-toss.”
“A what?” they said in unison.
“A light-and-toss,” he said matter-of-factly.
“And what do we do, Emrys, with this light-and-toss?” Garin asked.
“I’m… not sure. I was never allowed to have one at the Academy. As far as I know, you light it.” The warlock held his index finger and thumb and pinched the corner of the cloth. It burst into a slow crawling flame that climbed the material. He handed it back to her. “And toss.” Pleased with himself, Emrys peeked out the window at their attacker and dropped the curtain again, his face suddenly pale, eyes bulging.
“I’d do it quickly if I were you,” Adelaide snapped, climbing onto her seat to get a better view. “Height helps with dis—” Her eyes widened as Lilac ducked under the arrow shaft, holding the smoking bottle and cloth away from her body. “Why did you light it?” she screeched, her black hair whipping around her head.
“It was Emrys!”
Whatever it was that didn’t register for anyone else clicked for Emrys almost immediately. He opened the door to their right and gripped Lilac firmly by the waist before hoisting her right out of her seat. Garin seemed so taken aback by the movement, he didn’t stop the warlock in time, and when he did move, she was already halfway out of the carriage.
Her stomach lurched, and she shrieked, cussing at the warlock as her hair whipped around her face. She held the flaming cloth as far from herself as possible and clung to the top of the door with her other arm. The flame had already burned a third of the way up the material.
“Let her go!” Garin shouted, and Lilac gasped as Emrys’s hold loosened for a moment, then gripped her tightly as he adjusted her so she was seated on his shoulder. Emrys was surprisingly strong for his age.
