“We still have the spell,” said Alan. “We can get back into Maremount when we need to.”
Oswald grinned for the first time in a long time. “We fight the Throcknells here, in Dogtown. The King won’t have an army left to thwart us when we rebound home. I do relish the idea of loosing a pack of wild wolves through the fortress.”
“Estelle can’t be Queen of Maremount, if that’s what you’re thinking,” snapped Celia.
They walked deeper into the woods, shaded by oak leaves. Moss and lichens grew over flat boulders. It should have been beautiful, but Tobias felt numb. He really was a fat-headed lubberwort. Better to have let himself die than submit himself to the flames.
Oswald paused as they approached a clearing. “This will do us. We start by initiating Thomas.”
Just as Celia began unpacking the candles and incense from her bag, something rustled in a shrub. She jumped, and Tobias felt Emerazel’s power surge in his veins, ready for battle. Flames sparked from his fingertips.
Twigs snapped, and a blue-eyed woman in a red cloak pushed her way out of a mulberry bush.
“Who are you?” Tobias demanded, eyeing her warily. His body hummed with nervous energy, burning from the inside out. At around five foot two, she didn’t look like much of a threat, but she could be a woodwose for all he knew. It wasn’t like he’d ever seen one, and strange monsters lurked in the woods.
A chipmunk crept over her shoulders. “I’m Cadonia. I patrol the woods. I make sure none of those bad men get through.” Her eyes trailed over his body. “Estelle tells me you’re a fire demon. All the women are talking about you. I like fiery men.”
His chest tightened. He wasn’t so into the fire demon concept now.
“You’re a werewolf?” asked Oswald.
She grinned. “Yes. Be careful of the woodwose. If you run into one, there’s no telling what you might do to a fragile young lady such as myself.”
Tobias cringed, wishing she hadn’t said that in front of Oswald. But as quickly as she’d arrived, she disappeared into the foliage again.
“That was… weird,” said Alan.
Tobias forced the image out of his mind and drew a deep breath. “Let’s just focus on the initiation.”
Silently, the others sat cross-legged in a circle while Oswald set up the candles and incense, lighting them with a match.
Tobias’s mind raced. He needed Estelle to tell him whatever she knew. Everlasting pain. Gods’ blood.
Oswald sat with the others, but his eyes were on Tobias. “Won’t you guide us?” He was trying to pull his friend out of the hellfire of his own mind.
Tobias tried to force the terror below his mind’s surface. Raw fear would help nothing. “Right. The initiation.”
“Thomas,” said Oswald. “Try not to get lost in the beast, or your mind will sicken.”
“Might be too late for that,” Thomas muttered.
“You’ll be fine.” Tobias sat on a rock beside Thomas. The musky smell of incense filled the air.
“We can’t straggle,” added Oswald. “Someways we must cobble together a magical army out of a princess, a demon, a scholar, the kennel girl, and…” He eyed Alan. “…and Alan.”
“All right, Thomas,” said Tobias. “Repeat after me.”
He chanted the initiation prayer, and Thomas imitated the sounds.
Tobias watched as the scholar’s eyelids fluttered and shoulders slumped. Chanting the Angelic words, Thomas’s eyes glazed over. His back went rigid, and his irises glistened like dark pools. Tobias knelt down, peering into his pupils. A flash of antlers. A stag.
Thomas’s eyelids fluttered again, and his head began to loll. He was getting lost in a mind without language, without a history. Just as Tobias would in the flames.
“Thomas!” he shouted.
The scholar hunched over, his muscles slackening.
“Thomas!” Tobias gripped his shoulder, and Thomas’s eyes slowly unclouded as he blinked. “We told you not to get lost.”
“Shit.” Thomas straightened. “We’re all lost.” Turning the other way, he heaved golden dire drink onto a rock.
9
Fiona
She’d been dreaming about wolves dressed in Victorian gowns walking on their hind legs when a sound jolted her awake. Tobias murmuring in his sleep again—this time about touching a mermaid. She groaned. I really don’t want to know.
She sat up, blinking. It was night again, and she’d spent all day in the barn. With the dogs. And when night fell, she had more patrolling to look forward to. At least she got to talk to Tobias.
His eyes opened, and he rubbed them. “You were shivering in your sleep. I just took a little nap to keep your warm. And, you know, because I wanted to sleep.”
“Thanks.”
He yawned, sitting up. “I think it’s nearly eight. Almost time for dinner.”
“How’s Mariana?” Fiona had visited her friend in the morning, but she’d been asleep.