When they reached the exit, Tye put his finger to his lips. He pushed open the door and led them into a carpeted hall. Office doors lined either side. At the end of the hall was a wooden door with a window. Daylight shone through--it was a door to the outside.
"Where are we?" Lily asked.
"Shh," Tye said.
Jake answered, "Stanhope Hall, next building over from Nassau."
Tye glared at him. "What part of 'shh' was unclear?" he hissed. He peered into one of the offices. "Lucky that no one is here," he said. "We should have been intercepted by now."
"You expected to get caught?" Jake asked.
Tye shrugged. "It was more than likely. Usually, these buildings don't empty out."
"You still trust him?" Jake said to Lily.
"Yes," she said simply.
Lily walked toward the sunlight that poured through the window in the door. Both boys blocked her before she could go farther.
"You scout; I'll guard," Jake said.
"Logical," Tye agreed. He darted out the door before Lily could even voice an opinion. In a few seconds, he was back. "Garden clear."
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Lily stepped outside with Jake close behind her. She tilted her face up to the sun. Plants around her crooned and hummed. "Jake, how do you feel?"
He flashed his dazzling smile. "Ready for anything."
"Any headache? Spots in your vision? Trouble catching a full breath?"
He frowned. "I--"
Tye clapped him on the back. "He's a knight. Feels no pain."
Lily thought of Grandpa in the hospital bed and frowned. She felt Jake's eyes on her. "We'll be back before he wakes," Jake promised. He pointed to oak trees rising behind a brick wall. "That's the yard. Gate is there."
A green door led through the brick wall to the yard. Motioning for Jake and Lily to stay back, Tye crossed the garden, cracked open the door, and peeked through. Lily leaned against the brick. Moss tickled her shoulder. Absently, she petted it. It cooed back at her.
"Clear," Tye whispered as he tiptoed back to them. "But we'll want to run."
Jake nodded.
Lily stepped away from the wall, and the moss that had curled around her ripped as she moved. She heard it shriek as it tore. She looked at the moss and then at the door. "I can't leave yet," she said. "I have to find the dryads." She told Tye about her mother, the brain hiccups, and Grandpa's plan. "All my life, Grandpa and I have taken care of her.
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And now I have to do this. I have to find out if the dryads can help her. Grandpa would never forgive me if ... Do you understand? There's no guarantee I'll ever get another chance at this."
Tye nodded. "Knew you were no fragile flower."
She exhaled a half snort, half laugh. "Really? Plant jokes? Now?"
"We can find the dryads in the forest," Tye said.
Jake snorted. "Brilliant deduction, Tiger Boy."
"You don't have to come," Tye said. "Gate's right there."
Jake merely glared at him. "Lead on, kitty cat."
Tye crossed the garden in the opposite direction from the gate, and Lily and Jake followed. Stepping onto a stump, Tye vaulted onto the brick wall and balanced catlike on the top. He held a hand down to Lily. She grabbed it and climbed up next to him. Hand in hand, she and Tye hopped down to the other side. They landed in a bed of ivy.
Tye didn't release her hand. "We'll make them help your mom. Don't worry."
She felt her throat close up. She nodded.
"You're not alone in this," he said. He leaned closer. His eyes bored into hers. His lips were so close that she could feel the flutter of his breath. "You never have to be alone again." She wondered if he was still talking about her.
Jake landed beside them, and Tye let go of her hand. She remembered how to breathe. "Everything all right?" Jake asked.
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"Fine," Tye said.
Lily avoided Jake's eyes. "Let's go." She set off at a run. The boys followed her. Together, all three of them plunged into the woods beyond campus.
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CHAPTER Twelve
As Lily ran through the forest, roots flattened under her feet. Branches drooped out of her way as she brushed against them. Leaves caressed her as she passed. Behind her, Jake and Tye swore as they stumbled over roots and were swatted by branches. Lily barely heard them. She was surrounded by the hushed hum of the forest. For the first time since this had all begun, she felt safe.
"Lily, wait!" Tye called.
Stopping, she looked back. She hadn't noticed, but the boys had fallen behind. She jogged back to them. Jake was sagging against a tree trunk. "Are you all right?"
He straightened. "Fine."
"Not used to the extra magic," Tye said. "No offense, Pretty Boy, but you shouldn't have come." He shook his head. "You shouldn't be feeling it so fast."
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Lily answered, "He downed a flask of magic with all the other knights last night. Jake, you can go back if--"
Tye swore. "You're drinking the magic? Does the council know this?"
Jake scowled at both of them and began walking. "It was necessary."
"Necessary to become a Feeder to fight the Feeders?" Tye said, matching his pace.
"It's not the same," Jake objected. "Magic from a bottle isn't addictive. Only feeding from humans causes the addiction. What we do is perfectly safe and--"
Tye snorted. "Safe for your victims?"
"Our victims are monsters," Jake said.
"Do you bother to check that?" Tye asked.
Jake clapped his hand on Tye's arm, stopping him. "Never accuse the knights of--"
Orange fur suddenly sprouted on Tye's hands and cheeks. "Never put your hand on me." He wrenched his arm away.
"Guys?" Lily said. It felt as if they were about to launch into each other like rival frat boys at a bar--except one of them had warrior training and the other sometimes grew claws. Stepping between them, she put a hand on each of their chests. "This isn't the time or place for this. Isn't it bad enough what happened with the council? Do we really need to fight amongst ourselves too?"
"You're certain everything you do is right," Tye said to Jake. "Do you even listen to the gargoyles anymore?"
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Jake clenched his fists. "You have no idea what it's like on the front lines."
"I live on the front lines," Tye said, with an edge to his voice that Lily had never heard.
"And how do I know you haven't killed to do that living?" Jake said. He stepped around Lily to stand inches in front of Tye.
"Stop it, both of you!" Lily said.
"Go ahead and try me, kitty cat." Jake said. "I'm trained to take down monsters like you. Like father, like son."
"I don't need training to know which of us is the monster who needs taking down," Tye said. Claws poked through Tye's fingertips. "And I believe my father already kicked your ass."
Jake lunged at Tye.
"Stop!" Lily said.
She was knocked back as the two boys wrestled, slamming each other against the trees.
Lily dove for the nearest one. "Stop them," she ordered the tree. "Hold their arms."
Branches curled around Tye's and Jake's arms, coiling tighter and tighter. Both Tye and Jake yelped as their arms were pinned back. They struggled.
"Don't hurt them," she told the tree. "Just hold them." She put her hands on her hips and scowled at both of them. "You. Are. Not. Helping."
Tye and Jake glared at each other.
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"He's everything that's wrong with the knights," Tye said. "He can't tell the difference between allies and enemies."
"I know a monster when I see one," Jake said. "Lily, we can't trust him."
For an instant, she contemplated leaving them both there, trussed up in branches. "Do you trust me?" she asked Jake. "Or do you still see a monster when you see me? And how about my mother? Is she a monster? Worst crime she ever committed was eating an apple from a supermarket without payin
g for it." Jake lowered his eyes. She turned on Tye. "And you ... It's not like Feeders are innocent victims waiting to be freed from their debilitating addiction." She told him about what she'd tried at Forbes. "They weren't exactly embracing me as their savior."
"A lot of them don't know any different," Tye said. "Most were born in the human world after the gate closed, the children of the trapped. It's been kill or die their whole lives. But if we could reach them and show them another way ..." Loosening his hand from the branches, he reached out to her. "You and me. We could save them."
Jake cut in, "How many have you 'saved'? Come on, tell us how well your plan works."
Tye kept his eyes on Lily. "Yes, it takes time to rehabilitate, but--"
"Feeders are incurable," Jake said. "The only good Feeder is a dead Feeder."
Glaring at Jake, Tye said, "It's not so great a leap from
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there to 'the only good magic creature is a dead one.' You want to make us all your enemies."
"Your council is dissolving the alliance, not us."
Lily threw her hands into the air. "That's it. Stay there. I have dryads to find." She turned her back on them and began to tromp over the underbrush. It spread to let her pass.
She heard Tye swear behind her. "Lily, wait!" he said.
Lily stopped but she didn't turn. She crossed her arms. Behind her, she heard Jake and Tye speaking softly to each other.
Tye spoke up again. "We have a compromise. First, we'll help you find the dryads. And then we'll beat the crap out of each other."
Jake began, "That's not what--"
"Come on, Lily," Tye said. "You need us."
Lily considered it. "Not really." So far, Jake's picking a fight with Tye's father had landed her locked up, and Tye's picking a fight with Jake had slowed her down. "I'll find the dryads myself, thanks."
"But they might not cooperate," Jake said. "You might want backup." He struggled against the branches. Twigs snapped, but the tree didn't budge.
"And you might need help reaching the gate afterward," Tye said. "The council will be looking for you now. My father can be ... a bit of a grouch."
Lily looked back at them. Bark had closed around their legs, and branches had curled tightly over their forearms.
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"I can sneak by. We snuck out without a problem."
"Sneaked," Jake said.
"Sorry?" Lily said.
"Past tense of 'sneak' is 'sneaked,'" Jake said. "Technically, 'snuck' isn't a real word."
"Way to focus on the important details," Lily said.
"He is right," Tye said. "It's 'sneaked.'"
How nice they agreed on something, she thought. "If I let you out, will you promise to quit trying to pummel each other?"
Both boys nodded--half nods, since branches were entwined in their hair.
"And will you promise to help me find the dryads as quickly as possible?" Lily asked.
Tye's eyes flickered away from her. He focused on something in the distance. "I can do better than that," he said. "I can find them right now." Following his gaze, Lily turned around.
A slender figure stepped out from between two tree trunks. His skin was wrinkled bark, and his features were carved wood. His hair looked like woven leaves, and soft moss covered his body like clothes. On either side of him, green and brown men and women emerged from the forest.
Lily began to back toward Jake and Tye.
As the tree people drew closer, Lily saw they were changing. The bark on their faces was smoothing into pink and brown skin. Their mossy clothes spread into green
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dresses and tunics. Leaves and twigs on their heads split into fine strands, forming pale brown and green hair. Soon, they looked human.
"Guess we got their attention," Tye murmured.
Lily noticed that the hum of the trees had faded to a whir. It felt as if the whole forest had focused its attention on them and was waiting to see what would happen next. She placed her hands on the tree that engulfed Tye and Jake and whispered, "Release them. Please."
The tree retreated. Tye and Jake stumbled forward. Immediately, they each moved to either side of her, Tye on the right and Jake on the left. Shoulder to shoulder, the three of them faced the dryads.
"We mean you no harm," Tye said loudly.
"Sorry for the, um ..." Jake pointed at the broken twigs that littered the forest floor.
As expressionless as the wood around them, the tree people studied them without speaking. The hum of the plants and trees coalesced into a rhythmic thrum. Slowly, it crescendoed. "Someone's coming," Lily said. She, Jake, and Tye pressed closer together.
Beyond the semicircle of dryads, a voice rose. "Who has been changing my trees?"
The dryads widened the circle to allow the speaker inside, and a woman walked out between the trees. Seeing her, Lily felt her jaw drop. "Mom?"
It wasn't her.
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She looked like an older version of Mom: same arched eyebrows, same sky blue eyes, same bone-thin body. She even had the pale green hair that Mom preferred (before her latest spray-paint experiment), but this woman's cheeks were lined with concentric wrinkles like the rings in a tree trunk.
Lily swallowed. Her throat felt as dry as bark. "Grandmother?"
The woman drifted closer, her bare feet soundless on the forest floor. "How very unexpected," she murmured. Inches from Lily, she stopped. She lifted one hand and touched Lily lightly on the cheek. Her fingers were as cool as leaves. "You have his hair and eyes, but I think my lips and cheeks." Her voice was detached, as if observing nothing more important than the color of the sky.
Lily stared into her grandmother's eyes. She tried to see Mom in her, but the woman who looked back had none of Mom's mix of silly and sweet. This woman--this dryad--looked as if she'd never laughed in her life. "Are you ..." Lily's voice cracked.
Beside her, Tye said softly, "She's the queen of the dryads."
"Queen?" Jake said. "Lily, you're royalty?"
Lily continued to stare at the dryad queen, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that she'd found family, never mind royalty. It had always been just her, Mom, and Grandpa. Now here was a grandmother, albeit not welcoming her with hugs and cookies, but still here in the flesh. Or bark. Or whatever.
"Interesting," the queen said. "Why are you here?"
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"My mother ..." She licked her lips and tried again. "I think you can help her. She needs your help." She wondered if she had aunts, uncles, or cousins.
The dryads whispered to one another, a sound like watery wind. The trees swayed. Branches slapped together in the air.
"My daughter died years ago," the queen said, her voice harsh.
The twelve dryads drew closer together. Leaves and vines curled out from their fingers. Their arms hardened into wood.
Under his breath, Tye said to Lily, "Don't piss off the foliage. Kind of surrounded here." He and Jake continued to flank her, one on each side like bodyguards. Lily saw that the dryads had fanned into a circle, hemming them in on all sides.
"I told her not to consort with humans," the dryad queen said. "Stay with your tree. Root in our soil. Sing with our wind. But he wooed her with sweet compliments. He lured her from her home, and he led her to her death." Above, the leaves knotted together, blocking the sun. The forest fell into shadows. Underbrush writhed like snakes.
"She's not dead," Lily said.
"Impossible," the queen said. "She has not returned to her trees. Without our trees, we lose ourselves. We lose our memories."
That's it, Lily thought. Without any fanfare, without 214even asking, she had her answer, the reason for Mom's brain hiccups. Lily thought of all the times she had mentioned something--a birthday present, a TV show, a funny thing a customer had said--and how much it had hurt to see that those memories had slipped out of Mom's mind like sand through her fingers. It was all due to ... to a weird homesickness?
But the queen wasn't don
e speaking. "If she lived, she would return. She would never voluntarily be parted from this place. You must lie."
"Mom doesn't remember," Lily said. "She thinks she's human. Or thought she was. Until this weekend, I thought she was too."
The dryad queen's skin began to bubble with leaves. Vines sprouted on her arms and twisted around her wrists and shoulders. "He has done this to her!" She was shaking with rage. The trees began to howl.
Lily clapped her hands over her ears. "Stop it! He didn't do anything to her! He died in an accident sixteen years ago."
"Yet she did not return!" The trees swayed as if they were in a storm. Vines writhed around the queen like snakes. They reared back from her and then dove back into her skin, causing bulges to rise and fall up her arms and neck. "Why? There must be more to this 'accident.' Someone has kept her from us! Someone keeps her from us now. Why is she not here with you? Where is my daughter?"
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"She's fine," Lily said. "She's safe. She doesn't remember you--"
"Return her to me," the queen said. "We will restore her memory."
"Right now, she doesn't want to--"
"Then you must make her," the queen said. "If she cannot see the trap for herself, then you must free her from it."
Acorns pelted the forest floor like hail. Lily covered her head as leaves and twigs rained from the trees. "She's not trapped!"
Without warning, Jake sagged.
"Whoa, Pretty Boy." Tye went over to his side and propped him up.
Lily caught his other arm. "Jake?" She felt his arm muscles shake.
"Fine. I'm fine." He waved them back and then he sank down onto his knees. "Just need to ... gotta catch my breath."
Above, the leaves calmed, and the forest stilled as if it were drawing a breath. The dryad queen focused on Jake for the first time. "Young knight, I knew your mother."
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