by Emma Savant
She tapped out.
“Nice recover,” she said after I let go.
“Thanks.”
We felt almost on even ground here, where I could punch her when she annoyed me and where every blow and block was straightforward and didn’t require interpretation.
I wished things were easier in the rest of the house.
I massaged my jaw, then faced her again and nodded. We worked until we were both sweaty and panting. Her style was focused and controlled, mine quick and reactive, and although she was more skilled, we were still a good match. I circled her, looking for openings, and she shifted her weight to throw me off and then came toward me with a high kick that landed on my shoulder and sent me to the floor.
I scrambled up and launched myself back at her. I managed to grab her arm and spin behind her with her shoulder braced against mine. I held her arm out so she couldn’t move and locked my free arm behind her throat. She wiggled to get away, grunting with the effort, but I had her trapped.
“You want out?”
She dropped her weight to the floor and started to slip away. Instantly, without thinking, I yanked her in the other direction and tripped over her leg as she swept it under me. The rhythm between us felt wrong and offbeat now, not like our partnered dance of a moment before. She realized she was losing and tried to force herself away, and then a sickening crack filled the air.
I let go an instant too late, then tripped over my own feet and fell sprawling on the floor.
Sienna was bent over double, clutching her arm by the shoulder and breathing hard. I scrambled back up.
“Are you okay?”
She pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut, then shook her head.
Her arm didn’t look right. There was a bend in the skin where a straight line should have been.
I put an arm around her other shoulder, and she tried to shake me off and then leaned on me. Her skin was cool and clammy, and her pulse throbbed in her neck.
“Hey, you’re going into shock,” I said as gently as I could while the voice in my head started screaming about how I destroyed everything I touched. I firmly ordered the voice to shut up. If Mom had told me once she’d told me a million times: the sparring floor was no place for my insecurities.
I helped Sienna lie back on the cool floor, then took off my tank top and bundled it under her head. When that didn’t seem like enough, I peeled off my yoga pants and propped them under her arm.
The charm that usually alerted the house to emergencies had been backfiring lately, and Grandma hadn’t had time to fix it, and my phone was still up in my room, so I tore through the mansion in my underwear and sports bra until I reached the infirmary.
The Daggers were nothing if not efficient. Within ten minutes, Sienna’s arm had been braced, and she was lying on a bed in the infirmary with our doctor, Clancy, taking vitals and examining the arm. I sat on the side of the bed in a borrowed hospital gown, guilt and panic warring to see who’d get to take over my brain.
After X-rays and sensing spells, Clancy put her hands in the pockets of her white coat and looked at us both.
“It’s broken,” she announced.
No one had needed to tell me. The crack the bone had made was still ringing in my ears.
“It’s a pretty bad fracture,” Clancy said. She tucked a strand of her bright red hair behind her ear, then handed Sienna the X-ray and pointed at the lines that crossed the bone like streaks of smoke. “Your shoulder got some of it, too. I’m going to put it in a cast, and you’ll make a full recovery, but it’s going to be a few weeks. I want you to take it easy for the first few days.”
“I can’t take it easy!” Sienna said. “I have a mission!”
“You’re off duty until this heals,” Clancy said firmly.
Sienna shot a look at me that was sharper than any of our daggers. I cringed and leaned back in my chair. “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be,” she said.
“It was an accident.”
“Sure it was,” Sienna muttered.
Words sprang to my lips, and I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Sienna was already moving on.
“Can’t we just get a faerie in here to fix this?” she said to Clancy. “Faerie magic could handle a simple break.”
“It’s not a simple break, for one,” Clancy said. “And no. Faerie magic will heal you quickly, but my magic will heal you well. Daggers have to stay in good shape for a long time, and that means you’re under my care and stuck with my spells.”
Sienna looked like she was about to jump out of the bed and take off running. “They need me!”
“I know,” Clancy said, putting a hand on Sienna’s good shoulder. “And they’ll have you, after you’re feeling better. Ruby will understand.”
She pushed Sienna back against the pillows, then moved off toward the apothecary room, where she kept all her ritual tools and potion ingredients, away from the delicate electronic equipment.
I shifted to the edge of my seat and leaned toward Sienna. She stared pointedly out the window on the other side of the room.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were going to pull that direction.”
“We were sparring,” she snapped, whipping her head around to face me. “You’re supposed to be able to read your opponent.”
“I thought you were going to twist into a hold.”
“And that’s why I should have been training with one of the other Daggers. Someone who knew what they were doing.”
Fine. Screw her.
“Cool,” I said. I stood. “Hope you get better soon.”
I stalked out. I didn’t get along with Sienna. Everyone knew that. But I would never break her arm on purpose. Goddess knew how many times I’d wanted to.
But whatever. There was no point trying to maintain a relationship with someone who always chose to assume the worst of me. Sienna could rot for all I cared.
She was right that the Daggers needed her, though. Mom had carefully selected the raid party to include everyone trained enough to fight our way out, if the mission came to that. It was enough Daggers that being a woman down might not stall their plans. But it wouldn’t help them, either.
Sienna was out. Maybe that meant I could be in.
25
Mom sliced through the last length of zucchini like it was the neck of someone who’d pissed her off. I threw my minced garlic in the pan and spun around to face her as the sound of sizzling filled the kitchen.
“I’m not going to back down on this.”
“How exactly do you think it’s going to look if you break the future Stiletto’s arm and then I let you go on a mission in her place? You’re my daughter.”
“Sienna’s your niece.”
She slid the zucchini into the pan and checked the oven. The crescent rolls inside were almost perfect, pale golden brown but not quite done. She closed the door again.
“You need me,” I said. “I’m the only one who’s been all the way to the den, and you can’t go in there missing one of your crew.”
“I absolutely can.”
“Mom.”
“Scarlett.”
She turned to face me, resting her back against the counter’s edge.
“If I agree to let you come with us, there are conditions,” she said, a warning in her voice. “You have to stay back with the rear guard. You will be there exclusively so we can put Grandma on your bike and get her out faster.”
“Done,” I said, holding up both hands. “Anything you say.” I frowned. “Wait, I thought you were bringing her out on a broom.”
“I’m not sure she’ll be in a condition to stay on a broom by the time we get there.”
“You think they’ve been hurting her?”
Mom’s face stayed placid, but I knew her heart was swarming with the same anxieties that had been plaguing me. She had to be.
“We don’t know anything about her conditions except what your divinations have told
us,” Mom said. “She’s still alive and she’s still at the den.” She shrugged. “We need to be prepared for anything.”
“A good Dagger always is.”
Mom gave me a slight smile, then handed me a cluster of tomatoes.
“Wash and chop. The zucchini’s already half soft.”
Alec sent me a message after dinner. The next clasp was ready, and he’d drop it off at Carnelian tomorrow.
Scarlett: Thanks. I won’t be in tomorrow, so please leave it at the desk again.
I silently prayed that Grandma would be home to see the clasp when I did. I just wanted her home, safe and sound, and back at Carnelian with her dreams of a palace contract intact. That had been our reality just days ago. It seemed like another lifetime—one I wanted back.
I spent the next two days training: working out in the gym, sparring with Rowan, and performing so many tarot and tea leaf readings that the symbols all began to swirl together in my head.
This wasn’t how I’d planned to spend these few days. But then, nothing about the past few months had gone how I’d planned. I had always assumed I would become the next Stiletto, and then Sienna had been chosen. I had tried to be the best Dagger I could be, and my initiation had come months after everyone else’s. I had tried to quit the Daggers and ended up in the forest chasing down werewolves, then tried to help Sienna and ended up breaking her arm.
Maybe, I thought, I should go into the forest with every intention of murdering my own grandmother. That seemed like the surest way to make sure she got home safely.
The day of the rescue arrived with blue skies and a warm breeze. It wasn’t the kind of weather I’d expected for monster hunting, but, as Saffron had pointed out, the werewolves were stronger at night than we were. They wouldn’t have help from the moon during the day.
“Maybe we’ll catch them in the middle of a nap,” Ginger said, swinging her leg over her motorcycle.
Pepper snorted. “Wish we could be so lucky.”
I grinned at her, and she winked at me. Her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she tightened it before climbing on her bike.
We were all on motorcycles today. I’d hinted to Mom that mine tended to handle forest terrain well, then helped the rest of the Daggers enchant their bikes with similar charms. We looked like a proper girl gang, in between all the bikes and leather jackets. Part of me hoped that alone would startle the werewolves enough that we could grab Grandma and run before they had a chance to fight back.
And if they did fight back? Well, I was ready.
I checked the gun on my hip, the dagger in my boot, and the wand in my jacket pocket. I was covered in weapons, and I was probably one of the least armed women here. Those mangy dogs didn’t stand a chance against us.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out, expecting orders from Mom from her spot at the front of the group.
Alec: I have a question about the next clasp. Can you meet me at my studio this afternoon?
For an instant, I allowed myself think forward to tomorrow, to a future where the clasps would be my biggest worry.
Scarlett: Can’t. Have other business today. Monday?
He didn’t answer right away. I thought for a moment about asking him for more information about the wolves, then decided against it. He’d known a little too much about the Wildwoods, even for someone who claimed to be a former friend.
“Daggers out!” Mom called from the front of the group.
The growl of motorcycles roaring to life sounded all around me, and I revved my own engine. Ahead of us, Autumn opened the gates. She would stay here with the other novices and a few of the older Daggers to guard the place while we were gone. I waved to her as I passed, and she shook her fists gently in the air, cheering us on.
The road slipped away behind us. We rode through dappled sunlight and late-morning heat until we ended up at a turnoff spot at the edge of Forest Park that was as close to the den as the road got. Mom had worked overtime with Rose, one of our better spell casters, to figure out the den’s approximate location without having to rely on tricks like Grandma’s scarf.
I still had the scarf in my pocket anyway, with the charm fully recharged. I wasn’t going to risk getting lost in the forest once Grandma was on the back of my bike.
The woods in the daytime were nothing like they’d been at night. Light filtered down from the canopy overhead, and it was possible to actually see into the distance and figure out the paths that would be easiest on the bikes. We followed deer trails, then veered off those and crashed straight through the underbrush. The scent of trees and earth flooded my senses.
It felt different, being here with my sisters all around me. I caught Blaze’s eye as she cut a tree and moved up ahead of me, and she grinned. We had a task to complete, but we were doing this for fun, too, because it was thrilling to be out in the world on a mission, ready to take down anyone who stood in our way. Pepper brought her bike alongside me and held up her hand for a high five that barely connected, then roared up a hill and disappeared over the top.
When we reached the old-growth clearing, with its stands of ancient trees and the wide spaces between them, Mom signaled for us to halt. I hadn’t told them about this place, but Rose’s navigation was well-known for being the best in the coven’s, and her divinations had steered us perfectly.
Mom rolled her bike forward and turned it so she could see us. Using gestures, she reminded us of the plan: the forward guard would proceed through the trees and toward the den’s opening. A scouting group made up of Cerise and Roux would enter the den and use their communication discs to let the rest of us know when it was safe to proceed. Mom, Ginger, and Poppy would help them locate Grandma, and then they would hold off any werewolves who tried to stop them while Blaze and Pepper escorted Grandma and me from the forest.
I’d gone over the plan a dozen times this morning, but my heart race and my skin tingle with nerves as Mom laid it all out for us again.
This was real.
Cerise and Roux disappeared on foot through the trees, while the rest of us slowly walked our bikes forward to the other end of the clearing. We stopped when the undergrowth grew too dense for a motorcycle’s wheels to enter without making a racket and waited.
After a while, the brass dagger charm under my shirt grew hot. The other Daggers moved off on foot under the trees, leaving their bikes in a silent herd around us. My stomach churned as Mom’s dark hair disappeared behind a patch of foliage.
26
Pepper put an arm around me and gave me a quick squeeze.
“We’ve done worse than this,” she whispered. “Give it a few years and you won’t think twice about this stuff.”
“Hell, you’ll miss it when you happen to get a quiet week,” Blaze said. She grinned at me and tapped one of her bike’s handles as she looked impatiently off into the trees.
I hated waiting. I wanted to be there, in the wolf den with the rest of them, fighting weres and saving my Grandma and proving my worth as part of the sisterhood. Blaze had proved herself a hundred times over by now, but I could tell she still felt the same way. She checked her watch every few minutes and shifted back and forth. The forest in front of us stayed calm and quiet.
Pepper seemed to be content where she was. She sat on her bike in a relaxed posture and let her gaze drift up toward the treetops when a particularly robust bit of birdsong filled the forest around us. She watched a bird flit from branch to branch, and I watched her and wished I had a fraction of her calm.
I couldn’t imagine this ever feeling normal.
Someone shouted off in the distance. A moment later, Poppy crashed into view.
Grandma was with her.
My heart leapt, and I kicked my engine to life and flew toward them. Through the brush, twenty feet behind Grandma and Poppy, I caught a glimpse of Ginger standing with her wand pointed at a hulking wolf. The creature crouched, teeth bared, and snarled at her. I brought the bike to a skidding stop and Ginger brought her wand down.
The wolf jumped to the side, dodging her spell, and a tongue of flame exploded up between the trees.
Grandma threw herself onto the back of my motorcycle.
“Get her home,” Poppy ordered.
She threw herself onto her own bike, whipped it around, and took off back toward the den and the battles taking place around it. I couldn’t see what was happening between my sisters and the werewolves, but I could hear them—shouting and snarling, getting louder and closer with every second.
“Hi, darling,” Grandma said. She wrapped her arms around my waist. They were steely as ever, and her voice was strong. I risked the half-second it took to reach around and squeeze her, and then we were off, flying between the trees faster than the birds overhead.
Blaze and Pepper rode just behind me to either side. A gunshot went off behind us, but I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t even think. I just put my head down, gripped the handlebars until my knuckles turned white, and rode.
A dark shape rose in the distance on my left. It was keeping pace with us, its giant paws thundering on the ground and its tail whipping behind. This was a wolf, too big and too fast to belong to the Humdrum world.
I pointed, and Pepper revved her bike and took off toward the creature. It shifted away, then sped up and drew ahead of us. Pepper pulled out her gun and aimed, but the monster dodged her first shot.
It knew these woods; I could see that in every motion of its predatory body. It galloped in front of us, then slowed to let us inch ahead and chased us from the rear. I steered to the left, away from the animal, but the terrain was rougher here and dropped steeply down toward a creek. My wheels skidded as I fought to maintain control of the bike. The wolf snapped its jaws and kept running after its prey.
It was herding us. It was sending us to land it knew our bikes couldn’t handle.
We splashed into the creek. Water soaked my legs, but the stream was shallow with a rocky bottom, and my bike plowed through and to the other side. I pointed back toward the right, to the deer trail we’d been following, and tried to get back on the path. Blaze sped along behind me, but Pepper was gone.
