Deadlines & Dryads

by Rebecca Chastain

  “Ow!”

  I spun around. Nathan clutched my rumor scout in a thick lasso of air and held it suspended in front of him, studying it with avid curiosity.

  Double damn.

  2

  “Hey! That’s mine.” Rubbing my stinging scalp, I stalked back to Nathan and lashed a sharp blade of earth magic at his lasso trap. He effortlessly evaded my strike. I planted my hands on my hips, readying another knife of earth. “Give it back.”

  “This looks like a communication capsule, but you’ve done something different with the knots of fire,” Nathan said. He pushed it against his ear, but when nothing happened, he went back to twisting the rumor scout in the air in front of him, inspecting it from every angle.

  I made another futile attempt to cut through his magic, my hands balling into fists when I failed.

  He was right; the rumor scout closely resembled a normal communication capsule, but I’d made a number of modifications and, through painstaking experimentation, had figured out how to combine the recording properties of a communication capsule with the honing properties of a finder’s spell. I’d also fine-tuned the weaves to release their captured sounds only to me, just in case they were intercepted. To my knowledge, no one else had ever created anything similar. Rumor scouts were my secret weapon, and even if Nathan would never be able to crack open the contents of this particular rumor scout, I wasn’t about to let him rip off my design.

  “Is that an inverted knot?” Nathan pulled the scout in for a closer inspection.

  With a silent curse, I reshaped my elemental weapon into a combination of earth and water, and jabbed it straight through the rumor scout. The fragile spell imploded, the elements dispersing, releasing the recorded words in an unintelligible rush. I’d lost whatever information had remained inside its weaves, but keeping the knowledge of how to build a rumor scout from Nathan took precedence. Besides, I’d heard enough.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?” Nathan demanded.

  “None of your business.” I spun on my heel and stormed down the street.

  Nathan dogged my steps. “If you’re withholding tools that could benefit the Chronicle, I’ll tell Dahlia.”

  “You do that.” I veered down a side street, hoping to shake him, but Nathan followed.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  “Away from you. I thought that was obvious.”

  “That’s funny, I figured you just received some important information. Maybe something worthy of a newspaper article.”

  “Hardly,” I snapped, but I knew my anger wouldn’t fool him. He might be annoying, but he had a journalist’s nose for a story.

  Magic blossomed inside me, my natural capacity for the elements doubling between one step and the next. I tripped, then steadied, looking around for Quinn. All gargoyles had the ability to enhance magic in others, but Quinn was the only gargoyle who made a point of always boosting my magic when he was within range. I treasured the privilege as much as I did his trust and friendship.

  A golden-winged lion surged over the roofline to my left. With the early-morning rays glistening on the underside of his wings, he looked as if he were sculpted from the sun itself, and my breath caught at the beauty of him. Then Quinn tucked his wings and plummeted into the shadowed alley. At the last possible second, he slowed his descent and landed with an explosive clap of quartz paws against cobblestones, clattering a few steps as his momentum carried him forward.

  I shielded my eyes from a flurry of dust raised by his landing and backed up to give him room. Despite being nearly the size of an adult lion, the young gargoyle hadn’t finished growing, and his coordination occasionally suffered. Today, excitement made him prance in place.

  “Kylie! I’ve got information about our FPD squad!” Quinn announced, his voice deep and his words lisping slightly around his long canines.

  A thrill went through me. Our FPD squad could only mean the band of five elite full-spectrum Federal Pentagon Defense warriors led by Captain Grant Monaghan. Anything he was involved in was worth pursuing—because Grant’s squad defended Terra Haven from extreme, story-worthy dangers, not because the captain happened to be blessed with rugged good looks and a muscular body to match—but I clamped down on my questions, intensely aware of Nathan’s curiosity beside me.

  “I didn’t know you had the gargoyle doing your scout work,” Nathan said.

  I turned my back to him, trying to discreetly signal Quinn to silence. “That’s great, Quinn, but I’m sure it can wait—”

  “It can’t wait! The FPD got called to Emerald Crown Grove. I heard it from my friend at the city guard station. Whatever’s going on in the grove, it’s bigger than we thought.”

  “They call in the FPD for pretty much anything these days,” I said, making another shushing gesture at Quinn. “It’s probably nothing.”

  The gargoyle wrinkled his expressive brows at me. “But you told me to always tell you whenever I heard anything about the FPD, especially Gra—”

  “I think this can wait,” I interrupted in a rush.

  “If Kylie doesn’t want to hear,” Nathan said, “why don’t you tell me?”

  The naïve gargoyle glanced back and forth between us, shifting nervously on his thick paws, his expression twisted in confusion. Any other day, I would have already been running toward the action, bombarding him for information on the way.

  “What’s happening in Emerald Crown Grove?” Nathan prompted.

  I gritted my teeth. I could ill afford to lose this juicy story to the senior writer, not with the everlasting tree competition on the line, but I was forced to admit it was too late to keep this lead to myself. My dismissal of the city’s most elite warriors hadn’t fooled anyone, especially not the senior writer. We both knew everything the FPD did was newspaper worthy. Even if Quinn said nothing more, Nathan was sure to investigate the grove.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “The FPD is turning people away from the grove, and they’re not allowing travel through any part of the forest.” Quinn delivered the last of his shocking news in a subdued tone.

  “What’s the threat?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How many FPD were called?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you get anything else?” Nathan had the audacity to sound exasperated.

  Quinn shook his head, his wide mouth drawn down. He cast a woeful glance in my direction, and I tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it was difficult with my teeth fused together in frustration.

  “Good, good. If you hear anything else, be sure to report to me. You, too, Kylie.” Nathan gave me a smug smile. “As a senior writer, I have plenty of experience investigating dangerous events like these.” He sauntered back toward the Chronicle, his steps a smidgen too fast to be casual. I wouldn’t put it past him to start running the moment he slipped out of sight. I glowered after him until he turned the corner.

  “Who does he think he is?” I fumed. “This is my story! I found it. I put my scouts on it. I asked you to keep an ear out for news about the FPD. And now Nathan acts like I haven’t worked with the FPD before on hazardous stories. I covered the black market exposé! I covered Focal Park.” I paced back and forth, pounding my fists against my thighs as I ranted.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  I took in Quinn’s anxious expression and rushed to his side, crouching to his eye level. “No, I’m not mad at you. Nathan is the low-down scumbag story thief. You are wonderful.”

  “Does that mean you’re happy with the information I found?”

  “You bet!” I ran my hand down his side, the grooves of his stone scales soft beneath my fingertips. Of all the gargoyles Mika had rescued, I secretly believed Quinn to be the prettiest. Not only did he have an amber-gold lion body of solid citrine, but also his falcon wings were well proportioned and magnificent, each stone feather a marvel of meticulous detail. Behind the wavy lines of his stone ruff, dragon sc
ales dressed him from his shoulders to his tail, and oversized paws hinted at growth still to come; when he reached his full size, he would be big enough to ride.

  Quinn leaned subtly into my touch, and his smile widened far enough to flash his canines.

  “Are we going to investigate?” he asked.

  “Of course! And we’re going to beat Nathan, too. Come on.”

  I emptied my wallet into the hands of the proprietor of Jolene’s Speedy Rugs, receiving in return a scrap of carpet hardly bigger than a throw pillow.

  “This is the largest you’ve got?” I asked.

  Jolene held up my money. “This is the largest you can afford.”

  I sighed and settled into a cramped cross-legged position atop the rented rug. Jolene activated its flying spell, and the carpet lifted me two feet off the ground. A subtle net of air folded around my legs, holding me to the flimsy surface.

  “You have the rug for half an hour. You steer by adjusting the rudder like so,” she said, demonstrating by turning the wooden handle at the front of the rug. The rudder shifted beneath me, the vibration discernible through the thin fabric.

  “Yes, I know. This isn’t my first time on a flying carpet.”

  “You stop by deactivating the thrusters,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken, pointing to the complex cones of air element attached to the back corners of the rug. “The rug is to remain outdoors at all times. If you attempt to take it inside, the homing spell will activate and it will return to me. If you attempt to modify the rug, it will return to me. If you attempt to detain it after your session ends, you will be responsible for all personal injury or property damaged when it returns to me. Anything you break while on the rug is your responsibility.”

  When she finally freed me to leave, I shot through the bay door of her shop and pointed the carpet southeast, toward Wicker Road and Emerald Crown Grove. My blond hair streamed out behind me, and the hem of my cotton shirt fluttered at my waistband. Impatience slithered beneath my skin. The rug was faster than running and faster than the bus, but it wasn’t fast enough. In my head, Nathan raced ahead of me on a sleek personal flying carpet, slipping inside a last-minute containment ward just before it crashed closed. While he cozied up to Captain Grant Monaghan’s squad, I’d be barricaded outside, waiting to read the details in tomorrow’s paper.

  Using a subtle probe of fire-laced air, I tested the thrusters to see if I could coax more speed from them, but the lock on their spell thwarted me.

  I kept an eye on the sky, tracking Quinn’s progress above me. He could fly a lot faster than the rug, so he scouted ahead and directed me down side streets and alleys to avoid any slowdowns. We made great time through downtown Terra Haven, then along the warehouse district on the southeast side. When I hit Wicker Road, I leaned forward on the carpet, trying to use aerodynamics to my advantage. The last buildings in the city zipped by on either side, giving way to the oak-studded grove where it abutted the city.

  The carpet slammed to a stop against an invisible barrier. My teeth snapped together as I whiplashed forward, arms flying out to catch myself, but the rug’s built-in safety spell anchored me atop the tiny surface. My bag flew forward, cutting into the back of my neck and armpit, before dumping its contents onto the dirt road. Fortunately, no one else was on the road, or I might have been run over.

  Wheezing, I straightened. The rug had stopped at the exact edge of Terra Haven. Despite having at least five more minutes on the rental, I wouldn’t be taking it outside the city. Somehow in her litany of rug rules and regulations, Jolene had failed to mention the most important restriction.

  Cursing under my breath, I deactivated the safety spell with a flick of air. The rug dropped to the ground, landing atop my journal. I crawled to my feet. The moment I was free of the rug, it lifted ten feet in the air and zoomed back into the city.

  “Is it just me, or is that rug flying twice as fast as before?” I asked Quinn when he landed beside me.

  “Maybe it can go faster without a passenger.”

  “Seems like a stupid design to me.” I collected my scattered belongings, brushing them off and stuffing them back in my bag, then turned to face the grove. “Let’s go.”

  A fiery buzz of warning sizzled through my body as I stepped across the invisible boundary between Terra Haven and the forest. I shook off the clinging weaves, sluicing my body and Quinn’s with water magic. The FPD couldn’t encircle the entirety of Emerald Crown Grove with a ward, so they’d done the next-best thing: place warning beacons at the main thoroughfare. Disregarding the warning wasn’t illegal, but some might consider it foolish. I considered it my journalistic duty and proceeded into the forest without pause.

  It had been a few years since I had traveled this road, and I’d forgotten how quickly the city disappeared. Dense woods and the rolling hills blocked out Terra Haven’s skyline after the first two turns in the road. I wanted to run, but since I didn’t know how far we had to go, I settled on a brisk walk I could sustain for hours. Quinn half trotted at my side, moving with the liquid grace of a big cat, his rock paws making less noise than my boots. The midmorning sun slanted through the trees, heating the packed dirt beneath my feet and warming my scalp. A silent wind stirred the branches of the tall oaks on either side of the road, but not even a whisper of moving air reached ground level, and I fanned the front of my shirt to cool myself.

  We’d been walking twenty minutes before I realized an unnatural silence cloaked the forest beneath the susurrus of the wind through the oak canopies. No birds sang, no crickets chirped, no small creatures stirred the underbrush or rustled through the dead leaves of the forest floor. I slowed, quieting my footsteps and straining to listen for the missing noises.

  “What is it?” Quinn asked.

  “It’s too quiet. I received a rumor scout before we met up, and the voice in it said he’d been chased from the grove, but there’s nothing—”

  A pair of coyotes burst from the bushes ahead of us, lips snarled to reveal white canines, ears flat against their skulls. I froze for half a heartbeat, then hunkered next to Quinn’s side, drawing a hasty ward of air around us. The coyotes barely registered our presence, veering wide to gallop around us down the opposite side of the road toward Terra Haven. Quinn didn’t have time to do more than arch his wings before they raced out of sight around the bend in the road.

  “Since when do coyotes use roads?” Quinn asked.

  I rubbed my thumb against my tingling fingertips. “Come on; let’s find out what’s got them spoo—”

  A huge buck crashed down the hill to our right, his slender legs springing over smaller bushes. His antlers caught in a low-hanging branch, and he ripped free with a snort, not slowing until he stumbled onto the road. A trio of does bounded after him, their sweat-slicked sides heaving. None gave us a second glance as they raced after the coyotes.

  I spun to peer in the direction they’d come from, my curiosity pounding in time with my racing heart. When nothing else emerged, I cautiously dropped my ward.

  “I don’t think that’s a normal wind,” Quinn said, studying the foliage twisting above us.

  This early in spring, the leaves were bright green and not yet fully developed, but they were large enough to catch air currents and tug the branches. Only, no pattern connected the shifting limbs of one tree and the next, almost as if—

  “I don’t think that’s the wind at all,” I whispered. The trees moved, but they did so of their own volition.

  We hustled into motion, and I chaffed goose bumps from my arms, eyes trained on the branches’ abnormal gyrations. It wasn’t my imagination: The oaks grew more active as we approached, their gnarled limbs straining toward us. By unspoken consent, we shifted to the middle of the narrow road as we strove to detect other noises above the creaks and groans of the trees. I tore my gaze from the canopies, searching the forest around us for an explanation. Trees didn’t animate themselves, not even those bound to dryads. Were the dryads behind this? Was this what
the merchant had meant when he said they chased him from Emerald Crown Grove?

  “How much farther do you think—”

  A narrow hay wagon pulled by a team of oxen thundered out of control around the corner, cutting off my words. They barreled down on us too fast and cumbersome to swerve. Heart in my throat, I threw myself into the weeds at the side of the road. Quinn leapt over me, crashing through a dense manzanita bush. The ground shook beneath the oxen’s pounding feet, and I rolled, smashing up against the base of the manzanita and curling tight. From my prone position, I caught a glimpse of the driver clinging to her wooden perch with both hands.

  “Not safe! Turn around!” she shouted; then she and her team careened out of sight, and the chaotic drumbeat of the oxen’s heavy hooves became submerged beneath the increasingly loud soughs of the giant oaks around us.

  I picked myself up, tugging my shirt over my nose to filter out the billowing dust while I brushed dirt and weeds from my clothes and prevailed upon my fluttering heart to migrate from my throat back to my chest. Quinn shook free of the shattered remains of the manzanita and crept to the edge of the road.

  I studied both directions of Wicker Road, convincing myself that my taut nerves had everything to do with anticipation of an exciting story and narrowly avoiding being trampled and nothing to do with fear.

  Something ran a claw up my back and I screamed and dashed to the center of the road before spinning to confront my attacker. The long limb of an oak sprang back to its natural position, the twig tips writhing as if frustrated to have had me slip through their grasps. I shuddered but forced myself to keep walking deeper into the forest. If Nathan was ahead of me, I needed to catch up, and if he was behind me, I didn’t want to waste time and let him catch up.

  Sure, that’s why I had to contain the impulse to bolt at every sharp squeak and ominous groan.

  “Do you think we should go back?” Quinn asked. He shrank in on himself as he crept beside me, his belly inches from touching the ground, his small, round ears flat against his skull.