When the Woods Go Silent (Haret Chronicles: Dark Fae #1)

CHAPTER FIFTY

ROSE

Fuming, I check my phone again. Nothing new.

What am I supposed to make of Ruby’s message claiming something wasn’t right? The typing bubbles hovered open for a while, but no more messages have come through.

She isn’t responding to anything I’m sending now.

As the minutes tick by and the customers trickle away, I begin to admit she really isn’t just late.

Something has happened to Ruby.

I can feel it in my gut.

The clock passes eleven, and I snap into action. This has gone on long enough. Being as polite as I can manage, I speedwalk through the rooms, herding the last handful of lingering customers out the door with a tight smile and locking it behind them. The store is so quiet now. So empty.

Ruby has been gone over an hour, and it feels so, so wrong.

Mind racing, I pull up her location. Still in the woods. I pace the front room, going over my options. I could wait, or I could go in after her. I could call someone, but other than the cops, I don’t have any real connections in Clearwater. I doubt they’d be interested in helping me try to find someone who’s only been gone an hour after sneaking off to meet her boyfriend.

I’d sound like a lunatic.

But the last time I didn’t trust my gut, I almost lost Ruby’s friendship. I refuse to risk that again, or something even worse.

I rush upstairs to the apartment, shedding my party dress and wedges as I go. I pull on the first pair of sweatpants I see, shoving my feet into sneakers and yanking a t-shirt over my head as I nearly topple back downstairs.

“I’m coming, Ruby. Hold on,” I whisper to myself as I head out the back door, using her phone’s location to point me where to go. It won’t be perfect, but it will get me close enough for her to hear me, if she can.

The woods seem to close behind me, spreading a dark wall of trees between the reality of the bookshop and the dark foggy dreaminess of the night forest. I hear the scuttling of small creatures in the undergrowth, and an owl hoots somewhere above me, reminding me of the night this all started. When magic first found me, breaking into the shop, even though I had no idea what was to come, then.

My stomach sinks as I follow my phone’s flashlight deeper into the trees. It’s cold here, and I wish I had brought a sweater. The night sky above is black and empty, with almost no stars peeking through the cloud cover. An icy fog swirls around me, as high as my waist in some places. I move even slower, afraid of stepping in a hole and twisting my ankle.

Cursing Kier under my breath - because why couldn’t he be here now - I call Ruby’s name. My voice is small and timid in the night, and it doesn’t carry far. But I can’t bring myself to yell louder. I’m almost on top of the dot in the tracking app, and the woods have gone silent.

No more owl. No more scurrying mice. No wind or rustling leaves trying to speak to me.

Heavy, suffocating silence.

My hand shakes as I pan the phone’s light across the ground, terrified of what I might find. The earth is raw here, as though some giant hand reached down and twisted a tree from the ground, leaving behind blackened chasms where roots once were.

But no Ruby.

“Ruby?” I call again, bringing up her contact. When I dial her number, it rings, and I jump when it echoes in the silent woods. It’s close. She would have heard me by now if... I shut the thought down as I stumble over roots and fallen branches, slipping on patches of ice, before I find it. Just the phone.

No Ruby.

The screen is a constellation of cracks, and tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle to type in her password, my ice-cold fingers getting it wrong twice.

Her text message app opens.

I’m so sorry, Ros

A sob of panic lodges in my throat as I come to the worst possible conclusion, not knowing a way out of my fear. Ruby is in danger. Hurt. Kidnapped, or worse. Ruby is gone, and the last thing she did was try to send me a message.

I should have never let her come to the woods tonight, friendship rules be damned.

I should have answered her first text, when she said something was wrong. I should have taken off after her then, forgetting about being the perfect host. But I was too stubborn and angry. And now Ruby’s gone.

Then the anger starts to bubble back, higher and hotter this time, because I suddenly realize what must have happened. Torrence took her. He didn’t come back just to check on the party, or get one last hand job before heading to his supernatural home.

He came for her.

He came for Ruby.

He fucking stole her from me, just like he’d promised to so many times before. I don’t know how, but I’m going to kill him.

A wail of regret slips between my lips, but I force myself to move. Running now, I’m barely watching the ground as I stumble over roots and dodge branches. The wail edges into a guttural scream of rage, and I hurl his name into the night as I fling my clumsy body through the trees.

“Torrence! Where the fuck are you, you motherfucker? Motherfucking kidnapper !”

Nothing answers me. Nobody is here. My best friend is gone.

Bursting back into our narrow yard, I catch my breath as I work to undo the locks. But as soon as I’m inside, I sink to the floor. I have no idea what to do. I can’t contact Kier. The police would cart me off to some mental institution if I tried to tell them any of this.

Where can I go? How will I find her?

She could be anywhere - in two worlds.

The very thought takes the remainder of my breath, and I flop over flat on my back. Panic floods my body, and for way too long, all I can do is try to remember how to breathe.

Upside down on the floor, my gaze homes in on the windows above me as I try to force myself to think. Branches move in a light breeze, casting changing shadows over my body, and it comes to me.

The woods.

They spoke to me before. Maybe they can help me now.

I scramble to my feet and back outside, wrapping my hands around the nearest branches. The leaves rustle and whisper to me now.

“Please,” I call, craning my neck up into the layers of black and green. “Where is Ruby?”

Gone .

The answer echoes immediately in my mind, and I collapse backward into a sturdy trunk, my grasping fingers stripping the branch of its soft new leaves.

“Gone,” I repeat to myself, trying to force the word to make sense. My mind refuses it. “Where? With someone?”

Gone. Following our roots, down. Down. The ice pushed her down .

Fuck. Ice means gobbelins, which means I was right about Torrence. Torrence dragged her underground? But why? What secrets is he keeping under these woods? My mind is spinning. We should have asked so many more questions. Why did I ever think that I could deal with a magical world, full of unknown powers and vicious creatures that could do anything to me? To Ruby.

I’ve been such a stupid, stupid human through all of this.

My hand slips into my pocket and grips Ruby’s phone.

I left her alone. I ignored her text in anger, and I left her alone in the woods to be taken.

My chest squeezes so tightly that I hunch over my knees, gasping for breath again. I abandoned Ruby when she needed me most. I’m a horrible friend. I have to do something.

I have to save her.

I would do anything to get her back, but where do I even start?

“Kier. Can you help me find Kier?” I ask the tree I’m leaning against. “The fae. The one who controls vines and... and the flowers. Can you contact him?” I’m sure it’s a long shot, but what other options do I have? The branches rustle above me, and I wait, gritting my teeth against rolling nausea and a paralyzing flood of guilt.

Searching , the trees finally answer. It’s not much, but maybe I can search, too.

I push myself up and unlock Ruby’s phone again. Her location history shows where she’s been. There - that must be Torrence’s house. We still have his car. I can drive to the restaurant and the house, just to make sure. Maybe they’re still nearby. It feels like assuring a kid facing a tsunami that things will be fine, but it’s all I have.

I race back through the shop, grabbing the keys to the car Torrence left and peeling out of the parking spot. The roads are mostly empty, the night dark around me. Goblin Market is dark, like I expected it to be. I pound on the door anyway, rattling the handle and pressing my ear to the metal, yelling for Torrence. Nothing.

I can’t waste time on a locked building. If Ruby’s in there, I’d need a battering ram. If only I had more knowledge of my own magic. Creating a fucking flower isn’t going to help anyone now.

The trees blur past as I speed my way to Torrence’s house, following the GPS on Ruby’s phone to her recent location. The building looms out from the clearing, hulking dark and silent.

I can already tell nobody’s here. There isn’t even a speck of light. No cars. Still, I check every door. All locked.

Turning to the woods beyond the yard, I try to keep my shit together.

“Have you found anyone? Kier? Ruby? Answer me, please!” I end on a shriek, smacking my palms against the nearest trunk.

Silence.

The woods have gone silent again.

Frustrated and terrified beyond reason, I let out an anguished scream, pouring my fear and regret into the sound and offering it to the night sky.

“Ruby, where are you?”

The sound ends on a sob, because I know she isn’t going to answer. I know I’m not just being dramatic, and she’ll turn up in a coffee shop or hotel tomorrow morning. I know, with the human magic of being tied to someone so special, that you’d give your life to save her.

Gone. The fae man is gone, across his Path.

A thin branch curves around my shoulder as though the tree is trying to give me a hug, and I’m caught between despair and gratefulness that at least I know that much. Kier is gone. Torrence is gone. Ruby is gone.

It’s just me, now. I pull out my phone and dial 911.

“My friend has been kidnapped,” I tell the operator, but I’m unable to answer any of her follow-up questions. I didn’t see it happen. I don’t know anything, other than the sort of information that would get me a lobotomy in the not-too-distant past.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve alerted the police to your call, but until she’s been missing at least forty-eight hours, a search can’t be authorized. She’s an adult,” the calm voice adds, as though telling me that Ruby chose this.

I smash my finger on the screen, ending the call before I start taking my night out on the poor operator.

Ruby chose, yeah. But not this.

She chose to see good in the world, good in the magic, good in Torrence. And everything repaid her with terror.

The rage builds inside me until I can’t contain it any longer, and I tilt my head back to the empty sky and scream. This fucking house is so isolated, nobody will hear me anyway.

“What the fuck am I going to do?” I yell, throwing my arms wide.

A burst of magic leaps from my fingers, and huge, twisted vines spring from nothing, growing up and over the gobbelin house in minutes. I sink to my knees as my energy disappears, replaced by disbelief at the power I must have, and how little good it does me now.

I can turn a mansion into Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but I can’t rescue my best friend.

What the hell good is magic, anyway?

The thick vines continue to grow beyond my control, crawling in and out of every window as glass pops and shatters, braiding themselves into an impenetrable shield of green. The magic has surpassed me now, like I’ve let a beast out of its cage. I have no idea what it’s doing, and none of this makes any fucking sense.

Sitting in the grass at the edge of the woods, a useless brick of a cellphone in each hand, I watch as my world turns into a dreamscape.

“That’s quite the show, little human.”

I jump to my feet, holding those stupid phones in front of me like they could be weapons.

“Ronan,” I hiss, recognizing Kier’s brother. At least he isn’t trying to trick me with glamor this time.

“I felt your burst of magic. I admit, I didn’t think you had that kind of power. How did you do it?” he asks, stepping past me toward the vine-covered house. The building is creaking now under the added weight, and I wonder for a second if it might even collapse.

“Where did Torrence go? He has Ruby. Where did he take her?” I snap into focus, running after Ronan.

“I have no idea. My guess would be the ice mountains beyond Aralia, of course. That’s where the gobbelins are currently. Or he could have taken her to the blood mines.” Ronan is matter of fact, as though this sort of kidnapping happens all the time.

Maybe it does, in their world, but not in mine.

“Why are you here?” I ask suddenly, remembering both brothers had been summoned home to deal with gobbelins. “Why isn’t Kier back?”

“I’m sure he’ll be back for your sweet cunt soon enough,” Ronan sneers, and I barely resist smacking him. “I’m here because I never left. I suspected the uprising was a distraction from something the gobbelins were planning here, and it looks like I might have been right. Why would they want your friend, Rose?” He turns on me, eyes flashing, and I try to hold my ground.

“ They don’t. Just Torrence. They’re... well, they’re together now, or whatever he told Ruby.”

Ronan laughs, the sound sharp and cruel as a scorpion’s sting. “Gobbelins only want humans for one reason. Blood.”

“How do I get her back?” I blurt, and his eyes widen in surprise.

“Back? You really think there’s a way back for her now?”

“If he wanted to kill her, why not do it in the woods? Or here, in the house? Why take her somewhere else, underground?”

Ronan narrows his eyes at me, seeming to dissect my questions. “How do you know she’s underground?”

“The trees. They told me the ice pushed her down to their roots.”

Ronan rests his hands on his slim hips and cocks his head, studying me now. “You talk to trees now? Interesting. I admit, I had my doubts about your potential, but this... this is promising.”

“Shut up about me, and answer my fucking question. How do I get her back?” I snap, shoving both phones back in my pocket and mirroring his stance, hands on my hips and head tilted back a little to take in his height.

“I don’t know where the blood mines are,” he says, holding my gaze steadily. “But I do know the ice mountains. I can help you find her, if she’s in Haret. For the right payment, of course.” His dark eyes flash at me.

The words stab into my brain like poison darts. “Payment? What could I possibly have that a fae prince could want?”

His smile grows wolfish, and I flash for an inappropriate moment on quite a few delicious ways I could pay him. Then the truth settles in my stomach like a stone. Of course.

“You want me to come willingly.”

“I want you to come with me,” he says, the words taking on a dirty twist in his mouth, although we both know he isn’t talking about sex.

He’s talking about leaving Clearwater. Fuck, he’s talking about leaving Earth. I have no idea where Ruby is, but if this man - this fae prince - can help me...

Do I have another choice? My mind spins through the same sad options. I could wait here for forty-eight hours and let the cops go door-to-door with flyers. I could wait until Kier bothers to return. Or I could take this mess into my own hands, as much as possible.

“I’ll do it. I’ll come with you to... to...” I can’t even remember where the fuck I’m agreeing to go.

“To Aralia. Excellent.”

“And you’ll help me find and rescue Ruby.”

“Of course.”

“And not after, either. You’ll help me find her before we deal with the gobbelins.”

Ronan sighs and offers his hand to shake, giving the impression I’m asking him for a goddamn favor instead of giving him exactly what he’s wanted.

When I place my palm against his, a snap of magic like a lightning strike passes between us. I feel as though a corset has been strapped and tightened around me, the strings pulled and knotted in Ronan’s fingers. He lifts my hand to his mouth, palm to his lips, and presses a kiss there that feels like a branding iron, fresh from the fire.

I gasp as I’m pulled against his unyielding body by these invisible strings, tied tightly to Ronan by the magical bargain I’ve made. Too late, I remember all the stories about a fae’s bargain, and how many thousands of ways they can trick a human. Desperation made me blind, but I still can’t say I would have done things differently.

Ronan’s mouth drops to my ear, his breath hot on my skin. “Kier really should have warned you better, little changeling, but the fae’s bargain is sealed now.”

I clamp down on a scream, clinging to him as I feel my feet lift off the ground. No wings, no vines. Just the terrifying swoop of air magic as he hurtles us away from everything I know.

What the fuck have I done?

THE WOODS

Where are we?

Splintered and sundered, we are but slivers of the roots and bark we once were. Tiny shreds of once-tall trees. Embedded in flesh, soaking in blood. And beyond that, an unimaginable ice. Blue-white with the opaque solidity of something never once melted.

A flash of darkness, of movement too quick to be human.

We hide from it, that icy death.

We sink deeper into the flesh, letting the tiny workers of this body take us apart and absorb what we can give. Push out the rest, the body of fibrous wood that is us no longer. We will live here, in this human’s blood.

Her name...

We know what she is called.

Ruby, we whisper.

Ruby, wake up. Wake up and tell us where we are.

She breathes, she lives. But she sleeps.

And outside of the rush of blood, we hear the cackle, like the call of a crow. Wherever we are, however we got here, some magical thing is pleased.

“What a wonderful surprise,” the voice coos, masquerading now as a dove. The crow’s cackle of laughter follows, bouncing off the ice, dull and glittering like icicles all at once.

Oh, Ruby, wake up...

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I know, that was a hell of a cliffhanger... I’m not that sorry, but maybe it’s because I know how you can keep reading now.