“The birds led me with a merry tune.” He rolled off to lay beside me and pointed toward the sky, nowhere near the direction of the birds.

“I’m not going back. My sister needs me.”

“I know, but I was never going to stay back at the factory, Trite.”

An easy silence fell between us, and I noticed the sound of water trickling into the pond. My cold bones rattled beneath my skin.

Zane stood and tugged off his jacket. “We’d better get moving.” He tossed it to me and peeled off his gloves while yanking a brown paper package from his pocket. Everything landed on my lap. “You can eat on the way.”

Zane’s birds led us until thundering drums resonated through the woods.

“War drums,” Zane whispered. “The Red and Green Kingdoms’ border is just a pinch away.”

My eyes scooted toward the sound. “They’re fighting right over there?”

“Ragnashuck, I hope your sister isn’t here,” was his only response.

I blinked at the villagers hauling stick baskets and herding species of forest animals. A dwarf was playing a wood flute on his front porch. Their tense gazes flickered to the woods every few seconds.

Mulch paths wove between dark lumber boardwalks. There was no iron gate or wall stopping us from walking in like in the Red Kingdom. I’d expected creepy statues, smooth roads, and tricky Court magicians hiding around the corners, but the Green Kingdom didn’t look complicated.

As I stepped onto the boardwalk, everyone in the village stopped what they were doing, and I froze.

People dropped to their knees down the path until only Zane and I were left standing. I pulled Zane down with me, keeping my fingers locked around his sleeve as two pure-white polar bears burst through the trees, cracking branches and overturning stones. The sleigh they pulled was flanked by six muscled men with silver axes, riding bears of their own.

In the sleigh stood a woman whose garland dress filled the chariot with bristly green piles. She took in the village with solid, glassy gray eyes. A wreath glistened atop her head; spindles of branches sprouted like wood horns, wedged between wax candles and icicles.

The group halted at the village’s edge.

“What’s happening?” Zane whispered.

“It’s…” A second sleigh plunged from the brush and my words faltered. When its bear came alongside the others, it whispered something and the rest of the bears released low, growly chuckles.

But I stood, glaring at a curly-haired traitor in a silvery jacket, whose large lips had once made me promises and told me lies.

From his sleigh, Eliot Gray spotted me in the crowd.

Zane stood beside me. “Trite, what’s going—”

“The two with scotchy manners are with me,” Eliot’s voice boomed over the village, and Zane tensed.