He caught her eye and grinned. Twelve felt the traitorous corners of her mouth twitch in response and turned away quickly.

“We must move on,” Dog said, rejoining the group. “Whatever follows us may also survive that place.”

“And Seven is only getting farther away,” Twelve added, checking her axes and climbing up onto his back.

“So, what are the chances that we catch the goblins without meeting anything else nasty?” Five asked.

“Zero,” Dog said bluntly. “They are moving fast. We will reach the Frozen Forest soon.”

Twelve nearly fell off Dog’s back and Widge was almost thrown off her. “What?”

“The Frozen Forest?” Six said, urging Surefoot alongside him.

Dog nodded. “You are Unblooded so you will not yet know this. All paths north lead to the forest. There is no way around it. Even witches cannot avoid it on foot.”

“Wonderful,” Five said. “Just wonderful.”

Six’s face was pale but resolute. “Well, we knew there’d be danger when we decided to leave the lodge. No point crying over it now.”

“Yes,” Five grimaced, “except I don’t actually remember deciding to leave. You did, and I followed like an idiot.”

Six winced at this and opened his mouth to reply.

“No, no. Don’t.” Five cut him off. “I’m sorry, all right? My face really hurts, I’m frozen, and I think we’re probably all going to die out here. But I shouldn’t have said that.”

Twelve saw Six’s fingers tighten on Five’s shoulder. She looked away, something akin to loneliness echoing through her.

“Come on,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go. Seven needs us.”

The group sped along the trail through a landscape that opened around them like a lily. All the hard edges were smoothed away and snow lay in great sparkling mounds, as soft as sugar. The sun melted the ice from the air until Twelve almost felt warm. Nothing moved behind them and she prayed whatever she had seen had met a sticky end. If there was any advantage to the cliffcrawlers, it was that they were unfussy eaters.

As the sun began to scythe a downward path, the tracks dived over a steep escarpment and zigzagged down to the flats far below. The little group gathered at the edge of the drop and took in the view in silence. A pale, tangled forest stretched to the horizon in every direction, its frostbitten canopy gleaming in the late afternoon light.

No one spoke. Twelve swallowed a lurch of fear and excitement as her eyes drank in the sight.

The Frozen Forest—a place of monsters and legends, where Hunters earned their names or died trying.

And somewhere in there was Seven.

Chapter

Twenty-One

The journey down the ridge took several nerve-racking hours: the slope was horrifyingly steep and icy. No relief met them at the bottom though; the Frozen Forest waited with a glare, its trees cloaked in twilight shadow.