When my heart has calmed, I take a purposeful step into the trees. Then another. I count my paces, but I don’t get far before the trees rustle. My skin prickles with rising fear. I stop twenty-five paces into the Dead Wood. I can still glimpse the white veil of Spinner’s End. Swords at my sides, I wait.

The awareness of something ancient and angry stirs around me. I suddenly realize why the presence in the garden maze felt familiar—it had felt a little like this. Whatever’s back there is tied somehow to the Dead Wood, although I’ve no idea how that’s possible, unless the gardens are closer to the trees than I thought. But then what about the creature I’d heard scuttling over the cobblestones?

Now is no time to let my thoughts wander. Although I know what to expect, the sight of faces surfacing from within the decaying trunks still spills ice down my spine. Knobby, fractured fingers press outward, stretching gray-green bark that flakes off like dead skin. The burls of their eyes squint and weep sticky sap.

My hands shake. I grip my swords so hard that my fingers go numb. To keep my legs in motion, I turn in a slow circle. That warmth of magic sparks in my chest. I try to focus on it, but my breaths come faster and my heartbeat resounds in my ears.

Their mouths stretch wide, but there’s nothing inside except the aged whorls and rivets of the bark. My attention snags on those lips formed of wood and rot. They’re moving in sync, and I realize with a sinking dread that they’re all mouthing the same thing. A single word, again and again: Run.

My breath sticks in my throat, and I nearly do just that. But through the haze of fear, my instincts latch onto a single thought, which keeps me in place—can the spirits talk?

The roots behind me lift. I whirl to face them, watching as they shake off a crust of earth. Dirt scatters across my boots.

Pulse racing, I ask through clenched teeth, “Why are you telling me to run?”

If the spirits can somehow communicate with me, then they can tell me what’s keeping them tethered here.

But there’s no answer as the faces retreat and the trees shamble closer. A single tentacle-like appendage snags my foot. I slash at it. It recoils, thrashing like a snake.

Something stains my blade. At first, I think it’s sap. It laces the roots and clings in viscous strings to the branches over my head. Another root snares my leg as something sharp rakes down my back. My swords blur through the air as I cut myself free. The branch drops at my feet, something wet and viscid sliding from its fingerlike ends.