Before she lost her nerve, she released her stranglehold on the trunk, spun about, and jumped into empty air.

She immediately knew that she’d made a mistake. Everything felt different this time. When she’d fallen from the roof, it had been an accident, a bit of clumsiness on her part. She hadn’t had time to think or feel, her body simply reacting, like when a glass jar fell from a shelf and you reached out as quickly as possible to save it from shattering. Then, she’d been the glass jar she’d saved from shattering. The next time, in the forest, she’d barely had time to be scared before needing to do everything in her power to fight, to survive. Even the fall from the canopy had been on the heels of her own violence, adrenaline surging through her from head to toe.

Now, as she fell, she knew there was no stopping herself, the hundreds of failures she’d suffered in the last several hours replaying themselves chaotically through her mind.

I cain’t, she thought, closing her eyes. If this was the end, she didn’t want to see it. I don’ want to.

The lie burned inside her, not only melting the ice that had taken up residence in her veins but vaporizing it to steam.

Her eyes flashed open, determination coursing through her. Not to perform the magic she’d failed so miserably at all day long, but to look her mortality straight in the eye and smile, maybe even laugh.

Her lips began to curl even as the ground grew closer. Something caught her eye on the edge of the clearing, just a shadowy blur breaking through the foliage, a dark streak bounding into open space, kicking up dirt as it landed before changing direction with the sort of agility that could never be learned nor taught, only born into a body that was made for that kind of movement. It was the movement of a natural born predator.

It cut a line that would intersect the spot she was falling toward, head tilting back so its glowing yellow eyes could capture her in its spine-chilling gaze.

Fear should’ve filled her then. Because not only would she die from a brutal impact, every bone in her body shattering into splinters, but then her body would become dinner for this sleek, deadly creature.

But she felt no fear, only a pure and placating calm. It appeared suddenly, like a thing that moved on padded feet, sneaking up from behind, wrapping warm arms around her, embracing her like a woolen blanket on a cold winter’s night.

I’m calm ’cause I know there’s no changin’ my fate? she wondered. The creature bounded ahead, closing the gap even as she fell toward that spot.

No, she realized. The calm is comin’ from that beast.

There was no denying it, even if she couldn’t make sense of it.