“What was that?” Otto asked.

“Nothing good,” Pip said, rising as well. Her hand on Gloaming, she advanced down the road. Eleanor and Otto stuck close as they followed. The road wound around the side of a small hill, blocking their view up ahead. They rounded the corner slowly—and froze.

The hedgewitch was on her knees, hands held up in surrender. Around her stood four figures clad in dark gray armor that was pinched and twisted in strange, thorny shapes. Each of them carried a long, jagged spear—and the tip of one was pointed right between the hedgewitch’s shoulder blades.

One of the armored figures turned its head toward the trio. His lips parted, and he inhaled deeply through his nose—as if smelling them. The hedgewitch, her hair wild around her face, looked at them with wide, frightened eyes.

“Run!” she called, her voice harsh as the caw of a crow. Otto seized Eleanor’s arm, turning to flee—but Eleanor stood rooted to the spot.

She couldn’t leave her mother there. She couldn’t abandon her.

“Run, you fools!” the hedgewitch shouted, but it was too late. Two of the gray-armored soldiers closed the distance in a few long strides. The jagged tip of a spear hovered an inch from Eleanor’s throat, and cold, empty eyes stared into hers. The other spear was leveled at Pip, who grimaced and threw down Gloaming, raising her hands in surrender.

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said softly as a soldier’s hand closed around her arm.

Their captors said nothing at all.

Nine

Their hands were bound behind their backs with thin rope that bit into their wrists, and the strange, silent soldiers marched them up the road. Otto tried to talk to them at first, but they only stared down at him, expressionless, and made pointed gestures with their spears.

Before long, they reached the edge of the trees. Here the dirt path met up with a sternly straight road of gray brick. It sliced its way cleanly through a rolling landscape of hills. At the end of the road, built within a blasted crater of rock and dirt, was their destination: a castle.

The massive structure loomed even from this distance. It was ringed by high, gray walls, and topped with looming gray towers. Above it streamed banners the color of soot.

“That doesn’t look promising,” Otto said. The soldier walking behind him shoved him hard on the shoulder.