She tries for a long while until her stomach rumbles, sourly reminding her of her obligations to it. Sorely, she gives up on the two strands. Perhaps when the Glamour breaks further, she’ll be able to touch them.

Breakfast is staler bread and sips of water. Croi empties the flask, but it does nothing to slake her thirst. She pats the tree she spent the night with and thanks it like the Hag has taught her to. Next, she sniffs the air and follows the direction of the moisture.

Finding a stream, she drinks until she’s content, and refills her flask. She returns to the forest and takes two steps forward when a strange vertigo hits her. She sways, throwing her arms out, desperately trying to find purchase, but it’s no use. She falls forward.

Her face hits the grass-covered ground, and though the impact isn’t especially painful—not as painful as her growing bones are, anyway—it still hurts. She sits up with some difficulty and a lot of consternation before looking around. Her mouth drops open. Where she is now isn’t where she was a minute ago. Somehow, during that period of swaying and dizziness, she was transported to a clearing in a part of the Wilde Forest she doesn’t recognize. The clearing isn’t especially large, but it is ringed by trees of a species Croi hasn’t seen before. The most conspicuous of them has wide and thick branches, which grants it a majesty uncommon to trees in a forest. Its leaves are a curious green shot with gold veins. It is refulgent, glowing brighter than any other tree nearby. Croi gets to her feet and walks to it, poking at its trunk, a little curious about the texture of its bark.

All of a sudden, three images are transmitted into her mind: tall, robed fae; dead trees; empty space. Croi gapes at the tree, comprehending what it’s telling. This isn’t a natural clearing but a fae-made one. For what purposes?

Croi pokes the tree again, but no other images follow the first three. In the midst of poking and thinking, the summoning spell decides her reprieve is over and starts pulling at her feet again. The strands of the magick yank her, forcing her to walk forward right until she reaches the end of the clearing. Her foot is raised to take another step when her body bumps into a barrier that she can barely see. Motes of white magick are layered around the perimeter of the clearing. Croi is thrown back from the sudden collision. Her feet drag her forward, and once again, her body is unable to pass the barrier.

She looks around the clearing, feeling the air in her chest dry. Her heart pounds and her forehead becomes damp with sweat. She squints at the magick motes in the air, and they reorganize themselves to create a fine netlike structure, effectively trapping her in.

SIX

NAUSEA COLORS EVERYTHING GRAY FOR a moment before the summoning spell renews its efforts to move her body. Despair, chalky and pervasive, grips Croi; she gives up fighting and once again becomes a broken marionette to the summoning spell’s puppet master, her body moving forward and being repelled by the barrier over and over again. This occurs half a dozen times before the tree with the gold-and-green leaves sends out a tensile vein, which winds around Croi’s wrist and, with unexpected strength, drags her away from the edge of the clearing and closer to itself.