“We don’t want to hurt you more than we have to,” Abel said. “But Soren told us we can’t let anyone inside Gravaldor’s den. You can’t win this. Surrender, and we’ll let you live.”

“Ow!” Viola yelped. Ethel had pulled one of her hair buns. Moments later Abel kicked Tadg behind the knees.

“One of you need to do something,” Tadg grunted.

“Mitzi, try some light,” Viola said to Mitzi, who was in the midst of struggling with Ethel’s Beast. Mitzi bounced off it and opened her mouth, and let out a huge burst of light, so bright that Barclay needed to shield his eyes with his hands.

It must have been working, because Abel’s and Ethel’s jabs and punches momentarily stopped. But the light reflecting around them in every direction made it extraordinarily hot in their circle. Sweat broke out over his forehead.

“I think it’s working,” Viola told them.

“But I can’t open my eyes,” Barclay said.

“And you’re cooking us,” Tadg added.

“Then you two do something,” Viola hissed.

Barclay didn’t know what he or Root could contribute in this situation. But they were desperate and out of options, so Barclay reached his hands out and summoned as much wind as he could muster.

Gusts began to pick up amid their circle, swirling and whirling so fast, they needed to lock arms to prevent themselves from being dragged away.

“How is this helping?” Tadg yelled.

“Well, I’m dry!” Viola shouted.

“Yeah, and there’s no water left to summon,” he growled back. “If I had more, I could summon Mar-Mar. He’s no good on dry land.”

Defeated, Barclay called off the wind. Ethel and Abel watched the three of them smugly from the mirrors.

“There isn’t anything you can do,” Ethel told them.

“So you might as well surrender,” Abel finished.

A roar tore through the Woods.

Not just any roar but the loudest and most frightening sound Barclay had ever heard. Everyone—even Abel and Ethel in the mirrors—covered their ears. Barclay heard the roar in his stomach. He heard it in the ground. He heard it in the trees around them.

The canopy above them rippled, as though the Woods was taking a breath.

As though the Woods was waking up.

“Gravaldor,” Tadg said, ashen. Then he charged and threw himself at one of the mirrors. The mirror cracked slightly, but Tadg ended up collapsing onto the ground, clutching his shoulder.

Abel laughed and leaped out of the mirror at Tadg’s left. He kicked him in the chest.

Tadg sputtered.

“Hard to breathe, fish food?” Abel asked him.

Viola groaned, and Barclay whipped around to find her also on the ground. Ethel had one foot in the mirror and the other on the grass. She clutched Viola’s arm and held a broken shard of glass against her throat.

“Just stay still,” Ethel told her, “and you won’t even get a scratch.”

Another ripple swept through the trees. Gravaldor was waking up, and Soren could have found him by now. If they stayed here any longer, they wouldn’t be able to stop him.