“No. But I think the Diwata got the message.”

“I guess.” Chase looks down at Askal. “You’re always up everyone’s ass, but you didn’t even bark at the tree this time, boy.” He lets out a shaky laugh. “Were you as scared as I was?”

Askal lets out a little snort, clearly taking offense, but allows Chase to pet him. The boy looks around and sucks in an abrupt breath. I follow his gaze.

The airplane is disappearing. Or rather, it is transmuting from broken steel and metal to bark and wood. The wreckage untwists itself, crumpling until it becomes a large mass of writhing roots and branches. And soon even they surrender and ungroup, sliding away into the hidden corners and small dark holes they had come from, leaving the clearing to us.

“No,” Leo Gries says hoarsely. He rushes to where the plane once stood and falls to his knees. “I’ll take whatever punishment she gives me!” he shouts, weeping openly now. “I deserve it. I deserve everything. If only I was better for her—better for you. Chase, I’m so sorry.”

Chase rushes over and yanks his father into an embrace. Hoping to give them what little privacy I can, I turn away, and make the mistake of looking up at the cavern.

“Alon?” Chase asks when I don’t say anything for a while. I respond by pointing upward. His gaze follows my finger—and he gasps.

There are easily thirty or so of the tree creatures gathered at the ceiling, hanging upside down, watching us with their lack of eyes, their Venus flytrap mouths that slowly open and close, sampling the air with their sharp root-tongues.

“Are they gonna come after us?” Chase asks slowly.

“No,” I say. “They won’t.”

“But why would they look at us like that if not to—”

“They’ve always been here. But they’re not for us. They know that they can’t get to you. They’re—waiting.”

“For more people like me,” Leo Gries says, sounding exhausted. “I’m going to be one of the sacrifices. If that will let you and Chase leave—”

“I’m not going to let them get you, Dad,” Chase interrupts fiercely. “And I know Alon feels the same. So they’re not gonna attack us?”

“No,” I say carefully. “And since they’re letting us pass without comment, let’s not antagonize them.”

“Chase,” Leo Gries says again.

“You’re not allowed to say anything else until we leave this cave, Dad,” Chase says firmly. “I don’t know what Alon said to it, but if the Diwata’s letting us go, let’s take advantage of that.”

“It might,” another voice says, “but we won’t.”

Hemslock is back, surrounded by his men. Their guns are pointed right at us. “The god might be soft about letting you go, Gries,” the actor says, “but I’ll be damned if you’re going to fuck this up for me again.”

Twenty-Three

Balete

They usher us into another tunnel, Hemslock boasting all the while. “Seems like we’ve finally gotten in the god’s good graces,” he says, grinning. “Practically no attacks on us all the way here. It hit Leo hard, though—really pulled out all the illusions for him from the way he was carrying on about his wife. Figured we’d leave him and let the god handle him how it saw fit, then collect his corpse once it was all over. But then you kids had to come along and ruin the good thing we had going.”