“NO,” I said with a growl. I pushed with my magic, visualizing the pink flames in my mind and then letting them roll out of me. Inch by inch, my magic silenced the whispers and the pressure, but I felt it lingering in the distance. I snarled into the darkness. “You want us? You’ll have to do better than that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FRANKIE

A sinister laugh echoed around me, bouncing off the pine trees that towered into the night sky. It was just like before, memory and life merging into one horrifying image. Each of their trunks and branches were solid black shadows against the light of the moon shining through. The air was a foggy, faint blue—almost silvery. It glittered in the distance. I looked straight up, but there was no end in sight for the trees.

A cold chill slid down my spine, like fingertips tracing my skin. I shivered. “You can’t have us.”

I had no idea who I was talking to, but it felt good to pretend like I wasn’t here alone. Savannah’s projected form was soft like foam, there but not fully physical. Yet Devon’s was. That made no sense. Devon’s body was in the infirmary in Headquarters, except the body I had pinned to the ground was very, very real. Her skin was warm and clammy. Her muscles were tense and tight. She was here.

Ice-cold air brushed over my feet and coiled around my ankles. Fingers clawed at my legs and tugged at my jeans. With each silent plea, their hands pulled at my body. I looked down to find a thick white fog covering our feet like we stood in a creek. Just like last time. I took solace in that. It helped me separate reality from the mind fuck of this forest. Arms made of white fog reached up, swaying unnaturally as their ghostly hands reached for me.

“Please . . .”

“I’m not leaving you, Devon.” I clenched my teeth and held on to her and the ground.

She choked on a cough. “Hunter⁠—”

“He’s coming. Just hold on. Stay with me.”

Floating blue flames glistened in the distance, marking the trail that sliced between the trees. My stomach was in knots. Figures made of white fog danced between the trees. They twirled in big puffy skirts of smoke, beckoning and waiting. A loud, cheerful whistle rang through the forest. It sounded like music—NO. I knew what the whistling meant. The Land of the Lore didn’t care why or what I was doing, it wanted its prey one way or another. I started singing a Halestorm song, trying to drown out the sound of the whistling.

Light flashed in the corner of my eye, but I didn’t look. I knew better than to look at anything here.

“DEVON!”