Here
Lily
As much as I hated abandoning Logan’s trail, I had to go after this cruel shapeshifter. If I let her go, if I didn’t find out her true identity, Logan and I would be in even worse shape for the Gleaning. Tears of frustration ran down my cheeks, stinging the blisters on my scalded skin. Jacob’s fire had given her a huge lead—Jacob might even be the one who sent her.
I closed my eyes and urgently called upon the Seven Sisters for strength. The moon’s beams seeped into my pores, rejuvenating my tired muscles and restoring some of the energy I’d lost in the Grove. I took off into the forest.
Bare feet pounding the carpet of pine needles and damp euca-leaves, I sprinted in the direction she’d gone. She’d lacked a scent, which made it harder to track her. It also suggested that she wasn’t a witch, but a human girl Jacob had enchanted. But how could he have known about the enchantment to begin with? Logan’s protective spell against Jacob’s prying ears must not have been strong enough. But that wasn’t it. Logan knew I wanted to meet him, but he didn’t know why. Only my coven knew that.
Chills ran down my spine, but I didn’t have long to contemplate that potential betrayal.
A flash of white curved around a cluster of trees, and I pushed myself harder. My powerful strides lofted me through the air for several seconds at a time. Faster than ever, I pushed through the wind. If I could just catch her, I could get all the answers. Or at least some. And that was all I needed to keep one foot in front of the other.
I was getting close; her shimmering skin glittered under the silken gown. I’d almost reached her when a strobe of brilliant light flashed in my eyes like a streak of lightning. I blinked, nearly tripping over a log. When I regained my balance, I continued after her at full speed. Her hair was an unnatural version of mine, so shiny it looked fake, like a shampoo commercial. The white silk of her dress flashed again, blinding me. Stumbling, I reached out for a tree to hold onto while I regained my footing.
When my eyes readjusted to the darkness, I saw red dust smeared all over my hands. The contrast of red against the white of the euca’s trunk was stark and telling. It looked like the poison dust of a powerful warlock.
How could it be on this tree?
Had the girl left this critical clue, or was it from when Jacob had passed through as a tornado of noxious smoke?
A third possibility: distraction.
The strobe, the fresh blood-colored dust—they didn’t have to mean anything. They could be red herrings as she tried to lose me in the forest. Stop pausing to ogle breadcrumbs and catch that witch, Lil.
I slammed my open palm against the tree—a blow so hard the trunk cracked and buckled. By the time I heard it crash to the ground, I was at least a hundred yards ahead, half-running, half-flying, causing the earth to shake beneath my feet.
Logan
Logan was above the action, his body soaring high over dark clouds. Over sweeping forests of black-green, suspended above a vast canopy of trees. His focus narrowed until it centered on a handcrafted wooden structure nestled among thick branches near the top of a tall oak.
“Mama! Daddy!” a young voice cried.
Logan peered closer, trying to make out who had cried for help. And then, in a whirled flash, he was lost, sucked inside the tree house, looking out at a little wooden cabin. Creamy smoke curled out of the chimney, drifting toward the stars. He felt scared, lost, and alone.
If his parents were home, why weren’t they coming for him?
What? Logan looked down at skinny arms dangling from a waif’s frame. Where had that thought come from?
A red Spider-Man T-shirt and jean shorts. Tiny bare feet. Shivering, he waited as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he bent over onto knobby knees, discovering action figures he was overwhelmingly interested in playing with: a small wooden wizard wearing a tiny blue-cone hat. A bright green
John Steinbeck, Richard Astro