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She grinned, her milky eyes locking onto mine. “I was wonderin’ when ye’d finally understand.”

“How long have you known?” I snapped as I took a step toward her.

“D’na take zat tone wit’ me, girl,” she hissed, pushing her hair over her shoulder as Andrues smirked in my direction. I sucked my teeth before blowing out a sharp huff of air.

“I’m sorry.” I sighed. Yenne gave an approving nod before turning back to her cauldron and stirring.

“I ‘ave been knowin’ since ze first time ye come inta me shop. Ye reek of magic,” she said, pulling dried herbs from her apron pocket and crumbling them into the mixture. The boiling settled as she stirred it in.

“Zere is much ‘bout our magic ye ‘ave yet ta learn.” She tapped the wooden spoon on the lip of the cauldron, then set it on the edge of the table where it sat. “Witchcraft issa art; it comes in many forms.”

“Can you teach me? Can you show me how to control whatever this magic is?” I asked, my voice sounding a tad too frantic for my liking. I cleared my throat, clasping my hands behind my back as her eyes seemed to study me.

“No,” she said simply.

“No?” I hissed, annoyance starting to reemerge.

She turned away from us, pulling items out of crates lining the floor. “Ye are’na ‘umble enough ta learn. Issa gift ta wield ze power we ‘ave. Until ye can push ye ego ta ze side, I will be wastin’ me time.”

I stood frozen in place, clenching my teeth and inhaling a deep breath through my nose as Andrues glanced in mydirection. He lifted a brow, shaking his head. Inhaling yet another deep breath, I closed my eyes and waited for the anger to clear my system.

“Thank you, Yenne,” Andrues said, and I forced myself not to scowl at the politeness it dripped with.

Andrues’s fingers wrapped around my arm and I slowly opened my eyes to see him gesturing his head toward the door. I bit down on my tongue, swallowing back the vitriol that was always so prepared to be spewed.

It wasn’t her that I was angry at, it was her words and the truth that they held.

Chapter twenty-four

HYACINTH

Batsscatteredfromtherocks like poison flowed through their veins. As if these mountains were so full of foul magic, not even the creatures of The Silliands could make a home there. The realm’s passage hadn’t given us the trouble I’d expected, but the stillness of it, the complete and utter quiet that had engulfed it, only made the unease seep deeper into my bones.

None of us spoke, we hardly dared to breathe as we hiked the narrow trail up the side of the mountain’s edge. The fabric tied over my nose and mouth did little to protect from the putrid air that clung to us—that infiltrated our lungs like a disease. The Blackridge Mountains held only the faintest of light, as if the sun refused to gift these jagged rocks its warmth.

My boots thudded against the rocky path, crunching atop the gravel as my shadows clung to the dead, twisted trees lining the trail to keep my balance. The trail was steep, and my palms bore evidence of that, cut and bloodied from grabbing onto the jaggedstone to keep from falling and slipping off the path’s cliffed ledge.

A loud rumble shook the ground beneath us and we froze, glancing up at the towering cliffs above.

“W-what was that?” I stammered, my voice hushed, as if speaking any louder would send the mountain crumbling down on us.

Another tremor began to shake the mountain’s core, the roar of shattering rocks filling the air as the earth violently shook beneath us. I looked up as pebbles and debris began to rain down on our heads and a cloud of dust consumed the sky above us.

Landers’s arm flew through the air, slamming into my chest as my back collided with the ridge. Pain erupted through my spine as my lungs gasped for the breath that had been knocked from my body.

In that same second, rocks began falling, boulders crashing down taking chunks of the mountainside along with them as they fell into the dank smog below us.

Shadows sprang from my body, shielding us from being torn off the mountain and into the abyss with the shards falling from the sky.

“We need to move!” Dukovich yelled as the earth began to split under my feet. Cracks and craters formed below us, spider-webbing outward as my mind began rapidly searching for a way to stop this.

We needed to get off this ledge or we’d be swallowed up by the mountain.

Shadows released from the palm of my hand, moving toward the top of the peak, and I prayed the tendrils would be strong enough.

“Climb!” I screamed over the deafening sounds of the crumbling stone as wings released from my back.

Landers reached for me, his hands gripping onto the strap of my sack and pulling me toward him as another crack tore through the ground.