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He laughed. He couldn’t help it at hearing the absurdity of the words even as her face remained serious and her stance firm. He took a step back as her fingers twitched on the bow, worried she’d shoot him out of frustration for not getting the joke.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking?—”

Before he could finish the statement, a rough hand wrapped around his neck and he was pulled back against the body of something hard and cold. He choked on the smell of iron and decay, and he couldn’t stop the tremor that worked its way through his body.

“Don’t let her hurt me,” a soft voice said. But when he turned, it wasn’t the woman he saw holding him, but a monster whose face mocked humanity. Small red eyes sat high on its head and its mouth was opened wide, red lips stretched across sharp black teeth. Mist poured from its mouth and wrapped around him tighter, making his body go heavy even as he struggled against its grasp.

The woman—the thing—let out a high-pitched laugh as he shoved his elbow back, trying to break its hold on him.

Shit shit shit shit.

“Just shoot it!” he screamed, moving to the side as best he could with the arms braced around his waist and neck.

Sofia let her arrow fly. There was a whistle and a soft thud and he looked down at a thin wood rod protruding from the thing’s chest a mere inch from Fox’s arm. But its grip didn’t weaken and it let out a throaty growl, letting go of Fox with one hand to pull the arrow out and toss it to the side. All Fox could do was watch in abject horror as mist poured from the wound and the skin folded itself back together, the hole gone a moment later.

He turned to see Sofia looking just as horrified as he did, the bow hung limply by her side.

“Shoot it again!”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” she snapped.

“Kill it!”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” she yelled back.

Before he could retort, the touch of something icy and wet on his neck froze him. His eyes moved sideways of their own accord and he saw the creature’s black mouth opened wide. Its teeth scraped across his neck again, hard enough to draw blood and a thin black tongue licked out across his skin. His vision went white for a second, not from pain, but fear.

“Iron,” he said, the word trembling from his lips, eyes seeking out Sofia.

She was pale, eyes wide. “I don’t have?—”

“The blade I stole,” he said, lips barely moving as he spoke. “The larger one.”

He saw the recognition in her face in the same moment that the creature moved to sink its teeth into his neck. He moved fast, lurching forward and biting down hard into the arm that gripped him. The creature screamed as he tasted decay, black sludge coating his tongue. It pulled its arm away, knocking Fox to his knees with its other arm, clawed fingers biting into his shoulder.

“Ocon, catch!”

He looked up just in time to see the iron dagger spinning toward him, catching it by the hilt a second before it stabbed through his chest. He braced himself and turned, arching his arm toward the creature behind him and hitting his target. The blade slid through skin and sinew more easily than he expected and mist poured from the slash. The creature barely seemed to notice the wound.

“Aim for its heart!”

“I was trying.”

“You missed,” she said, blunt as always.

“I was a little distracted by the fangs,” he snapped, seeing where the blade had gone in a few inches higher than where its heart probably sat. Although he was also basing this off human anatomy and hoping for the best.

He still gripped the dagger, a blacksomethingstaining the blade. He moved again, trying not to see the black hole that was the creature’s mouth as it leaned toward him. The dagger sunk into its flesh with a squelch and the smell of rot enveloped him. An instant later, the coldthingbeneath his hands melted away into nothing but mist. The dagger fell to the ground with nothing left to hold it.

CHAPTERTWENTY

SOFIA

Sofia let out a string of curses as she watched the faery dissipate into mist, leaving behind the dagger and nothing else. Despite her cycles of reading about the magical creatures of the rainforest and their land, she would have been happy to have never met one face-to-face.

Ocon was frozen, staring at the ground where the monster had been standing a moment before. She moved first, sensation slowly returning to her fingers and toes. She bent over and grabbed the dagger where it had fallen, wiping the black stain off on a large leaf before handing it back to Ocon.

“You’re lucky that was iron.”