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I turned around just in time to see Raven disappear into a cluster of evergreen trees. My anger flared. She’d run off without me—again. This girl was quickly becoming a thorn in my side. If she got herself killed, my hope of saving Lila would die with her.

With a frustrated sigh, I jogged after her. Kah followed, seeming a bit lighter on his feet despite the fact we were still trapped in Malengard.

I grabbed her arm again when I caught up with her. “What are you doing? I told you to stay behind me.”

Raven didn’t answer, her gaze fixed on the trees. “The bent pine tree,” she gasped. “The tunnel has to be here somewhere.”

“How do you know?” I asked, following her gaze to the tree.

“Sable said the entrance was near the bent pine tree beside the old groundkeeper’s quarters. We need to split up and look for it.”

As skeptical as I was about this alleged tunnel, if it existed, it would mean we wouldn’t have to fight off the armies of Malengard today. Which would be preferable.

Kah and I glanced at each other. “Can’t hurt to look,” he said to me.

We split up, though I stayed close to Raven, keeping her in my sight.

We hadn’t been searching long when I noticed Raven gesturing toward a dense patch of black thorns that climbed upthe perimeter wall. “I think I found it,” she called out, keeping her voice low.

“Where?” I whispered, moving to her side. The bushy needles of the tall pine trees shielded us from the eagle eyes of any Rathalan watchmen above us, but they’d still be able to hear us if we were too loud.

“Behind here. I saw a fox run this way and then vanishintothe wall. Look, you can see part of the wall missing back there. If I could just get these thorns out of the way …” She reached out to wrestle aside the spiny vegetation.

“Raven, no!” I shouted, pulling her away with so much force that we both toppled over backward, the frozen ground knocking the air out of our lungs.

“What are you doing?” she said hotly, scrambling away from me. Blood trickled down her forearm from where a rock had cut her.

“What areyoudoing?” I asked. “That’s black bramble.”

“So?”

We stared at each other like we’d reached an impasse. “You don’t know about bramble?” I said, surprised.

She shook her head.

“How does she not know about bramble?” Kah said to me, eyeing the deadly plant.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Raven looked confused as she glanced between me and Kah. She wouldn’t be able to hear Kah unless he spoke directly to her, so I knew it sounded like I was talking to myself.

“The sting of one of those thorns causes what they call ‘the endless sleep,’” I told her as we both got to our feet.I thought everyone knew that.“You’d be unconscious for weeks until death finally claimed you. It’s not a good way to go to the shadowlands.”

Raven drew the commander’s cloak closer around her as if that would protect her from the poisonous thorns. “How do we get to the tunnel then? Can you cut it down?”

“If you try to cut it down or burn it, it’ll fight back, sprouting three vines where there was one. Growing thicker and denser … and deadlier.” Even the most powerful Ardens, who’d been known to grow entire cities from plants, couldn’t control bramble.

“Use the rope,” she said, eyeing the rope looped around my shoulder that I’d brought along, thinking we might need to scale the wall.

Just then, a signal horn bellowed across the landscape, reverberating against the wall. I wondered if that meant all of Malengard had just been alerted to our whereabouts.

“I think we’re officially out of time,” Kah said.

Holding my breath, I carefully tied one end of the rope around the patch of bramble and wrenched the poisonous vines to the side, tying the other end of the rope to a nearby tree to anchor it. To my surprise, Raven was right. There was a large gap in the wall.

“After you,” I said.

Raven didn’t hesitate before stepping into the darkness. Kah followed, and then me. I turned back to cut the rope, silently praying this was a real tunnel, not a cave with no outlet.