Page 82 of Bloodwitch

“No idea!” Leopold shouted back. His Threads were as pale with fear as Owl’s, but green determination latticed around the edges. He had not given up yet. “Surely there is some way to turn this thing around!”

While the ferry rocked to a gentler sway, he searched the pulley mechanism, and Iseult followed his lead. Neither loosened their grip on Owl. They simply scoured and examined—and Iseult also prayed.Please, Moon Mother. Help us survive this, please.

“What would a switch look like?” Iseult asked.

“I don’t know!”

“I thought you had been here more times than you can count!”

“But only four times on the ferry—” He broke off as the next trebuchet launched.

Fire rocketed toward them. Leopold stared. Iseult stared. Owl screamed, a sound to split mountains. A sound to summon stone.

Or a mountain bat. In a streak of fur and speed, Blueberry dropped from the sky. With his wings folded in, he dove faster than the flames.

He crashed into the fire. The ball flew off course. His flight turned to a spinning topple. No space between fire and beast. A blur of smoking flesh plummeted toward the earth.

Now Owl really screamed, but Iseult was ready this time. “He’s all right.” She grabbed Owl’s face. Forced the girl to look at her. Iseult knew from experience with sea foxes that creatures like Blueberry were almost impossible to kill.

“Owl!” she pleaded. “We need your magic! You have to control this metal. Make the pulley stop—can you do that?”

Owl did nothing of the sort. She was crying now, a weak whimper while her Threads shriveled inward like they had the night before.

“Feel my hand,” Iseult ordered, squeezing Owl’s fingers. “Do you feel that? Feel the skin, feel how hot it is and how strong the muscles underneath.”

Nothing. No response, no reaction, no awareness.

“And do you feel your own hand, Owl? Do you feel the way the skin and bone crush together the tighter I hold on?”

Still, Owl’s Threads shrank. Breaking, breaking, breaking.

It was then that another trebuchet snapped, close enough to hear the wood punching. Close enough to hear the fire’s thunderous ignition take flight.

Iseult dared not look. “The sky!” She had to howl now, to be heard over the winds and flames and wood. “Do you see how blue it is? Look up, Owl,look up!”

To her shock, Owl looked up. So Iseult looked up too.

And at that moment, Blueberry streaked across the blue. Smoke chased behind, his tail ablaze. But he lived.He lived.

Color plowed through Owl’s Threads. Brilliant as the mountain bat’s, but with a thousand shades twirling and chasing. Too fast to read—too fast tomatter.

“The chain!” Iseult screamed, seizing the moment. “Owl, please—stop the chain!”

The chain stopped. The pulley froze. The ferry lurched, a snapping lunge that sent Leopold sprawling toward the rail.

“Reverse it!” Iseult screamed. “Reverse it, Owl!Reverse it, reverse it!”

The ferry reversed.

“Faster!” Leopold now shouted, crawling back to the pulley. “Faster, faster, faster—”

They were not fast enough. The flames shattered against the ferry, blinding and deafening. Heat to boil the flesh off bones. The last thing Iseult saw before her world blazed to ash was Blueberry’s fierce, silver Threads diving their way.

Then everything vanished beneath the pyre.

THIRTY-FOUR

There is an army headed your way.