Page 105 of The Unbound Witch

Hanging an arm over my shoulder, he got awkwardly close to my face and made that stupid grin he loved so much. “If we weren’t best friends before, we definitely are now.”

I made myself invisible and laughed and laughed at his quiet, high-pitched squeal the entire way to the waterfall isle, stopping under the water to drop him. He stepped away completely soaked, and Nym covered her nose.

“You smell like a wet dog.”

He shook his hair wildly, still smiling. “Compliment taken.”

I moved past them toward the back of the cave. Just as I’d hoped, there was an access point to climb up and out. I had no idea where it led, but we needed to get up there regardless.

“Is this where we’re supposed to do it?” Nym asked, staring at the hard stone surface.

“Behind the veil atop the world … Any other ideas?”

“Our ghosty is a smart cookie,” Atlas said, moving to climb up the rocks.

“Wait!” I yelled a little too loud. “You can’t go up there like that.”

He looked down at his soaking wet shirt, soothing a hand down his chest. “Afraid they’ll throw themselves at me? Good point. I seemed to have left my change of clothes back at the shop.”

“No, mutt. You’re a shifter. They’ll sniff you out a thousand miles away. You’re a giant.”

“Ah… right.”

“What if you go as the wolf and we pretend you’re my familiar?” Nym asked. “Kir can be invisible and then it’s just you and I.”

“I think that’s still risky.”

“This whole damn thing is a risk,” Atlas said, before shifting into the wolf.

“I guess that’s our answer, then.”

Nym kept Talon secured at her side and lifted the deep hood over her head as she broke the surface and climbed out of the hole in the ground, hiding among a line of dead trees on the edge of this isle. We looked down over the other isle, but could hardly see anything in the budding dawn.

The sun seemed to rise faster this high up, though. One moment the world was dull and gray, and the next, a peach hue cast over the ocean below and the Fire Coven’s ashen ground in the distance. Even the clouds took on the fresh morning color. I wondered if that wraith was watching her final sunrise this morning, knowing we were hopefully hours away from getting our answers about the Harrowing and releasing her.

The isle seemed to come alive with the rise of the sun. Maybe it was the smaller size, but it seemed the population was denser than the Moon Coven. I supposed when we held a gathering on Gravana Lake, we did fill the docks all the way around it.

“Any guesses where to?” Nym asked, trying not to be conspicuous, talking to her familiar as a man yawning so loud, he likely woke the neighbors passed by.

“Just go forward and keep your head down,” I whispered. “Try to get into a group of people. We need to find a whispering pearl and I have no fucking clue what that is.”

Nym answered with a nod, and we moved toward a small cluster of cottages surrounded by trees that would have been hard to see through, had they been full of leaves. A yelp from Atlas was the only warning before I slammed into a barrier. Nym passed right through, but the two of us did not, and the magic laced in the barrier had revealed us both.

It was only a single second, but as I caught the eye of a copperhead man watching us, just before I vanished and Atlas shifted back, I knew we’d been caught.

“Nym,” I hissed.

She looked over her shoulder only then realizing the pup hadn’t followed her. Making an awkward long circle, she hustled back to us.

“There’s a barrier. I think we were seen and we can’t get through. We’re going to have to follow along the outside, away from these homes.”

“I think we have to send Atlas back,” she said under her breath. “They’re staring.”

She was right, of course. If they had a spirit blessed witch in the Whisper Coven with a giant white wolf as a familiar, they would all know it. None of us had expected the isles to be quite so… open. Watching our back as we vanished into the tree line, we dropped down as quickly as we could.

“This isn’t going to work,” Atlas said as he shifted.

“It will.” Nym’s enthusiasm had faded, her words lacking conviction.