Page 19 of The Blood Queen

She takes it. No hesitation. Just trust and connection and now resilient hope.

Until a noise echoes through our cave: horse hooves. Armor rattling. Voices raised in barking shouts.

The High Blade’s onto us.

“Where’s the actual nearest portal?” I ask.

Alyth’s face grays. “There might be small portals, ones that pop up from fairies or other creatures, but there aren’t any of the big ones around here. Not in the lowlands. It’d take too long to find a smaller one. I don’t—”

Something flares between us, and I jump. If it’s another damned spider…

But it’s light.

Gleaming, shining, a tiny, floating flare.

That flare splits.

Splits again.

Three little balls hover in front of us.

My eyes jerk up to the ceiling of the cave.

The spiders, their webs—they’re all gone.

“Alyth—”

But her face brightens, the glow of the wisps reflected in her pupils. “Will-o’-the-wisps.”

Like the one that drew us into the fae realm last time. Dropped us right into the goblin market.

Will-o’-the-wisps lead us where we need to go.

I don’t need more than that memory.

Alyth’s hand in mine, I tear out of the cave, hoping the wisps get the message. They do; the little light balls flare bright yellow-white and dart ahead of me, leading down along the rock wall.

Behind us, back the way we came, the noise of the High Blade’s army comes crashing and stomping through the forest. They’re close, gotta be, coming up fast. We’re not bound by horses or armor, lithe and quick, so we’ll beat ’em.

We have to.

Alyth and I race after the wisps, putting the river behind us, climbing higher as the forest wends up a rocky hill. We double back at one point, ducking around groves and taking a circuitous, twisting route; the wisps are playing. They’re leading us where we need to go but taking their time to do it, having fun, and I snarl at the daft little lights.

The echo of the High Blade’s soldiers ricochets through these woods, making it sound like they’re surrounding us. I’m all twisted around. The wisps are gonna get us killed.

We tear around a cluster of trees, the wisps ahead of us—

And stumble right into three mounted Red Caps.

One of ’em is Cecil.

The High Blade isn’t with them, so there’s some small salvation, and they’re a few paces back, a fallen log between us. But my father is at the lead, and his face shifts from surprise to outright deadly fury in a flash. He and the two Red Caps with him are battered and waterlogged, bloodied from fighting off those fae horse creatures. And all three are out for our heads now.

Even the wisps seem startled, their lights pulsing bright as they shimmy in place.

The lot of us stay frozen for a beat.

Then we all move at once.