“You can wipe it away for him,” I said, my body already back to one hundred percent; I didn’t let go of her hand though.
“Nah, he deserved that. I thought you were overbearing,” she gave me a wink. “But dang, this older brother business is ridiculous!”
I let out a half-choked laugh, knowing that she was trying to make it easier on me. “Are you okay?”
Nodding, she gave my hand a squeeze and let go. “I love you, Quinn. You know that? I know that I didn’t tell you often enough, before all this. But I do. You’re my best friend, sister and mom, all rolled into one.”
Now I couldn’t stop the tears that tracked down my face. “I love you too Ash. Just hang on, stay close to Bres and we’ll get you back. I won’t stop fighting.”
She smiled, her face lighting up. “I know; I’ve always known that.”
I pulled my hand out of the mirror and let go of the connection. The mirror faded from the image of Ashling and Bres until it showed only my own face staring back at me. There was no flush of fever and holding the mirror at an angle I could see that the bite in my shoulder was completely healed.
Handing the mirror back to Aednat, I stood and brushed off my clothes. Ashling’s belief in me was what I’d needed, almost more than the healing.
“Okay, so how far in do you think we can get without being seen?” I asked, eyeing the thick forest around us.
“We go the round-about way. Make a big distraction that draws Banshees away from their bower, then we dive in and steal Shining boy back,” she said, drawing a quick map in the dirt at our feet.
The bower looked to be in the middle of the forest and the distraction she pointed at was on the far side, closest to the mountain.
“Aednat, do we really have time for this?”
She looked at me, her eyes hard. “You want to save Shining Boy? Then yes, we must.”
“All right. How are we going to distract them?”
Aednat stood and took my hand. “The people the Queen is keeping, they are on the far side, up the big hill. Aednat thinks she is drawing her power from them. If we free them, that is big distraction.”
Motioning for me to lower my voice and body, we began to creep forward, Aednat once more in the lead. “The people, they have high blood in them, not lots but enough to draw from.”
My mind whirled; high blood, surely she didn’t mean . . . All those people who’d been drawn to the forest, all the ones who’d gone missing. The puzzle pieces were beginning to fit together.“You mean like Tuatha, but not enough blood to actually manifest the powers?”
Her nod confirmed it. “The more people a Queen can draw from, the stronger she is. Their lives fill her with power.”
A very small, very careful spark of hope lit in me. I knew I wasn’t up to fighting someone who could take down a helicopter. This would give us a chance to save Luke, a good chance, if we hurried.
14
Creeping through a forest is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Three times we dodged Banshee patrols; the third time I thought for sure we’d been spotted, but again they passed us by. My heart was pounding so loud it was like a teenager on a new set of drums.
When the forest ended at the foothills of the Beaufort Range, I touched Aednat on the shoulder. “How much further?”
“Not far, not far at all,” she said, though her voice was strained. It seemed too easy. That should have been my first clue that something was wrong.
Jogging along the edge of the forest, we paralleled the range, keeping in sight the lake, trees and mountain looming above us. The path was well worn, beaten down by the multitudes of feet that had been seduced into coming here.
We crested a rise and I yanked Aednat to the ground. She let out a squeak and glared at me. “I can see farther than you,” I whispered. “One of the perks to being adult-sized.”
She sniffed but stayed low, “What you see?” I motioned to her and we army-crawled forward, so that we could both see over the edge.
Without us realizing it, the ground had been gently sloping upwards and we were now on the top of a rock bluff that looked down over a clearing about the size of a parking lot. It was picturesque, except for the hundreds of people milling about, some singing softly to themselves, others sprawled out sleeping on the ground, while still others stood silent like sentinels. The worst, though, was the pile of bodies stacked on the far side like firewood. Even from a distance I could see they were dried up husks of the people they’d once been, their lives drained away to give the Queen more power.
“Where are the Banshee guards?” I whispered.
Aednat frowned. “Should be around.”