"It's not."
He smiles. "I've always appreciated your honesty. Come. It's time for a walk." He lifts the key from the hook and unlocks the door. "And before you plot escape or revenge, let me remind you that I have Daryn and Riot both in my care. Now, up. Let's see if that leg has healed."
I push myself to standing and leave my cell for the first time in days.
Revenge is on my mind, front and center, but my hands are bound and my leg is still weak. And I have a useless prosthetic. Now isn't the time. Even when I was completely healthy, I was never able to bring him down.
Samrael makes me walk ahead of him, telling me where to go. As we leave the cluster of cells behind and head into the maze of corridors, I hear Riot smashing his hooves against the bars, making a racket that echoes through the stone tunnels.
After a while, I feel the stress on the bones knitting together in my leg and start to limp. The sound of my uneven stride is too loud, and too telling. Step-step. Step-step. I fight it, trying to stay even.
"No shame in it," Samrael says. "I'd offer you my hand if I thought you'd-"
"Shut up."
"You know, I regret cutting it off."
"I don't think you do yet, but you will."
He laughs. "Never the quitter. Admirable."
Despite the pain in my leg, it's a relief to be out of the cell, moving. I try to think ahead-where's he taking me? If he wanted me dead, he could've done it in the cell.
By the time we come through a door set into a hillside, my leg is a blaring center of pain and I'm sweating.
Oh, yes. Awesome. We're back in the woods. I was really missing this.
"I think all of the confiding I've been doing has affected me," Samrael says. He gazes at the trees like they mean something to him. "It feels good to finally share the secrets I've been keeping. I feel so understood." He looks at me. "What would you like to see, Gideon? Daryn, probably. I don't even need to get into that dense skull of yours to know that, do I? Daryn it is."
My heart jolts. I look for her, but there's nothing but forest around us. We're the only ones here.
Movement draws my eye to a cluster of rocks. They're rumbling on the ground, bouncing like the earth is shaking. Then they roll and glom together. Mass into a shape that's vaguely human. Then exactly human.
Daryn's hair spills out in a flash of gold. Her shoulders form. Her neck and arms. All of her, solidifying. Everything is exact. Her clothing. The way she moves. Even the way she smiles at me.
It's Daryn. It's her.
"We've been wondering why the hauntings happen, Gideon," she says. She glances at Samrael. "It's him. He's been searching into your minds. He's found your fears and made them manifest. It's been Samrael all this time. He's been trying to scare you into leaving. He didn't want you here. He only needs me to let him out. And I will. I'm going to release him from this prison. I'm going to go with him. And I'm going to leave you here."
With no warning, she fractures into rocks again. Instantaneously, they tumble to the ground. I stare at them long after they've gone still, rage burning inside me.
Samrael. He was the one who put us through hell. He tried to turn Daryn against me. He tried to mess with Marcus … Riot …
"Shocked?" he says. "You shouldn't be. You know what I can do when I'm in your mind. My power only transmuted into something greater here-greater, and worse."
The headaches we've had make sense now. It was him, searching through our minds for our weaknesses so he could conjure them into existence.
"There's more, Gideon. Watch."
Three of the trees near us are shaking, their leaves and branches shuddering. A familiar burnt smell flows into my nose, and pressure builds in the air. A splintering sound cracks into the night, stopping my heart, as the bark splits down the center.
Inside, the wood is glowing red. Slender black figures are cocooned within the bark of each tree. They begin to unfold and bend, pulling themselves free. Turning empty eyes toward Samrael like they're awaiting their orders. Because that's exactly what they are doing.
"I'll summon you when I need you," he says, and they scurry off, melting into the darkness.
"What did you just do?" Something sickening just happened-something sinister. I feel it.
"Whenever I conjure something, they're created," Samrael replies. He sounds almost somber. "The larger the haunting, as you call it, the bigger the price. Turning that lake to ice took acreage to create. I can show you sometime. Thousands of trees, gone. Thousands of Harrows, spawned. That's the trade. It's a trade I can't stop … it's an addiction.