She smirked. “I’m pretty sure your Mark makes you a Lore Keeper too.”
“It doesn’t. Because I’m going to find a way to remove it, and I’m going to come back.”
As soon as he said the words, he knew that they were the right ones. It didn’t matter what Master Pilzmann had said. This was his path. Maybe he would go on a journey to a city or across the world. But he would come back home, and everything would return to the way it was supposed to be.
She stole the map that he’d drawn out of his hands and gave him a pitying look. “Where are you going to learn how to fix it? Here?” She pointed at the Humdrum capital. “No one there can help you. No one will want to. If you need answers, you’re only going to find them in a Lore town. There’s one only four days from here, deeper in the Woods.”
“I’m not going to a town full of Lore Keepers,” Barclay hissed.
“If Lore is your problem, then you need Lore to fix it. Besides, I’m going back there myself. I still need to trap Gravaldor, but I used up the last of my ingredients. You can come with me.”
“I’m not—”
“Or you can get run out of every place you visit. That’s what’s ahead of you. Pitchforks and locked doors. Not answers.” She handed him his map back. “The choice is yours.”
Barclay hesitated. He didn’t know if what she said was true, but the prospect of more pitchforks frightened him… almost as much as being entirely on his own.
“Fine,” he agreed bitterly. “I’ll go with you.”
“Good, because it’s dangerous to travel these Woods alone, even with a Beast.” She held out her hand to help him to his feet, but he refused it and stood up on his own. “My name is Viola Dumont. You already know Mitzi.”
Mitzi squawked.
“Assuming we don’t get eaten along the way,” Viola continued, “we’re going to make it to the closest Lore town, and you can get back to your miserable mushrooms before Spring comes.”
SEVEN
The deeper the pair journeyed into the Woods, the more fearsome the Woods became.
The twisted gray trees gave way to new kinds: trees with thorns like daggers growing up their trunks, trees with knots in their bark that looked like faces. The first snow was falling, and the gnarled roots that snaked across the white ground reminded Barclay of decayed hands reaching out of a grave. Crows cawed overhead, as though urging him to turn back, to run.
As they set up camp for the night, he shivered and clutched his charm while Viola collected sticks for a fire.
When she finished, Barclay expected her to rub the twigs together to ignite them. Instead, she stared intently at the wood, her fingers white-knuckled around it. Then a red light appeared from her hands. Several sparks burst out, followed by flames, catching like a torch.
Barclay grimaced.
“The fire isn’t burning you,” he commented, more in disgust than awe.
“It’s my fire,” Viola replied, as though that was reason enough to defy nature.
“And this is my knife.” Barclay brandished the small blade he used to slice particularly stubborn mushrooms. “But I could still cut myself with it.”
“You’d cut yourself with your own knife? That doesn’t seem smart.”
“No, I’m just saying—”
“It’s Lore. Or magic, as you probably call it. But since we’re going to Sycomore, a town full of Lore, you should start calling it Lore and start talking like a Lore Keeper. Not some Elsie townsboy.”
“But I am a townsboy,” Barclay said, and he was proud of it. And he didn’t know what Elsie meant.
“And the towns aren’t very nice to Lore Keepers, are they?” Viola gave him a pointed look. “You hate Lore. You hate Lore Keepers. With that attitude, what Lore Keeper is going to want to help you? Not everyone is as kindhearted as me, you know.”
“Kindhearted? It’s your fault that this happened to me!”
She ignored his comment and began tying the food they had gathered—mushrooms, thanks to Barclay, and a rabbit, thanks to Viola—around a spit.
“I just think it would be a good idea for you to learn more about Lore Keepers before you go marching into Sycomore and making demands.”
Barclay didn’t make demands. At least, he didn’t to anyone other than Selby, since Selby was supposed to listen to him.
“I’m going to get more water,” he grumbled, snatching both of their canteens and storming downhill toward a stream.
Mitzi followed him, crouching behind bushes and watching him menacingly. He fought down his panic. Viola didn’t like him much, but she wouldn’t let her Beast kill him, would she?
Then Mitzi shook her butt and pounced on a pine cone. She tumbled onto her back, gnawing it. Barclay didn’t know whether or not to feel silly for being scared. After all, Mitzi was a dragon.
While he filled the canteens, a wind blew and shook the trees overhead, sending a cloud of violet leaves fluttering down. On one side they looked like ordinary leaves—albeit purple ones. On the other there were beady black eyes and hundreds of spindly legs. Each stem was actually a long mouth, like a leech.
Barclay shrieked and swatted them away as they tumbled around him. Mitzi, startled by his noise, took off flying toward her Keeper.
“What’s wrong?” Viola called from atop the hill. “You scared Mitzi.”
Barclay sprinted up and cowered at Viola’s side. “Those leaves are actually Beasts.”
“Yes, they’re called Kafersafts, and they’re totally harmless.”
“No Beasts are harmless.”
“Some are.” Viola pried Barclay’s hand off her shoulder and sat him down. “This is exactly why you need a lesson. You’re clueless. Now you’re going to think every leaf, twig, and blade of grass is out to kill you.”
“No I won’t,” he shot back, eyeing the crinkled brown leaves around them suspiciously.
Viola rolled her eyes. Then she pulled off a mushroom roasting on the spit and offered it to Mitzi. Mitzi nibbled it out of her palm while Viola scratched her head, like she really was some pet.
“There are five classes of Beasts,” Viola told him. “The class tells you how powerful a Beast is and how hard it is to find. A Kafersaft is in the bottom class, the Trite class. They have a little power but aren’t even strong enough to bond with. They do have uses, though. The sap from a Kafersaft tree is a common ingredient in all sort of elixirs, like Chamelion Lotion and Hornpecker Serum.”
Harmless or not, Barclay was still spooked by their hundreds of buggy legs.
“Here,” Viola offered, handing him a mushroom. “You can feed her, if you like.”
Barclay absolutely would not like. But Mitzi, sighting the food, had already scampered to Barclay’s feet. And he’d much rather feed her the treat than his finger.
He held his breath as she gobbled it down off his hand, then he hurriedly checked his skin to make sure it hadn’t turned scaly or infected.
“See, she likes you,” Viola said as Mitzi brushed Barclay’s leg with her feathered tail. “You’re not special, though. Mitzi likes everyone.”
Barclay almost—almost—came close to reaching down and petting Mitzi on the head, but then Mitzi made a belching sound and vomited the chewed-up mushroom all over his boots.