The Will and the Wilds(37)

My gaze drops to Maekallus’s chest. Had I not, in my heart, called out to him as the grinlers surrounded me?

“I willed you here.” The words are but a breath. I broke the limits of his mortal cage.

He touches the spot on his chest where the spell buries into his flesh.

It makes sense. Even with half a mind, my father should not have permitted me to go to Caisgard in the company of an unmarried bachelor. And knowing Maekallus as I do now, I know he never would have consented to help me for mere coin. And he . . . he’s seen this stone before. It bent him to another’s will then, just as it does now.

Did the stone also compel him to fight so brutally, or did he want to defend me?

“Mystings have searched for it for years,” he continues. “Somehow that gobler traced it here, and when he didn’t come back, his friends came looking. I wonder . . .”

“What?”

He presses his lips together.

“What, Maekallus?”

“If they’re Scroud’s henchman, we’re in more trouble than we thought. He might not have the stone anymore, but his influence is . . . substantial.”

While I’m somewhat comforted by the use of the word we, I shiver. “They’ve not returned.” Besides Maekallus, the only mystings who have witnessed my ownership of the stone are dead.

Maekallus frowns. “No. Not yet.” He perks up suddenly and looks at me as though I’m a stranger. Like he’s realized something.

I realize it, too. “Maekallus, I could will you back to your realm.”

Surprise opens his features. So that hadn’t been his thought. What, then?

“Perhaps.” A whisper.

I palm the stone. Hold it to my chest. Close my eyes. Descend, Maekallus. Return to the monster realm. Go. Return. Leave this place.

Nothing happens.

I open my eyes. “Perhaps we need a circle . . .”

“No,” he replies darkly, looking away. “The stone only controls the will of living creatures. It will not work.”

“Then how did I will you outside that glade?”

He grumbles. “You willed me, not the spell.” Wiping a hand down his face, he adds, “It never did affect me, when we were in opposite realms. Scroud usually stayed in the Deep, planning. I could breathe in the mortal realm. But if I didn’t carry out his commands, I’d feel it the moment I returned.”

Which would explain why Scroud couldn’t just force the human generals to surrender from the safety of the monster realm. How far did the stone’s influence reach? Enough to persuade a small army, but perhaps not enough to also cull a second army into submission. “We could try—”

“And we will fail!” he barks.

I teeter back from the power of his anger as though he’d struck me. His eyes blaze. I want nothing more than to be away from that stare.

I’m still holding the Will Stone.

The realization barely registers before Maekallus flies backward from the forest as if shoved by a great gust of wind. His arms and legs shoot out as he sails away, narrowly missing a branch, following the line of the thread connected to him. I gasp and watch him fly away until the trees mask his path.

The stone drops from my fingers. “Maekallus?”

Only a magpie answers back.





I am a coward, for I don’t follow Maekallus into the glade.

I gather my things and run back home, until my body is weary and ready to sick up from the exercise. I collapse inside the kitchen. I must have fallen asleep right there on the stonework, for I wake with a crick in my neck, and the side of my face is cold.

I hear the creaking of the cellar doors—Papa coming up from the mushrooms.

Pushing my basket aside, I pick myself up and grab the metal bathing tub, half hobbling as I pull it into my room. I fill it with two pitchers of unwarmed water before stripping off my bloody dress and scrubbing myself until my teeth chatter.

The bracelet hangs from my wrist. I palm the stone. How often have I used this unknowingly? When my father told me about the descent circle, was it because I willed the information out of him? Surely I hadn’t willed Tennith to kiss me . . . No, I had been prepared for him to decline. But I may have willed him not to speak to me about it, on the way to and from Caisgard.

Could I not also will the townsfolk to treat us kindly? Force Lunus Mather to give me fair prices? Will animals into waiting snares?

Persuade, with just a thought, a headmaster to permit my acceptance into a college?

For a moment my spirits lift, until something leaden and dark pushes down on them. What would my father think, knowing I’d forced his hand with the supernatural? Or Tennith, or . . . anyone? What must Maekallus think, for surely he must have pieced together what I’d already unknowingly done.

What if someone wielded the stone’s power against me, bending my will to theirs and forcing me to do what was against my nature?

I almost take the bracelet off. I don’t want to affect others in such a horrible, absolute way, especially not my father, who could not have realized the power he had bestowed on me when he first placed the bracelet around my wrist.

But then I think of the grinlers, of the hunger in their eyes, and I leave the bracelet be.





I let myself be normal—as normal as can be—for a little while. I don’t wish to see Maekallus. He saved my life, yes, and in turn I saved his. But I need to be with my father right now. I need to be . . . away from Maekallus’s revelation and the confusion his presence stirs in me.