She sat there in the circle of her brother's arms, pressed between his body and Juliet's as a host of ghostly riders on white and gray horses surged past them, accompanied by white dogs with blood-red ears.
She caught a glimpse of her father trying to make a run for it, but the riders and the dogs chased him down, cutting him off from his escape, surrounding him in a seething mass of hooves and paws. One single word could be heard, hissed by a thousand ghostly mouths, over and over.
“Oathbreaker!”
“No! NOOOOO! I am a GOD! You can't do this to me!” Donnatar's howling protests were barely audible over the gale-force winds created by the pack of riders.
She caught a glimpse of her father, falling to his knees with one arm raised above his head, warding off whatever was coming for him. There was a flash of a silver blade, the bright red spray of blood, then the hunt surged again, and Ivy lost sight of him.
Above the baying of the hounds and the condemnation of the riders, Ivy heard what sounded like the shrieking of a tree as it struggled to withstand a hurricane.
She blinked, and that fast, saw the tail end of the Wild Hunt disappearing into the forest, dragging a headless corpse behind them.
Where her father had been moments ago, pleading for mercy, stood an immense tree. The trunk was so thick, it would take every member of the Little Coven, six lions, one bear, and a fairy prince to circle it. The branches were thick and twisted points that stabbed up toward the sky, and not a single green leaf grew on any of them.
“It's okay. It's over now.” Astrid's voice was the quiet calm after the storm. Ivy looked up at her tired and drawn face, and numbly wondered why Astrid was holding the pot with Ivy's fairy flower in her hands. “Uriah needs you, Ivy.”
*****
Ilex picked her up, still ignoring the way Juliet spit and cursed at him, hustling across the distance separating Ivy from Uriah. Every step her brother took jostled Ivy's leg, still wrapped tightly in the thorny vine.
Ivy was so cold, the hot slide of her own blood on her skin felt really good. Ilex was careful when he knelt beside Kerrigan at Uriah's head, setting Ivy down beside her bear, but even as gentle as he'd been, the movement tore a low moan of agony from her.
“I've got hold of his spirit, Ivy,” Kerrigan reported grimly, one fist on top of the other like she held onto a rope. She was so pale with strain, her skin was gray. “He's not going anywhere.”
With their white dresses stained red up to the knees with Uriah's blood, Rowena and Callie never stopped chanting, rolling their hands back and forth in the air above the deep punctures in Uriah's belly. Juliet gave up threatening Ilex with all manner of torture and death, opting instead to join in on the healing chant.
Ivy couldn't do that. She couldn't do anything to save her mate except cradle his huge hairy head in her lap and pray. Somehow, he was still alive; Ivy could hear his shallow, rattling breaths.
One of the penetrating wounds must have punctured his lung. He struggled for every breath, and Ivy knew if he died, she would lay down right there and join him.
She stroked her hands over his muzzle, bending over to rest her forehead against his. “My bear. My big, brave bear. I'm here; I won't let you go alone.”
“I said, he's not going anywhere!” Kerrigan insisted hotly, yanking on the invisible rope she held, which made Uriah give a pained groan. “That's right, you asshole. I'm tugging on your damn soul. Don't think you're checking out of this family anytime soon.”
“Is that the Evlinkuin I gave Ivy?” Ilex demanded, the excitement in his voice enough to lift Ivy's face from where she'd buried it in Uriah's fur.
“Brickkle gave it to me.” Ivy hiccupped.
Her brother plucked the pot out of Astrid's hands and turned it this way and that to examine the flowers. “I gave the seed to one of the Brownies and told her to give it to you on my behalf. I didn't know what you knew about me, Ivy, or if you knew about me at all.
“I wanted the Brownie to give you the seed and test whether or not it sparked any sort of recognition. You didn't know what it was, so I guessed our mother never told you about me.
“The common name for this flower is the Twin Blade. Extracted from the bulb, the sap of has untold healing properties. Your mate is on the brink of death, but not so close that he can't be saved. I need something to pulverize the roots with.”
Not stopping her chanting or the movement of her hands, Callie bumped her hip against the satchel she was never without.
Ilex grabbed it, unceremoniously dumping the contents out onto the grass. A small mortar and pestle rolled out along with fifty other odds and alchemical ends, and he snapped it up, carefully pulling the beautiful, shimmering flowers from the simple clay pot, shaking the dirt off the roots.
Not daring to hope, Ivy watched her brother study the round, waxy-looking bulb.
“You did an excellent job, Ivy. It's fully mature. Hold these; we'll need them in a moment.” Ilex used Callie's little knife to snip the flowers from the root bulb, then handed the shimmering blossoms to Astrid.
Ivy wanted to demand answers from Astrid now. She needed to know if this is what Astrid had seen when Ivy handed over her ring and predicted more blood would be spilled, but Ivy didn't dare let her anger spill out and interrupt the coven's chanting, or cause Kerrigan to lose her grip on Uriah's spirit.
Ilex found an empty eyedropper in Callie's kit and lifted it to the light. “This will be quite helpful.” Ilex crushed the root bulb—pulverized it, really—and crawled around the girls to squeeze between Callie and Ivy at Uriah's shoulder. “Open his eyes.”
With shaking hands, Ivy obeyed, holding her breath when Ilex took the glass dropper to suck up the silvery liquid in the mortar. Ilex carefully squeezed three drops into each of Uriah's eyes, then sat back on his haunches with a satisfied nod.
“It will start working momentarily. You can keep chanting if you want, but it's not necessary.” No one stopped chanting, and Ilex didn't seem surprised or perturbed. “Ivy, there's enough for you. I'll have to use a knife to cut the vine away in pieces. Best do it now while your mate is still out and not in a position to maim me.”
Ivy shook her head harshly. “Not until we know it’s working. He could need more.”
“He won’t,” Ilex assured her calmly but didn't press her further when she threw a glare his way.
Kerrigan hissed out a slow breath, her fisted hands slowly moving from where she held them up by her shoulders, down to Uriah's throat before slowly opening, one finger at a time.
Panic grabbed Ivy, her hands twisting in Uriah's fur as though she could hold him in place and keep him from leaving her. “What's happening?”
Kerrigan gave a soft huff, collapsing back on her butt, shaking with fatigue. “His spirit wanted to return to his body, so I let it go. Sounds like he's breathing easier now.”
Ivy listened, and yes, the horrible rattling sound disappeared from one breath to the next. A deep, pained groan rumbled out of his muzzle, and in a few more minutes, Astrid leaned in to push her hands into Uriah's blood-soaked fur, searching for a wound.
“Punctures are almost gone.” No sooner had Astrid finished speaking, when Uriah started to jerk like he was having a seizure.