For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten (freda ebook reader .txt) 📕

broken archway and the sunken room beyond. “Probably change clothes, too.”

Confusion replaced Red’s alarm, drawing her brows together. She followed Lyra into the room. “That’s your blood?”

“Of course.” Lyra shrugged. “Might be Fife’s, actually. We both have the Mark, so blood from either of us will work on a shadow-creature.” She pushed open the small door at the back of the room, revealing a tiny kitchen. “Our blood can hold saplings steady for a day or so and slightly help with rotting sentinels, too, but it won’t do shit for breaches.”

Weathered-looking wooden cabinets lined the back wall, with a small woodstove in the corner and a scuffed table. Lyra went to the cabinet nearest the stove and pulled it open. Inside, rows upon rows of glass vials, all filled with blood. Deep crimson with no trace of green, not like Eammon’s.

Red sank into one of the chairs at the table, her thoughts snaring, knotted as old thread. Last night, when Eammon fought the corpse-bone-forest-thing . . . shadow-creature, monster of legend, Kings, it’s all real . . . his blood had been what finally brought it down. Apparently, Lyra— and Fife, whoever that was, presumably the other voice she’d heard— could use their blood to fight shadow-creatures, too.

But when Red bled in the Wilderwood, it attacked her. Those white trees became predators. Was it because she was a Second Daughter, something about her blood and the bargain it was tangled with making the forest treat her differently?

And who were Fife and Lyra, anyway? The myths didn’t mention anyone else living in the Wilderwood.

“You said you have a Mark?” Her question interrupted the clink of vials as Lyra stuck handfuls of them in her bag.

“Anyone who’s bargained with the Wilderwood has one.” Lyra paused in her packing to push up her sleeve. There, in the same place as Red’s— a tiny ring of root, just beneath the skin. It was smaller than Red’s Mark, the tendrils not reaching quite so far, but unmistakably the same.

Lyra tugged her sleeve back down. “A tiny piece of the Wilderwood. That’s why my blood and Fife’s work against shadow-creatures— the power of the forest cancels out the power of the Shadowlands.”

“And the Wolf’s blood, too?”

“The Wolf’s blood, certainly.” A laugh, but rueful. Lyra grabbed one more vial, then closed the cabinet, clipping the bag to her belt as she moved toward the door. “Though his piece of the Wilderwood could never be called tiny.”

As strange as the idea of bleeding into vials was, there was comfort in it, relief. Eammon wanted her to learn to use the magic the forest had saddled her with, seemed to think that would keep the sentinel trees in check. But surely it wasn’t the only solution when magic and blood ran so congruently here. Her not bleeding where the trees could taste it was his first rule, but maybe it would be different if the blood came from a vial instead of a vein.

And Red would rather bleed goblets full than try to use that damn magic.

“So is there a knife around?” she asked. “Something I can use to bleed into—”

“No.” Lyra spun away from the door, dark eyes narrowed. “I mean, I don’t . . . I’m not . . .” Lyra stopped, sighed. “Ask Eammon. He’ll know.” She pulled her shirt out from her middle, made a face. “I’ve really got to go change. I’ll see you around.”

Red watched her go, still slumped over the scuffed table. Again, that sense of untetheredness, of unreality, of not being sure what to do or how to move.

Books. The thought was a beacon, something to cling to. I brought books.

Too bad she’d left them in the library. Red didn’t know what hours Eammon kept— the unchanging twilight made night and day unclear— but it seemed safe to assume he’d be there.

Ask Eammon, Lyra had said. But Eammon would just talk about using magic again, turning that piece of the forest coiled around her bones toward her will.

A deep breath, squared shoulders. If he asked her about it, she’d tell him she hadn’t decided yet. She would find her books and retreat to her room and try to numb her mind for a few hours before she had to think about any of this again.

The wood-shard candles in the library were all lit with their strange, flickerless flames, illuminating the stacks in strobing light and shadow. Red closed the door behind her as soundlessly as possible. The same mug perched on the same stack of books near the door, empty this time. She eyed it for a moment before purposefully untangling her hands from her skirt and striding between the shelves.

There was no sign of the Wolf himself, but his clutter remained. One book left open amid a sea of papers and pens, another stack piled by the desk, left in shadow by the wood-shard candle.

Red crept toward the desk cautiously. Eammon would be none too pleased to see her paging through his notes, but curiosity overrode her unease. She peered at the scribbled-over paper.

It looked like . . . a shopping list? Things like bread and cheese were scrawled in slanting, messy handwriting, some crossed out. Ask Asheyla about boots was written near the bottom, and, ink still gleaming, new coat.

She grimaced. Her attention turned from the list to the open book.

The visible page was a table of contents. No title, but she recognized some of the chapter names— “The Great Plague,” “A Taxonomy of Lesser Beasts,” “Rites of the Old Ones.” It was tempting to sit and flip through, but Eammon’s things looked as though he’d left in a hurry. He could be back any moment.

Red turned to resume her search, but the stack of books by the desk caught her eye. Something about them seemed strange, the proportions wrong. She took a step closer, then reared back.

Legends sat at the top of the stack, the book she’d smeared with her blood the day before. And the Wilderwood had