36 
‘Tell someone!’ Ottilie cried as she spun and sprinted in the other direction.
‘What?’ Maeve called. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going after them!’
Ottilie had never run so fast in her life. She tore down to the lower grounds, through the wingerslink sanctuary, where she saddled Nox and leapt out into the field.
‘Ott?’ It was Leo, who had finished his morning hunt but was still astride Maestro.
‘Help!’ she cried, gasping for breath. ‘Come with me, Leo. The witch, she’s got Bill – she’s got my friend. Come with me!’
‘What? Who’s Bill?’
‘Please.’ There was no time to explain.
Leo blinked. ‘I’ll follow you.’
The two wingerslinks cleared the wall. There was no sign. Nothing. Ottilie didn’t even know where to begin. Tears streamed down her face as she shouted, ‘BILL!’
That was when she remembered the canyon. Whistler had recruited Gracie. She might be taking Bill to the canyon caves.
Nox seemed to know that this was serious. Ottilie threw herself forwards and Nox shot over the tops of the trees. They were still a way off the canyon when she heard a cry from below.
‘BILL!’ she called, pushing Nox into a dive.
Beside her, Maestro copied.
Ottilie felt as if a clawed thing was trying to tear out of her chest. It wasn’t Bill. She could just make them out, from flashes beneath the thick canopy. It was Scoot, Ned and Gully, crowded into a dense patch of forest, surrounded by the wyler pack.
Leo had gone deathly pale, his eyes fixed on Ned, who was warding off a wyler with a spear. The wyler leapt. Ned lunged and impaled it. That seemed to set them off. Every wyler attacked at once.
Her heart hammering, Ottilie, still in the air, tried to shoot them down from above, but the branches were too tangled and everyone was moving too fast. She couldn’t risk hitting one of her friends.
The towering webwood trees were like spindly giants, their many arms intertwined, making it impossible to land. Ottilie and Leo had to touch down nearby, in a glade at the edge of Flaming River. Together, they charged on foot to join the fray.
Gully rolled beneath a pouncing wyler. His head snapped up and their eyes locked, but Ottilie couldn’t focus on him or Bill or anything else. If she did, she would get someone killed. She dodged and swung, injuring one wyler and felling another. There was a growl from behind her. The white wyler prowled through the trees, Gracie Moravec on its back.
‘Where is he?’ Ottilie bellowed. She gasped and stumbled. Leo had grabbed her shirt and wrenched her back, just before a wyler could sink its teeth into her side.
Gracie simply tilted her head and continued her slow approach. Ottilie fired an arrow. The white wyler dodged it. She fired another, and it dodged again. Gracie was clutching its fur for dear life, but still her face remained smooth.
She shook her head at Ottilie, as if to say, bad girl. She slid off the white wyler, drawing the knife that Leo had given her, and another one Ottilie didn’t recognise. Hearing Scoot’s strangled cry, she knew immediately where it had come from. It was Bayo’s knife.
‘Take her brother,’ Gracie said quietly.
Ottilie’s heart cracked open. Her vision swung. It was so wrong. It didn’t seem real, like it was a game of make-believe and this ordinary girl was pretending to be a villain.
Gracie’s eyes flashed red.
Ottilie found her balance and whirled around as every wyler turned to Gully. Three pounced at once. He ducked and dodged, fighting them off, but one got through, severing his thumb.
‘NO!’ she cried, running towards him. She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the ground were breaking apart.
Leo took the opportunity to shoot one down. Gracie’s eyes flashed again and the white wyler lunged at Leo. Scoot ran to help him and Ottilie could hear the clashing of metal behind her. Ned must have been fighting Gracie.
Gully was still upright. He was bleeding badly, but all right. Ottilie breathed again. He was wearing it out of habit; Gully didn’t need his ring anymore. But warding off the sickness would only get him so far. Surrounded by the advancing wylers, his spear pointed at them, all he could do was back away.
Gracie cried out behind Ottilie. Ned must have struck her.
Ottilie fired an arrow, felling one of the wylers advancing on Gully. She needed to get to him. She had to bandage his hand, stop it bleeding.
‘Ott!’ cried Scoot.
Ottilie looked around just in time to roll out of the way of the enormous white wyler. From the ground, she could see Ned with his cutlass, fighting Gracie and her knives. Ottilie had never seen blades moving so fast. Whatever the truth was about Gracie’s history, she had learned to use a knife long before Leo put one in her hand.
For one chilling moment, it looked like Gracie was going to win. But Ottilie couldn’t watch; the white wyler was coming at her. From the ground, she fired an arrow. It dodged, but the arrow scraped the side of its face. It screeched, and Gracie cried out with it. Of course, it was her bloodbeast – they were bound! Ottilie aimed another arrow.
‘I’ll make them kill him!’ Gracie shrieked, her voice harsher than Ottilie had ever heard it.
She believed it, without a doubt. Gracie wasn’t really human anymore. She wasn’t a thirteen-year-old girl. She was bound to a dredretch, a dredretch that had become a giant, heart-eating bloodbeast. Gracie was every bit the monster that the white wyler was.
Her eyes flashed and Ottilie saw the wylers bend to spring at Gully. Ottilie lowered her bow without a thought. Her hands shook as she released it. She clenched them into trembling fists and grounded her feet.
Ned was about to strike.
‘Only I can stop them!’ Gracie trilled as the wylers leapt at Gully.
Ottilie’s heart stopped.
Ned dropped his cutlass.
Gracie’s eyes flashed and the wylers pulled back.
‘No-one moves or I tell them to attack again,’ said Gracie, the airiness returning to her tone. ‘They can’t get all of you, but they can certainly get one of you.’
None of them moved. Gracie looked down at the blood dribbling from a gash on her upper arm, caused by Ned’s blade.
‘You’re coming with me,’ she said venomously.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Ned.
‘Yes, you are,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he dies.’ She pointed at Gully, still surrounded by wylers.
‘Ned, don’t,’ said Gully.
‘What do you want him for?’ spat Scoot.
‘Security,’ said Gracie, calmly. ‘You tell the Hunt to stop searching for me.’ She pointed her blade at Ned. ‘He’ll be fine as long as I’m left alone.’ Gracie climbed back onto the white wyler and held her hand out to Ned.
‘Ned,’ said Leo warningly.
Ottilie was frozen in place, her instincts a mess.
‘Ned!’ said Gully and Leo at the same time.
In that moment Ned looked very young and utterly lost. Ottilie could see him shift to step forward, away from Gracie, to safety. But she sensed him steel himself. He looked to Leo and then to Ottilie. She felt as if her ribs were cracking, pressing in, as he took Gracie’s hand and swung up behind her.
Leo let out a noise like a wounded dog and lunged towards them.
‘No-one moves,’ Gracie repeated, flinging out her arm and pointing her knife in Gully’s direction.
‘Leo,’ Ottilie pleaded.
He froze.
‘I can be in their eyes. I’ll know if you do. No-one moves until I tell them to leave you. That includes the cats,’ she added, waving gently at the sky, where Ottilie caught glimpses of the wingerslinks circling above the treetops.
They stood, motionless: Gully, blood leaking from his hand, surrounded by the wylers, and Scoot, Leo and Ottilie, like statues, as Ned disappeared with Gracie and the white wyler.
There were shrieks from the sky. Ottilie risked a glance and saw that, high above the webwood trees, jivvies had begun to swarm.