20 FI

FI SCRAMBLED THROUGH the underbrush, sprinting for the outpost. Strands of hair whipped like cobwebs across her face and ashes fell like rain, singeing everything they touched. She hurried past the sentries and down the steps cut into the wall of the hollow. Four greenwitches were gathered around the conference table, deep in conversation with Liv, Aunt Ada, and their commanders. Fi dashed inside, planted her hands on the tabletop, and announced, “I have to go back to Somni.”

Ness stopped midsentence, her eyes hard as she turned on Fi. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“After everything we went through to get you home? Fi, our fight is here.”

Fi shook her head, struggling to catch her breath. “You thought it was me that was special. It’s not, and you know it. I don’t understand the green magic like you do. I can’t do a fraction of the things Val can. And yeah, maybe someday I’ll be as powerful as Great-Aunt Una. But I’m just a kid. I can’t save everyone. I can’t.”

Fi gulped. She loved it already, the magic of her green world moving through her. She turned to her aunt, pleading. “You know me. If there’s anything special about me, it’s that I’m stubborn. I never gave up hope of coming back here. I never gave up on our family the soldiers captured. I still believe some of them are alive somewhere on the raze crews, waiting to return to us.”

Liv stepped forward, laying a hand on Fi’s shoulder. “You have to let that go.”

“No.” Fi shrugged off her hand. “We have to bring them back. They are the answer, not me. Or maybe, yeah, me—because I’m the only one who won’t forget about them.

“Just listen. The raze crews have been sowing a net of seeds all over Somni. The seeds have been incubating, waiting for the right time to burst into life. Waiting to be called.” Fi whirled on Ness. “Think about it—here on Vinea, there are seeds everywhere, even where all the green has been burned to the ground. I can list a hundred plants that only come to life after a fire, the ones that need heat to break open their hulls to let the first bit of green through.”

Ness pursed her lips. “Greenwitches can’t speak to a seed, Fi. I told you there are limits to what we can do. We need shoots and buds, vines and roots. We can’t call the green into being. We can only work with what’s already alive.”

The more Fi spoke, the more certain she became. “You can’t. But what if they can?”

Ada crossed her arms over her chest. “You think there are greenwitches on the raze crews? Impossible. Fi, the soldiers would kill them. The green awakening in their veins—the glow—it would give them away.”

“Maybe. But maybe not. The green doesn’t glow in me like it does in the rest of the greenwitches. It’s dimmer, hardly there at all. Face it—something about being on Somni changed the way the magic works in me. But that doesn’t have to be all bad, not if it helps us when nothing else can.”

“Fionna, don’t be foolish,” Ness pleaded.

“What if you’re wrong? What if it’s not that greenwitches have all the power and no one else has any? What if every Vinean has a pinch of the green magic in them? What if it’s not about who’s the most powerful, or about one person saving us all?” Fi took a deep breath. “I have to go. I have to find out.”

“Absolutely not. We need to retreat, and we can’t afford to waste time arguing. We have to face the fact that Somni has won.”

Fi planted her hands on her hips and her feet in the soil, trying to sound braver than she felt. “I’m going back to Somni whether you believe me or not. What—are you going to spell me again? Go ahead. Try.”

Aunt Ada crossed the ground between them and settled her arm over Fi’s shoulders. “I’ll go with you as far as the tower.”

Relief sighed out of Fi’s lungs. She wasn’t completely alone, then.

Liv threw her hands in the air. “She’s your problem now—but you should know that soldiers have been crawling all over the tower since the greenwitches came through. I can’t spare a single fighter to protect your passage.”

“I won’t need it,” Fi said, thrusting her chin out. “The green is with me.” As she spoke, the ground beneath her shifted, broad leaves turning flat like a shield behind her, vines unwinding from their perches and twining around her slight form.

Liv quirked an eyebrow at the others. “You wanted a sign from the green? I think you just got it.”