“Evie, my dear little baker.” The witch doctor’s eyes ran the length of the fire iron, still tightly gripped in Evie’s hand. “I don’t like to think you’d use that on such an old friend.”
Light bloomed all around Evie, torches set into the wall sconces bursting to life.
“Run!” Cecily mouthed.
But Evie couldn’t move, the Fel’s magic suddenly holding her fast as if her arms and legs and face and lungs weren’t her own. She fancied she could almost taste the tang of crow feathers on her tongue, the rhythmic hum through the floor so strong it felt like an earthquake. “Why can’t I move?”
“Because I don’t wish you to move.” The doctor smiled, lowering the knife so it rested against Cecily’s arm. “You’ve been talking to my pet bird.”
Fel, if you were going to help, now would be a good time! Evie clenched her hands as she thought it, willing the words to find the creature still cawing and scratching at the bars of his cage just over her head. He couldn’t help, though. The Fel was the one holding her fast. “Where did you get that knife?” she asked him. “Isn’t it the same one I stole from … from the fake Robber Lord?”
“He stole it from me. I was quite upset when it went missing. It’s the first bit of hartelismi I ever found.” The doctor frowned, glancing at the weapon. “Now, Evie, please put that fire poker down so we can talk this through. I don’t wish to harm either you or your friend.”
The crow overhead gave a mournful caw!
Mum had been right about him all along. Everyone who called Dr. Cleat a witch doctor when he wasn’t listening was right. He was the Robber Lord. He was the Fel who left the forest to turn human.
How do I set you free, Fel? Evie asked.
The doctor laughed again, the sound awful in the tense air. “If you’re trying to talk to him, he can’t answer anymore. Not unless I let him. Not while I’m awake in any case.” He grimaced, touching his bloody forehead. “Carrying hartelismi is so inconvenient. My dear Fel can never use magic against me, but he’s not much help either unless he’s right there.”
“He can’t see through your eyes like the rest of your crew?”
Dr. Cleat cocked his head, birdlike and canny. “I made the deal. You think I’d let another Fel into my head like that?”
Another Fel. He could remember what he used to be, but seemed to relish being on the other side of a deal and the power it gave him.
A groan from the robber who had collapsed in the hallway startled Evie. Sterling Cleat looked over his shoulder to the man on the floor behind him. Under the doctor’s gaze, the robber seemed to freeze, not a single bit of him moving but his eyelids clenching shut. The fake Robber Lord was frozen mid-cower in the overlarge pie pan, as if being baked had seemed a better option than whatever Dr. Cleat might do.
And Evie. Evie was held fast too.
“I’m sorry these fellows scared you. You’re not going to be any trouble, are you, Cecily?” The witch doctor looked down at her, lowering the knife to hover by her arm.
“What do you want from us? Why did you bring me out here?” Evie whispered.
“Why did I—?” Dr. Cleat shook his head. “For the recipe, of course.”
Evie blinked. At least the Fel would let her do that. “The recipe?”
Dr. Cleat gestured to the kitchen, all the pans scattered across the floor. “The raspberry tart recipe. I was so disappointed when Cecily couldn’t give it to me. What kind of friend are you not to share with your very closest human? I pretended not to know about her letters to you—let it slip where you were staying so the Fel could use one of my robbers to deliver them so she could lead you right to us. Miss Cece wrote them all funny, though—the Fel made her say everything backward, because he thought leading you here would be going against our deal.” He sighed, looking toward the hallway. “I did want you to come, though. I wanted you to slip past those stupid guards and disappear so no one would know where to find you or your recipe. In the end, I had to bring you here myself.”
“You kidnapped Cecily … brought me out here, left us alive even though we could find you and your robbers … because you wanted Pop’s recipe?”
Cecily mouthed a word. One.
Dr. Cleat’s smile widened, something dazed and magical in his eyes. “It was the first thing I ate after I came stumbling out of the forest. I read all the books I could about humans and how they work and history and politics and everything else I could think of in order to help the Fel King. But I never did find an explanation for why that tart was so good. Why couldn’t I make one that tasted the same even if I used all the same ingredients? I tried making the people we took make it—the men who looked like your father, little girls like you. None of them could do it.” He licked his lips and cocked his head to the side, so very like a bird. “But you can. I suppose I could let you stay on as my own baker once all this business with the Fel King is done. You could help me carry my books.”
Cecily’s mouth formed the word two.
“I don’t bake for robbers. Also, if I have to listen to any more lectures from you, my brain will probably turn to prune juice.”
“Three!” Cecily yelled it out loud as she snatched the knife from Dr. Cleat’s slack grip, then threw Max’s ring to Evie.
As the hartelismi hit her skin, the weight of Fel magic on Evie disappeared like a soap bubble popping over the evening dishes. She caught the ring, then raised the poker, pointing it at Dr. Cleat. Cece backed away from him to join Evie near the door. “We’ll be leaving now,” Evie said in her best imitation of a pirate. “If you call to the other robbers or so much as think a knock-knock joke to your Fel, I’ll make sure you’ve nothing left to think with.”
“You’re just a little girl, Evie.” He took a step toward them. “And for all the lovely stories you tell, I don’t think you’re suited for fighting.”
Evie pulled Cecily toward the front door, the two of them walking backward to keep an eye on the doctor. He advanced every step they retreated, coming faster and faster. Overhead, the Fel clawed madly at the bony door to his cage.
When Evie’s heel teetered over the porch’s first step, she slammed the door behind her, but it didn’t block out the sound of the Fel’s cage door squeaking open. Evie and Cecily ran down the stairs and into the tightly knit trees, dashing hand in hand until Evie caught sight of a dusky orange blot, barely visible in the darkness. A brokenheart bloom.
“The flowers will take us back to the road, Cece!” Evie looked up as the trees overhead began to creak. The Fel had said he couldn’t kill anyone. At least, not on purpose.
Cecily’s grip on Evie’s was so tight that it hurt as they ran over rocks, around bushes and trees. But then the trees began to reach for Evie, branches darting down to block her way and twigs twisting toward her arms and legs.
“He’s not going to let me go.” Evie pulled her friend to a halt. She shoved Max’s ring on Cece’s finger and held her hand out for the knife. “Follow the flowers to the road, get to Paline, and bring the guard. Any guard. My friends Max and Gisa should be helping too, but I don’t know where they went…” Evie’s heart felt as if it was made of lead. She had no idea where the Fel had sent them. “See if you can get Captain Garry to come!”
“Both of us need to run before the Fel finds us.” Cecily’s face was white. “He can’t help what Dr. Cleat is making him do.”
“The knife will keep me safe enough. It’s me Dr. Cleat wants. I’ll lead them away so you can get help. You have to get help, okay, Cece?”
Any color left in Cecily’s face seemed to drain as she looked back toward the house, though it was only a smudge of light in the forest behind them. Of the crow, there was nothing to be seen. Around them, the air felt as if it had grown heavier, each breath like swallowing a cupful of ink. The trees creaked and groaned.
Cecily pulled Evie close. “The letter they made me write to you … I didn’t think you’d ever forgive me. Especially after Saint Hart’s Festival and me not making a mask.”
Evie hugged her back. “It was your letters that made me find you. I didn’t believe that last one, not even for a second. I knew you were in trouble and it took me so long to figure it out. Too long. You’re my best friend, Cece. You don’t have to wear Fel masks or play silly games and I’ll still love you.”
“I wouldn’t exchange anything in the world for you, Evie Baker.” Tears streamed down Cece’s cheeks. “I’ll be back with help.” She pulled away, running with her shoulders hunched as if dreams of some terrible creature were coming for her.
Evie didn’t need to look back. The creature after her was no dream, and it wasn’t a Fel either. Not anymore.