Kartik did not lie. The Winterlands army is vast and terrifying. At the fore ride the trackers in billowing black capes that flap open to reveal the souls trapped inside. Even from this distance I can see the glint of their jagged teeth. They tower over the others, nearly seven feet tall. The Poppy Warriors in their matted chain mail transform into enormous black crows and circle over the fields. They caw with a chilling persistence; more and more of them rise till one patch of the sky is a blur of black and the air crackles with their cries. I pray they will not fly in this direction and spy our hiding place. Behind them is an army of corrupted spirits—the dead walking. Their eyes are hollow and unseeing or the disquieting blue-white of Pippa’s. They follow without question. And in the center is the tree, taller, mightier than the last time I saw it. Its limbs stretch out in all directions. I swear that I can see the souls slipping under its bark like blood. And I know that in its dark heart hides Eugenia Spence.
Drummers bang out a thundering rhythm.
“How will we fight them?” Ann asks, and I feel her fear within my own heart.
“Look, down there,” Felicity says. One of the Poppy Warriors pulls Wendy along with him. She stumbles, exhausted, but she is intact. Eating those berries damned her to a life here, but it must have saved her from being a fitting sacrifice. The Poppy Warrior licks her cheek, and Wendy recoils. I hate to think of her chained to such a horrible beast.
The drums stop, and the silence is almost more terrifying.
“Wot are they about?” Fowlson asks, his knife already in his hand.
“I don’t know,” I say.
The tree speaks. Have you brought the sacrifice?
“She is here somewhere,” a tracker answers.
I have waited so long for you, the tree murmurs in that voice that first drew me in. Do you know me? Do you know what we could be together? That we could rule this world and the other? Join me….
The words wrap themselves around me.
Gemma…come to me….
It is my mother. My mother stands on that field in her blue dress, her arms waiting to hold me.
“Mother,” I whisper.
Kartik pulls my face to his. “That is not your mother, Gemma. You know that.”
“Yes. I know.” I look back, and the image flickers like a picture made of gas and flame.