Just my luck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A VIRGIN’S BLOOD
I thought I was done for. That I was going to be stuck here forever. The only good thing about it was that the seal would never be opened because I would surely starve in a few days.
We were in the middle of the forest and as still as a statue. Leaves fell around us and one tickled as it skimmed my cheek. I could only blink and move my mouth to talk. I only knew that because I had been randomly shouting for some help. I only hoped the right help would come.
I sat frozen for hours staring into the dull forest in front me, and used all that time to imagine I was some monster’s dinner and had been caught in his trap. All those times thinking about how I would die, and this had never made the list. And of course, it would have been the worst one.
My imagination had gone wild for the past hours with nothing to do but think. When I heard the heavy crunch of sticks and leaves, a chill ran down my spine, imagining nothing else but a hungry monster.
I never imagined what came out instead.
A dirty-faced boy with a rabbit on his shoulder.
Sure, the boy wouldn’t have been far-fetched. But the rabbit? It felt like Alyria was purposely messing with me at this point.
“Well, Tink, looks like we caught something,” the boy said.
I assumed Tink was the rabbit.
I stared at the boy with my mouth gaping while I realized I was what he’d caught. “Excuse me, but I’ve been stuck here for hours.”
“Ma’am, that was the point,” he said, and I could see him digging around in my saddlebag out of the corner of my eye.
I blinked. “You did this so you could rob me?” I hadn’t thought about this either. Apparently, my imagination was too wild and kept me from thinking logically.
“Ma’am, no one would be getting robbed if you were smart enough to stay out of my snare.”
“No one would be getting robbed if you got your hands off my stuff!” He wasn’t turning this around on me. Just because I wasn’t used to noticing tricky kid’s magical snares didn’t mean I should have been robbed.
Although better this than be eaten . . .
“We all gotta eat, miss.”
“Yes, we do. That’s why you need to put my stuff back. And why is that rabbit on your shoulder anyway?” Probably the last thing I needed to be focusing on at that moment, but it was distracting the way it was just sitting there.
“I froze him there.”
I was so far from home.
“Well, that’s horrible. How would you feel if he froze you like that?”
He grimaced. “What are you? My mom?”
I was glad to hear they even have moms out here.
“Where is your mother? Does she know you are out here, robbing people?”
He threw my map over his shoulder. “She’s dead.”
“Your father?”
He threw my soap over his shoulder. “Dead.”
“If you are going to rob me, you’ll want to take that soap with you. You could use it.”