We trudged on through the forest. The previous encounter had left us somewhat disoriented. Something impossible and beautiful and terrifying, something all of us except one had never imagined, let alone seen, was still seared into our minds and our imaginations spun wild with the things that lurked in the dark. Not everything would be illuminated by lightning bugs, after all, and not everything wanted to pass by peacefully. But Morgana assured us again that, if we stayed calm, quiet, together, and on the path, we’d make it through the Redwood without too much incident.

And for a few hours, that was true, although from time to time I heard or saw things that made me wonder if I was starting to imagine things. The shadows seemed to swirl just at the edges of my vision, infinite blackness that allowed my mind to conjure up all kinds of things with too many eyes and too many teeth, images that were just a little too vivid. Of course, when I looked, there was nothing there. I saw that everyone else was just as jittery as I was. Every once in a while, I saw Sally’s head snap to one side or the other as if she’d seen something, and then quietly swear to herself. I knew how she felt.

There wasn’t anything we could do about it, of course. Holding our lanterns higher didn’t really achieve much except blinding us. My eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, but it was a futile effort; it was simply too deep for that. Which would have been bad enough, if not for the sounds. From time to time, we would hear things. Sometimes it was the howl of an unidentified animal or the fluttering of wings, which were fine enough. It was a forest, there’d be creatures around that were trying to survive. It was the other sounds that set my teeth on edge. Once, I heard the sound of laughter, but it wasn’t quite right, like someone who’d never heard of humour was trying to recreate the sound based on a description.

But that was nothing compared to the constant sense of whispering. At first, I thought it was Erza, saying something behind me, but I’d seen enough movies to know that, when she shook her head, this was the forest playing tricks on me. I tried to ignore the voices of the people I could see in front of me telling me to turn around, or walk left, or close my eyes. “Good, you’re going the right way,” one said. “Over here,” another. It was horrifying and it took effort to tune it out and keep walking. The forest seemed endless, and might as well have been. I kept putting one foot in front of the other until I bumped into Sally. We both tried not to scream at the unexpected contact. Apparently our little caravan had stopped. I walked over to Morgana with a question on my face.

“By my estimate it’s almost midnight,” she said. I had to take her word for it; the darkness was all-encompassing and looking up yielded as much information about the time of day as looking down did. “I recommend we settle here for the night.”

“Why here?” I asked. “It doesn’t look any different than any other stretch of this forest so far.”

She shook her head. “It’s not. But we’re on the edge of the Deepwood, and I want everyone to be awake before we head in there.”

I nodded. If what she’d said about that part of the forest was even remotely true, it would be a terrifying and confusing experience, and not something you wanted to go through sleep-deprived. We all huddled up, waiting for the word from Morgana. She seemed to be the most knowledgeable about this place, and I doubted any of us were going to set up a fire in here without checking it with her first. She smiled in appreciation, and whispered instructions.

“No fire, that’ll attract too much attention. But everyone make sure to have their lantern full and lit. Put them in a circle around us, and make sure it’s not broken by any shadows.”

We all looked at each other. We both did and didn’t want to know what we needed that ring for, but nobody was going to ask.

“It’s best if you don’t know,” Morgana said softly. We did as she asked, and set up a barrier of light, wide enough for everyone to comfortably huddle up inside while not so big there’d be any gaps in our illuminated circle.

“I’ll take first watch,” she said. “All you must do is make sure the lanterns don’t go out. Check them and refill them where necessary.”

“I’ll take the next one,” I said. I doubted I’d be able to sleep anyway, and keeping lanterns on was something I could do, at least.

Still, I needed to try. The circle we’d made was less than comforting. The light of the lanterns, if anything, made the shadows beyond their little sphere of orange only deeper. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something just outside them, something that crept just outside what was visible. I felt distinctly watched. Sabine and Kazumi had huddled up together, and Sabine was making a grabby hand at me. I smiled and joined them, sandwiching her between myself and Kazumi. They both made satisfied little noises. If there was an advantage to the light vegetation of the forest, it was the relative flatness of the terrain. Our bedrolls were fairly comfortable, and so were we. I pulled both my partners into my arms and tried to focus on them, have nothing, nobody exist but the three of us.

I slept restlessly. I was plagued by all kinds of nightmares, some horrifyingly abstract, falling on an infinite vertical landscape or locked in an impossibly deep lake. The worse ones were the realistic ones, the ones that felt so real it wasn’t until I woke up that I realized I’d been dreaming. Dreams where I stood over Kazumi or Sabine, tall, imposing, and exactly as dangerous as I looked. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, they moved on their own, and the people I loved most begged for mercy as I hurt them. I tried to scream.

I woke up with a soft groan. I’d never in my life woken up with a yelp, shooting up like they did in the movies. I found that my voice wasn’t strong enough for that. Instead, I just let out a pitiful moan. Sabine had woken up too, though I didn’t know if she simply couldn’t sleep herself or if my noises had pulled her from her own nightmares. She didn’t say anything and simply held me close. I got the feeling, as I looked around and saw everyone stir uneasily in their sleep, that nobody was getting a proper night’s rest. Even Erza frowned, her arms crossed in front of her as she leaned against a tree.

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I held Sabine for a while, neither of us really wanting to fall back asleep, until Morgana walked over to nudge me with her foot. I made a soft noise, my head full of cobwebs as I looked up at her.

“Your turn for watch. I take it you’re going after her, mage?” She looked at Sabine, who also blinked her eyes open in the gloom. Sabine nodded. I kissed her softly and got up. Morgana walked with me a little while, and sat down on the stump where she’d been keeping guard.

“I’ve just refilled the lanterns,” she whispered. “They should last us until the end of your shift, but try not to doze off just in case.” I agreed. I didn’t want to sleep anymore anyway -- though I wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of the watch in Sabine and Kazumi’s arms.

“Try to pay attention to the lanterns, but keep yourself occupied,” she said. “You don’t want your mind to wander too much around here. A wandering mind here is hunted for sport.”

“Excuse me?”

“Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “We’re being watched.”

I shifted uneasily. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling, but hearing it confirmed was somehow still worse. My mind had been conjuring up all kinds of things with too many eyes out there in the dark. “By what?”

“I’m trying not to think of her name. Having it in your mind, let alone saying it, gives it a degree of influence over you. I’m…” She paused and looked at her pale hand dispassionately. “I seem to be a bit more resistant. But she will try to get you to walk out of the light. For obvious reasons, do not.”

I nodded. “Why?”

“Whatever walks back in will not be you.”

I swallowed.

“She is the closest thing to malevolent in these woods,” she continued, “though like everything else, she only tries to survive and thrive. But this one seems smart enough to enjoy some cruelty.”

She got up and dusted off her pants.

“Well, good luck,” she said in an almost offensively cheerful tone, and walked off, leaving me alone with the creeping, crawling chaos of darkness. My only solace was the fact that she did seem to trust my ability to resist whatever was out there, and I hoped she was being flippant because she knew I could handle it, rather than because she didn’t care what happened to me.

I sat there, reading a small book that Sabine had let me borrow. It was a treatise on magic, especially the kind of protective magic I was able to conjure up. Most of it was theory, explaining the methodology behind creating new spells, which had been an old and dying art over two hundred years ago when the book was written. I wasn’t picking up much of what I was reading, but it was keeping me occupied. At the end of every page, I looked around to see if any of the lanterns were flickering, and then continued, trying to keep my eyes on the page as much as I could so I wouldn’t be imagining the thing that was, I feared, still looking at me.

I bounced mentally between the words on the page, which might as well have been gibberish -- though they gave me something to focus on -- and the terrifying possibilities that Morgana had conjured up. If something out there could turn off the lanterns or lure me out, and take possession of me, of this body, I dreaded to think of the possibilities. If there was something cruel and malevolent out there, something that was actually Evil, much more so than the old Eliza had ever been, and it got a hold of something as powerful as this body… I didn’t want to continue the thought. If that creature walked in here, the damage it could do before anyone else woke up… If they even woke up at all. And then it would be unleashed upon the world. I got the feeling that the darkness was as much its habitat as its prison. That, if the lanterns kept it at bay, so would the daylight.

But in a powerful body, it would have no such limitations. I shuddered and closed my eyes.

“I wouldn’t hurt them, you know.”

The voice had come from nowhere except the inside of my own head and I feared to open my eyes. It was a voice like the chittering of insect feet. Like sharp knives on wood. I put the book aside and took a deep breath, trying not to let whatever it was even deeper in. I especially tried not to engage it in the mind games it was obviously going to try to play.

“You want to leave here, don’t you?”

Not listening.

“I promise you will. I saw your nightmares. I’m not going to hurt them. Sabine. Kazumi.”

Something about the way it hissed their names almost made me cry. It was the opposite of a threat, and yet it hurt to hear it said by something like, well, this.

“You don’t get to say their names,” I said.

“I will not, and I will not touch a hair on their head. I only want to leave, just like you,” it whispered softly.

“You’re not using me to get out of here,” I hissed.

“Nobody said anything about using you. I would only ask that you carry me out so that I can be with my family again.”

“Your what?”

The voice sounded pained, mournful. “I was separated eons ago, and I only wish to return to the coast, to be with my family.”

“The coast?” I asked. “Who is your family?”

There was a sigh in my head. “I am the spirit of these woods, but I was shackled here in darkness long ago. The roots I lived in once sailed the great seas.”

I frowned. “You can’t take the forest with you, can you?”

It hummed with mild annoyance. “A forest is more than its trees. I can grow again.”

“But…” I began.

“There are no buts here, boy. I am asking for your help. You see yourself as a good person but will not even help an old soul in need.”

That hurt, hit me a lot harder than I’d expected it to. I felt a lump in my throat that was making breathing difficult.

“I’m not…” I began.

The voice hissed angrily. “Good enough.”

It paused. I didn’t say anything.

“I know you aren’t. Just… let me in, and help an old soul out. Pretend for a moment you’re as good as the people you’ve deceived think you are.”

“You’re trying to upset me,” I whispered.

“Is it trying if you make it this easy?” There was amusement in its voice. “Are you saying only people who praise you are worthy of your help? That people must worship you and fall in love with you before you’ll listen to them?”

“I…” My eyes stung.

“You are just another kind of power-hungry monster. You have them all wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?”

“No, I…” It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

“For once in your deceitful life, do a good thing. Help someone, not because they were nice to you, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

“I won’t…” My limbs felt heavy.

“So you’re exactly who I thought you were. A selfish, useless, manipulative, conniving--”

“Shut up,” I said, my voice quivering but resolute.

“Oh?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you now?” It purred, almost like a cat.

“Yes. Don’t take my… quietness for cowardice, spirit. You act like you can read my mind, but you might as well be illiterate.”

“Hmm?” It sounded confused.

“I’ve defeated demons like you before. I’ve carried them with me for a long time and I fight them almost every day. So I’m sorry if it takes me a minute to answer your snide remarks, but you have no power over me.” I took a deep breath.

“Are you sure about that?” It sounded like it was stifling a laugh.

I opened my eyes. I was standing on the outer edge of the light. Only feet in front of me was a wall of darkness that swirled and snapped at me.

“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. A power in my chest snarled enthusiastically, and a flash of light brighter than the sun exploded in front of me.