“If I hadn’t, you could’ve set Gravaldor loose on the town.”

  “The same town that forced you to leave. Very grateful, aren’t they?” She crouched down in front of him, all of her golden buttons and jewelry flickering in the hazy daylight. “So where are you going to go?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I’m only trying to help you. You don’t need to be so rude.”

  “I don’t want a Lore Keeper’s help. Especially not yours.”

  She smirked. “I’m pretty sure your Mark makes you a Lore Keeper too.”

  “It doesn’t. Because I’m going to find a way to remove it, and I’m going to come back.”

  As soon as he said the words, he knew that they were the right ones. It didn’t matter what Master Pilzmann had said. This was his path. Maybe he would go on a journey to a city or across the world. But he would come back home, and everything would return to the way it was supposed to be.

  She stole the map that he’d drawn out of his hands and gave him a pitying look. “Where are you going to learn how to fix it? Here?” She pointed at the Humdrum capital. “No one there can help you. No one will want to. If you need answers, you’re only going to find them in a Lore town. There’s one only four days from here, deeper in the Woods.”

  “I’m not going to a town full of Lore Keepers,” Barclay hissed.

  “If Lore is your problem, then you need Lore to fix it. Besides, I’m going back there myself. I still need to trap Gravaldor, but I used up the last of my ingredients. You can come with me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Or you can get run out of every place you visit. That’s what’s ahead of you. Pitchforks and locked doors. Not answers.” She handed him his map back. “The choice is yours.”

  Barclay hesitated. He didn’t know if what she said was true, but the prospect of more pitchforks frightened him… almost as much as being entirely on his own.

  “Fine,” he agreed bitterly. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Good, because it’s dangerous to travel these Woods alone, even with a Beast.” She held out her hand to help him to his feet, but he refused it and stood up on his own. “My name is Viola Dumont. You already know Mitzi.”

  Mitzi squawked.

  “Assuming we don’t get eaten along the way,” Viola continued, “we’re going to make it to the closest Lore town, and you can get back to your miserable mushrooms before Spring comes.”

  SEVEN

  The deeper the pair journeyed into the Woods, the more fearsome the Woods became.

  The twisted gray trees gave way to new kinds: trees with thorns like daggers growing up their trunks, trees with knots in their bark that looked like faces. The first snow was falling, and the gnarled roots that snaked across the white ground reminded Barclay of decayed hands reaching out of a grave. Crows cawed overhead, as though urging him to turn back, to run.

  As they set up camp for the night, he shivered and clutched his charm while Viola collected sticks for a fire.

  When she finished, Barclay expected her to rub the twigs together to ignite them. Instead, she stared intently at the wood, her fingers white-knuckled around it. Then a red light appeared from her hands. Several sparks burst out, followed by flames, catching like a torch.

  Barclay grimaced.

  “The fire isn’t burning you,” he commented, more in disgust than awe.

  “It’s my fire,” Viola replied, as though that was reason enough to defy nature.

  “And this is my knife.” Barclay brandished the small blade he used to slice particularly stubborn mushrooms. “But I could still cut myself with it.”

  “You’d cut yourself with your own knife? That doesn’t seem smart.”

  “No, I’m just saying—”

  “It’s Lore. Or magic, as you probably call it. But since we’re going to Sycomore, a town full of Lore, you should start calling it Lore and start talking like a Lore Keeper. Not some Elsie townsboy.”

  “But I am a townsboy,” Barclay said, and he was proud of it. And he didn’t know what Elsie meant.

  “And the towns aren’t very nice to Lore Keepers, are they?” Viola gave him a pointed look. “You hate Lore. You hate Lore Keepers. With that attitude, what Lore Keeper is going to want to help you? Not everyone is as kindhearted as me, you know.”

  “Kindhearted? It’s your fault that this happened to me!”

  She ignored his comment and began tying the food they had gathered—mushrooms, thanks to Barclay, and a rabbit, thanks to Viola—around a spit.

  “I just think it would be a good idea for you to learn more about Lore Keepers before you go marching into Sycomore and making demands.”

  Barclay didn’t make demands. At least, he didn’t to anyone other than Selby, since Selby was supposed to listen to him.

  “I’m going to get more water,” he grumbled, snatching both of their canteens and storming downhill toward a stream.

  Mitzi followed him, crouching behind bushes and watching him menacingly. He fought down his panic. Viola didn’t like him much, but she wouldn’t let her Beast kill him, would she?

  Then Mitzi shook her butt and pounced on a pine cone. She tumbled onto her back, gnawing it. Barclay didn’t know whether or not to feel silly for being scared. After all, Mitzi was a dragon.

  While he filled the canteens, a wind blew and shook the trees overhead, sending a cloud of violet leaves fluttering down. On one side they looked like ordinary leaves—albeit purple ones. On the other there were beady black eyes and hundreds of spindly legs. Each stem was actually a long mouth, like a leech.

  Barclay shrieked and swatted them away as they tumbled around him. Mitzi, startled by his noise, took off flying toward her Keeper.

  “What’s wrong?” Viola called from atop the hill. “You scared Mitzi.”

  Barclay sprinted up and cowered at Viola’s side. “Those leaves are actually Beasts.”

  “Yes, they’re called Kafersafts, and they’re totally harmless.”

  “No Beasts are harmless.”

  “Some are.” Viola pried Barclay’s hand off her shoulder and sat him down. “This is exactly why you need a lesson. You’re clueless. Now you’re going to think every leaf, twig, and blade of grass is out to kill you.”

  “No I won’t,” he shot back, eyeing the crinkled brown leaves around them suspiciously.

  Viola rolled her eyes. Then she pulled off a mushroom roasting on the spit and offered it to Mitzi. Mitzi nibbled it out of her palm while Viola scratched her head, like she really was some pet.

  “There are five classes of Beasts,” Viola told him. “The class tells you how powerful a Beast is and how hard it is to find. A Kafersaft is in the bottom class, the Trite class. They have a little power but aren’t even strong enough to bond with. They do have uses, though. The sap from a Kafersaft tree is a common ingredient in all sort of elixirs, like Chamelion Lotion and Hornpecker Serum.”

  Harmless or not, Barclay was still spooked by their hundreds of buggy legs.

  “Here,” Viola offered, handing him a mushroom. “You can feed her, if you like.”

  Barclay absolutely would not like. But Mitzi, sighting the food, had already scampered to Barclay’s feet. And he’d much rather feed her the treat than his finger.

  He held his breath as she gobbled it down off his hand, then he hurriedly checked his skin to make sure it hadn’t turned scaly or infected.

  “See, she likes you,” Viola said as Mitzi brushed Barclay’s leg with her feathered tail. “You’re not special, though. Mitzi likes everyone.”

  Barclay almost—almost—came close to reaching down and petting Mitzi on the head, but then Mitzi made a belching sound and vomited the chewed-up mushroom all over his boots.

  “You have to eat that now,” Viola told him seriously.

  “I… I do?” Barclay asked, horrified.

  Viola looked him dead in the eyes. “Do you want her to eat you?”

  As he fearfully bent down to scoop it up, Viola let out a howl of laughter.

  “I’m sorry, I just… I didn’t expect you to actually do it,” Viola said, wiping tears out of her eyes. “I don’t know how many times I have to explain to you that Mitzi isn’t going to eat you.”

  “She’s a dragon,” Barclay grumbled, kicking the sick off his shoes. “What am I supposed to think?”

  Mitzi climbed back onto Viola’s shoulder and pecked at her golden pins, very undragonlike. Viola smirked at him while she scratched Mitzi’s chin.

  Barclay frowned. He wasn’t used to being the one who didn’t know anything, and he didn’t like it.

  “So what class is Mitzi?” he asked.

  “You’re skipping ahead. There’s still the second class, the Familiar class. They’re the most common Beasts to bond with. They have a small amount of power and are very easy to control. A lot of Guild apprentices have them.” Viola began counting off on her fingers, which Mitzi bent down to try to nibble. “Mitzi is in the third class, the Prime class. She was not very easy to find, but when she gets bigger, she’ll be very powerful.”

  “What do you mean by ‘apprentice’?” Barclay asked.

  “Having a Beast makes you a Lore Keeper, but the most prestigious Keepers work for the Guild. And they start out as apprentices. Masters can take on up to three of them. You usually start when you’re between ten and twelve.”

  Barclay furrowed his eyebrows. “How old are you?”

  Viola looked away and cleared her throat. “Anyway. The fourth class is called the Mythic class. They’re incredibly rare and hard to find. Guild Masters sometimes have them. They’re very, very powerful. Closer to monsters, as you might call them.” She met his eyes seriously. “Your Beast, a Lufthund, is Mythic class.”

  “What?” said Barclay. That seemed all the more reason to get rid of it. Powerful and monstrous was a combination he wanted nothing to do with.

  Viola turned the spit over the fire, not looking at him. “So you can imagine how I feel. Those ingredients for the trap were hard to find. I’ve been searching since Summer! This was my one chance other than Midwinter. And even if I made a mistake and summoned the wrong Beast, I still could have bonded with it. But you got in the way.”

  “I told you, I didn’t bond with it! The Beast bonded with me.”

  “And like I said, that doesn’t make sense. The Beast doesn’t forge the bond—the Lore Keeper does. You use summoning ingredients to lure the Beast. And once they’re in the trap, you touch them, and it just… snaps. You feel this spark. And then the bond is formed.”

  That was most definitely not what happened to him. Maybe Viola didn’t know as much about Beasts as she thought she did.

  “What if the Beast doesn’t want to bond with you?” he asked.

  “They don’t have a choice.”

  “Well, no wonder Beasts try to break their bonds all the time. It doesn’t sound very fair.”

  Viola’s mouth dropped open. “That… That almost never happens! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Beasts are companions! Their Lore is made for bonding. It makes them stronger, just like it does the Keeper, which is why Lore Keepers have been doing it for hundreds of years. And once you have your Beast’s trust—”

  Suddenly Mitzi sneezed, and a bright light burst from her mouth. The force of it sent her tumbling backward into the snow. She seemed unfazed, though—she immediately rolled over and began gnawing on her tail.

  “I don’t know why I’m arguing with you,” said Viola, sighing. “Any Master in the Woods would be thrilled to have you as an apprentice, and you don’t even want your Mythic class Beast.”

  Barclay’s stomach gave an unexpected clench. Thrilled to have him as an apprentice? Him? “W-well,” he stammered, caught off guard. “I don’t want to be an apprentice either.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” She glared at him.

  Even if Barclay did believe that his entire predicament was her fault, he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry. He knew what it was like to work hard and still not feel as though you’d achieved anything. It was frustrating, and it hurt.

  So, rather than pushing the subject, he said, “You mentioned there are five classes. So what is the fifth class?”

  “The Legendary class, the most powerful, ferocious Beasts in the world. There are only six. You already know of one of them.”

  “Gravaldor,” Barclay murmured, shuddering. “Can people actually bond with them?”

  “They have in stories. But not for a long time, maybe centuries.”

  “But you were trying to trap Gravaldor. What makes you think you can?”

  “It’s not that I think I can. It’s that I need to.”

  “But that sounds—”

  “You know, I’m just trying to help you, and you’re being very rude,” she snapped. Then she crinkled her nose. “And smelly.”

  Barclay was so surprised by her outburst that he felt more annoyed than sorry. Touchy, touchy, Master Pilzmann would say about her. Besides—he sniffed his armpits—he smelled just fine.

  He stalked off and sat on the base of a giant tree. It was freezing cold. They still had three more days until they reached Sycomore. And his only companion was the very person who had gotten him into this mess. This was not the adventure that Master Pilzmann had promised him—this was a nightmare.

  Something groaned loudly above him, and Barclay stood and whirled around. He saw nothing.

  Suddenly his shoulder stung. “Ow,” he said, pulling the fabric of his coat and sweater down to see if his cut had opened up again. The wound looked fine, but the Lufthund in the Mark had stopped its usual prowling across his skin and stilled, as though on alert.

  Then Barclay heard the sound again. It reminded him of Master Pilzmann’s snores—deafening and guttural.

  “What is that?” Viola asked from several yards away.

  “I can’t tell,” Barclay said, his dread rising, his Mark stinging all the worse. They had been walking for so long that it’d been easy to forget he was in the Woods… and the Woods was deadly.

  Suddenly the ground beneath him shook, and roots ruptured the earth. The tree that Barclay had been sitting on bent down low, and he realized the sound he’d heard was its trunk contorting. It twisted and coiled, and the more Barclay stared at it, the more the bark began to look like scales.

  The roots withdrew, slithering, and something tremendous burst from the ground, sending a cloud of dirt billowing into the air. Barclay and Viola coughed and stepped back as the roots whipped around and hissed, like a giant tongue.

  As the dirt dispersed, two bright amber eyes narrowed at them.

  The tree was not a tree at all.

  It was a Beast.

  EIGHT

  In the books Barclay had read from the library, the heroes emerged in times of greatest peril. No villain was too villainous. No monster, too monstrous. For a hero’s heart was ironclad and full of courage.

  Barclay screamed at a pitch so high, the crows nestled in the surrounding trees cawed and fled to the sky. He dashed toward Viola and clung to her arm as the Beast came into full view.

  It looked like a giant snake, with bark instead of scales and eyes the color of tree sap. Its head, which had been buried in the earth, was caked in dirt and crawling with worms and beetles. It slinked closer to the pair of them.

  “We should run,” said Barclay frantically. Running had always been his best and only strategy.

  “It’s a Styerwurm, a Prime class. That means it’s—”

  The snake stretched open its mouth, so wide that it actually turned its jaw inside out. Barclay stared in fright at its endless expanse of stomach—dark and pink.

  “Yep, yep,” Viola squeaked. “We run.”

  They took off. The Styerwurm slithered after them, tearing through the trees. Barclay, being smaller and faster, quickly outpaced Viola, and he was far too terrified to turn around to see if she was still behind him. The Beast was every bit as ferocious as the sort in stories he’d heard, and now they were about to be eaten.

  Viola screamed, and Barclay finally looked over his shoulder to see her on the ground. She’d tripped and fallen, and the snake was catching up at an alarming speed. Its rootlike tongue stretched through the leaves and snow toward her.

  “Help me!” she called.

  Barclay, who was a pitiful, cowardly excuse for a hero, who didn’t particularly even like Viola, ran back to help her. He grabbed her arm and hoisted her up. A long cut stretched down her shin where she’d scraped it, and she hobbled a bit when she put weight on that leg.

  “Thanks,” she breathed.

  “Never mind that, let’s just go—”

  Barclay’s words quickly turned to shrieks when the tongue wrapped around his ankle and yanked him back. He flew through the air, hanging upside down. Belongings from his bag toppled out onto the forest floor, and the world spun around him as the tongue whipped him this way and that.

  “Viola!” he screamed.

  “Just be calm!” she called. “The Styerwurm has a very weak stomach, so it shakes its victims to death before it eats them.”

  “How can I be calm when you tell me that?!”

  Indeed, the tongue switched from swinging Barclay around to shaking him like a piggy bank. Barclay attempted to kick and pull at it, but its grip would not budge. Spots of black bloomed in his vision.

  “Just… just hold on! Mitzi, help!” Mitzi emerged from her Mark and appeared on Viola’s shoulder with a determined squawk.

  A blinding light burst from Mitzi’s mouth, the same attack that she had used the day before to ward off the Lufthund. Barclay switched from prying at the tongue to covering his eyes, but the snake, if affected, didn’t stop thrashing him. Barclay’s breakfast from this morning threatened to return for an explosive encore.

  “Is it working?” he shouted. “Because it doesn’t feel like it is!”

  “I’ll try something else!”