She looked in its eyes and saw, not the beast, but the man.
But before she could move, the sound of someone running shattered her concentration.
“Stand back!” Eric shouted, bursting through the broken door. “Stand back. I have him!” He raised a crossbow to his shoulder, aiming it at Sebastian. “I have him, Bella!”
To her horror, she saw the head of the bolt glinting silver. Fear stabbed her.
No!
But in the instant before he shot, a silver candlestick flew past her shoulder, knocking the crossbow aside. But it went off, anyway, the bolt hitting Sebastian’s hind leg and tearing a furrow across the skin and hide. With a yelp of pain, the wolf wheeled, charged for the door and shouldered Eric aside, dashing out into the corridor again. Bella ran in hot pursuit, ignoring Eric. She raced down the corridor, bare feet slapping on the stone, following the sound of skittering claws.
“Sebastian!” she called, or tried to, her sides aching, and her throat burning as she tried to catch her breath.
He didn’t even pause.
Even wounded, Sebastian was unbelievably fast. She reached the intersection of two corridors and paused, uncertain, no longer able to hear him running. A moment later she heard the crashing of glass far off in the direction of the greenhouse; by the time she reached the spot, it was obvious what had happened. Sebastian had managed to find the greenhouse, shoulder the door open and had thrown himself through one of the panes to escape out into the snow.
There was no trace of him but the footprints — dark pits in the drifts, heading into the forest.
She stood uncertain in her bare feet, holding her aching side, staring, her heart pounding like a mad drum and fear making her want to burst into tears and sink down helplessly to the ground. But she didn’t dare do that. He was all she had, the only hope he had. She fought down the tears and clasped her fists to her temples, trying to think.
A flood of Spirit Elementals poured into the greenhouse, probably attracted by the noise. Several of them — ones she recognized by their colors as being in the “not very bright” category — began working on a makeshift patch for the broken pane to keep the cold from pouring in; two began sweeping up the glass. The rest milled uncertainly. But some were intelligent ones, and more than that, were outdoor workers. She’d actually seen their little bunches of leaves floating on the verge of the forest. Could they follow him? “You!” she snapped, pointing to ribbons holding leaf bundles. “Oak, Ash, Thorn, Birch! Track him! Find Sebastian now!”
The four designated stopped milling and rushed back out the door.
She headed for her room, sure of only one thing. She had to get out there and find him. Find him, before Eric did.
Sapphire already had one of her breeches outfits ready, and a pair of sturdy boots. With the clothing was her hand-crossbow, a quiver of bolts meant to go on her belt, another for her saddle and two knives.
“Follow Thorn” was already written on the slate.
She scrambled into the clothing with Sapphire’s help, and belted the crossbow quiver and one of the knives on a second belt over her coat. There was something nagging at her, something very wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it —
It was nagging at her so badly that before she ran out the door, she stopped, and snatched up her mirror, flinging magic and the demand for the Servant or the Godmother to appear into it.
The Servant appeared in it almost immediately, looking startled. “What?” he exclaimed. “Your summons was very urgent — ”
“Sebastian’s gone!” she interrupted him, explaining quickly what had just happened. Her hands were shaking as she held the mirror.
The Servant’s lips thinned. “Your intuition is correct — something is wrong. It is more than Sebastian transforming out of season — much, much more. Someone has altered the curse on him. I will inform Godmother Elena. Find Sebastian. And at all costs, keep Eric from him.”
She didn’t even bother with saying farewell; she just left the mirror on the table and dashed for the stables, pulling on her gloves and tying her hood around her face as she ran.
A wide, cream-colored ribbon with thorns stuck through it like pins bobbed beside the nose of her horse; the horse was already saddled and ready. She only paused long enough to fasten the quiver to the saddle, then used the mounting block to get in place. The ribbon dashed ahead; the gates were already open. Not a good sign. Eric must be ahead of her.
But Eric didn’t have the Spirit Elementals helping.
She urged the horse into a canter; he didn’t like running in the dark like this, but he obeyed her. They sped down the edge of the forest — this was definitely Sebastian, and not a wolf, for a wolf would have gone to cover immediately, but Sebastian was trying desperately to find something he recognized as a trail. Thorn’s ribbon flew on, as fast as a man could run, or faster, and he didn’t seem impeded by the snow at all — that ribbon is going to get lost in the snow and the dark, she realized, and impulsively seized a “handful” of magic and flung it after the vanishing bow like a snowball. Light! Follow! she willed, and the little sphere of power lit up with a mild glow, following the servant as if it had been tied to Thorn by a tether.