The rain let up the next morning. By now, signs of Wightnight's approach—now only two nights away—were visible throughout the forest. Mist clung about the trees, its faint glow falling invisible with the sun's rise. Stories said the Wights made this vapor themselves. Bella could certainly see the plausibility of that. Rather than burning off, the mist thickened over the course of the day, pooling first in hollows, then spilling out across the rain-dampened forest floor. They were still nowhere near the bog.

More signs of Wightnight were simply signs of autumn tainted by association. Colours tipped the branches of early-turning trees, like someone had used them as paintbrushes. When the wind blew, birches loosed a flurry of yellow leaves like giants' coins. At the road's edges, fall asters splashed purple and white in the drooping grass, still weighed down by a memory of the night's rain and morning's dew.

Daphne walked with a sprightly step this morning, swinging her folded umbrella. Titus eyed the muddy road in disgust. When he tired of shoulder-perching, he slithered down to Daphne's potion-bag for a comfier ride. Bella took off and flew. She stretched her wings in the sun, enjoying the rich smells of autumn, and the overhead view of the colour-splotched forest. Lights winked where tree canopies thinned. Even in the daytime, Wights drifted through the forest in numbers normally reserved for evening fireflies. Bella flew a little higher.

In less than an hour, the ruddy line of Baneberry Bog peeked over the green horizon. The bog always looked like it had gotten a head-start on the forest's fall colours. Bella let herself drop, spiraling down to rejoin her companions. Daphne was chatting with Titus, who was still comfortably installed in her potion-bag even though the ground had dried. Both looked up as Bella swooped to a halt on Daphne's shoulder.

"We'll be at the bog by evening," she reported. "Sooner if we eat lunch while walking."

"Well, my feet are sore," said Daphne. "I'm stopping for lunch when it's lunchtime."

Bella opened her beak to mention Bryony, only to bite back the words as she found Titus watching her. She nodded to the notebook in Daphne's hand instead. "Any progress?"

"Hm? Oh, this? I haven't been looking. Well, I was. Now we're talking about Alchemy."

The twitch of Titus's whiskers told Bella he might have had something to do with that. She still didn't know if he'd ever worked for an Alchemist before.

"What happened then?" he asked Daphne. "I'm not aware of any neutralizing potion for garlic-citrus tinctures. They have all manner of colorful names among the cat colonies."

"You've spoken to the cat colonies?" said Bella, startled. She'd known there were communities of strays scattered throughout Nerium and other larger cities, but Titus had never struck her as the type to strike up conversation with street cats.

Titus acted like he hadn't heard her. "Given that you've mentioned those same classmates as still in your classes, I can only presume nobody got caught."

"Oh, no," said Daphne with a sheepish grin. "They caught a Theriologist from the senior class who'd been trying to reach a rat's nest under the school by taking apart a brick wall in the basement. She denied everything, obviously, but the damage in the lab looked like rats, and nobody had a rat familiar to reach the wild ones and prove otherwise. Rats were barred from the school for safety after a previous Theriology incident. Nobody died," she added, when Titus winced. "Not that I'm aware of, anyway. But it was a close call, so it was only larger familiars allowed after that. The Department of Familiarity has a lovely nest where they house any rat familiars whose keepers are in school."

"What about the incident? Did that student receive punishment for her apparent crime?"

"Nothing serious, I think? But she did have to clean up the mess. And that's why I'm not in Herbology."

"Yet you work with sulfur and ammonia instead," said Bella dryly. "I daresay Herbology at least is rarely flammable."

"Oh, but that's the fun part," said Daphne. "I've always been better with things that explode than things that stink when you spill them. Sulfur washes out way easier than garlic or skunk spray. The Theriologists win that one." She looked regretfully at her stained outerwear. "I lost my first coat to an accident in my Intro to Theriology class. I liked that coat."

"You should invent a stronger waterproofing."

"I'm trying."

They ribbed each other about potions and Witchcraft disciplines for a while longer, though Titus remained mostly silent through that part. After a time, Daphne turned to Bella again. "What about you? Did you pick an Herbalist on purpose?"

A downy warmth filled Bella's chest at the memory of her and Bryony's first meeting. It clashed sharply with the worry that had settled there, so deeply, it almost passed for normal.

"No," she said. "I met Bryony and picked her. She just happened to be an Herbalist, thankfully."

"How did you meet?"

Titus rested his chin on the edge of the potion-bag and let his eyes wander. He had heard this story many times, Bella knew, but normally he just sniffed and left the room whenever she began retelling it. A fittingly snooty response for someone who took pride in claiming D'Czernobog ancestry, a lineage blessed and protected by the spirit of misfortune itself.

"She picked me up in the forest before I fledged," said Bella. "She gave me everything I have."

Normally she would tell more than that: of falling from the nest on Wightnight, landing in Wight-fog, and coming face to face with a Wight itself. How superstitions among wild crows would have seen her abandoned, cursed by Wight-magic so that no other crow would dare touch her. How Bryony had not only offered her a warm home and tender care, but years of coaching to stop seeing herself as cursed. To believe she deserved good things.

Today, though, the words wouldn't come. The warmth of the story only whetted the knife of Bryony's absence with floods of other memories. Of Bryony coming home with every imaginable crow-food and telling Bella to pick her favorites, declaring that she would eat like royalty for the rest of her life. Of keeping Bryony company through endless long, late hours of study through her early schooling and Herbology degree. Of standing by her against other, jealous Witches at the academy. Of standing up to their familiars on her own.

Bella had been there when Bryony got the news that her mother had disappeared, presumed dead by Wight-lure in Baneberry Bog. She'd remained by Bryony's side through the grief that followed. Bryony had remained by hers as news from the forest informed Bella of the passing of her relatives, none blessed with the familiar's lifespan she herself had been granted. No emotion was more complicated than what those deaths had wrought on her. But Bryony had always been there.

What if the bog claimed Bryony, too?

The fear gripped Bella all at once, closing down over her body like a predator's jaws. In a moment, the world had narrowed to nothing but the road ahead, the bog somewhere a day's walk along it. An hour's flight at most. She had to find Bryony.

She couldn't move.

"Bella! Bella!"

The paralysis snapped. Bella nearly fell off Daphne's shoulder as her wings returned to her. Hands plucked her from her perch. In a moment, she was face to face with the young Witch, held like a common chicken, her view of the bog's horizon broken. Bella struggled to return to herself through the screaming of the voice inside her, telling her to fly. Slowly, the world widened again. Her own heart beat so hard, it hurt.

"Are you okay?" said Daphne. "You went stiff all of a sudden."

There was a map to the bog in Bryony's notebook. She must have gone there before, or at very least researched it. She must know how to keep herself safe. She wouldn't have promised to be back after Wightnight otherwise.

Why had she promised to be back after Wightnight if she'd gone to the bog?

A different fear was creeping in now, no matter how hard Bella tried to disarm it. She and Bryony were closer than anyone. They always had been. Bryony told her everything. Didn't she?

Bella knew—just knew—that Titus was watching her from Daphne's potion-bag again.

She didn't look down.

A/N: Hi friends! Given recent changes Wattpad has been making, this will be one of the last books I post on this site. If you want to keep in touch, learn when I move to other platforms, or get insider updates on my publishing journey, sign up for my newsletter—link in the comments, or in my Wattpad bio if you can't click it here.