In By Sunset ✔️

Chapter Thirty-One: Tobias

Arthur continues to insist that we should go, while I insist that he should come with us. He gestures at the fallen Viledeer.

"Tobias, I can take care of myself now. I don't need your protection."

I grip his sleeve to make him look at me. "Arthur... Arthur, please, you can't--"

"I am. I'm going to find the tree spirit. And it'd be better if Rhys wasn't there when I did."

"Like you care. Arthur, please, just come back with me," I drop to a whisper, "If you really want to do this, we can come back together without them."

He shakes his head. He turns toward Rhys and Jesse, his eyes narrowed. "Well, since you're here, we can end this tonight. Either you die and I talk to Birch or Birch dies and I have a specimen to examine."

"This is the reason why I never trusted you," Jesse seethes.

Arthur flinches slightly, but he's already looked away. I set a hand on his shoulder, but he straightens his back and steps away from me. He examines his book, murmuring questions to his pen and continuing as he was before.

"What are tree-spirits weak to, anyway?" Jesse asks.

"Not much. The only way to defeat one is to destroy it's tree or attack when it's in it's human form."

"So if we find it, we don't stand a chance."

Rhys wiggles his fingers. "We have warding gloves."

Arthur ignores them, continuing to struggle with the book. The handwriting answering his questions is exactly the same as Andreadis, and the words seem similar, too.

"How are you making that work outside the catacombs?" I ask.

"Because the catacombs didn't make it. I did, using some ectoplasm Andreadis left on my forehead. It's got all his memories in it, but it isn't the whole him."

"That's remarkably clever."

"I know."

"Everything you do is so clever, but yet, you're doing such a foolish thing here."

"I either live and learn better or die and learn what's beyond. Where's the flaw?" he mutters.

"It's all a flaw. The entire plan is woven out of terrible ideas."

He shrugs indifferently. I consider using mind manipulation to get him to come out of here with us. Or just knocking him out. As if he can hear me planning, he gives me a sad look.

"You wouldn't do anything bad, even if you disagree with my plan, would you?"

"No," I answer. I wish he hadn't asked, because now I need to stick to it.

"I don't want to argue with you, Tobias. I hope you know that," he murmurs.

I sigh, shaking my head. "We should just go back, Arthur. At least to keep the others safe."

"I can't," he says, sounding genuinely distressed.

"Why?"

He shakes his head. We continue walking for a while before Arthur runs out of ink. He checks his person for another bottle, then turns and effortlessly takes Rhys's knife from it's harness, cutting his palm and dipping the tip of the pen into the wound.

"Arthur," Rhys snaps. Everyone is staring at him like he's gone insane.

"I told you, this ends tonight."

I think of the strongest healing spells I know, planning to use them as soon as he lets me. I don't like seeing him hurt, bleeding, even if it's of his own foolish accord. I shake all the thoughts out of my head, focusing my energy on helping him so this can get over with sooner, and he can heal sooner. Seeing how much ink that pen drained from his stores, it won't be long until his blood is totally drained. Actually, if he passes out from it, that could be a good thing, but I just can't stand to see him hurt.

Arthur's movements, surprisingly smooth before, are now shaky--whether from pain or anticipation of knowledge I can't fully tell. This needs to end, he's right. It isn't good for him, and it certainly isn't good for Rhys. In the back, as if my thought made it happen, Rhys sounds to be caught in a branch of some sort. It makes an amazing racket, even as he and Jesse work their hardest to keep the escaping movements very careful.

The pen keeps writing. Something feels off. The wind slows, but the angry rustle of leaves only becomes louder.

The pen falls suddenly, mid-sentence.

"He's here," Arthur says. The air is still, somehow stiff, and fraught with all of our fear. Arthur is shaking like the leaves I can still hear, getting louder.

I reach out, taking his hand and silently sealing the cut, continuing to hold it as the blood crusts between our skin.

"Now would be the time to play those warding gloves, Rhys," I mutter.

He plucks at the air like it's a lyre, then pales at the total silence. We all can see a slight rip in the palm of the right glove. Jesse starts pulling medical thread and a curved needle out of his bag, but it flies from his hands and against a wide oak tree. Arthur's things go flying and hover against the bark, too.

From out between the trunks of the still trees, the tree-spirit emerges. The thing looks like a dark void, it almost seems like it's sucking light in from the stars and moon. I can't see any features where I assume the face to be, but I can already tell it's zeroed in on Rhys. Jesse moves in front of him quickly. I drop Arthur's hand and move as fast as I can when the spirit moves forward, reaching towards the two of them with an approximation of a hand. I push it out of the way. It flares into thorns, cutting into my skin. It wraps around my arm.

"Stay out of the way," Birch says, the echo of the voice hurting my mind terribly. I can't focus enough to retaliate as it tosses me aside and moves towards Jesse, with his sword at the ready.

"You don't need to protect me," Rhys says, "Just go. It's over. Like Artie said, it ends here."

Jesse shakes his head, and slices at the spirit, only for Rhys to grip his arm. "That isn't going to do anything."

"I can at least try," he insists, breaking Rhys's grip and trying again. The spirit catches his sword by creating a gigantic patch of thorns on impact. It launches the sword back towards him, cutting his arm.

"Please just go," Rhys says, pressing a gloved hand over Jesse's wound.

"I'm not leaving you." He reaches for his sword again.

Arthur finally moves from where he was standing frozen, holding a fire spell in his hand.

"I have some questions," he mentions, "But unfortunately I can't just watch this."

"You're going to die."

I can't tell if it was Rhys or Jesse who said it, because I'm moving to stand by his side.

The tree-spirit brings Arthur's journal forth from where it was pinned floating against the tree. "Lichling," it says, "I will not fall to the same fate as Oak did."

"I-I'm not a lich," Arthur says boldly.

It uses the approximate hand to squish him down to the ground, gently as far as what I've seen so far, then creates a cage of it's own void flesh. "Keep it that way."

I swear, and try the magic I know best. Mind influencing. I try to get it to let Arthur go, but the only result is that I hear the pained screeching of it's mind and find it untamable. This is why faeries distance themselves from tree-spirits, I think.