cascade | kotlc

26. The Catch

"Oh good, they're back," Keefe said as Biana arrived in the Crooked Forest. "Now we can clobber them."

Fitz and June stalked forward, though they didn't look very menacing, given how they were holding hands. Fitz spoke up first. "We're supposed to be a team! That means you take us with you when you run away with strangers, not just give us four lousy words and disappear!"

"And Biana!" June added. "You should've brought me with you! I was literally just there, I whispered good luck in your ear, and I went to my tent. And then a couple minutes later I turn back and you're gone. Seriously? Could you not have waited a bit?"

"I'm sorry," Biana said, her brain still reeling from the afternoon's revelations- oh, who was she kidding, Tam was too fucking hot. And she had expected the Council did indeed know what had happened already.

"Tam only gave me a second to decide," Sophie mumbled. "There wasn't time to include you all."

"Tam?" Dex interrupted.

"Yeah, that's the Shade's name. And his twin is Linh. They're the teenages who left the footprints near Wildwood."

"You were at Wildwood?" Calla called from the treetops.

Biana scrambled back. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought Mr. Forkle said the plague didn't spread by touch, I hope we're not contaminated-"

"Describe the trees at Wildwood to me," Calla interrupted, jumping to the ground. "I need to know."

By the time they had finished, Calla looked as green as her thumbs.

"The roots were red?" she whispered.

"Is that bad?" Biana asked, fidgeting nervously. "Everything else was black, like Bosk Gorge."

"Red means their time is almost up," Calla said. "Red roots are the end. Always. Every time."

Biana whitened.

"How long does that mean the colonists have?" Sophie whispered, clutching her stomach. Biana felt like throwing up.

"It's hard to say," Calla murmured. "Trees have simpler systems than us. But the path is the same. Once those infected see red, they will only have days."

Biana held her heart, feeling it increase in rate, thumping against her chest faster and faster. It was hard to hold onto hope.

-

"Silveny's pregnant," Sophie told her friends when she joined them for breakfast. The sound of dropping forks clattered across the room.

"What?" June asked, her mouth opening as she tried to swallow a pancake doused in ten tons of syrup. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, yeah," Sophie mumbled, sinking into the chair next to her. "She showed me..."

"GAH!" everyone yelled. Plates shattered on the ground. Dex tumbled over his chair, and Fitz had somehow managed to lose his shoe.

Keefe pushed his plate away. "I'm done with food forever." He looked green, like he was actually about to vomit. She couldn't blame him. Biana felt faint too. It was supposed to be natural and beautiful, but...

Oh, god...

"Seriously, that is one batch of memories you do not have to share with me," Fitz told Sophie. "I don't care if it's part of our Cognate training."

"Is Glitter Butt okay?" June asked, though she was retching out syrup that she had choked on when she gasped. Spasms and hacks cut through her words as she asked, "How long is an alicorn pregancy?"