“Els!” came a voice from just below her. She looked down to see her sister, Rachel, still shedding a thick coat of clinging ivy, in the claws of a massive egret in flight. Just behind her, his arms wrapped around the neck of a heron, rode their brother, Curtis, a look of absolute surprise written on his face.
Elsie felt the wind whistle in her ears; she felt the cool air assault her face. She glanced at the birds surrounding her: Astride their backs was an odd assortment of men, dressed in fraying gray robes. Each wore an untidy beard of his own; one of them, Elsie could see, had a truly intimidating tattoo etched on his forehead. She’d just noticed this detail when she heard an ecstatic shout from below her. It was Curtis.
“Brendan!” he yelled. “Jack! Bandits!”
Two of the men wheeled their mounts into a steep pitch and circled around to ride side by side with the boy. The air resounded with their merry laughter.
“Aye, hello there, young bandit-in-training,” hollered Jack over the rushing wind.
Curtis, for his part, was stunned speechless. “Where . . . what . . . ,” was all he could manage. Finally, he bowed his head against the back of his heron mount and said, “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, whatever the situation.”
“Us too, lad,” said Brendan. Out of the looping cowl of fabric over his shoulders crawled a cowering rat.
“If only it didn’t involve flying again,” Septimus moaned.
They’d all been saved in the daring rescue, every last link in the chain that had threatened to topple from the treetop fort’s lookout platform. The birds, hearing Curtis’s and Rachel’s screams, had dived down into the under-canopy and pulled them from their ivy snares. All of them were accounted for: Oz (just regaining consciousness, his surprise perhaps was the greatest), Ruthie, Martha, and Carol. Harry hugged the back of an eagle, marveling at the widening world below him. They all wore similar looks of wonder on their faces as the flock drew close and came into tight formation.
“But—where’ve you been all this time?” called Curtis.
“What?” shouted Brendan; the wind, having picked up at their new altitude, made conversing nearly impossible.
“I said—WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?”
Brendan spoke something into the ear of his eagle mount, and the bird gave a loud, marshaling cry. Just then, the flock banked downward, slowing. They were now above a portion of the Wood that had not yet been overrun by the ivy; a wide, grassy vale atop a hill in the midst of the trees presented itself, and the birds circled into a gentle landing on the soft down of the meadow.
Curtis leapt from his heron and ran straight to Brendan, as if to encircle him in a great bear hug. Remembering himself, he stopped short of the Bandit King and instead gave a low bow.
“King,” he said. Looking up, with tears in his eyes, he said, “I’ve kept the band going. I’ve kept it strong. Me and Septimus. We were the Wildwood bandits. We built it all back.” He faltered, his voice choked with emotion. “Till now.”
The tattooed man put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and smiled. “You’ve done well, Curtis,” he said. “We can only be thankful that you escaped the Synod’s poison. The bandit creed was kept with you.”
“The Synod?” Curtis said, blinking.
“Religious sect,” put in the bandit Jack, who’d dismounted his eagle and had joined the two of them in the center of the clearing. “They had us in their spell. Evil stuff. Seamus was the one who brought it—he’d already been taken in by those devils.”
“But the ivy is another matter,” said Brendan. “It did not come from these zealots, but instead—”
Curtis interrupted. “No, I know who’s responsible. We saw her.”
“Her?” Brendan’s eyebrow was arched.
“Alexandra,” replied Curtis. “But not Alexandra. Like, a plant version of her.”
The Bandit King nodded sagely. “Then what the owl says is true. She’s returned to wreak her vengeance on the Wood. She’s now on her way to North Wood, to bring down the Council Tree. We fly to the aid of the Mystics now, for the survival of the Wood.”
Rachel, having dismounted her eagle with a bowing thank you, ran to Elsie, who had been gently deposited some feet away from her in the downy grass of the meadow. Running up on her, she practically tackled the girl, and Elsie laughed in her sister’s uncharacteristically enthusiastic embrace.
“I’m okay, Rach,” she said. “Can’t breathe very well, though.”
Rachel sheepishly released her grip on her sister. “All the screaming—I thought you’d, you know . . .” She paused, as if reckoning with the difficulty of the memory. “The ivy was all over me. I was done, for sure. Then these claws just grabbed my shoulders and I was in the air.”
“And Nico?” asked Elsie, scanning the crowd. All seemed to be accounted for: Most of their crew were standing bemused in the meadow and sharing happy exchanges among one another. The saboteur, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Rachel shook her head. “He didn’t make it,” sh
e said solemnly. “The ivy got him.”
Elsie put her hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp. “No!”