“So, tell me then, when did you save the captain's life?”
He sputtered, his knuckles going white on the steering controls. “How did you...what...I didn’t?”
I pointed toward my eyebrows. “Yours are very expressive. A tell, if you will. Don’t play poker unless you get that under control or buy some oversized sunglasses.”
He straightened and regained his composure. “It’s not something I’m prepared to talk about.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how quickly will the captain try to stab me if I bring it up to him?”
Fin gave another chuckle. Each one felt like winning something.
“I can say probably a twelve,” he said. “The captain doesn’t enjoy owing anyone a debt. Or being reminded of his own mortality.”
“Sweet. I’ll be adding it to my ‘annoy the captain’ rotation.”
He turned the death machine, angling us toward something, but I closed my eyes and gripped my harness.
“Oh, stop that. Please stop that.”
I didn’t recognize the whine in my voice, and I didn’t care.
“Oh, now you don’t want to land?” he said, his voice low and breathless in my ear with his laughter.
I kept my eyes closed until I felt the jerk of the helicopter landing, and Fin removed my headphones.
“Get me out, get me out,” I said, trying to figure out which buckle went where so I could unsnap myself.
With a few deft motions, he got me out of the rigging, and I threw myself out of the helicopter onto the ground.
He came around to my side and stared at me sitting in the grass. “Wow, I finally found the one thing to bring Zoey Salix to her knees.”
I glared up at him. He reached down, and I took his fingers to allow him to pull me to my feet.
Considering I had to go back up in that thing to get home, I decided not to bait Fin further.
Instead, I fixed my gaze out onto the forest. We’d landed in a small clearing, which I had no idea how he saw from the sky. All around me were the same trees from my dream. Except now, the same creepy, weird feeling I experienced in my dream felt compounded.
I shook my head and retreated toward the helicopter. “No, I don't think I want to go in there.”
Fin smiled and waved at the trees. “It’s just a forest, Zoey.”
“Oh, fuck you. Don’t placate me. Hell is just a sauna, right? I know something is off here. I feel it, vibrating in my bones. It’s like it’s trying to speak to me.”
All traces of mirth were gone from his face now. “I’m sorry. You’re right. To mages, this is a sacred place. It’s called the forest of shadows.”
“You knew what this place was the whole time?” I demanded. “We're right back where we were before, with you knowing everything, and me knowing nothing. Just because I wasn’t born into this world doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to know.”
He held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, Zoey, truly. I was born to this world, and sometimes I forget how much I do know, and how much others don’t. Forgive me.”
If he had tried to defend himself, I could have stayed angry.
I waved at the trees. “Let’s go see if we can find something. But I’m not staying here a moment longer than necessary.”
“Understood,” he
said.
I took a step forward. “On second thought, maybe I should stay here with the helicopter. This looks like a seedy neighborhood. I would hate for someone to steal it.”