Chapter 22

"How many fairies want me dead?" I asked as we made our way through the forest to the Twilight Court. A thick vine snaked out from the underbrush and curled around my ankle just tight enough to make me stumble. "Damn it!" I growled and glowered at the vine as it slithered back into the brush. "I'm bigger than you, plant! I can uproot you!"

"Um, no you're not, and no you can't." Tiernan nodded his head toward the shadows of the forest, and I caught sight of a giant, tear-shaped plant with fronds curling up into the tree branches above.

Vines as thick as my thighs fanned out from its base in all directions and the skeletons of dead animals littered the ground around it. The large leaves parted like the petals of a flower and a humanoid creature slithered out. She was entirely pale green—her skin slick like the inside of an aloe leaf—and completely hairless. Her arms ended in rubbery vines and so did her legs, but where her arms hung free, her legs were attached to the plant... which wa