Uprooted

Content Warning: This section includes discussion of rape, self-harm, illness, death, and graphic violence.

Agnieszka and the Dragon avoid each other for days. Then a cart arrives driven by a villager and carrying Kasia’s mother, Wensa, with news that Kasia was snatched by three Wood walkers. The walkers, who look like giant stick insects, drag people into the Wood, never to be seen again. Occasionally, a person reemerges, but while they might seem unchanged, they have a negative effect on those around them, attacking others or causing them to harm themselves.   

The Dragon is sympathetic to Wensa’s plight but insists there is nothing they can do. Agnieszka takes Wensa to her room to sleep and finds Kasia’s hair, which she can use to track Kasia down, in her locket. She sneaks Jaga’s journal out of the library and leaves, asking the cart’s driver to take her to the Wood.

She enters the Wood alone. She can feel the Wood’s inhuman intelligence looking for her but uses spells from Jaga’s journal to fight walkers and track Kasia. Eventually, she finds an enormous tree unlike anything she has ever seen; bound to the tree is Kasia, her body half-engulfed by bark spreading over her.