“Then why hate her?”
“Because I’m not in love with her!” he hissed, a little too loudly.
Behind them, Micah cleared his throat, and when Kestrel looked back she found him trying to look anywhere but ahead at the two of them. Elora, however, was staring right at her, with a look that seemed to saywhat are you doing and please stop—minus theplease, perhaps.
“That’s enough,” snapped the queen, whose gaze was also like daggers at their backs. “We need the two of you focused.”
“Yes, my queen,” Leighton said through gritted teeth.
It was the last peep Kestrel heard from him, from anyone really. Until she finally saw it.
“There! I think I see it!”
As they rounded a crooked bend in the path, just beyond a collection of mangled trees, Kestrel spotted it. A stagnant body of water the color of soot.
Together, they hastened their pace until they were standing over the motionless lake at the center of the Hollows. Staring down into the grey mirk, it seemed so undisturbed, so untouched, so unlike the rest of the tainted forest. No monsters lurked below. In fact, the ones who had been stalking them all this way, kept an even farther distance now, as if they were afraid of this place.
Perhaps, they couldn’t swim either, Kestrel thought to herself.
Or perhaps there was something here. Something unseen keeping them at bay. The magic she and the others had come for.
No matter how long they gazed into the waters though, no blue light emitted from them.
“This is it? You’re sure of it?” snapped the queen once she grew tired of bobbing on her toes to see past the knights standing guard around her.
“Yes,” Kestrel answered. “This is it. This is the same place I saw in my vision.”
Although now that she was thinking of it, the blue light wasn’t the only thing amiss. Feathers weren’t raining down upon them either, and therefore Elora wasn’t gathering them into her arms until it looked as if she was holding a flock of crows.
But thiswasthe place.
Kestrel was certain of it.
She recognized the lake, the slabs of stone that jutted fromthe earth. Even the way that moss had grown on them, obscuring the inscriptions beneath. This was where they were meant to be.
“Wonderful.” Queen Signe’s voice was a noxious singsong. “Where is it then?”
Slowly, Kestrel said, “I don’t know,” as she glanced around the perimeter. “Maybe there’s something we’re supposed to do, like a way to trigger it.”
“Like a trap?” Elora asked, incredulous.
“No, not like a trap. More like a—” Before Kestrel could think of the word, the queen provided one for her.
“An offering. A way to activate the magic here.”
Images of the queen’s altar and that poor rabbit flashed red in Kestrel’s mind. Her stomach tied itself in knots. She didn’t like the way the queen said the wordoffering, but the general idea of doing something to set off the magic was one she had considered as well. But it was difficult to think of what that might be, now that all she could imagine was that rabbit’s entrails…the warmth and slickness of blood as it dripped from her hands.
“We’re not killing anything.” The growl that came from Micah’s throat was more menacing than any of the creatures they’d encountered thus far.
Unbothered by the declaration, Queen Signe tapped the shoulder of one of the guards in front of her so that she could step around him and into the clearing. Kestrel realized then that she was no longer holding her umbrella—perhaps she dropped it during the attack earlier. Without it, the trees could only provide so much protection from the sunlight, her curse uninhibited.
As Queen Signe approached, fractals of light filtered down between the tree branches. The ghastly breaks in the shadows cast her in an everchanging marring of flesh andpallor. Wherever the sun grazed, Signe’s flesh became as mottled as rotten fruit. Those sharp teeth of hers gleaming through the cracks.
Kestrel could not avert her gaze this time.
“Whoever said anything about killing?” the queen said, either oblivious that the veil had been pulled, or pretending to no longer care. “I’m merely suggesting that the magic here needs some…arousing.”
Micah’s eyebrows waggled.
