“You must,” one Sister told Aesra grimly. “It is the way.”
Young Aesra extended her arm. She was shaking.
The duskwyrm bit her—a quick flick of the tongue before the Sister yanked the wyrm away.
Aesra burst into tears, and a second Sister slapped her across the face.
The vision spun. Aesra again—older now, maybe seventeen—knelt beside the same wyrm, now trapped in a glass enclosure. Aesra closed her eyes, as if summoning her courage. Then she scowled and stuck her arm through the narrow opening. The wyrm struck. Another bite.
Year after year, Aesra came to the wyrm. Year after year, she grew more resentful, until Aesra, enraged, smashed her fist down on the wyrm’s enclosure. The glass shattered, and Aesra leaped back. The wyrm coiled in fear.
“You stupid, stupid snake!” Aesra cried, recovering before the wyrm did. “Always staring at me with those stupid eyes!Youmade me lash out.Youmade me break your cage. But I’ll be the one in trouble, won’t I? Unless...” Slyness transformed Aesra’s features. She found a rock and lifted it high.
Willow came out of the vision panting. The duskwyrm remained in front of her, broken and twitching but alive. Trusting. The duskwyrm Aesra had maimed had come to Willow for a reason.
Willow flipped her hand and held it flat, palm up.
“Come with me,” she said. “I’ll take you somewhere safe, far from the Sisters. Far from the queen.”
Tentatively, she ran a finger down the duskwyrm’s body, and Willow saw the glint of old bruising on one flank, a place where scales had cracked and healed over wrong.
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered. “I promise.”
The duskwyrm inched forward, and Willow slid her hand beneath its jaw. The wyrm tensed but didn’t pull away.
Digging her knee into the ground, Willow used her free hand to rip a length of sodden denim from the hem of her jeans. She swaddled the duskwyrm in it, bundling its shivering body with the same technique she’d seen her mother use to calm Juniper as a fussy infant. She cinched the makeshift sling across her torso, then bowed her head and, through the fabric, pressed her lips to the duskwyrm’s wounded spine. “Shh,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
The duskwyrm quieted, coiling and settling beneath her chin.
Willow trudged back to the mossy bank that offered the best access to the pond. The cold rose quickly as she waded back in. Ankles, knees, hips. When it reached her ribs, she lifted her arms above her head, pushed off with her feet, and dove beneath the surface.
There was no up. No down. Just pressure. Churning darkness. Her body twisted, caught in some great and receptive spiral, tumbling like laundry.
Her ears filled with whispered languages she didn’t know. Shapes pressed past her—and faces—but when she tried to reach for them, she found that her limbs no longer obeyed.
Then came a deafening stillness.
She floated. Not quite body, not quite soul. A bubble caught between one world and the next.
Was this where Orrin had gone? Not dead. Not alive. Just—between?
Her eyes welled with tears, and Willow let them spill. Salt mixed with magic, grief mixed with purpose.
The bubble she was trapped in shimmered.
Something shifted.
A current. A pull. She felt pressure everywhere at once. Her limbs stretched too long, then compressed to nothing. She felt herself flattened and folded, as if some unseen hands were tucking her into a crease between realities.
Time slowed, and she had no heartbeat. No breath. Only the sensation of slipping, slipping, slipping...
A seductive darkness curled around her, rocking her like a baby and promising silence and peace. Her limbs slackened. Her mind began to fade.
Then—a pinch, sudden and precise.
The duskwyrm had slipped its head through a gap in the sling, nosing past the folds of fabric to press against her skin. She felt it at the hollow of her neck, the delicate scrape of fangs withdrawing. It hadn’t struck to harm—just a nip to pull her back to the world.
From above and beyond came the muffled sound of a man shouting. Frantic. Urgent.
