“It’s the ley line,” Aspen said matter-of-factly, frowning slightly at Emory. “It runs right through here.”
“Ley line?” echoed Romie and Emory.
“Paths of energy that run beneath the earth. Invisible to the naked eye, but we witches can feel them. Especially here in the Wychwood, where they’re most concentrated. There’s a certain vibration to them that we don’t feel before ascending. But once we do… we can feel how everything is connected.”
It was Romie’s turn to frown at Emory, wondering how in the Tides’ nameshecould feel these lines of energy. Another perk of being a Tidecaller, Romie supposed.
“Is there a way to use the ley line’s power?” Emory asked Aspen with an eagerness Romie did not like. “Maybe this is how we find our door.”
Aspen hesitated. “Standing on a ley linecanheighten one’s magical abilities, but its power cannot be used in the way you’re thinking. It isn’t something you can harness or control. It is simply… felt.”
Romie noticed the way Emory’s shoulders sagged at that. A thought crossed her mind. “If this is where magic is strongest, it might explain why this is where we appeared. Which means the door has to be here. We can’t possibly have appeared out of thin air.”
“This door of yours,” Aspen said with curiosity, “you believe it will bring you to other worlds, yes? Like in that story of yours.Song of the Drowned Gods.”
They gaped at her.
“How did you know that?” Emory asked.
Aspen bit her lip, realizing she’d said too much. “I… I heard you discussing it.” At their insistent looks, she added, “When I was scrying.” She let out a relenting sigh. “My scrying power is different from other witches’. I can see through people’s eyes, feel what they feel, hear what they say.”
Romie raised a brow. “So you spied on us.”
“I only did it once or twice, I swear. Can you blame me for wanting to know more?”
The violation would have infuriated Romie had she and Emory not beenalsopoking around the Amberyls without their knowing—in dreams, in memories. She caught Emory’s eye and knew she was thinking the same thing.
“What exactly did you hear us talking about?” Romie asked.
“Only that book. And how you believe yourselves to be like its characters. I couldn’t quite piece together the story, though. Will you tell it to me?”
And so Romie did. By the end of it, Aspen was frowning, and Romie couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“So you’re seeking these doors to go to this sea of ash,” Aspen said at last.
“Yes.”
“And you believe I might be this witch of the woods who must go along with you to find these other… heroes?”
“Possibly, yes. Have you ever heard it, the call of other worlds? This song that pulls on your soul?”
The Sculptress, perhaps, calling her forward. Just like the Tides calling Romie to the sea of ash.
Aspen’s eyes brightened, and it was all the answer Romie needed. But that spark was there and gone in a flash, replaced with that stoicism again. “My mother would never let me leave. My place is here, in the Wychwood.”
Disappointment followed Romie like a shadow as they made their way back to Amberyl House. She was too consumed in her thoughts to notice the rot seemed to have expanded to the foot of the garden gate until Emory pointed it out.
Aspen quickly ushered them onto the grounds, evidently perturbed at the sight of the spreading decay. Her gaze caught on a shaded alcove of the garden, where Bryony sat in a bed of flowers. The hem of her cream dress was blackened with dirt, but she still managed to look flawless, with pale green ribbons in her hair and a smile on her lips.
Unaware she had an audience, Bryony blew on dandelion puffs and seemed mesmerized by the cloud of spores that danced around her. She closed her eyes and shoved a handful of dark berries in her mouth, the juices staining her lips red.
Romie’s heart stuttered as she noticed what looked like nightshade growing all around Bryony. But Aspen stopped her before a warning could form on her tongue.
“We never pull a witch from her scrying,” Aspen said in a low, clipped tone.
“But those berries are poisonous! Nightshade is deadly—”
“Those bushes areblacknightshade, not the deadly variety. See? The berries form in clusters.”
