They were in a cave below the yew tree that kept on going deeper and deeper, the ground beneath them sloping in a steep decline. They ventured down in silence, the solitary lantern illuminatingthe way. Romie gave a sidelong glance to Emory, who was watching the light in Aspen’s hand with something like longing. As if she yearned to amplify it with her own magic.
But Emory abstained herself. No doubt realizing, like Romie, that they were at the very center of the ley line, where its power would be strongest.
Oddly enough, the air did not become colder or damper or thinner, as Romie would have imagined; instead, it grew warmer, to the point where rivulets of sweat began to form on her forehead.
Suddenly the ground evened out, and they found themselves in a larger cave with walls unlike any Romie had ever seen. Great columns of rock, hexagonal in shape and charcoal in color, were all jointed together, growing in length the closer they were to the wall, giving the impression of giant steps leading upward. Dotted all over the cavern were small, steaming pools set into the same odd rock formations, like primitive baths carved by time.
“These are basalt columns,” Aspen said, running a hand along the wall. “They’re formed from cooling lava.”
“Like from a volcano?” Romie asked, looking around dumbfounded.
“Yes. From long, long ago.”
Romie supposed that might explain the steaming waterholes and temperate air.
“Look.” Emory pointed to one of the shorter columns along the far wall, where a silver spiral was etched into the rock’s dark surface.
Exactly like the Hourglass.
Romie moved toward it, drawn to it like the water was to the moon, or bees to honey and leaves to sunlight and rain. This was it, the door to the next world. The way into the Wastes. It felt to her as if her pulse were beating to the rhythm of the song she swore she could hear now, and when she laid a hand on the rock, it beatlouder in her ears. Warmth emanated from the column, comforting, inviting,mesmerizing.
Aspen pressed in close beside her, setting down the lantern at her feet. She looked just as entranced. “It calls to me,” she whispered. “I can feel it in my bones, that this is where I’m meant to go.”
“I feel it too,” Romie said.
Their eyes locked. The song in Romie’s soul soared to new heights. It felt momentous to have someone else feel what she’d been feeling for so long, to share this sense of destiny with another. It felt like everything had been leading them to this moment, this place.
Romie removed her hand from the rock. “Try opening it.”
Aspen blinked at her. “How?”
“The door in our world opened at Emory’s touch,” Romie said, “with the magic contained in her blood. If this door is keyed to you—as it was to the witch in the story—then it must open with your magic.”
Frustratingly, Clover did not go into detail onhowexactly the witch got the door to open inSong of the Drowned Gods, stating only that each world’s hero had the power to open their door.
Aspen pressed a hesitant hand against it. She stroked the grooves of the silver spiral, her frown deepening in thought. She began untucking her shirt from her skirt, her movements hurried, almost frantic.
“What are you doing?” Emory asked, voicing the question on Romie’s mind.
Aspen lifted the side of her shirt to reveal her rib cage. The spiral scar on her skin was identical in size and style to the one on the rock. She pressed her rib cage to the column, fitting the symbols together.
Blood and bones and heart and soul.
All three of them held their breath. This had to be what opened the door. A scar born of the rearranging of Aspen’s bones, a mark of her Sculptress’s favor.
A witch-born key for a witch-world door.
But as seconds, then minutes passed, nothing happened. Aspen tried and tried again, slipping into scrying as she did so, using her magic however she could to try to unlock the door. But the column remained a column, the rock did not bleed into darkness, and the key they thought they’d found seemed to be no key at all.
Aspen gave a frustrated sigh. “Why is it not working?”
“Didn’t your mother say there would be some sort of sacrifice required?” Emory asked. “The Hourglass didn’t open for me alone. I’m not the only one who bled on it—every other Selenic Order member did too. What if their blood was also required to open the door? The blood of every lunar house made in offering to our world’s door. A sacrifice needed for me to unlock it. Blood is tied to our magic. Bones are tied to yours. So if the same is needed here… maybe it’s literal—your bones needed as sacrifice.”
Aspen blanched.
“Are you suggesting we take an actualbonefrom her?” Romie asked. “How?”
And which one would she have to sacrifice?
