“Well…” she rolls her neck like she’s looking for the answer in an arch above me. As she stretches, her ruby and diamond-clustered earrings glitter in the light. “I only mean that you’re ethereally gorgeous. And you pick up Lady Bethany’s lessons so quickly. Everyone gets along with you, even Marcella. You’re a scholar in botany, as you proved when you warned me not to touch the opium poppies. And so I only find it fair that you have to be bad atsomething.”
I snort. “I’m bad at a lot of things, actually.”
“Oh? Do go on.”
“Like…” I glance around her in the room as if it’ll stir a memory in me. “Swimming. I can’t swim. And I can’t dance very well.”
“But you sing, though, right?”
I squint in confusion. “How did you know that?”
“I heard you singing the other night.”
“The other night? In our rooms?”
“After the screams, yes,” she murmurs with a distant smile.
I stop swaying with her. “What do you mean, the screams?”
“Oh,” she takes her hand off my ribs to wave dismissively, “the nightmares, I mean. I have them just about every night. Lady Bethany assures me they’re simply figments of my imagination. And that soon, I won’t have to worry about them anymore.”
The color seeps from my face. Surely it must be side effects from opium poppies? “Lady Bethany says soon there won’t be any more screams?”
“Yes, because there won’t be any left to scream.” Willow smiles, oddly out of place with the statement.
I completely freeze. Pulling my hand straight out of hers, I search her face but find no terror. That only chills me more.
“Lyra?” she whispers. Her hand tightens on my waist. “Is something wrong?”
I pull away, out of her grasp. “I don’t want to dance anymore.”
She steps forward, grabbing my waist and hand again. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Lyra. It’s just the trials—they’ve been getting to me. I just want to talk to you.”
I toss a glance behind me, searching for some excuse, or someone to help me get out of this situation.
“Lyra, don’t be like this.” Her hand grips mine until I can feel my pulse in my fingers. “Come on. You’re overreacting.”
When I turn back to face her, I’m like a deer caught by a hunter, my heart beating in my chest and eyes wide. “Please let go of me, Willow,” I whisper pathetically.
She tugs me to the right, trying to force me back into a dance. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m not the one that will hurt you—” Her voice distorts, becoming layered over by a deeper, eerie tone.“You cannot run from me.”
A rush of the visions I had before flicker over me in waves.
A forest of creeping fog.
Blue roses scattering a hill.
Someone’s warm hand, holding mine.
A mirror shattering.
I find enough courage to rip my hand out of hers once more, and wiggle out of her grasp. When she lunges to try and grab me again, I smack her hand away. Her eyes narrow, and she tries harder.
The beast’s slithery voice rolls over me in a chill.“Come to me, and I won’t hurt the others.”
Willow continues trying to recapture me, until I shove her chest away from me. With a squeal, she falls back, landing on her rear as she looks up at me, that distant look in her eyes finally gone. The rest of the women stop, turning to look at us in whispered gasps.
“What is wrong with you?” Willow hisses, glaring at me.
