“I appreciate the braids,” I manage.
“Any time.” Ravenna hesitates, her hands hovering as if she wants to touch my shoulder but doesn’t know if she should. “Is there anything else you need? More food, or?—”
“No.” I soften the refusal with a forced smile. “Unless you knowwhere I can find enough courage to go back into that awful maze. Or…I don’t know. A map.”
She exhales. “I wish I did. But maybe you should ask Amriel’s Shadow. He might be able to tell you how to navigate the labyrinth. He’s spent all that time out there.”
I blink, surprised I hadn’t thought of myself. And yet I fear what might happen if I see him face-to-face. Even now, the remnants of our connection still itch in my fingertips, a tingle I can’t rub away.
“Maybe,” I say. It sounds every bit as evasive as it is.
Ravenna offers a faint smile. She reaches the door and pauses, her hand on the knob. “And if there’s anything else you need, just ask. Because Iamrooting for you. We all are.”
This time, my smile is genuine. “I will.”
She gives me one last look, her eyes dark with banked hope, and slips into the hall. The door closes with a soft click.
I sit alone in silence, staring at my reflection. My new braids frame my face, so different than the loose style I usually wear. I look…steelier, somehow. Less like myself and more like a stranger. Like someone who invited the fae king to touch her, knowing full well that she shouldn’t.
My hand rises to my pendant. I squeeze, but the metal doesn’t warm.
I wait, counting my heartbeats, willing Ishanna to send me a sign. Some proof that she’s still there, still waiting for me to come home.
There’s nothing. Just cold metal and the sound of my own breathing.
In the end, I sit there all afternoon, waiting for a sign that never comes.
Chapter 12
Sleep eludes me that night, and the next. My days break into meaningless fragments—long periods of solitude, separated by hot baths and snatches of slumber.
None of it feels restful. And none of it gets me closer to facing the Wildwood again.
A week into my confinement, the Shadow stops sleeping outside my door. I wonder where he’s gone, then decide I don’t care. Why should I? Ravenna visits me daily, and while I never eat the food she brings, or open any of the books, we make tentative peace. Maybe we even begin to forge a friendship.
When she’s not there, I sit in the window seat, staring out at the hourglass or counting the bioluminescent patterns on the walls. Fifty-three branches twine around my bedroom, fed by one hundred and forty-two veins of pulsing pink light. I’ve traced them so many times now I could draw them from memory.
Tonight, the stars throb outside my window, and I lie beneath the covers, my legs twitching with the need to move. I’ve spent eight days holed up in this room. Eight days dreading my return to the Wildwood. Eight days praying for forgiveness while my pendant ignores me.
And I can’t take it anymore.Somethinghas to give.
I throw back the covers, my legs swinging to the floor. Moss cushions my bare feet, but its embrace does nothing to soothe the restlessness coiled in my chest. I need to move. Need to escape the cage of these four walls.
At least for tonight.
Before I can second-guess myself, I ease open my door and peer out. Silence lies thick in the corridor, broken only by the faint hum of magic as it streams along the castle’s walls.
No gargantuan goblins curled on my doorstep, thank goodness.
I step out. I’m still wearing the ridiculous dressing gown from my closet, and I rewrap it tightly before cinching the sash. It’s far from ideal, but it will have to do.
I turn right, following the flow of light along the walls, knowing it will lead me away from the dining room and the kitchens, away from anywhere I might encounter a crowd.
The castle feels different at night, more tranquil. I pass doors and archways, each offering a glimpse of some new space I’ve never seen before—music rooms and parlors, open galleries where sitting couches nestle between cascades of glowing vegetation. Part of me wants to investigate, but fae recline together here and there, and I hurry away before they notice me.
I eventually reach a staircase, which leads me to another, and another. The air cools as I ascend, the pink light giving way to green, then blue. And still, I climb. I’m higher, now. Much higher than my room.
The staircase tightens to a spiral, which expels me onto a landing. I stop and stare, because I recognize this place. This door. Beyond it lies the solarium, where Amriel counseled me about the Wildwood.
