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The darkness around her wavered oddly. The clock’s tick caught again.

And winter rushed in.

The pressure that pried at her soul this time was… enormous. Instead of a mild tug, it was a cold, demanding undertow that clawed at everything she was.

Once, Foxglove had spoken to her with bitter longing of the cruel tyranny of Faerie. Now, Clarimonde felt it lean upon her with visceral clarity. Hollowvale was winter’s terrible apathy made plain; it was every bit as enormous and unstoppable as she had long suspected it might be. It was an ocean, and she was a tiny ship upon the waves—confronted by the reality of her helplessness before it.

But she had always known how very small she was. Just because she did not enjoy her smallness did not mean she could not fathom it.

I know, she thought dimly. I know that I am an insignificant speck. I know that the world has little use for me. I know that I am plain, and terrible with people, and I will only ever matter to a few of them.

Something cool and solid and reassuring pressed into her palm—and Clarimonde realised that she had closed her hand around the brass watch in her pocket.

But this is my time, regardless. And this is what I choose to do with it.

That winter could have ended her, she was certain. It had the power to do so.

But slowly—very slowly—it began to calm. As impossibly large as Hollowvale was, it still had something within it that mortal winter did not have.

It had… curiosity.

Clarimonde opened her eyes.

Somehow, she had ended up on the floor. Her ribs and hip and elbow throbbed where she had caught herself against the stone.

She blinked several times, as her mind caught up to the present. How long have I been on the floor? she wondered. Instinctively, she glanced towards the grandfather clock behind her.

The clock was frozen, still—but one of its hands had quietly advanced.

It was now a single minute after midnight.

Clarimonde eased herself back to her feet, still feeling dazed. Gradually, she made her way across the hallway once again, counting doors to either side of her as she went.

This time, when she reached Tertia’s boudoir and continued past it, the darkness obligingly gave way before her.

The first thing that Clarimonde discovered beyond it was not, however, Tertia’s bedroom. Instead, another broad staircase beckoned, leading directly down into the grand entryway of an old manor.

Ghostly blue candlelight flickered across cold white marble floors, shot through with strange veins of glimmering golden frost. Two large doors stood wide open at the far end of the great room; long, lazy tendrils of fog drifted in from the midnight outside, clinging to the walls like white-flowering vines.

This, Clarimonde realised, was the true Hollow House… and through those doors, the rest of Hollowvale awaited.

Her heart leapt with a burst of manic victory. For all that she was far too staid and fussy and uncomfortable to tell a proper lie, somehow she had managed to force her way into a place that she should not have been. Lord Foxglove would never believe that I could get this far without him, Clarimonde thought triumphantly. Perhaps, she told herself, she had never required his help at all—especially since it had been so very self-serving in the first place.

Her hip still ached noticeably as she crept her way down the stairs into the entryway. The Hollow House was eerily silent on this side; the intrusive fog that crept in from the open doors smothered even the soft click of her half-boots on the marble.

There were other hallways and other staircases leading out of the entryway. Too many, Clarimonde thought. Her initial sense of victory soon sank back into worry, as she realised that she could search the Hollow House for days and still have more left to investigate.

“If I was Tertia,” she mumbled to herself, “where would I hide a dangerous harp?”

Tragically, speaking the words aloud did not grant her any specific insights. But just as Clarimonde had finally resolved herself to choosing a staircase at random, her eyes caught on a tiny flicker of light in the fog outside.

There is something out there, she realised.

Suddenly, it occurred to her that the doors must have been left open for a reason. Had someone recently left the house?

Clarimonde crept slowly for the doors, peering out into the world beyond them. There was a tiny flicker of that ghostly blue candlelight nearby, halfway smothered by the mist. Venturing into Faerie proper did not sound at all advisable—but then, Clarimonde thought, this entire enterprise was terribly inadvisable. Perhaps, if she was very fortunate, she would find something out there that was worth all of this risk.

Finally—before she could think better of it—she stepped across the threshold of the Hollow House and into Faerie.