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“Please don’t worry,” said Iris, a little taken aback by the anxious lines that had reappeared on his smooth forehead. “You don’t have to pay me straight away. It’s alright.”

He nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.

“Can I ask you something, though?” She bit at her thumbnail cuticle. “Why are you here?”

Fear flashed in his eyes. “What?”

“I mean, I’m glad you’re here,” Iris clarified. “I just mean, why did you decide to come to Vitford?”

Just like when she’d asked him for his age back in the woods, Iris could tell at once that he was reluctant to answer.

“I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I just want to learn more about you. When you’re ready."

Blair gave a solemn nod, his pale irises shining in the lamplight. “I will be,” he assured her. “Soon.”

“Soon?” A seed of hope sprung up inside of her.

Blair nodded, offering her a hint of a smile, a tiny bloom reaching for the sun. “Soon.”

11

The darkness enclosing Blair was thicker than death. It was an all too familiar scene.

Lucy crouched in the cage beside his own, shoulders hunched over a wooden tic-tac-toe board, muttering to herself. Her matted red hair, dull from lack of sunlight, stuck like resin to her blotchy forehead. Pale white scars stretched in parallel lines down her face, as though someone had dragged a dagger down each cheek.

Her scars were so much more pronounced than Blair’s, made even worse by the fresh gashes slashed into the top layer of her skin.

Blair touched his own face, then immediately regretted it as a stab of pain ricochetted through him. He wrenched his hand away and squinted against the dim basement light, watching the blood drip sickeningly down his fingers.

“Tic-tac-toe, three in a row…” A cloud of steam rushed out with Lucy’s rasped words, and she shivered, clutching her dirty hands around the tattered remains of her shirt sleeves. She rocked between her heels and her toes, her feet bare.

If it weren’t for the tiny window set high in the stone wall behind them, Blair wouldn’t have been able to see the emaciated young woman at all. He wished he was blind to the bruises that covered her body, the raw, scarlet skin on her face and neck. He avoided looking at her back altogether, directing his gaze instead to her gray-green eyes—they reminded him of the stormy ocean viewed from his attic bedroom in the summer, when the waves were partially obscured by the leafy trees outside his window.

“Shh, try not to talk,” Blair whispered. His lip was split and a stale, metallic taste coated his tongue. He was afraid that speech would take too much out of the girl. Though she never said very much. He supposed she used to talk more, back before the witch warped her mind.

Blair knew he was in better shape than Lucy both mentally and physically, and he still felt so weak he thought his bones might break if he moved too quickly. Not that there was anywhere for either of them to go.

This is a dream, Blair reminded himself, tightening his grip on the reins of his consciousness. She can’t hurt either of us anymore. He glanced at Lucy, but she was still staring numbly at the tic-tac-toe board. He remembered how she’d loved that thing, her one modicum of normalcy in the purgatory in which they were trapped.

Blair had been forced to relive this hellscape at least once a month for too many years to count. Lately, though, the nightmares had grown much more frequent. The sooner he determined the reason, the sooner he could hopefully stop replaying the worst memories of his life.

He watched silently as Lucy spun her silver signet ring around her finger, still rocking back and forth from heel to toe, heel to toe.

Back when Blair had first experienced this moment, he hadn’t known the specifics of the ring. Now he had studied it for so long that he’d memorized every minute detail, from the small shield adorned with what looked like two black falcons, to the suit of armor head topped with a crown.

Strangest and most memorable of all was the tiny heron perched at the very top of the ring, its head bent, red tears dripping onto the crown. The tears were the only part of the ring that had color, the rest of the design merely etched into the silver.

Footsteps echoed across the cavernous dark, and Blair’s body tensed as a waft of rosemary perfume preceded the witch’s arrival. He knew what was coming next, and it was imperative that he woke himself before it did. He clenched his eyes shut, willing the dream away.

But the damp chill still clung to him. The darkness continued to seep into his heart like rot.

Why wasn’t this working? It almost always had before.

The footsteps grew closer, and soon Blair was looking up into the emerald eyes of the witch he’d feared for nearly half of his life. His breath left him in a rush of fog.

She tilted her head, observing him and Lucy as though they were mildly interesting test tube specimens. Her blonde hair sparkled in the weak sunlight as if embedded with tiny shards of glass, deadly as it was beautiful. She wore a long scarlet robe with a fur collar to block out the cold. When she smiled, her unnaturally straight and white teeth made Blair shiver.

“So,” said the witch, unlocking both cages with a lazy flick of her wrist, “Who’s first?”