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The cave brightens and I pound my feet harder toward what I hope is an opening. I skirt another pile of bones, this one with a scent that makes my eyes water. Barking wolves urge my feet faster. I spot a trapdoor in the rocky ceiling above. I wedge my foot in a cleft to climb the wall. But the rock is slick and I fall, smacking the ground. Teeth nip at the hems of my clothes. Up. I have to get up. But what I tripped over makes my heart knock into my ribs.

The spilled contents of a familiar pink bag, ripped to shreds.

A pen with a checkered pattern and purple eraser that I’ve seen before.

A chewed pocketbook with worn blue leather and broken zipper.

These are my mother’s.

She—

Bile burns its way up my throat and my knees hit the ground hard.

The wolves watch, heads cocked.

My mother, she…

“No.”

Charlie said she left. Beaulah said the same. A ringing screeches in my ears, flooding my ability to think straight. My mother wouldn’t leave her bag: in all my life she never went anywhere without it. Bile rises in my throat. They lied to me. They lied, and that means…I slap a hand to my mouth. I can’t finish the thought. I can’t see the horror of the ground between my tears.

The dogs snap their teeth, and suddenly I’m gathering the shred of her belongings, scrambling backward, away from the dogs, away from the darkness—as if climbing to the light can wipe away the image seared on the back of my eyelids, as if it can stop this inescapable nightmare from forming as a full thought in my mind. I scale the rocky wall, cleft by cleft, to the latched door in the ceiling.

I push upward on the door but it doesn’t budge. Desperate, I pull on my magic, and faint shadows bleed through my skin. Please be enough. My toushana connects with the wooden door and sears a small hole through it before blowing away. Tears prick my eyes as I realize what my mother’s shredded things mean. I pummel my fist into the hole in the door, slowly breaking its already fractured panel. I pound it again and again until the hole is wide enough that I can force my arm through, reach inside, and undo the lock. The door buckles open into a room, and I lift myself out.

I slam it shut, latch it, and collapse on the floor.

Everything hurts, but I check that I have each of my mom’s effects, then pull myself up onto my feet. I recognize the room around me. The quaint bed, the trunk of blankets.

My mother’s room in the guesthouse.

The furniture and big rug have been pushed aside. The hatch in the floor that I just came out of was beneath the bed.

“No!” I stare at her things, these pieces of her, and realize it’s all there is left. The wall holds me up. I should have written more, I should have asked her more questions, I should have left Chateau Soleil sooner. Faced my fears sooner. My world frays at its seams. I run my hands along the bed where she slept and press the linens to my nose. But any scent of her is long gone. Anger roils through my body, and my toushana flutters faintly in my chest.

Someone is going to answer for this. I’m about to grab the knob when my gaze snaps to the hatch in the floor. The door lies in pieces, but wedged in its boards is a tiny white scrap of paper. It’s stuck in the grooves of the wood between the floorboards. I pull it out and unfold it.

Follow the lair to its darkest corner.

Climb, it’ll take you to the far end of the forest.

“She thought…” I choke on the words. This was a way out.

My knees go out from under me. I hold them, rocking back and forth. A burning like I’ve never felt blooms in my chest. Blinding rage. Someone wrote that note. Someone sent her to the wolves, and I don’t think it was to help her. I see red and force myself up to grab the knob to leave. The door won’t move. I turn and tug, but it won’t open. I reach for my magic despite its exhaustion but it answers in wisps. I ram the door with my shoulder. It doesn’t budge. Then, with the dregs of energy I have left, I heave a small table overhead at it. But even that doesn’t damage the door enough to get it open. I shove every piece of furniture, shatter every lampstand against it. And when I’m out of furniture, I pound the wall until my fists are sore and red. When suddenly the door opens.

And on the other side of it is Adola.

Thirty-Three

Jordan

The wind cuts deeper than a fall evening in Virginia should.

Yani: Enter around back.

She hasn’t offered much more information since I left Hartsboro. Just that this was a safe house and there was something here I needed to see as soon as possible.

“Took you long enough,” she says when I open the back door.