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“We have to do it,” Thorn interrupted. “We have to find Quicksilver.”

“What if she doesn’t want to help us?” Bartos asked. “It was witches from the Star Lands who split the Vale all those yearsago, right? Well, she’s a witch from the Star Lands. Maybe she’dlikeus all to die.”

“Yes, and this isn’t her home, after all,” Noro pointed out quietly, his head still bowed.

“But the Vale’s only so big,” said Zaf. “If the Gulgot eats up the Vale, maybe he’ll still be hungry. Maybe he’ll go east. This Quicksilver, I bet she’ll want to protect her own home, even if that means helping us too.”

“And if Quicksilver can stop the Gulgot,” Thorn said, “then the queen won’t make more eldisks to fight him, and...” She looked quickly to Zaf. “No more stormwitches will die.”

“I like this plan,” Zaf said, beaming. She marched over to Thorn and hooked their arms together. “Shall we, Barty?”

Bartos’s stern mouth twitched with a smile. “This is not what the queen ordered me to do.”

“Do you always do what queens tell you to do?”

“Yes, normally that’s how these things work.”

“Maybe the queen would like to stop killing stormwitches,” Thorn said softly, “but she doesn’t know what else to do. Maybe it hurts her every day, to know what she’s done.”

“You’re too nice, Thorn,” said Zaf. “Queens don’t think about things like that.”

“How do you know?”

Zaf shrugged. “You are what you do, and this queen’s done nothing but hurt people.”

Bartos jammed his cap back onto his head. “Please don’t talk ill of our queen in my presence.”

“Your murdering queen, you mean?” Zaf snapped.

Bartos sighed, wiped a dirty hand across his forehead. “This is not at all what I thought the future would hold when I helped your father prune his roses, Thorn.” He looked west, toward the distant green rise of Westlin. “I wish we were safe in his gardens right now. All of us.”

“But we’re not,” Thorn said wistfully. “We’re here.”

“We’re here,” Bartos agreed. Then, with a sad smile, he moved to clean up their camp. Behind him, Noro used his horn to carefully push the dead unicorn’s body deeper into the swamp.

Zaf held Thorn’s hand as the unicorn disappeared beneath the muddy water. And as awful as it was to watch, as frightened and tired as Thorn felt, as confused as she was by the fact that her left palm no longer hurt even a bit, she was distracted from all of that by the softness of Zaf’s hand around her fingers. It turned her stomach wobbly, like an egg fidgeting in its nest. Warm and new and ready to open.

.17.

The Tethered Crone

When Celestyna reached the Fetterwitch’s cave, she found the old woman sitting at its mouth with her back to the world. She cradled her chains in her arms and sang to them.

Celestyna looked back at the path she’d traveled, gray and crumbling beneath a murky violet sky. Her tired feet burned in her boots. She shivered with cold and fear.

But if her parents could face their deaths bravely—evenaskfor them—then Celestyna could talk to a crusty old witch with snow in her hair and chains around her belly.

“Fetterwitch,” proclaimed Celestyna, standing tall. “I have come to give you a task.”

The Fetterwitch burst into rattling laughter. “Have you now, Queenie?”

Celestyna’s skin crawled. “That is no way to address your queen.”

The cooing Fetterwitch pressed her cheek against a length of chain. “Perhaps you’re right about that.”

Grunting, she scooted around to face the world.

Celestyna recoiled.