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It feltgood.

Power coursed through her, from her skull to her toes. She thrust her charred fist into the air.

Punch him,she thought.Make him fall.

From the east came another distant roar. The stone beneath Celestyna’s feet quaked.

Oh, how fascinating and cunning this curse was. Celestyna could feel the Gulgot’s cracked hide beneath her ruined fingers. She inhaled and tasted the damp walls of the Break on her tongue.

“It’s just you and me now, Gulgot,” she whispered.

Just a young queen and an old beast, and an else-hand of cursed magic between them.

.18.

The Famished Graspers

Thorn was trying very hard not to scream, but that was difficult to do with monsters crawling across her boots.

And up her legs and arms.

And through her tangled hair.

Something soft plopped onto her neck—another tree slug.

“Don’t panic,” Noro said quietly. “Nothing has hurt us yet. Maybe, if we stay calm, that will remain true.”

But Thorn was long past the point of panic.

Milky-white trees draped in thick spiderwebs arched overhead. The branches glistened black with slugs. They nibbledat the spiderwebs, the sounds of their grinding teeth reminding Thorn of Mazby crunching on scuttle bugs at the kitchen window.

Behind her, Noro cleared his throat. “Why did everyone stop talking?” Thorn wasn’t fooled by his calm voice. The last time she’d looked back at him, his coat had shivered with spiders. “We were playing a game, weren’t we?”

“Right,” said Zaf. She inhaled, slow and shaky. “So. I think this witch Quicksilver probably... has warts all over her chin.”

On the other side of Zaf, Bartos laughed.

Half-heartedly.

“And frizzy gray hair so long that she could wrap herself up in it,” he said, his voice higher than usual, “like a caterpillar in a cocoon.”

A six-eyed bird with a gaping, beakless mouth like that of a fish perched on Bartos’s shoulder. Another sat on his other shoulder. And another clung to the lapel of his coat, staring blankly up at him. Eighteen filmy black eyes, blinking, blinking.

Bartos swallowed, looking spectacularly ill. But he kept inching his way through the swamp, as they had been for hours. Nearly a day had gone by since Noro’s fight with the darkened unicorn, and with every passing moment, the truth became more obvious:

Estar was alive, and hungry.

It liked to climb. And sniff. And chomp. The soles of Thorn’s feet burned; the swamp was nibbling at her boots with tiny invisible teeth. Zaf’s skin, glowing with whatever lightning remained inside her, seemed to be losing its effect on the swamp and its creatures. They hadn’t consumed anyone... yet.

But they clung, with grasping fingers.

And slithered.

And groaned ravenous little groans like the hounds that sniffed for scraps along Thorn’s sweep route.

Zaf cleared her throat. It was Thorn’s turn.

“Maybe Quicksilver has glowing eyes,” said Thorn, her voice thin. “Maybe they’re such a bright blue that if you saw her in dark woods, you’d think her eyes were fallen stars.”