Page 63 of Sightwitch

She didn’t want to be here. I saw it in her eyes—her silver, silver eyes. I had to get her out.

Behind me, Hilga shouted, “No! Leave her, Ryber! You must sleep now!”

Meaningless words. I yanked harder at the ice.

“It won’t work,” Tanzi gritted out, and somehow, though all the Sisters shrieked at me, her voice rang the clearest. “It’s too late for me, Ry, but not for you. The Rules were never rules, don’t you see? Too much time alone, and we lost ourselves—”

“No,” I snarled. “No, no,no, Tanz.” Yank, rip, yank.

The ice wouldn’t budge, and Goddess—Tanzi’s face was so cold. It was as another slice crawled down and snapped her right eye shut, that a sharp heat ignited in my foot.

I finally glanced down. A thousand pieces of shattered steel met my eyes.

My knife.

Just like that, I gave up. All fight drained from me in a single, downward swoop. If steel could not break this ice, then my fingers certainly never would. A choking sob gathered in my chest. I sagged into Tanzi.

Behind me, Hilga still shouted, “Hurry, Ryber! Get into the ice! Hurry!”

“Don’t,” Tanzi insisted. She shouted too, but her words were so tight. Pained, even. “We are not enough to heal her, Ry. Her magic is being used up too fast. But there is another way—”

Ice clawed over Tanzi’s mouth. She choked. Sputtered.

She wasn’t the only one. All of the Sisters broke off. All of them were now fully sealed in the ice.

And all I could do was lean against the ice and cry.

Useless. Helpless. I’d come so far, only to find this.

I was too late.

My family was in the ice for sleeping, and there was nothing I could do except join them. I could finally be like everyone else and sleep. Unless …

Unless I didn’t.

There is another way.That was what Tanzi had said.

All of us, the Sisters and beyond, we existed because Sirmaya slept and dreamed at the very heart of our world.

A world I’d never actually seen, filled with people like Captain and Dirdra and the Threadwitch and all those Nubrevnans on the shore. If there was a way to keep them alive—to keep the world from ending—could I truly step into the ice and hope my power was enough to heal the Goddess?

No.

The answer was no.

Perhaps, all those years ago, I had not found my way to the Sorrow to join the Sisters, but rather, I had found my way there to save them.

“Ah,” came a gentle rasp. My head jerked up.

It was Tanzi. A sliver of her mouth was still exposed, and somehow she had opened her eyes behind the ice.

She smiled then, crooked and restricted, but so Tanzi. So perfect.

“Silver eyes really suit you,” she said, and then the ice finished its swaddling. Her eyelids sank shut.

She slept.

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