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Keep one eye on the Hollow and one on the way home.

The scream pierced the cottage like a spray of sharp needles.

Fearing the worst, I tore down the hall.

My sister screamed again—unintelligible babble I might have understood had my world not frozen.

Caked in dirt and smeared with blood, my brother stumbled across the den.

Lottie caught Lysander before he fell, and I rushed to his side.

He put one arm around my shoulders but kept the other curled around his abdomen. Lottie let out a garbled choke.

Lysander’s hand was the only thing containing his eviscerated midsection.

Like a man possessed, Lysander muttered frantically. His breath brushed my ear, carrying those words I’d never forget.

“The Hound, the Hound, the Hound!”

The front door blew open, and my mother rushed in.

Sword unsheathed, she readied to cut down whoever threatened her children.

Her furious eyes darted between us, then down, to Lysander’s stomach.

Her scream was silent—only a sharp exhale, as if she’d received a blow to the gut.

Lysander was twice Mother’s size, stooping through even the tallest doorways by the age of sixteen, but by the way my mother seized him and brought him to the sofa, you’d think he was a newborn.

“Liliwen!” she barked. “Bandages!”

I obeyed, hurtling down the hall to the room I shared with Lottie.

A dress form tumbled over as I crashed inside.

With shaking hands, I tossed aside fabrics and half-made garments, looking for something to stop the bleeding.

“Where is it?!” An eternity ago, I’d woven a remarkable fabric.

I’d known it was special, so I’d stashed it away for an emergency.

But now a crisis was upon us, and I couldn’t find it! I searched beneath my bed.

Nothing.

“Ugh!” I slammed the floorboards, one of which sunk slightly.

Near Lottie’s bed, the other end of the board elevated.

Scrambling over, I pushed aside Lottie’s discarded clothes and weaponry.

I yanked up the loose board and found a stash.

“Lottie, you brat!” I rifled through a lifetime of items I’d thought were lost. One of my favourite corsets sat in the mess; I snatched it and tossed it under my bed.

My fingers tingled as they stumbled over an unassuming white cloth.

“Yes!”

Cloth and sewing kit in hand, I rushed back to Lysander.

His head laid in my mother’s lap, and Lottie had done her best to clean the wounds.

They’d undressed Lysander, though it looked as if he still wore a flayed shirt.

The room spun, and I steadied myself on the table.

It was no shirt, but my brother’s flesh, torn into red ribbons.

“Liliwen,” my mother commanded.

Choking back bile, I crouched beside Lysander.

Lottie’s eyes widened when I handed her the cloth she’d stolen.

“Cut this into strips.” My pulse raced, but years of practice kept my fingers steady.

My vision tunnelled, and I blocked out Lysander’s groans.

I pretended I was simply mending a leather coat and not my brother.

After I put in the last stitch and cut the thread, we wrapped Lysander’s wounds.

Seeing her son stable, my mother said, “I’ll alert the guard. Lottie, get the physician.” Without another word, they slipped away.

And just like that, the cottage was silent.

As Lysander lay resting, I picked bracken from his disheveled, flaxen hair.

Ugly scratches ran along his throat. How terrified he must have been, running through the thorns.

I hiccupped, and the tears came. Free from my mother’s and sister’s gazes, I leaned against the sofa and cried.

After a particularly noisy sob, Lysander let out a low groan.

I blew out a long, wet breath and pulled myself together.

Bloodied and barely alive, Lysander looked just like my father had when he’d come home seven years ago.

The pain of goodbye still fell heavy on my chest.

My father had been the first to die by the Hound.

Not immediately, like most who encountered the beast, but slowly. His delirious screams continued for two weeks before he finally passed. My mother, broken and lost, left her place teaching and joined the guard that very night. The second Lottie was of age, she joined too.

When we lost our father, we lost our home.

The fire, however strong, could not replace his warmth.

Our cooking, however delicious, could not satiate our emptiness.

The cottage that was once our home became nothing but shelter.

I wiped away another tear. The day my father died, I couldn’t imagine ever loving someone else so much.

Staring at Lysander, I knew heartbreak would come again.

I traced Lysander’s wounds, and my stomach lurched.

It was bad.

Pushing myself up, I headed to the kitchen. Lysander’s discarded satchel caught my boot, and a bundle of bright yellow flowers spilled out. “Hhh!” I snatched the flowers. Last night, while we’d all sat around the fire, Lottie had reminded us of her upcoming birthday.

“I’ll be twenty-one,” she’d said. Lysander hadn’t looked up from the small bit of wood he’d whittled, nor I from the cloak I’d been mending. “I’ve outgrown my favourite jacket—the yellow one.”

“Uh huh,” I’d mumbled.

Lottie sighed. “If only someone could make me a new one.”

I, being someone who could make her a new one, had pointed out that, “The blooms needed to dye the fabric only grow in the Hollow.” And perhaps, if she wanted a new garment so badly, she could fetch the materials herself.

Lysander chuckled and Lottie pouted. Holding the bundle of flowers, I cursed Lysander’s foolishness.

Shaking the bundle in his direction, I cried, “If you weren’t in such a bad way, I’d whip you!

” Storming into the kitchen, I hid the flowers in a cupboard behind some cleaning supplies, where Lottie would never find them.

I dabbed my eyes with a towel and turned to wash the blood from my hands.

The bubbles lathered as I stared out the window, to the Hollow.

The last home before Scrying Hollow, our cottage sat perilously close to its border.

Each morning, when I looked out, I wondered, ‘Were the trees always so close to the garden gate?’ I poured cool water over my hands, rinsing the bubbles, but my eyes wandered back to the Hollow, like some part of me was afraid to leave it unwatched.

As a child, I’d loved seeing rabbits and stoats wander out.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen any animal dancing among the trees, not even a squirrel. It was barren, like a pond overfished.

Though it was not without occupants.

The front door opened and slammed. Lottie peered into the kitchen; her short tangle of blonde hair was wilder than usual, windswept from the run.

“Doc’s here,” she huffed. Her green eyes were calm and determined—mine might look the same, if they weren’t puffy and red.

Seeing my tear-smattered face, Lottie cringed and left. I dried my hands and followed her.

In the den, a woman, whose greying hair sat in a tidy bun, knelt over Lysander. She adjusted her spectacles and examined a set of stitches. Lottie pulled up a rickety chair while I leaned on the fireplace mantle. We watched Dr. Phaedra work on the youngest of the Valet children.

“These are quite good, Liliwen.” Dr. Phaedra lifted a bandage and examined another set of stitches. “I could use you in town.”

Half-smiling, half-grimacing, I said, “I’ve had lots of practice.

” Lottie scoffed. She and Mother considered trips to the physician an incredible waste of time.

Why would they see a physician when they had a perfectly good seamstress—and occasional surgeon—at home?

Even now, Lottie had two stitches above her brow.

She told me she’d exterminated a cockatrice…

but I had a feeling it was the result of a well-earned punch.

Dr. Phaedra sighed and leaned back. Already, green skin surrounded Lysander’s wounds.

We’d done our best to clean him up, but I knew it wasn’t enough.

Dr. Phaedra threw up her hands—the last gesture I wanted to see from the physician attending my brother.

Dr. Phaedra pushed herself up with a knee.

Tilting her head, she rubbed my arm. The same sympathetic gesture she’d offered after the attack on my father.

My own knees threatened to buckle, and I clung to the mantle with everything I had.

I was the oldest, and I was ready for the burden.

“Liliwen,” Dr. Phaedra whispered, “this is beyond my skill or equipment.”

Lottie’s chair crashed against the wall. Mortar crumbled and scattered across the tired floorboards. “So, what are we supposed to do?” she blurted.

“We wait.” Dr. Phaedra shrugged. “Perhaps, if he is strong, he will defeat the Hound’s poison.

” My father was the strongest person I’d known.

If he couldn’t fight it, no one could. “Queensfoil,” Dr. Phaedra recommended, and I nodded.

Though the plant might slow the infection bounding through Lysander, it would not cure him.

“That’s it?!” Lottie demanded.

“Lottie,” I said, rubbing my temple. “Please.”

Lottie left, kicking a table as she went.

Her voice carried back to us, muttering curses one after the other.

“Stupid, ass, bastard!” At the end of the hall, the door slammed.

That fire came from our mother. At only twenty, Lottie hadn’t had the opportunity to hide it, or at least channel it the way Mother did.

Dr. Phaedra gave me one last pitying look and excused herself.

Knock-knock-knock . I rapped on the bedroom door. “Lottie!” I called. “Watch your brother. I’ll be back soon.”

Silence.