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That group—the faeries playing dress up, if that’s what they were doing—carried themselves with a pleased and almost daring air, as if to say, Yes, I know.

I’m so bold. Isn’t it fun? One faerie wore denim overalls, complete with brass buttons, though she’d paired them with a sleeveless blouse that moved like water.

Another wore a dress straight out of a 1930s Sears catalog: Peter Pan collar, nipped waist, full skirt.

White bobby socks cuffed above her ankles.

Her shoes were unmistakable Mary Janes—but they weren’t made of leather.

They were made of delicate sun-bright feathers, every one fluttering in the air.

As Severine passed, the faeries in her court bowed or bent, murmuring soft greetings and well wishes. They all glanced at Willow. Some stared openly. One of them smiled at her—a broad gap-toothed smile full of warmth.

“That’s been happening since I got here,” Willow said. “People looking at me like... like they’ve been expecting me, I suppose.”

“Because they have, and for quite a while,” said Severine. “Serrin is their prince, and they love him. Your fate is entwined with Serrin’s, so they love you, too.”

“Is that where we’re going?” Willow asked, hoping foolishly that the queen had relented and was taking her to see Serrin after all. “To see him?”

She pictured it: Serrin waiting at the end of a marble balcony, leaning against a railing of twisted glass. His eyes lighting with recognition when he saw her. The moment they would touch. Speak. Begin.

But Severine was shaking her head. “No, Willow. You really must stop pushing.”

Disappointment hit Willow hard, accompanied by the shame of being scolded. Though she deserved the scold, she supposed. The Mating Ceremony —Willow would meet Serrin then and not before.

If, that is, Willow followed the rules. She should follow the rules.

Would she?

They left the arcade behind, and the palace noise faded, replaced by birdsong and the distant rush of water.

Cobblestones gave way to packed earth and then loamy soil.

Trees rose around them, not the manicured trees from the gardens but wilder, taller trees that Willow didn’t know the name of, tangled with moss and trailing vines.

They reached a clearing, a sunlit circle of grass and small flowers, and Severine stopped. Willow stopped alongside her. At the center of the clearing was a low pool, ringed in stone and overgrown with reeds. The water was thick and green, and pond scum blanketed its surface.

“You’re here for a reason, as you know,” Severine said. “That’s why you felt the pull.” She took Willow’s hand and pulled her closer to the pond. “I told you that Serrin is half mortal. His father was human.”

Willow raised her eyebrows. “Was?”

“I’m afraid he proved to be something of a disappointment,” Severine said.

Willow wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“But Serrin has you now,” Severine said. “And you can give him what no one else can.”

Willow looked at the pond and frowned. She didn’t like the way it smelled. She didn’t like the film of leaves and sticks and bits of waterlogged fluff that made it heavy with decay. And she had no idea what she could give Serrin that had anything to do with this foul and stagnant place.

Severine knelt beside the pond and gestured for Willow to join her.

Willow reminded herself that she sometimes got things wrong. She often got things wrong. Cole and the mud, for example. The boy with the patchy buzz cut who smiled with such purity at the mention of sweet blue sugar.

She swallowed and knelt beside Severine, resolving to be open to whatever came next.

A hush wrapped around her, the same sort of hush she’d felt in Deadman’s Hollow, at the trunk of the Stillwood Tree.

“Oh,” she breathed, knowing now that this was one of the places where the veil between worlds was thin.

“Do you know what to do?” Severine asked.

Willow tightened with nerves. Was this one more test, one more chance to prove herself unfit?

But—no. Or yes , but no one wanted her to fail. Ash wasn’t here to say, “Really, Willow? Fairytales and magic, at your age?”

She closed her eyes and sent exploratory tendrils of herself toward the pond. What she sensed was a deep and silent waiting . A magic that didn’t judge but simply was.

“I think so,” she said. “Sort of.”

“Then begin.”

Willow opened her eyes and held one hand over the water’s surface. It wasn’t so different from the water in Amira’s scrying bowls, after all. Greener. Murkier. Collected not in a silver bowl but in the cupped hands of nature herself.

“You must want it,” Severine said gently. “Not out of hunger. Out of love. Think of Serrin.”

Willow thought of the boy beneath in the portraits, the boy carved in stone. She thought of the boy she’d seen in her dreams, his eyes the color of storm clouds, his hand reaching out for her.

She would reach back, then. She plunged her hand into the water, and fronds twined around her wrist. Her palm brushed something warm. Something that was flesh, not plant. Living.

She closed her fingers around it and pulled it out of the pond—a tiny sodden bird. It was soaked and shivering, its feathers in disarray. Its eyes were sealed shut. Its fragile heart raced against her skin.

“Oh, Willow,” Severine said reverently. “Oh, my brilliant girl.” She extended her cupped hands.

Willow hesitated. The bird was barely breathing.

“What will happen to it?” she asked.

“It will become ,” said Severine.

“Become what?”

“Part of something larger.” Severine’s eyes welled, and her smile trembled with gratitude. Relief. “Part of Serrin.”

Willow blinked. “He’ll . . . eat it?”

“He will, and it will nourish him, just as the meat you eat nourishes you.” Severine tilted her head. “It’s the cycle of life, Willow. I won’t sanitize it for you. You don’t need me to.”

Willow thought of Teddy, the wan little boy in Hemridge who was allergic to wheat.

She thought of Teddy’s mother, who was willing to push past the church pastor’s rules of right and wrong. She thought of Teddy’s father, who wasn’t. In her mind, she saw a small white coffin being lowered into the ground.

Willow gave the bird to Severine. Her damp palm felt strangely empty.

“Serrin can’t live on nectar and dewdrops,” Severine said, rising with the bird cradled to her chest. “You understand.”

Willow thought of rabbit stew and fried trout. “I do,” she said.

Severine twisted the bird’s neck. There was a small sound, quick and clean, and the body stilled.

“Nothing is wasted,” Severine said. “The world takes and gives and takes again.”

Willow stared at the murky pond. She had drawn life from that water. She had pulled forth a trembling bird, and now that bird would become part of something bigger.

She had done what had been asked of her—and it mattered. She mattered.

“Tomorrow, you will draw forth something more,” Severine said.

Willow, still kneeling in the mud, gave a nod.