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“Jace, you just hush,” she said at last. “You don’t want that spoon of yours stirring up nightmares in Willow’s pretty little head, do you?”

Poppy turned to Willow with a bright smile. “Now, is my favorite mortal ready to have her pillow plumped?”

~

Willow must’ve slept at some point, but it wasn’t the deep, cottony sleep she’d fallen into the night before.

This time, her rest was ragged and restless, broken by dreams of dead birds springing to life.

She could still feel the real one in her hands: small and trembling, its heartbeat fluttering against her skin.

When light finally yielded to dawn, a chorus of birds began trilling outside Willow’s window. She imagined, for a wild and unreasonable moment, that one of them might be searching for a missing child.

“Up, up!” came Poppy’s singsong voice. “It’s a beautiful day, and the queen expects you for breakfast!”

“Again?” Willow groaned, dragging the covers over her head.

“Stixie pix, miss, it’s an honor! What do you mean, ‘again’?”

Willow shoved back the covers. “Nothing. Sorry. Grumbly morning.”

“Well, un-grumble yourself. Today’s not just breakfast. It’s your first debut.”

“My what?”

“Your debut, silly. You’re to dine in the Hall of Mornings. Half the court will be watching.” Poppy widened her eyes. “It’s not just about eggs and fruit today. It’s about impressions.”

“So it’ll be worse than breakfast with the queen.”

“Oh piddle-paddle,” Poppy said. She pulled at the sleeves of Willow’s nightclothes and clucked under her breath.

“Goodness, did you get any rest at all last night? Your eyes are smudgy, and your skin is sallow, even for a mortal. And goodness gravy, your hair! It looks like a nest where all the eggs hatched at once and then caught fire.”

Poppy produced a silver-handled brush from some hidden pocket and began working through the knots. The bristles glided gently, the strokes long and even. Willow’s shoulders relaxed as the tension began to ease from her scalp.

“I didn’t get much rest last night,” she admitted. “I couldn’t get my mind to be quiet.”

“Why, sure!” Poppy said. “If I’d conjured a bird from thin air, I’d have lain awake too, counting its feathers in my head.”

Willow blinked. “You know about that?”

“About what? The bird?” Poppy said. “Why, sure I do. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Among other things.”

Willow felt uneasy. It had felt like a secret—what had transpired at the pond. A secret because it was sacred, but still. “Does everyone know?”

“Oh, no. Oh my!” Poppy stopped brushing. “I’m allowed to know because I’m your handmaiden. Same for Jace. We need to know everything about you. Otherwise how could we best tend to your needs?”

“I see,” said Willow, though she didn’t.

“We’ve been stitched, of course,” Poppy added. “Not with thread, though that’s been done in the past. No, this is worse. The Nip does it with magic. Quiet as a shadow, fast as a blink.”

She met Willow’s eyes in the mirror. “Shall I tell you what would happen if we told anyone—and I mean any one—what goes on at the pond?”

Willow swallowed. “Y-yes?”

“Our tongues would be cut out. And our lips? Ripped clean off and made into stew... stew we’d be forced to eat ourselves, every last mouthful.” She nodded meaningfully. “‘Tell what’s sealed, and your lips get peeled.’ They use a paring knife, I’ve heard. A dull one.”

Willow placed a hand on her stomach, queasy.

“Don’t fret, miss. We won’t tell. We would never, even if we hadn’t been stitched by the Nip,” Poppy said. “Some things aren’t meant for public consumption. It’s just the way of it.”

Willow frowned. On the one hand, she was glad the story of the damp bird hadn’t been shared across the court. On the other hand...

“Why such secrecy?” she asked. “If a bird from my world helps your prince, why not be open about it?”

“Because the realm has its fair share of fools,” Poppy said disapprovingly.

“There are rebels who would love to see the queen unseated and the prince weakened, and proof of ‘blood rot’—that’s what they call it—would go a long way in persuading country-winged simpletons to their side.

Why give the rebels fodder when you did nothing but pull a bird out of thin air? ”

“It wasn’t from thin air,” Willow said. “It was a real bird, taken from a real world.”

“Well now, it was a mortal bird, taken from the mortal world,” Poppy said, scrunching her nose. She patted Willow’s shoulder. “Even so, it was a fine gift to give the prince. You should be proud.”

Willow sighed. “I haven’t even been allowed to see him.”

“There, there. You will,” Poppy soothed. “He’ll be getting ever so much stronger now that you’re here.” She glanced at a timepiece pinned to her bodice. “Oh my! We’ve got to get you dressed and ready, and we’ve only nineteen minutes to do it!”

She pulled Willow to the closet, where a new gown hung like an offering. “The queen sent this for you. Said the blue would bring out your eyes.”

“But my eyes are brown,” Willow pointed out.

“Then it’ll bring out your aura. Or your disposition. Or something.” She waved a hand. “The queen says blue, so blue it is.”

She pulled the dress free and helped Willow into it. “There we are... arms up—yes, like that.”

“It’s exactly my size,” Willow marveled as the fabric fell around her.

“Of course it is. It was tailored just for you. Nona stayed up all night finishing it, you know. Tried to bow out, said her fingers were bleeding. A firm cuffing got her back in line.”

“A cuffing ?”

“Here we go again,” Poppy said, shaking her head. “You are tenderhearted, aren’t you?”

“If by ‘tenderhearted’ you mean that I’m not a fan of people being cuffed, I suppose I am.”

“Listen to me, miss,” Poppy said. “Nona’s one of the Blighted, so don’t fret over her. They don’t feel punishments the way others do.”

“The Blighted,” Willow said. “Like the girl you and Jace were talking about last night, the one who was assaulted by a visitor to the palace.”

“Maeve,” Poppy said. “That’s right. But was she assaulted?” She pursed her lips. “Jace is as tenderhearted as you are. That’s why I kept quiet last night.” She lifted her eyebrows. “But who’s to say it wasn’t Maeve who cornered the dignitary and not the other way around?”

Willow felt a wave of nausea.

“The Blighted are wicked,” Poppy went on. “There’s not an evil deed in the world I wouldn’t put past them.”

She saw Willow’s expression and softened. “I don’t say that to be cruel, miss. They’re born that way. That’s how the duskwyrms sniff them out.”

“That’s how the duskwyrms...” Willow felt dizzy. “Sorry, what?”

“The duskwyrms bite the babes who are wicked,” Poppy explained. “Never the good wee tots, just the wicked ones. And then they’re forever marked, aren’t they? It seems a sadness, their little bodies so broken and bent, but it’s for their own good.”

“The duskwyrms—which are snakes, right?” Willow said. “We’re talking about snakes?”

Poppy pulled Willow’s gown tighter at the waist. “We are.”

“And you’re telling me they bite babies for their own good ?”

“They do the Goddess’s work, bless them.”

“Poppy. How can a baby be wicked?”

“Same way a kitten’s a kitten and a fox is a fox.” She straightened the fall of fabric over Willow’s hip. “Can’t change a creature’s nature.”

Poppy steered Willow toward the mirror above the washstand.

Together, they surveyed the result: the blue gown cast a gentle glow across Willow’s skin, and her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders like sunlight.

The shadows beneath her brown eyes hadn’t vanished, but the effect was softened.

She looked like a porcelain girl, newly painted.

“You look splendid,” Poppy declared, dimpling with pride.

Willow smiled uncomfortably.

“Still nervous about your debut, are you?” Poppy said. “Don’t be. You’ll be grand, I just know it. Anyway, aren’t you famished? I am. We’re having porridge with wild berries. My nose caught a hint of it earlier, and—”

She broke off, her body going rigid and her eyes locking on something just over Willow’s shoulder.

“By the Ancient Ones,” she whispered, lifting a trembling finger. “There.”

Willow’s heart jumped into her throat, and she found herself unable to turn around.

It was just like that first day in Lost Souls, the day she met Ruby and Brooxie.

She’d passed through the stone door in their root cellar, landing hard on her hands and knees in a room dark with shadow.

When she’d heard Cole’s slow clap, her muscles had locked up just like they were locked up now.

And yet Cole hadn’t been scary. He’d turned out to be pretty great, actually. It was almost impossible to fathom, but she wished he were here.

But Cole was in Lost Souls, and she was in Eryth. Whatever had turned Poppy to stone, Willow would have to face it alone.