“Just follow the smell of the sea,” Hester grouched, irritated that Dot was making sense for once. She tried to focus on the wet, salty scent, getting stronger and stronger. “That’s where the caves will be.”
“Need to get there before sunrise or we’ll be in plain sight,” Anadil murmured. The witches pulled into the shadows as two upside-down ministers in purple suits padded across the beanstalk above them, gripping opened scrolls and whispering anxiously.
Hester tailed beneath, catching phrases: “Rhian saved us from Tedros’ rebels . . .” “Can’t let Tedros win . . .” “King is en route to Putsi . . .” “Says the first answer is there . . .”
The ministers sensed something, glancing down, but Hester was gone.
Putsi? Why would Japeth go to Putsi? the witch thought, rejoining her friends as they hustled under toppled cottages. Nothing there but sand and geese . . .
“Hester!” Anadil hissed, yanking her back—
Distracted, Hester had almost barreled over a cliff. She peered down at the dark skyfloor, dropping off into infinite fog.
“If you die and leave me with Dot, I’ll find my way to hell just to kill you again,” said Anadil.
“How romantic,” said Hester. Slowly, she inched towards the white, swirling mist, her boots scratching the cliff edge, but even close-up, she could see nothing through the fog. Nor could she locate the smell of salt water that led them here.
Anadil’s nose twitched, noticing the same thing. “How did we lose an entire sea?” She probed over the cliff, squinting into fog—
Her foot slipped. A hand pulled her back.
“You catch me, I catch you,” said Hester.
“Is that a Tedros line?” Anadil replied. “Are you quoting princes at me?”
“Should have dropped you.”
They noticed Dot behind them, pensive.
“What is it?” Anadil asked.
“Daddy’s ring,” Dot rasped. “The man who burned it . . . It was Bertie. I saw his face through his helmet. I keep trying to tell myself it wasn’t . . . But I know it was him. Daddy would never have let his ring fall into Bertie’s hands. He knew Rhian was after it. Daddy would have protected it until his last breath. Which means if Bertie had it . . .” Her eyes welled up.
Hester looked at Anadil. Neither knew what to say. Both of them had lost their parents. They knew what it was like to be alone. Dot, now, was part of their tribe. Each took one of her hands, holding their friend close.
“Maybe Daddy’s still alive,” Dot croaked, tears falling. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong?”
Hester smiled as best she could. “Maybe.”
“You’re my real family, you know,” Dot said softly to her friends. “And I know I’m a part of yours too. Even if you act like I’m not. Even if you two pretend you don’t need me. A coven is three. It has to be three. Because I’d be so lonely without you.”
Now Hester had teared up, and so did Anadil, which only Hester could tell, since Ani’s face never moved, even when she was crying.
“We love you, Dot,” Hester whispered, hugging her tight.
“Even if sometimes we want to push you down a well,” said Anadil, joining the hug.
“Now I’ll look like a fat raccoon,” Dot muttered, wiping at her mascara and glancing upwards. “Oh, good heavens. That’s where it’s been!”
Anadil and Hester looked up.
The Savage Sea glittered high over their heads, where the sky should be, the dark waters extending into the wall of mist.
“Caves must be up there too,” said Anadil. “In that fog . . .”
“But how are we supposed to get up there?” Hester pressed.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Dot sighed.
Two witches turned to the third.
“WALLS CAN BE useful,” said Dot as she climbed the fog. “Without a wall, you might not know where to begin. But a wall is a challenge. Put a wall in front of a witch and she’ll find her way past it.”
Where Hester and Anadil had seen an impossible gap between skyfloor and sea, an insurmountable fog . . . Dot had seen opportunity.
With a lit finger, she’d turned the wall of fog to chocolate: the misty swirls now made of cocoa meringue, buttressed with sticky fudge to help the witches keep grip. One after the other, the witches climbed, Dot in the lead, the coven hidden by night.
For the time being, at least, Hester mulled. Morning was coming fast. They’d been at it for ages and were barely halfway up the wall. Already they’d climbed so high that Hester’s demon was chapped, her nose ring frozen, and she couldn’t see the stars in the skyfloor anymore. Luckily, she wasn’t scared of heights. (What she was scared of was the wall’s sugary stench, which reminded her of babies and boyfriends and Easter bunnies, things Hester thought should be outlawed or dead.)
“Let’s say we do make it up there,” Anadil puffed. “How will we get into the sea? We need to swim through to get to the caves. But we can’t just jump in the water. It’s upside down. Won’t we just fall out and die?”
Hester looked up at the ocean, high over their heads, an undulating ceiling. “Let’s hope Dot has the answer to that too.”
“I don’t,” said Dot, dripping sweat and fudge. “Really, I might go back to turning things to kale after this.”
But they had bigger problems now, for the first rays of sun had broken through the skyfloor, lighting up the chocolate wall.
Already Hester could see people in the vales, upside down and tiny as newts, stepping out from inverted houses, peering at a chocolate wall that had appeared overnight.
“Climb faster,” Hester growled, shoving Anadil, who shoved Dot, but all three were flagging.
“I wish I were Tedros,” Dot wheezed. “He has muscles.”
“Rather die,” said Hester.
“Same,” said Ani.
Sunrays detonated through the iced meringue, refracting rainbow beams up the wall. Not only were the three of them visible now, but they were spotlit like roaches on an ice sculpture. Hester glanced down at upturned guards throttling through the village, armed with swords and headed for the clifftop. Even worse, heat was assaulting the wall, the sun rising full-force in the skyfloor.
“Almost there,” Dot breathed, the sea getting closer.
But every inch up seemed to slide them two inches down, the chocolate melting to goo under their hands, the meringue starting to crack. Down below, the Borna guards had leapt onto the wall, their bodies closing the gap with alarming speed.
“How are they so quick?” Dot gasped.
“They live on beanstalks! They spend their lives climbing!” said Hester, head-butting Anadil. “Hurry!”
Each witch struggled up the meringue, pieces chipping off and hitting the witch beneath. By the time they were within arm’s length of the sea, the guards were more than halfway up the wall.
Dot reached a hand into the waters overhead. “We need a way to stay upside down and swim,” she said, scanning the sea beyond the wall, shrouded in fog. “Caves must be out there somewhere.”
“The sea around the caves is supposed to be poisonous,” said Ani, eyeing Dot’s wet, perfectly healthy hand.