Hester thought back to those royal statues in the square: the king and queen, who looked younger than their own children . . . A fitting fairy tale for a realm upside down . . .
Anadil’s rats were already bounding up the cave face, dodging the lethal spikes and landing on the barbs outside the two o’clock hole, squeaking urgently for the witches to follow.
Dot probed one of the spikes around the lowest cave, drawing blood at the touch. “No way can we climb all the way up there without getting skewered like a kebab.”
Hester looked into the rain. “Dot’s talent got us to the sea. Ani’s talent got us to the caves.” Her dark-painted lips curled into a grin. “My talent gets us inside.”
The demon on her neck swelled with blood, teeth gnashing, claws flexing . . . this time, ready to fly.
DOT WAS FIRST. Then Ani. By the time the demon flew Hester up, she felt the toll it had taken on them both. His heaving breaths sucked her lungs; his weakened muscles ached as her own. She didn’t know where she began and her demon ended. All she knew was between the torture to get to this island and now her soul pushed to its limits, she’d willingly sacrifice a few years of age to crawl into one of these caves and take a nap.
Dot and Anadil were farther down the tunnel, staring upwards.
Anadil blinked. “From the outside, I didn’t expect it to be so . . .”
“Pretty,” said Dot.
The cave walls were like an aurora borealis frozen in time, a bloom of a thousand neon glows, coated in a glittery sheen. Even Hester found herself hypnotized by the storm of colors, instinctively reaching a hand for the glitter—
Loud squeaks stopped her.
She looked at Anadil’s rats, eyes glowing up ahead. They shook their heads.
Hester lowered her hand.
Quickly, the witches tracked the rats through the bending caves, turning off at new forks every few paces, like an impossible maze. And yet somehow the rats knew their way, even with the colors changing at every turn—atomic orange, alien green, sizzling yellow—as if they were burrowing into the deepest part of a rainbow. Soon, they reached a new fork in the path, and for a moment, the two rats diverged, before they glanced at each other and began gibbering intensely.
“Each is saying Merlin is the other way,” Anadil muttered.
The rats persisted arguing, neither giving in.
“Take Dot and go right,” said Hester. “I’ll go left.”
“And leave you on your own?” Anadil asked, wary.
“Have your rat, don’t I?” said Hester. She patted her demon. “And him.”
Anadil frowned at the shriveled tattoo on Hester’s neck, clearly in no shape to protect anyone, but Hester was already splitting off, following her rat.
She kept her head down, the tunnel dimming as she went, the colors muting from fluorescing pastels to steel blues, amber browns, foggy grays. She could only see a few yards ahead now. Then Hester noticed a roach skittering overhead, lit by the glow of the ceiling. Suddenly glitter from the ceiling dusted its body, magically shrinking the roach into a young larva, oozing along . . . before glitter of another color coated it and aged it back to a mature insect . . . Onward the roach plowed, old then young, young then old, intent on its destination. Agatha had been a roach like this once, Hester remembered, trying to help Sophie find love. Little did Agatha know Sophie would be the real bug in her story. It was Sophie who’d kissed Rhian . . . Sophie who’d thought the Lion a friend instead of a foe . . . Sophie who’d confused Good with Evil . . . Fitting, wasn’t it? That a mix-up had been the seed of all these thorns. For it had been a mix-up that had brought Sophie and Agatha to this world in the first place: two girls dropped into the wrong schools . . .
Meanwhile, Hester made sure not to touch any walls.
A rhythmic snuffle echoed from up ahead. Ffft . . . Ffft . . . Ffft . . .
Hester’s muscles clamped. “Merlin?” she called out.
Ani’s rat was scuttling faster now, into a dark part of the passage where the colors faded away. Hester couldn’t see anything: not the rat, not the walls, not even her feet. She lit her finger, casting red glow at a dead end ahead, a solid wall lacquered with glittery sheen.
The snuffling grew louder. Ffft. Ffft. Ffft.
“Merlin?” Hester tried again.
The closer she got to the dead-end wall, the more she saw shimmer slipping off before magically replenishing, the glitter cascading to the stone floor of the cave.
Then she saw it.
Pressed against the wall, buried in glitter.
A purple cape, swaddled around a lump, the snuffling emanating from beneath.
Hester welled tears of relief.
“Merlin, it’s me,” she gasped, rushing towards his cape. She knew better than to touch the glitter on it. Using her fingerglow, she magically swept the velvet away, flinging the glitter against a wall and revealing the wizard’s body beneath.
Hester gasped.
She fell backwards in shock, her demon letting out the screams Hester couldn’t get out of her own throat.
No no no no no no.
She turned to run . . . to find her friends . . . to find help . . .
“Hester!” a voice cried behind her. “Hester, come quick!”
She turned to see Anadil sprinting towards her—
It was only when the witches saw each other’s faces that they both stopped cold.
Because whatever horror each had found in their cave . . . it seemed the other had found something worse.
BY THE TIME they made it to Bloodbrook, it was nightfall.
The inn was pitch-dark, save a tiny flicker of light in a window on the top floor.
They were prepared to stun the innkeeper, but the Ingertroll on duty was fast asleep, slumped over her guest book, a single name printed on an otherwise blank page.
Agoff of Woodley Brink
A sign next to the register warned: Do Not Disturb the Haunts.
They tiptoed past the troll, witch one, two, and three.
Up the stairs they slunk, in their usual formation.
The door at hall’s end was unlocked.
Agatha and Tedros sprung up from the bed, overcome with relief. So did Guinevere, Nicola, and Hort, lit by a single candle on a table. All of them looked exhausted—Hort, especially, itching at his receding fur and picking burrs out of his foot as if he’d wolf-carried the others here.
“Where is he?” Agatha lunged breathlessly, accosting Hester and Anadil. “Where’s Merlin?”
“And who’s this?” said Tedros, pointing at the woman with them. “You shouldn’t have brought strangers here. You know the risk—”
“It’s m-m-me,” the woman said, tears rising.
Agatha and Tedros froze.
Slowly the prince and princess honed in on her the same way Hester had when she’d first laid eyes on this paunchy, middle-aged matron with brown skin, thick curls, and a chocolate-stained dress.
“Dot?” Agatha choked. “But . . . but . . . you’re . . .”
“Old,” Dot wept.
The room went so still they could hear the sounds.
Ffft. Ffft. Ffft.
Coming from under Hester’s arm.
Horror trickled over Tedros’ face.
“Hester . . . ,” he whispered, staring at the bundle in her grip. “Where’s Merlin?”
Hester’s hands were shaking.
She pressed the bundle down onto the bed.