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Undaunted, the creature flits from branch to branch and lands on my shoulder. “The Winterlands are not easily traveled. One who knows the way could prove helpful.”
Circe’s words come back to me: Make no bargains.
“I’ll give you nothing for it,” I say.
The creature’s lip curls into a sneer. “Not even a drop of magic when you’ve got so much?”
“Not even a drop,” I answer.
The fairy gnashes her teeth. “I shall take you anyway. Perhaps someday you’ll reward my service. Leave that one behind. She’ll prove a nuisance,” she says, flicking a wing at Wendy’s cheek. Wendy gasps and puts a hand there. The fairy cackles.
“Stop it!” I snap, and she falls back.
“I don’t want to be no trouble,” Wendy mumbles, hanging her head.
I take Wendy’s hand. “She does what we do.”
The fairy scowls. “Too dangerous.”
“Wendy, you stay ’ere,” Bessie commands.
“I want to go,” she says. “I want to know where that screamin’ comes from.”
“She’ll only slow us down,” Pippa argues, as if the girl isn’t standing right there.
“We go all of us together or not at all,” I say firmly. “Now, I must confer with my companions. Shoo! Away with you.”
The creature beats her shiny wings, hovering. There’s hatred in her eyes as she zips a few feet away, keeping watch.
I take in the sight of us. We’re a motley band—factory girls in their new finery, Bessie holding fast to a long stick, Pippa in her queenly cape, Ann and I in our nightgowns, and Fee with a layer of chain mail over hers, sword at the ready.
“We don’t know if that overgrown firefly out there can be trusted, so let’s be on our guard,” I say. “Memorize the way, for we may have to get out again on our own. Are we ready?”
Felicity pats her sword. “Quite.”
“I grow weary, mortal girl,” Golden Wings complains. “This way!”
We leave the safety of the blue forest and cross the vine-covered plain of the Borderlands. In the distance, the high, jagged gate into the Winterlands rises like a warning through the fog. We cannot see what lies beyond it save for the twisting, steel gray ropes of clouds. I carry a torch I’ve fashioned from sticks and magic. It casts a deep pool of light. The fairy sits on my shoulder. The tiny claws of her feet and hands dig into my nightgown, and I hope the thin fabric will keep them from scratching my flesh to ribbons.
The wall that separates the Borderlands from the Winterlands is a fearsome construction. It stretches as tall as the dome on Saint Paul’s Cathedral and runs in either direction as far as the eye can see. In the gloom, it appears to glow.
I put my hand to the tall pilings. They are smooth.
“Bones,” the fairy whispers.
I lift the torch. The light catches the outline of a large bone, a leg perhaps. I recoil from it. The bones have been fastened with ropes of hair. Red flowering vines have threaded their way between the bones to look like startling wounds. It is a macabre sight. The fairy snickers at my distress.
“For one so powerful, you are easily frightened.”
“How do we get in?” Mercy asks. Her face is cradled in deep blue shadow.
The winged creature darts in front of me. “The gate is near. You must feel for it.”
We place our hands against the bones and matted hair, feeling for a way in. It makes my stomach churn, and I’ve a mind to turn back at once.
“I’ve found it!” Pippa calls.
We crowd around her. The gate has a latch fashioned from a rib cage. The sharp points of the ribs are joined so that it is impossible to tell where one side ends and the other begins. Most disturbing of all, there is a heart that beats behind it. The faint thump-thump of it reverberates in my stomach.
