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I turn back to my fascination with the tear in the ceiling. I want to pick at the wound in the plaster. Rip it down to the boards and start over. Paint it another color. Make it a different ceiling entirely.

“She fell,” I say, my voice hollow.

McCleethy’s dark gaze is upon me, weighing, judging. “An accident, then?”

I swallow hard. “An accident.”

I close my eyes and feign sleep. And after what seems an impossibly long time, I hear the scrape of the chair against the floor, signaling Miss McCleethy’s departure. Her footsteps are heavy with disappointment.

I do sleep. It is fretful, with dreams of running over both black sand and fresh grass. No matter where I run, what I want is just out of reach. I wake to Felicity’s and Ann’s faces hovering mere inches from mine. It gives me a start.

“It’s time for the realms,” Felicity says. Anticipation burns in her eyes. “It’s been ages, hasn’t it, Ann?”

“Feels as if it has,” Ann agrees.

“Very well. Give me a moment.”

“What were you dreaming about?” Ann asks.

“I don’t recall. Why?”

“You’re crying,” she says.

I put my fingers to my damp cheeks.

Felicity throws my cloak to me. “If we don’t leave soon, I shall lose my mind.”

I secure my cloak and place my finger and my tears deep into my pocket, where it’s as if they do not exist at all.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE MOMENT WE STEP INTO THE BORDERLANDS, IT FEELS different. Everything seems to have fallen into disarray. The vines are ankle-deep. Crows have settled into the highest parts of the fir trees like inkblots. As we travel to the castle, they follow us, hopping from branch to branch.

“It’s as if they’re watching us,” Ann whispers.

The factory girls do not greet us with their familiar cry.

“Where are they? Where’s Pip?” Felicity says, quickening her steps.

The castle is deserted. And just like the grounds outside, it is overgrown and ill tended. The flowers have gone brittle, and worms slither along their purple husks. I step in a mealy patch and pull up my boot in disgust.

We wander through the vine-covered rooms, calling the girls’ names, but no one responds. I hear a faint rustling from behind a tapestry. I pull it aside, and there’s Wendy, her face dirty and tear-streaked. Her fingers are blue.

“Wendy? What has happened? Why are you hiding?”

“It’s that screamin’, miss.” She sniffles. “Used to be a lit’le. I ’ear it all the time these days.”

Felicity checks behind the other tapestries in the room on the chance it’s all a game of hide-and-seek. “Allee-allee-all free! Pip? Pippa Cross!” She drops into the throne with a pout. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s as if they’ve vanished.” Ann opens a door but there’s nothing but vines inside.

Wendy shivers. “Sometimes I wake up and it feels like I’m the only soul ’ere.”

She flutters her blue-stained fingers to a basket of the berries Pip has gathered, the berries that have cursed our friend to her existence here. I note the blue stains on her mouth as well.

“Wendy, have you been eating the berries?” I ask.

Her face shows fear. “It’s all there was, miss, and I was so hungry.”

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