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A tracker races for Gorgon. Gorgon fixes him with a stare, and the thing sinks into a trance. The sword swings high. It screams down, and the tracker falls like a sapling in a mighty storm. Whatever is left of him, some force within, spirals out of his body like a dust storm and into the Tree of All Souls. The tree accepts him with a terrible scream. With a loud crackle, the branches reach out farther and taller; the roots dig deeper into the frozen wasteland. The tree glows with new energy.

“Gorgon!” I shout over the hail of arrows and the shrieks of battle. “We must stop!”

She does not dare to look at me. “Why?”

“The more we kill, the stronger the tree becomes. It takes in the souls! We’re not defeating them; we’re strengthening them!”

I search the battlefield, and I spy Kartik running for his brother. It is Kartik free of his disguise, his dark curls framing his face like a lion’s mane. He runs with grace and strength. I look about and I see glimpses of Felicity and Philon coming through. The magic is not holding! It is only a matter of moments before our plan is uncovered and I am found, and then…

I hear Philon’s cry. The tall, elegant creature has been injured by a tracker. His ax has been thrown aside. There is no time to think. I have to get to the tree.

Pulling up my skirts, I run as hard as I can, grabbing the ax. I nearly slip on the ice and the blood, but I do not break my stride. I run straight for the tree.

She comes! the tree screeches. Its roots reach out and tangle round my ankles, bringing me down hard. The ax skitters from my hand and lands just out of reach.

“Gemma…”

I look up. Above me in the tree’s maze of branches, Circe is wrapped in a cocoon of twigs and vines and sharp nettles. Her face is gray, and her mouth is blistered and swollen. In her hands is the dagger.

“Gemma,” she calls in a strangled voice. “You must…finish it…”

The twigs tighten round her neck, cutting off her warning, but not before she drops the dagger to the ground below. I scrabble for it in the thick roots.

Gemma, would you give this all up? For what? What will you return to when you have finished me? the tree intones. A careful little life? No longer special? No longer anything at all?

“I shall be different,” I say.

That is what they all say. The tree laughs, bitterly. And then their magic grows less and less. They grow up, away. Their dreams fade like their beauty. They change. And when they finally know that they would like this, it is too late for them. They cannot come back. Will this be your fate?

“N-no,” I say, turning away from the dagger in the vines.

“Gemma!” Kartik is calling me. But I cannot look away from the tree, can’t stop listening.

Stay with me, it says sweetly. Like this, always. Young. Beautiful. Blooming. They will worship you.

“Gemma!” Felicity’s voice.

Stay with me…

“Yes,” I say, my hand reaching toward the tree in longing, for it understands me. I press my palm to the bark, and suddenly, everything vanishes. It’s only the tree and me. I see Eugenia Spence before it, regal and sure. I look for my friends, but they’ve gone.

“Give yourself to me, Gemma, and you will never be alone again. You’ll be worshipped. Adored. Loved. But you must give yourself to me—a willing sacrifice.”

Tears slip down my face. “Yes,” I murmur.

“Gemma, don’t listen,” Circe says hoarsely, and for a moment, I don’t see Eugenia; I see only the tree, the blood pumping beneath its pale skin, the bodies of the dead hanging from it like chimes.

I gasp, and Eugenia is before me again. “Yes, this is what you want, Gemma. Try as you might, you cannot kill this part of yourself. The solitude of the self that waits just under the stairs of your soul. Always there, no matter how much you’ve tried to be rid of it. I understand. I do. Stay with me and never be lonely again.”

“Don’t listen…to that…bitch,” Circe croaks, and the vines tighten around her neck.

“No, you’re wrong,” I say to Eugenia as if coming out of a long sleep. “You couldn’t kill this part of yourself. And you couldn’t accept it, either.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she says, sounding uncertain for the first time.

“That’s why they were able to take you. They found your fear.”

“And what, pray, was it?”

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