out something that glinted in the torchlight, something that seemed to glow from within—
Ayla’s necklace?
“No,” said Ayla, shaking her head. She felt dizzy, stomach roiling. “No, that doesn’t make sense, how could you—?” She’d seen it on Kinok’s desk. Had Crier somehow stolen it from Kinok? Had he given it to her? Why would he give it to her?
“It’s yours,” said Crier, holding it out. The necklace dangled from her hand, delicate and golden. “It’s yours. I know it is. You’re not”—her expression cracked, something like guilt bleeding through—“you’re not in trouble, I promise, I just want to return it.”
But Ayla took another step back. Her bitten mouth, her shaking hands, the taste of Crier on her tongue. She wanted to scrub everything about this moment off her skin, scrub off the skin itself. What have I done.
“Get that away from me.” It’s a weakness. Like this. Like her. “It’s just a stupid trinket. I don’t want it anymore.”
Crier was frowning, still holding out the necklace. “A trinket? Do you even know what it can do?”
“What are you talking about? Did you make another deal with Kinok—one to get that back for me?”
Crier stared at her, the desperate look giving way to confusion. “Kinok never had this in his possession.”
Now it was Ayla’s turn to feel awash and drowning in confusion. If he’d never had her locket, then what locket had she seen in his study, when he’d been questioning her?
It dawned on her.
The other locket. The twin to her own. She’d always thought it was lost forever. Maybe not.
Crier’s eyes darted around the room. It wasn’t like there was much to see; a bed, a chest of drawers, a small bedside table with a dull brass candleholder, a pen, a pot of ink. Things a traveler might request. Ayla opened her mouth, about to demand a real explanation, but Crier was hurrying over to the bedside table. Grabbing the pen. She studied it, considering, and then pressed the sharp nib into the pad of her thumb, piercing the skin. Dark blood welled up and Ayla sucked in a breath, but Crier’s face didn’t even change. She held out the pen to Ayla. “Go on.”
“You want me to . . . what, stab myself?”
“Just your fingertip, just enough to draw even a drop of blood,” said Crier. “Please, please just do it, and you’ll see.”
If it had been an order, Ayla would have turned on her heel and left the room, fled the inn altogether. But now she was so curious, so confused, so—
Please.
Swearing under her breath, already regretting this, Ayla stepped forward and pricked the tip of her index finger on the pen. The tiny wound throbbed.
“All right,” Crier said shakily. “Now.”
She held up the necklace between them, the locket glinting in the low torchlight. For a moment, Ayla could have sworn the light seemed to pulse along with the wound on her finger; it looked as if the locket was glowing, producing light instead of reflecting it. Crier held her bleeding thumb right over the locket, indicating what to do.
Together, they touched the locket.
Their blood—red and violet, human and not—smeared.
And the world lurched and spun.
Ayla breathed out and tasted dust; she breathed in and tasted sunlight, summer air, something lush and green. She realized her eyes were closed, and she opened them.
She was in a forest, and she wasn’t alone. Crier was there with her. It was barely past noon, even though the sun had been setting outside the tavern windows moments earlier. Butter-colored sunlight streamed down through the foliage, creating a dappled pattern of shadow and gold across Crier’s face.
“Is this real?” Ayla breathed.
“Yes, I think so. Or . . . it was. It’s memory now, it’s—”
“Leo?”
Ayla and Crier whipped around in unison, searching for the source of the voice. A moment later they found it: a rustle in the undergrowth, and then a young woman stepped out of the trees and into the clearing. She was barefoot and beautiful, her skin the same brown as Ayla’s, her black hair loose and tangled around her shoulders. Her dress was strange. Old-fashioned, like the clothes in old paintings.
“Leo?” the woman called out softly. “Leo, are you here yet?”
There was a pause in which the only sounds came from the chattering birds above their heads, the woman catching her breath. The forest seemed to swallow all other sound. The woman didn’t even glance at Ayla and Crier, even though the three of them were less than ten paces apart.