skills.” I’m worried by his raised expectations. He clearly has misguided notions as to my potential, and I’m reluctant to disappoint him. I brush my fingers along a tree trunk, peeling off a long strip of bark. I crumble it with one hand as I walk, watching the woody flakes fall and settle on the stones beneath my feet.
I know Leo keeps warning me of what’s to come, telling me to be on my guard, trying to scare me into alertness. But it’s difficult to believe him because I don’t feel fearful here. Indeed, with every step I feel stronger and safer than I’ve ever felt before.
Bea
“Dr. Finch?” Bea frowns when she sees him, lingering in the shadows. She has the feeling he’s been here awhile, watching her absorbed by the infinitely falling leaves and towering willow trees reaching for the moon. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Why shouldn’t I be here?” He steps forward onto the moss. “I’ve as much right as you.”
Bea shrugs and starts walking. “I wouldn’t have credited you with any Grimm blood in your veins. You’re not much of a man, let alone . . .”
But she still can’t entirely remember the rules, the physical laws governing this place. She doesn’t know who’s allowed and able to be here and who is not. All she remembers now is that she’s here to meet her sisters, for which she is curious and keen, and her father, for which she is not.
“Wait.” Dr. Finch hurries to catch up.
“Shouldn’t you be at home with your wife?” Bea asks, wishing he was.
“She’s asleep,” he says. “She’s not missing me.”
“Yeah, well, nor was I. So why don’t you take a different path?” Bea nods in the direction of a river that winds away from them.
Dr. Finch says nothing but continues walking beside her. And, because he’s silent, she allows him to stay. The moon disappears behind clouds. A dense, dark thing swoops down between them, before soaring up again into the pitch-black sky.
A blackbird. Bea thinks of the illustration she found in Fitzbillies. A memory tugs at her.
“A bat,” Dr. Finch says.
Bea ignores him.
The memory rises.
I could fly. Once upon a time I could fly.
The moon breaks away from a bank of clouds, illuminating the path. Bea picks up her pace, walking faster and faster until she breaks into a run, legs lifting over the stones in great, swift strides. As she runs, Bea lets out shrieks of delight carried on the fog that rolls back to Dr. Finch, who walks in her wake.
Scarlet
“Where the hell are we?” Scarlet stands on a patch of moss, refusing to move. “How—I don’t understand . . . How did we get here?”
“You’ve been here before.”
“I have?”
“And you’ve been dreaming about it.”
This isn’t a question. Scarlet gives a single reluctant nod.
“You came here as a child,” Ruby says. “And you’ve been readying yourself to return.”
“I—I . . .” Scarlet wants to defy her mother, deny it all, except she can’t.
“It’s a place for you to realize your strengths, to hone your skills,” Ruby says, “to become dominant enough that you might actually stand a chance of winning the fight.”
“What fight?” Scarlet frowns. “And I don’t have any—”
“Stop that,” Ruby snaps. “Enough. Modesty, self-doubt, those things might get you approval at home, but here they’ll get you killed.”
“I’m not being modest.” Scarlet shakes a white leaf free from her head. “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, please.” Ruby rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed anything strange, anything—”
“What?”
“That look—you just thought of something, didn’t you? I know that look.”
“No, you don’t.” Scarlet curls her warming fingers into fists.
“I do. I’m your mother, I—”
Scarlet gives a wry laugh. “Are you? I hadn’t noticed.”
Ruby sighs. “Scarlet, I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for this. What I did was awful. I abandoned you. You hate me. I know, I deserve it. But now I’m risking my life to try and save yours. And if you don’t at least stop punishing me long enough to let me help, then we’ll both be dead before—”
“All right, all right.” Sparks of frustration fire from Scarlet’s fingertips. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, but I’ll pretend I don’t hate you, just for tonight. Okay?”
Truthfully, hate is already softening into dislike, not that Scarlet will admit it. She’s still far from ready to let her mother off the hook. Love weighs less than fury—silver against lead on the chemical scale—but they might yet balance. One