Bracing herself, she pushed. It swung soundlessly forward, revealing a sliver of blackness. After glancing back at the others, Lilette slipped inside. They came in behind her, and Han pushed the door closed. Lilette couldn’t see much, but far below there was a purple glow. Bracing one arm against the side of the tree, she felt the floor with her foot. It disappeared abruptly before her. Gingerly, she stepped down. “They’re stairs. Come on,” she whispered.
They moved toward the light, which shifted from purple to green and sent waves of fear through her that made her heart pound. Finally, she stepped into a huge cavern with the base of the tree serving as the roof. In the center was an opaque sphere in a shifting miasma of pastels. A strong sense of wrongness emanated from it.
A deep instinct warned Lilette to turn and run from this place. Here, there was no dawn—no warmth and light to chase away the shadows. Nothing but emptiness and death, like a soul forced to remain in its rotting corpse for all eternity.
She stretched out her hand to touch the sphere, but Doranna pulled her back. “Don’t.”
Lilette glanced around at shelves of books and tables with potions. She paced to a table, picked up a vial, and sniffed the contents. She quickly jerked back at the rotten egg smell.
Doranna stared at the sphere, sweat beading her brow. “There is something so wrong about this.”
A sudden wave of discord slammed into Lilette and she pitched back, coming up hard against one of the tables and knocking something over. She gritted her teeth.
Han gripped her shoulders. “We need to get out of here.”
Lilette glared at the sphere. “What is it?” She turned to right whatever she’d tipped over, but froze, her hands hovering above an open book. “No.”
She leaned forward, scanning the pages. Her eyes widened before she snapped the book shut and stuffed it down her robes. She took a handful of vials and shoved them into her pockets. “We need to go, now.”
She was already running for the stairs. Han jogged behind her. “Why, what—”
She didn’t slow down. “It’s a barrier! If the witches inside stop singing, it will come down and they’ll see us.”
“But barriers are cylinders. That’s a sphere,” Doranna protested.
Lilette didn’t bother answering. When they were halfway up the stairs, the light shattered, leaving them in complete darkness. They could hear indistinct voices.
Her mouth pressed in a thin line, Lilette concentrated on moving quietly. They reached the door and Doranna pulled it open, letting in a stream of moonlight that Lilette hoped didn’t alert those below to their presence.
They darted into the night. “Split up and hide,” Han hissed.
He took Lilette’s hand, but she resisted. “I have to see.”
He pulled her into the brush, ducking behind a plant with huge, deeply scalloped leaves. Lilette peeked over the top as eight women streamed out and began to go their separate ways. She strained to make out their faces, but they were swathed in shadow.
One woman reached out and grasped the arm of another. “Merlay, wait.”
Lilette stifled her gasp. Merlay turned.
“What will we tell everyone?”
Merlay ran a hand down her face. “The only one thing we can tell them—that they’re dead.”
Lilette couldn’t hear anything over the rush in her ears. She knew who they were speaking of. Knew it in her core.
Her sister was dead. They were all dead.
She thought of the sister she’d never know. Of the witches who’d stayed behind so the rest of them might escape. Her throat made a strangled sound. Han pressed his hand over her mouth and held her tight against him.
Merlay glanced around, as if looking for the source of the sound, but the others were already leaving. After a moment, she turned to follow them.
“It’s my fault,” Lilette whispered through her tears. “I numbed myself to the pain when I should have been fighting.”
Han held her against his chest to muffle her sobs.
Chapter 30
Regrets are like a parasite living inside you. You have to find a way to stop feeding them or they eat you alive. ~Jolin
Lilette sat beside the window in Sash’s house, watching the chesli flowers curl shut and the moths flutter away, watching the night die in the morning light. She felt as if a part of her had died with it. Her hand rested on the book she’d found. She hadn’t looked at it again—she couldn’t bear to.
Han sat in silence across from her. Someone else might have said he was sorry and tried to console her with words or gestures. Han just stayed close, sharing Lilette’s grief with her.
When morning finally came, she tucked the book back into her tunic and stood.