Karam didn’t know what it was, but she felt a comfort when she looked into its eyes. It made her feel inexplicably warm, as though there was a voice somewhere inside of it, familiar but not enough so that she could put her finger on it, telling Karam it would all be okay.

“Saxony gave it to me before we left,” she said.

“It’s a strange present,” Arjun said, examining the snake. “Whatever happened to flowers?”

Karam didn’t reply; she just kept staring at the serpent, wondering what it was trying to tell her with those fire eyes. She didn’t have to wonder for long, because once Karam had blocked out Arjun and kept her focus on the creature curled around her finger, the snake began to whisper to her.

This way, it said. Out of the forest and into the ivy.

“Do you hear that?” Karam asked.

Arjun frowned. “What am I supposed to hear?”

This way, the snake said again. She is waiting.

Karam turned around, just in case the voice was coming from somewhere else, but the moment she did, the snake’s eyes fell dark.

“It stopped glowing,” Arjun said.

She looked back at him. The eyes of the creature lit up again.

Arjun stepped back. “What is it?” he asked. “It’s looking straight at me.”

“No,” Karam said. “Not at you.”

She stretched out her arm and walked forward, past Arjun and farther into the clearing. All the while, the snake’s eyes grew brighter.

“I think it’s a compass of sorts,” Karam said. “It’s going to lead us out of the forest.”

“To where?” Arjun asked, following behind her.

Karam didn’t know where to, but she knew who to. Saxony could have given her a weapon of some sort, a protection charm to keep with her or something to curse any enemies Karam came across. But she hadn’t done any of that. Instead, Saxony had given her this ring, and it had to be for a reason.

It’ll help you find your way home, Saxony had said. Back to me.

Karam’s smile grew.

The ring wasn’t just a compass; it was a map, it was a beacon, it was a way for them to finally find what they were looking for.

“Where is it going to take us?” Arjun asked.

“To Saxony,” she said.

And that was all she needed to know.

26

SAXONY

The ivy towns were beautiful and sweeping, with vines dripping from the walls among the fresh lavender buds and dahlia spheres that inked the rooftops like a second shield. The ground was as green as any of the trees in the forest, and though there was something so wild and untethered about this part of the city—where the rich and the righteous resided—it was also refined in its curved architecture and broad streets.