“Maybe not,” said Jack. She sighed and straightened, her breathing leveling out. “But I have to live with myself when this is over, and that means I go in first.” There was a crash beneath them. The castle shook on its foundations. The crack of thunder split the sky. There were no windows, but the air became harsh and electric, and they knew, every one of them, that the lightning had followed the thunder almost instantly, out of order and intentionally so, that the storm was perched directly above them.

Jack closed her eyes. Only for a moment; long enough to take a deep, ozone-laden breath.

“It’s time,” she said. “Thank you for coming this far.”

Then she opened her eyes, and turned, and opened the door.

The room on the other side was opulent to the point of becoming ludicrous, a child’s dream of a princess’s life made somehow manifest. The bed was large enough to border on obscene, surrounded by hanging veils of lace and mounded with pillows and comforters. Wardrobes and dressers lined the walls, bulging with silks and satins and covered in heaps of discarded jewels, like pearls and garnets had no value beyond how many could be placed in a single pile. The floor was covered in thick rugs, hiding all trace of stone, and the rugs were covered in turn by pieces of clothing, idly tossed aside.

Jack stepped into the room alone and walked toward the bed, where a scrap of too-bright fabric poked out from under one of the pillows. She pulled it loose and held it up: a child’s shirt, too small for any of them.

“She was wearing this when we found our door,” she said, dropping the shirt back onto the bed. “Jill has never been good at letting go of the things she thinks belong to her. The things she thinks she deserves.”

“This room is sort of…” Cora paused, trying to put her appalled thoughts into words.

“Excessive,” said Sumi. “Coming from me, that means a lot.”

“Yes, well. We made our choices when we were too young to understand them, and maybe she needed a little excess.” Unspoken went the fact that if a little excess had been enough for Jill, none of them would have been standing here. She sighed. “We haven’t been close in a very long time. The body I’m wearing knows this bed better than my heart knows my own sister.”

Lightning flashed outside. The stained glass in the room’s wide window broke it into a glittering rainbow of color, painting it across their skins. All of them felt the hairs on their arms and the backs of their necks as they stood on end. Jack walked to the door on the far wall and opened it, revealing a wider, brighter hallway than the one below.

“Come,” she said, and walked on.