“I have so many things to tell you,” she said, barely seeming to notice his mood as she failed to meet his eyes, moving hurriedly across the room before placing a dark bundle on the table. She untethered some string that held it all together, allowing it to fall open to unveil its grotesque contents.

Cainan frowned, drawing closer to get a better view. “Are those…bats?” he asked, feeling bile rise in his throat as he inspected the disjointed, mangled pile of leather wings and rodentlike corpses. “Is that…godsblood?” The creatures were smeared with golden glowing liquid, the likes of which he hadn’t seen in the three years since they’d left the Rocklands.

Cora finally turned in his direction, eyes gleaming in a way that had become more common in recent days. There was a mania in her eyes that simultaneously scared him and made him want to weep for the woman he loved. Watching someone you care about become unspooled like a ball of yarn was harder than losing a limb. “They want to give their lives to a greater cause,” she said, voice full of gravity, as though the information she was imparting was the ancient wisdom of the gods Themselves. “I always knew the creatures of the forest were precious, but I never knew why.”

“You’ve been in the forest?”

“Oh yes. There is so much more to all of it than we ever realized. The Blood Tide isn’t just about blood. It’s about purpose. Hers.” She said it with hunger in her eyes, in the way her tongue flashed across her lips. Her every expression, her every movement, her every word, was so full of wrongness it made Cainan want to pinch himself again and again until he awoke from this nightmare.

“Bryony was inconsolable before bed. She wanted her mother. She finally cried herself to sleep about an hour ago. It’s the third time this week.”

The woman who’d once been his closest ally but who now felt like a stranger blinked. More than anything else, it was the vacant look in that simple gesture that sent fear shivering down Cainan’s spine. It was as though, for that brief moment, she didn’t know who he was talking about. Like she didn’t know her own daughter. Cainan thanked every god and goddess whose name he could remember that Bryony was fast asleep in her bed and not awake to see her mother like this. More than anyone, he thanked Narcissi, though he was certain that after his betrayal to Her cause She would be deaf to his prayers.

“I—I didn’t realize the hour had grown so late. I’m sorry.” There was contrition there, genuine regret, which gave Cainan the surge of hope he needed to spur him into action. They’d lived too close to Lostwood for too long. After they’d left the Forsworn, it had felt natural to remain in close proximity to the woods that they’d called their home for so long, but now…