“If I am to remember love, I need to find it on my own,” Wander said. “Those memories don’t belong to me anymore. I think, in fact, they are meant for someone else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” Eleanor asked.

“It’s just a feeling that I have. You have that book for a reason, but I’m not it.” Wander bent and kissed her forehead. It left an imprint of cold against her skin that faded slowly. “Hold on to it. When you find who it belongs to, you’ll know.”

With that, Wander straightened up and drifted past Eleanor. Eleanor stood with her arms folded over the book, struggling against the urge to cry. She wasn’t sure who she would be crying for—Wander, walking away from her memories, or the princess whose heart had first shattered, or even the knight, left alone when the Story consumed the woman she loved.

The hedgewitch’s voice broke through her sorrow with cold, harsh words. “So, Eleanor. Planning to kill me?”

Eleanor blanched, turning. The hedgewitch stood in the doorway; Wander must have passed her on the way out. Eleanor wondered how long she’d been there. “What? I’m not going to kill you,” she said.

“I saw what the Editor gave you,” the hedgewitch said. “I heard you talking to Wander.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Eleanor protested.

The hedgewitch stalked forward. “You want to undo everything I’ve become. You want to remove me, and have your mother back in my place.”

“I—I don’t—” Eleanor wanted to say it wasn’t true. But she would have been lying. Of course she wanted her mother back. Of course she wanted to undo everything that had happened to her. “I don’t want to kill you,” she whispered. That much was true.

“If you used that book to change me back, I would be as dead as your mother is now,” the hedgewitch said. There was a curious expression on her face, and when she continued, her voice was rough. “Claire did the work of raising you, but I protected us, you know. I was the parts of her that knew how to make charms and spells to keep the January Society away from us. When you were a baby . . .” She hesitated.

“I thought you didn’t remember stuff like that,” Eleanor said.

The hedgewitch’s brow creased. Her voice softened. “It’s more like it was a story that was told to me. I know that your mother was always very, very afraid. I tried to take away the parts of her that made her afraid, but she only got more frightened. I think I made your childhood very difficult, Eleanor, and I’m sorry about that.”