“Thea, my darling, come here. Let us find out if we can make your brother break his silence,” the queen whispered.

Thea let out a whimper, and Eleanor went cold. What were they going to do?

“Eleanor.” The hedgewitch locked eyes with Eleanor. “Use your power. Get out of here.”

The queen had wrapped one horribly long hand around Thea’s shoulder. All eyes were fixed on the two of them. Eleanor looked wildly at the hedgewitch. At Pip and Otto. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave her friends.

“You can’t help us if you’re trapped with us. Go,” the hedgewitch hissed. The soldier beside her shoved her hard, and she fell to one knee. Then he began to turn toward Eleanor.

Just as Thea started to scream.

Eleanor turned away from her friends and bolted for the edge of the room.

The soldiers weren’t fast in their armor, and she had a second’s head start. It was enough to sprint around behind one of the columns, to screw her eyes shut, to reach for the world-walker’s power blindly and pull—

She was still weak. But a tiny shimmer in the air turned into a whisker-thin seam of light, and then eased wider—a tiny gap in the fabric of the world, wide enough to slip through. She didn’t care what was on the other side. She turned herself to the side and toppled through.

She landed on the other side awkwardly, her bound hands crushed under her body, already willing the tear in the world shut. The portal vanished.

Eleanor lay on the cold stone floor, breathing heavily. That hadn’t been the Wending—there hadn’t been a road. And with as little strength as she had, she didn’t think she’d gotten far.

She pushed herself to her feet, looking around. She was in a familiar stone corridor. She hadn’t even gotten outside the castle walls. She groaned. What good was getting away from the throne room if she was still trapped in here, her hands tied?

And her friends left behind. Guilt roiled inside her. If she’d run in the first place, when she saw the hedgewitch with the soldiers, maybe Pip and Otto would still be free. But now she’d gotten them all captured—and then abandoned them. With no plan or hope of rescuing them.

A hand touched Eleanor’s elbow. She managed not to shout as she twisted around.

The younger girl was standing behind her, eyes wide. Her hair was in loose waves, falling around her shoulders, instead of its orderly braid, and her clothing was different than it had been in the throne room. Eleanor remembered the other little girl, darting away.