Worse—now I couldn’t feel my magic at all. Cautious, curious, I tried to summon the golden patterns in my mind, but they didn’t rise. Though the veil between Nicholina and me hadn’t re-formed, they’d simply . . . vanished. Whatever magic fed this place, it clearly wasn’t like mine. It wasn’t like hers either. It was more powerful than both, and it’d stripped us equally bare.

When a familiar voice crooned a lullaby behind us, we turned simultaneously. Nicholina’s panic deepened to dread, interlaced with my own morbid curiosity. “Who is that?” I asked, watching two figures approach. A slender, dark-haired woman—perhaps my age—bounded hand in hand with a sallow-faced little boy. Deep shadows drained the life from his eyes, yet still he laughed, breathless, and tried to keep up. Sensing his struggle, the woman swept him up in her arms. They fell to the ground together, still laughing, rolling amidst the lavender. Neither of them noticed us. “Sing for me, maman,” he begged her, sprawling across her chest. He wrapped frail arms around her neck. “Sing me a song. S’il vous plaît.”

She squeezed him gently. In her pale eyes, adoration and anxiousness shone in equal measure. My heart twisted in response. Beside me, Nicholina had stilled, her attention rapt on the little boy’s face. “And what song shall I sing, mon bébé?” the woman asked.

“You know the one!”

Her nose wrinkled in distaste, and she smoothed the hair from his forehead. Black like hers. “I don’t like that one. It’s too . . . grim.”

“Please, maman.” His pale eyes sought hers earnestly. Indeed, he could’ve been the woman’s miniature. “It’s my favorite.”

She scoffed in fond exasperation. “Why?”

“It’s scary!” He grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth and dimples. “It has monsters!”

Rolling her eyes, the woman sighed. “Very well. But just the once. And don’t—don’t sing it with me this time, all right? Please?” I would’ve frowned at the odd request if I hadn’t felt her unease echoing through Nicholina. If I hadn’t known what would happen three weeks hence. This little boy . . . he wouldn’t get better. He’d die a slow, painful death in the days to come, and this—this wasn’t my hell, after all.

It was Nicholina’s.

But she hadn’t always been Nicholina. Once, she’d been Nicola.

I couldn’t look away.

Closing her eyes, the woman leaned back into the lavender, and the boy nestled his face in the crook of her neck. I knew the words of the song before she sang them. They resounded in my very bones. “Beneath the moon of harvest, a ripple stirs the leaves.” With a high, clear soprano, she sang the eerie lullaby slowly, still stroking the boy’s hair. “The veil is thin, the ghouls a’grin, rattling the eaves.”

He giggled as she continued.