Cold sweat dots her forehead as an unwanted realization blankets her horizons. The Hag doesn’t do things without reason, so the books have more meaning than she accorded them. The Glamour spell is a sly presence within her, a burr snagging on her insides. Irial’s words have unwittingly answered the question Croi doesn’t recall asking.

She sits up, feeling uncomfortable. Her tiniest toe hurts suddenly. Engrossed in the idea that she might be under a Glamour, Croi initially dismisses the pain as petty discomfort.

Then the pain becomes deeper, becomes an ache. All the bones in her feet are waking. Their awakening affects the rest of the bones in her body, which feel as though they are sitting up and stretching, trying to move out of the flesh that confines them.

White-hot agony stretches from her toes to her ankles, journeys up her legs to her thighs. Her hip bones creak a protest before her back arches as her spine rebels against the shape it has been forced into. The pain travels down her shoulders, thrums through her elbows before scorching her fingertips. Her skull tries to reconstruct itself, and that is when everything goes dark for a few minutes.

When Croi comes to, she is lying facedown on the ground, her fingers sunk into the soil. Her body spasms, a broken marionette of some diabolical puppeteer. She takes a deep gasping breath and trembles. A taste of tears lingers on her tongue, a taste of the earth.

As the pain fades, the absence of sound becomes louder. Her throat is raw, her cheeks are wet, and her heart is a mess. She tries to get to her feet but her knees buckle. The flower sprites cling to her, chittering in high-pitched voices, trying to provide comfort. However, she doesn’t have the strength to respond to their goodwill. She tries to stand up again and succeeds this time. The ground seems farther away now than it did before. She takes a step toward the dwelling and stumbles. To settle her fawn legs, she stands still for a moment, trying to understand what just happened to her. Her mind retreats from thinking about the pain; it’s a monster she doesn’t want to provoke. What if it returns?

Croi lifts her hands and stares at her fingers. They look longer in the starlight. Something rustles in the forest close by, and she startles, peering into the darkness. The trees that surround the dwelling seem unfriendly all of a sudden. She is so desperately alone. Even if she screams for mercy, no one will hear. She resolutely turns her back to the trees and enters the dwelling, lies down on some blankets in a corner, and shuts her eyes.

The sun spilling into the dwelling through the spaces in the branches wakes Croi up the next morning. The light intrudes in all the shadowed corners of the room and seeps through the thin blanket she is hiding under. A direction echoes in her head when her eyes yield to the inevitable and flutter open. There is a tug in her middle as though someone has begun pulling on a rope attached there. Her feet seem bent on answering a summons her ears can’t hear. She sits up, her chest hurting. She gets up without even thinking about moving. Her hands wash her face, clean her teeth, and feed her fruits while her mind tries to regain control of her suddenly rogue body. She doesn’t know what is happening to her. Is this what unraveling feels like?