And just like that, we split. The dream-me peels out of Varia, and I can see myself floating beside her in the dark water, floating along with her speed as if I’m invisibly tethered to her, as if I’m one of the valkerax surging toward destruction, too. I can see the princess properly now that I’m outside of her—her long black hair streaming behind her in the water, the slits on her throat like gills on a fish. Her eyes are bloodshot, her gold skin bruised, and not just by the umber of the dark water. Great green-gray bruises have started to bloom on every inch of her body, as if she’s rotting from the inside. Is that the Bone Tree eating her magic? I think my voice—or Fione’s name—gives her a moment of clarity, because she looks up and right at me. Lucidly.

“You,” she speaks, her mouth moving but only bubbles coming out. Her black eyes go wild, furious, and I hear her voice more in my head. “You made the Trees touch in Windonhigh. They touched because they felt you.”

I’m quiet. She’s not.

“You’re trying to stop me.” Her voice is far deader than deadpan. Lifeless, even as her eyes burn. “If you make them touch, it will go away.”

She keeps one hand knit in the valkerax’s mane, but the other hand rises to her throat, to the bone choker strangling her. The Bone Tree, wrapped tight around her neck.

She traces it lightly, as if making sure it’s still there. “You’re trying to take it from me. So I’m coming for you.”

“All right,” I say patiently. Patience is what she needs, now most of all. She’s not herself. She doesn’t even remember what herself was like before the Bone Tree. But I’ll wait, patiently, and remember for her.

For Fione.

For Lucien.

For the girl who knows what it’s like to make a mistake you can’t take back.

“I’ve…I’ve killed them all.” Varia glances down at her hand. She means Helkyris. Cavanos. Everyone the valkerax meet. “I’m going to kill them all.”

“I know,” I say. She clenches her fist inward, nails biting. Blood in the water.

“They have to die,” Varia snarls. “All of them.”

“Is that you talking?” I ask softly. “Or the Bone Tree around your neck?”

Her wooden fingers move up again to the choker of valkerax fangs ringing her neck. Wringing. Her weapon. Her advantage. Her leash.

“The Varia I know had a plan,” I say. “And it wasn’t wanton carnage like this. She was going to carve the wood of the world, not throw it all in the fire.”

Her black eyes go wide, deep pools in the deep ocean, and she recovers, bristling.