The farther they traveled, the less the layout made sense—it was as wild and unpredictable as nature, built around several towering sequoias. And there were no discernible floors except the ground one—staircases appeared as if from nowhere and sometimes when Sera looked up she saw four or five floors above her, where other times there was only one. Occasionally they would walk inside a tree, brightly lit corridors of cedar-colored wood.

Finally, they reached a sequoia with a spiral staircase winding straight up through the center of its trunk. Halfway up, Mckenna stopped.

“This is your room,” she said to Leo, opening the door to reveal a glimpse of glass walls and cozy yet modern furnishings.

“I—” Leo looked at Sera as if reluctant to let her go. Her heart stuttered and she felt off balance.

“She will only be one room above you,” Mckenna said. “You are safe on Culinnon. If you’d like, I can show you the Arboreal groves once you’ve changed.”

She directed this only at Leo and Sera felt a flash of irritation, similar to how she’d felt when she’d spent time with Rahel. She hadn’t understood it then but she did now—jealousy. She didn’t much care for the emotion. It was prickly and mean and made her feel not at all herself.

“Sure,” Leo said, and then Mckenna was leading Sera away from him, up one more spiral to her new room.

“Do let me know if there is anything you need,” the servant girl said. Then she bowed her head and descended back down the stairs.

Sera’s room was nestled in the crook of the great tree—the walls were glass that formed a little dome with branches crawling up around them. A fireplace was built into the trunk, a small fire burning in its hearth. Her bed was laid with a comforter as red-gold as a sunset and there was a table made of polished river stones with two chairs on either side of it. A pitcher of water and a basin for her to wash with sat beside an armoire, and she scrubbed her face and then wiped it off with a soft, scented towel.

At last, Sera sank onto the edge of her bed and allowed the feelings she had so ardently refused to acknowledge to swell up around her. When she’d felt the shudderings and shiverings of desire that fluttered inside Bellamy during the memory share, she’d recognized them in herself, in a way she had not expected but now could not unsee or unfeel.

All the wriggles in her tummy when Leo said certain things, all the lurches in her heart or the weightlessness that would grip her . . . it had all sharpened so clearly to one solid point. Desire. She wanted Leo.