Behind me the door creaks open, a shaft of light cutting into my solitude. A figure just like me in so many ways hesitates before slipping inside. I want to tell her to go away. I want to tell her to leave me alone. But this is my sister. This is myself—missing for so long.

She’s so perfect. She’s what I desperately wanted to see in my own reflection but never did.

She’s also the reason I’m here in this city. The reason Elias and I were lost in the woods. The reason I’ve been alone for so long. If she hadn’t let Elias convince us to go through the forbidden gates and explore the paths in the Forest. If she hadn’t skinned her knee and refused to go farther. If Elias hadn’t been so afraid of getting in trouble because she’d gotten hurt.

She’s always been the reason my life fell apart so long ago. Why I can’t even remember the sound of my father’s voice.

She steps in after me and I retreat deeper into the darkness, weaving from side to side as I push away from the walls. I just want to be home. I want to be surrounded by my things and the long-faded smell of Elias and the way everything was.

I need time to think and figure out what’s going on before I face her but she calls my name and even though I don’t want to, I stop. There’s a small click and then a whirring sound. A moan penetrates the darkness and Abigail’s footsteps falter. My heart lurches as hands grab and tug me back to the entrance. My sister trying to pull me away.

The metallic creaking noise grows louder, steady and rhythmic, and then a light struggles to life. I wince under the sudden glow, throwing up my hands to protect my eyes and stepping instinctively into the shadows. Tucked in an alcove just off to my left, a young Unconsecrated man reaches for me through the bars of a wheel. With each step he takes toward me, the wheel turns, keeping him in one place.

He’d walk forever toward me if he could but all it does is turn the wheel, which winds a crank that powers a small string of lights reaching along the hallway wall. It reflects off icicles dangling from the ceiling, making it feel like we’re caught in some sort of absurd ice castle.

“Just a wheel walker,” I murmur to my sister, slipping from her grip. The Protectorate used them to power lifts and lights. Instead of stocks or jails, they’d tie rule breakers to a chair in front of the wheels: temptation to keep the Unconsecrated walking. “They’re trapped—can’t hurt us.”