“I’m not a coward,” Lilia said. Her eyes filled. She wanted to throw herself at her mother’s feet. Instead, she rubbed the tears from her eyes and stumbled forward.

She fell through the waving tatters between the reflected worlds, tumbling into the field of black poppies under the new sky. She looked behind her.

Her mother had turned her back on the gate. The Kai stood before her, bloody everpine weapon in hand, a tangle of poisonous vines crawling up her opposite arm. Blood wet the vine. The Kai swung her weapon.

The weapon crushed Lilia’s mother’s collarbone. Her body crumpled, a mangled succulent.

The Kai stepped over her mother’s body, shiny crimson armor soaked in blood and shredded plant matter. The vine on her arm was shriveling now, turning to brown dust.

The Kai reached for Lilia–

But her fingers stopped short on the other side of the parting of the worlds, as if they met some invisible barrier. The Kai’s face twisted in anger.

“Motherless woodland fool,” the Kai said. “I have other cats to whip. Oma is rising, and we will rise with it.”

The air around Lilia contracted. The world pulled her down, as if she had gained three times her weight. She put her hands over her ears. Closed her eyes.

When Lilia opened her eyes, she stood alone in the field of poppies in the middle of a deep, wooded glen. The tear in the world was gone. She saw the emerald light of Tira high in the lavender-blue sky, and the hourglass of the twin suns. Her foot ached badly; the numbness was wearing off. She saw the bloody, melted flesh of her ruined foot covered in dirt and curious flies.

Lilia retched.

“Child?”

A plump woman stood at the edge of the clearing. She had a kind face and a thick mane of silver hair; swaths of it peeked out from beneath the broad hood of her coat. She held a large walking stick.

“Where is Nava, child? Your mother? Where are the others?”

Lilia held out her wrists. “Please cut me,” she said. “If you’re a blood witch too, you can bring her back.”

The woman recoiled. “Child, drop your hands. Don’t speak that way here, no, no. Things are very different here. I’m Kalinda Lasa. You’re to come with me, you understand? And no more talk of blood witches. Witches, of all things? Tira’s tears.”

Lilia kept her hands outstretched. “I made a promise.” Her voice caught. “I have to find my mother. I promised.”

“We all want a good many things, child, but it doesn’t mean we get them,” Kalinda said. “I’m sorry. The world – all worlds – are bigger than the both of us and your mother, too.” She glanced at Lilia’s foot. “If you want to keep that limb, we must go quickly.”