After being violently ripped from the dreamscape, Lucinda found herself under a large dead tree, its branches twisted and bare, reaching in every direction like grasping hands. The odd sisters knew exactly where they were. This was the place between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The place just before the mists. She and her sisters had been here before.

The place between.

There was one path in the place between, with only two directions: ahead and back. But there was always a choice.

The sisters would choose back. Back to their daughter. Back to their home.

But first they needed to rest. To recover. This was where all those who had lived too long went to rest their bodies and spirits. It was where Nanny had come to rest when she was tired of the world before she went to live with Tulip, and it was where Oberon resided when he took his long slumber. The place between had no mirrors. Lucinda couldn’t see what was happening in the worlds beyond. But she could hear if she chose to listen carefully.

She expected to see Maleficent here. They had told her many years earlier to wait for them in this place should she ever die, and they would bring her back to the world. But there was nothing of her here except for her ravens and crows, perched in the massive dead tree, silent specters waiting for their mistress to come back to them. The only one missing was Opal, though they felt as if she had been there. Lucinda knew Maleficent and Opal shared a special bond, forged in childhood and in magic. If anyone could lure Maleficent from beyond the veil, it was Opal. Lucinda looked up at the darkness. The sky resembled a black moth-eaten curtain, scattered with tiny pinholes of light. It didn’t frighten her that she couldn’t find her sisters Ruby and Martha in this place. They were here, somewhere, just not in her view. She felt them and knew they were well, and that was all that mattered. She needed to rest, and it was better they were each in their own corner of the place between. Thank the gods for Pflanze.

Pflanze’s magic was core magic—an unruly magic that resided within and wasn’t wielded often, if at all. Creatures with that sort of magic held it in reserve until the time it was needed most, and it usually took them a very long time to build up their reserve again. Lucinda was grateful Pflanze used her magic on this occasion, even if the magic was violent and untamed. Even if it was excruciating being ripped from the dreamscape. They were free, and they were in a place where they could rest and regain their powers. Pflanze had seen to that.

There was so much they needed to do after they left this place, once they were strong and ready to take their position in the world again. She was worried that Maleficent wasn’t here as they had discussed, and that Maleficent had found herself too far beyond the veil to come back. That was why they needed Opal. If anyone could lure Maleficent back to the land of the living, it would be her. Lucinda and her sisters would use whatever means were available to raise Maleficent from the dead—even the foul necromantic magic they had learned in the dead woods. They needed their old friend by their side so they could rule in their own lands as they were meant to.

They would take their daughter, Circe, back, and love her as they always had. And if that meant destroying everything and everyone she held dear, then so be it.

For now, though, they would rest. And wait.