Ora never missed a moon ceremony or a ritual. Any chance to dress up and perform lit up her pretty face. But Ora was missing this one. Nepenthe loved them for a completely different reason. And now she needed their connection to erase the one she felt with Lazar.
The Coven passed the cake. They drank from the chalice. They danced under the Lights, but in between Nepenthe felt herself missing a step. Her hand was shaky. Her words and steps lagged behind. It was as if the Prince was still with her in every movement, every bite, every word.
When they finished the incantation, she saw him leaning against one of the Witch of the Woods’s trees. She thought for a second she had conjured him up. As the moon rose, she waited for him to fade away. But he was still there.
He was real. She waited for the other witches to drift off to their own celebrations before making a beeline for Lazar.
He was breaking the witches’ code. She assumed he had followed her here. That he had been watching them. Their rituals belonged to them. And to no one else. Not even a prince. Especially not a prince. No one came to the Hovel uninvited, and neither she nor Ora would ever ask him here.
“What are you doing here?” Nepenthe demanded when she reached him. “The witches have killed people for less,” she warned, pulling him away behind a tree and hoping the bark wouldn’t tell the Witch of the Woods who was here and what was happening.
“What are you doing here?” Nepenthe repeated.
The Prince had found her for the second time that night. His hair was disheveled. His coat was torn.
“What happened?”
“After the ball, I told my father my intentions to marry Ora.”
“Marry . . . ,” Nepenthe blurted. “And your father . . . he did this to you?” She recovered on the outside, but big heavy drops of rain began to fall.
“He forbade it. He suggested that I keep Ora as mine . . . and that I marry someone else . . .”
“So he did this to you?”
“No, Ora and I . . . we decided. We didn’t need his permission.”
Nepenthe was angry at Lazar for being here, but his posture told her that something was very, very wrong.
“What happened?” she asked. As she spoke she looked away from him, up at the North Lights. Witches believed in them more than the moon. But what was she wishing for? That Ora had broken it off with him after standing up to the King? That the Prince was here to find Nepenthe? That this night had ended with them apart and he wanted to change that? She searched his face, looking for the answer there since she did not want to address the contents of her own heart.
Lazar’s shoulders hunched. His usual confidence was missing. Nepenthe was taken back to the little boy he once was. And she felt her heart go out to him.
Then there was Ora to consider. She was more than just any witch to Nepenthe. Somehow since Nepenthe had lost her parents, Ora had become a constant. She had become important to her. Not a part of Nepenthe like the water. But a fixed point on the shore that she had thought would always be there.
He continued to try and explain himself. “We didn’t know it was a trap.”
“You were going to elope.” The words cut Nepenthe as she said them, making them more real.
“We could be punished, but we could not be undone.”
The words sounded more like Ora than the Prince. It was her idea. Nepenthe was sure of it. But that didn’t change what had happened. He had chosen Ora not as a dalliance, but as his wife.
“Did you—did you go through with the marriage?” Nepenthe said, water rising up in her, hating that she cared about the answer.
“No. The priestess was an Outlander. They knocked me out and they took Ora. Your sister is gone. But I don’t think they will hurt her. It’s me they want. Or, rather, they want me to do something in exchange for Ora.”
“Gone? NO!” Tears welled in Nepenthe’s eyes and her mind raced. First her parents. Now Ora. Nepenthe might be jealous, but Ora was still her sister, and there was something she could still do to save her.
“They know I love her and would do anything to get her back.”
“What do they want in return?” Nepenthe asked, keeping her voice even, knowing very well she would pay any price for Ora.
“They said something that makes not a bit of sense. That’s where I got lost,” Lazar said, frowning with confusion.
“What? Every detail matters.”
“They want a mirror. It’s a part of the prophecy. Or so they say. Father won’t tell me the whole of it. I am surprised that he believes in such things.”
Lines from the oracle’s prophecy drifted back to Nepenthe, like a bedtime story the Witch of the Woods used to tell her.
“We should tell the Coven. They’ll know what to do,” Nepenthe rationalized.
“No! We can’t. The Outlanders said it has to be me. The Coven can’t help.” Lazar was starting to panic. She could see it in his eyes even before the tree behind her pricked her with frost.
Nepenthe knew that she had to get Ora back. She had no idea where the Hinterlands were, but there was one way to find out. She turned with every intention of returning to the Hollow.
But Lazar put an icy hand on her arm.
“The Witch of the Woods knows every inch of Algid from the ground up,” Nepenthe said with a look that told him to let go.
“We can’t involve the witches. I shouldn’t have even come to you. The Outlander said . . . he would kill her, Nepenthe. Please . . .”
She relented with a heavy sigh. She did not know if his was the only way, or the path to disaster.
“We can do a Locator Spell,” she said. “But I still need something of Ora’s in order for it to track her. I’ll sneak in and be right back. They're so busy with the Feast, they won’t notice—”
Lazar stopped me again.
“Will this do?” he said, rummaging in his pocket for his watch. He opened it and there was a lock of hair. Ora’s hair.
It was something human girls did—not witches. Giving away a piece of yourself was like giving someone a weapon. A lock of hair could be used in a spell to find you or to hurt you. This was the kind of spell that Nepenthe’s mother had taught her was only to be used if there was no other option.
At once, Nepenthe wanted to admonish Ora for breaking the witches’ code, but jealousy flooded through her. Unwanted, but there all the same. She was unable to flush it out, and she pressed on. Ora was missing. And Nepenthe loved her long before whatever it was she felt for Lazar.
“Someday you will meet someone who might make you want to choose,” her mother had said over and over the years.
Nepenthe had laughed at her mother then. She had half resented the idea of the choice. Because from where she was sitting, she didn’t see that there was much of one.
“I should take you back to the King,” Nepenthe said finally, calculating the risk. If Ora was lost, she did not want to take Lazar along only to lose him, too.
He looked up at her, resolute. “I would just follow you and probably freeze people in the process. Do you want that on your conscience?”
“Who says I have one?” she said, trying to joke, but the words landed awkwardly, heavy with their lack of truth.
“Ora wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me. Please help me.”
“I would be looking for Ora no matter what. I don’t need you to come with me.”
“Why are you fighting me on this? I could help.”
“You could hurt.”
“I won’t use my Snow unless I have your permission. You have my word. But I need to come to the Hinterlands. Please, Nepenthe.”
She wished she could say that it was his word that made her said yes. But it was the way he said her name.