Sixteen

They decided to leave immediately. There was no sense in waiting around for Mr. January to show up and stop them, after all.

“I’ll get Thea,” Eleanor said.

“We’re bringing her?” Otto asked.

Eleanor nodded. “I don’t want to leave her here when Mr. January is skulking around.”

“I’m coming as well,” the hedgewitch said. Eleanor gave her a surprised look, and she arched an eyebrow. “I’m not going to pass up visiting the greatest treasury of knowledge in all the worlds.”

“Knowledge. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked. “You’re not coming along to help us. Just to satisfy your own curiosity.”

The hedgewitch was silent for a moment. “Claire thought that I would hurt you, to stop Mr. January. So she fought the Story tooth and nail, and when it started to take her over, she ran. She was alone and angry when she became the hedgewitch, and that’s what the Story devoured, and that’s what I became. The only thing I have had for comfort is knowledge, and that is gone, too. I’m trying to learn how to be something more, but it isn’t easy, Eleanor.”

Eleanor’s own anger rose in her. Was she supposed to feel sorry for the hedgewitch? For the person who had destroyed her mother? Her hands balled into fists. She wanted to scream—she wanted to hit the woman—she wanted to run.

Instead, her ears ringing, she marched out of the room and walked up the stairs. She meant to go wake Thea, but at the top of the stairs she stopped and sagged against the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, choking back a sob.

It hurt so much she couldn’t breathe. It hurt so much she could feel the hurt turning swiftly into hate.

The words of The Glass-Heart Girl echoed in her mind.

“Grief is the consequence of love,” said the old woman. “Love will always shatter you, sooner or later. Love is never safe. It is never wise.”

“But isn’t it worth it?” the princess asked.

“Worth it to shatter? You can be happy, be whole, by yourself,” the old woman chided. “Do not tie yourself strongly to others. Those bonds will tug at you. Pull you apart. You have to stay whole.”

The cold gray thread that bound Eleanor to the hedgewitch was lodged somewhere inside of her, and Eleanor did seem to feel it tugging at her like a fishhook. And it wasn’t the only one. Worry about Ben, fear of losing Pip and Otto—they all twisted and tangled and tore at her. If she could cut through them all, she’d be free. She’d have none of this pain.

But she hadn’t been able to open the Wending without them. The book was wrong. It had to be. Love had to be worth it, even if it hurt like this.

She straightened up, swiping tears from her eyes, and walked the rest of the way to Thea’s room. At the door she paused, looking behind her at the grandfather clock that stood in the hall. The hands weren’t moving backward anymore, like usual. They weren’t going forward, either. The second hand was ticking forward and back, forward and back, like it was stuck.

Eleanor pushed open the door. Thea sat on the bed. Her arms were wrapped tightly around the cat-of-ashes, who lay draped awkwardly over her shoulder as the girl wept into her long fur.

“Thea?” Eleanor said. “Are you okay?”

Thea looked up, her face streaked with tears and more than a little snot, a great deal of which had smeared into the cat-of-ashes’ normally pristine fur.

“Hello, Eleanor,” Thea said. She loosened her grip on the cat, who detached herself with what grace she could muster, leaped down from the bed, and walked primly past Eleanor.

“We will never speak of this again,” she said under her breath, her tail lashing, and bounded into the hall.

Eleanor sat next to Thea on the bed. Thea stared out the window. Eleanor followed her gaze, but there were only the trees, and the gray beyond them.

“It’s like the gray world,” Eleanor said. “Last Halloween, we went through Mr. January’s door and we ended up in a world like that—all gray mist and gray trees.”

“It’s an Empty world,” Thea said. Eleanor frowned at her, puzzled. “Mother and Father told us about them. You can Empty a world just like you Empty a person. Take everything out—but leave just a little bit. Enough that the world doesn’t collapse, because then it would just be destroyed. But if it’s that Empty, you can turn it into anything you want.”

Like a place to hide twelve magical keys while you hunt for the thirteenth, Eleanor thought. Or a place to hide yourself. That was where the People Who Look Away had been lurking and collecting their keys, so they could get back to the Pallid Kingdom. A gray world—one that they had drained. Eleanor shuddered.

“That’s what they’re going to do to your world,” Thea said. “I mean, what we’re going to do. We did all those horrible things. To you. To the kids before you.”

“You haven’t yet,” Eleanor said, stroking her hair. “And you don’t have to. We don’t get to choose what happens to us, Thea, but we all get to choose who we become. Now let’s get out of here. The next world will be a better one, I promise.”

Thea only curled tighter in on herself. “I miss my brother and sister,” she whispered. “Even if they . . .”

“I understand,” Eleanor said. “I spent a long time thinking that my mom had tried to hurt me. Or at least didn’t try to save me. It’s not quite the same thing, but I remember how it felt. I was so, so angry. And I still loved her so much.”

“I wish I didn’t. I wish I just hated them. It would feel better than this,” Thea said. Her chin trembled. “I thought they loved me.”

Eleanor put out her hand. Thea drew in a deep, shuddering breath and took Eleanor’s hand. In the moment that her fingers touched Eleanor’s, the bright thread connecting them glowed stronger, pulsing almost like a heartbeat—and Eleanor had the sudden image of that bright thread going dim.

If she failed, if she lost Thea to her fate, it would break her heart. Even thinking about it hurt.

Maybe The Glass-Heart Girl was right. It was easier not to feel, not to fear.

Maybe it was easier to be empty.