Wynna was alive. And she was hiding in the snow kingdom, waiting.
“Time is not infinite,” Zaga snapped. “Will your sister die, or will you?”
Mia turned to Angie. “You have to stop my heart.”
Her sister’s eyes went wide. “Mi.”
“You were willing to sacrifice me before, weren’t you?”
“That was different. I wasn’t the one holding the bow.”
“This won’t end unless we end it. We have to choose. And I have chosen.”
Angelyne shook her head. “Please, Mi. Don’t make me do this.”
“You have to,” Mia said. “It has to be me.”
Only days had passed since she tried to flee the Kaer, but it felt like half a lifetime. That seemed another Mia Rose, the girl who filched the pouch of boar’s blood from the kitchens, faking her own death to save her sister and herself. She had been ready to break whatever laws she had to. Now she would break another.
Magic shall never be used by Dujia to consciously inflict pain, suffering, or death on herself.
Not a law, per se. More of a suggestion.
But who would take her body out of the crypt? Who would carry her to safety in the snow kingdom, where the Dujia could help make her heart beat again? She imagined it was her father who had transported her mother, but now he sat in the Grand Gallery, unable to come to her aid.
She didn’t have the answers. Mia Morwynna Rose, Knower of All Things, had to trust the not knowing. It was time she trusted the quiet pull of her gut over the blinding whir of her mind.
Mia took Angie’s hands in hers. “You won’t have to do anything,” she whispered. “I’ll do it for you.” With the ruby wren and the moonstone tucked into her left fist, she dug her right thumb into the soft, translucent skin of her wrist. With Angie’s trembling hands cupped around hers, Mia brought them to her chest and held them steady. She pressed her thumb tip into her antecubital vein, the blue river of life running from wrist to heart.
“I love you, Ange.”
Veins made beautiful vessels for rage, but they also made beautiful vessels for love.
She let her blood drink up every morsel. As she did, she saw a tumble of shapes and colors. She saw her mother standing on a snow-kissed balcony, wind tousling her chestnut hair as she sketched a wild plum tree. She saw Angie in a green gown with a baby cradled in her arms. She saw Karri riding fiercely into battle, sweat satiny against her bare, sunburnt arms. She saw the Hall of Hands, empty. And she saw Quin, sitting at the edge of the river, pouring his heart out like a song.
How could she love the prince? She hardly knew him. But she wanted to. Her heart wanted what it wanted, and she could feel it swimming toward him: a swatch of gold on a distant shore.
She found Quin’s gaze and held it, his eyes blazing green. She would come back for him. There was a map etched inside her she had only now discovered, and he was there, too, waiting where the sea poured into the stars.
Angelyne’s fingers were cold, but Mia’s hands were warm. She was feverish with hope.
And then something impossible happened. She felt a flutter in her palm.
In the warm nest of her hand, the bird twitched and shivered. Mia sucked in her breath and loosened her fingers, just enough to peek into the dark cave of her palms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wren spread one tiny wing.
The bird was no longer made of stone. It was made of bone and feathers, blood and breath. Her mother’s ruby wren had come to life.
Filaments of light threaded through her fingers, and Mia’s heart felt like it might burst. Her head understood nothing. Her heart knew everything.
Even as it stopped.
Epilogue
THE BIRD FLEW QUIETLY, slipping unseen through the girl’s still fingers. It knew how to move through spaces undetected, silent as a stone. It glided above a boy with golden curls and a girl with wavy red hair as they knelt over the body. The eyes were open, a calm, thirsty gray.
The fissure in the stone was slender, but the bird was small: it winged its way through the rift and out into a grove of plum trees, where it stopped to eat a spider. It would need nourishment for the long journey ahead.
For twenty days and nights the bird beat its wings, stopping only to sup on insects and the occasional small frog. It flew above the watery veins of the river kingdom, over the ice caves and the red salt mines in the south, past Dead Man’s Strait and the White Lagoon, steam curling off the surface, the dark sky inked by green lights and a buried sun, until the bird arrived on a balcony where a woman in a snow fox cloak was waiting.
“My clever little raven,” the woman murmured, the ax slung over her shoulder twinkling in the sunlight. “She has found me at last.”
She cupped her hands, and the ruby wren came home.
Acknowledgments
THEY SAY BREVITY IS the soul of wit, but it is not the soul of acknowledgments—or at least not mine. A book is a journey of a thousand thanks. I will aim to keep mine under a hundred.
Sometimes, when two people love each other, they create a beautiful little bundle called a book. There would be no bundle without Melissa Miller, who, after helping me coax Mia Rose into the world, birthed an actual human child. She’s prolific! Huge thanks to my publisher Katherine Tegen, our gracious matriarch, for championing this story, and to Kate Jackson and Suzanne Murphy for being the best surrogate moms. Alex Arnold, my brilliant editor: the heart of this tale bloomed during our epic phone calls. Thank you for helping me nurture HoT into the bouncing baby book it is today.
Have I used up all the midwife metaphors? Alas.
Thanks to Kirby Kim for opening the door to a world I’ve always dreamed of. Kelsey Horton, I owe you a drink—for all the hours you spent editing, but also for helping coordinate the Singing Shark Attack of 2016. Thank you to Rebecca Aronson for being excellent at everything, Emily Rader and Jill Amack for buffing out all my mistakes, and the whole artistic team for designing a cover that made me understand the expression “love at first sight.” Everyone at KT and HarperCollins: you are exceptional. Please don’t quit your day jobs!
To my early readers: each of you made this book staggeringly better by lending me your eyeballs and your brains. Thank you Hannah, Josh, and Shari for reading the first draft aloud, and Hannah for reading the fourth draft quietly. Sara Sligar gave me tough love when I needed it the most. Kosoko Jackson sent funny GIFs and then pointed to all the places he knew I could do better. Dhonielle Clayton threw open the windows in my mind and showed me what this story could be. Brianne Johnson shined a light on the future—Other Bri, I look forward to all the books dappling the road ahead. Morgan, what can I say? Your real-time reactions were Everything. I will never get sick of reading “YASSSSSSSS THIS GETS BETTER AND BETTER CGCTRWFUVUV.”
Thanks are due to Dana L. Davis for gracing my life daily, even when her messages delete themselves; Rachel Hyde for flooding my life with magic; Emily Bain Murphy for sending otters—and writing the book that saved me; Anna Priemaza for brightening dark days with flowers; Tara Carter for pouring her lovely heart out in email form; Melissa Albert for her genius and generosity; Rachael Gross for saving the day so splendidly she must be a witch; and Stephanie Garber for sharing exactly the right words at exactly the right time.