Esme paced the room incessantly after the keeper left, struggling to absorb the news. At least now she knew what was going on. No physical infirmity was keeping her mother asleep. Ariane’s ailment was a magical one. All she could do, Esme decided in the end, was take the keeper’s parting words to heart.
Somehow, her mother had made it through: survived her flight with the pearl, her years on the Isle of Mists, Mare’s best efforts to extinguish her, and Anna’s rage. Surely, she would make it through this trial, too.
She had to get back home and tell her dad the news. But would he even listen to her? She glanced down at her mother’s sleeping form. The last time her father had been told of other worlds, he’d almost had her mother committed to a sanatorium. How would she convince him not onl
