THE DROWNING
The water wasn't cold.
That was Julian's first realization as Sabrina dragged him under. It was body-warm, thick as blood, and it pulsed around him like a living thing. His lungs screamed for air, but Sabrina's lips sealed over his, not in a kiss—in transfer.
Bubbles escaped his nose as she breathed into him, her fingers tangled in his hair like roots. Her eyes glowed violet in the murk, pupils blown wide with something between terror and triumph.
You came for me, those eyes said.
You shouldn't have.
Then the vision broke. The water turned to ice, and Julian was alone, suspended in blackness. Above him, the frozen surface reflected not his face, but Silas Whitfield's, grinning down.
"She's ours until the roots rot, boy."
Julian's fist struck the ice—
—and shattered not the ice, but the well itself.
He was falling.
THE UNDERTOWN
He landed knee-deep in black water, the cavern around him stretching into impossible darkness. The air reeked of wet earth and decaying roses.
And the bones. God, the bones.
They formed a cathedral of rib cages, femurs stacked like firewood, skulls grinning from niches in the walls. At the center stood a throne of willow branches, and upon it—
"Sabrina."
She was changed.
Her raven hair floated around her like Medusa's snakes, threaded with willow leaves. The amethyst of her eyes had bled into the whites, giving her a luminous, otherworldly stare. Her lips were stitched shut with thin vines, her wrists bound by living roots that pulsed like veins.
But worst of all was the cage around her heart—a grotesque sculpture of finger bones, their knuckles fused around her ribs.
She raised her head. The vines on her mouth split with a wet tear.
"You weren't supposed to see this."
THE BARGAIN
Julian surged forward, but the water thickened to tar, holding him fast.
"Who did this to you?" His voice cracked.
Sabrina's laugh was a hollow thing. "My ancestors. Yours. The first Sabrina Whitfield, who made a bargain with the willows." She lifted her arms, the roots tightening. "One guardian per century, bound to feed the town. But I… I tried to cheat."
A vision slammed into Julian:
Sabrina, younger, kneeling in this very cavern. A knife in her hand. The real Silas Whitfield bleeding at her feet. "I won't be your sacrifice," she hissed—and plunged the blade into her own chest, severing the roots' hold.
But the willows were clever.
They took her anyway.
Julian's knees buckled. "The curse…"
"Is me." Sabrina's voice broke. "The town lives because I do. And when the roots finish growing through me…" She looked down at the vines now creeping up her neck. "I'll become what you saw upstairs."
The doppelgänger. The thing with split pupils.
The next guardian.
THE WHITFIELD GRANDMOTHER
The water boiled.
Bones clattered as something stirred in the darkness behind the throne. A shape unfolded—too tall, too thin, its limbs elongating like stretched taffy.
"Julian Thorne." The voice was dust and dead leaves. "You have your grandfather's eyes."
The grandmother emerged.
Her skin was bark, her hair a nest of thorns. Where her face should be, a hollowed-out willow knot gaped, her words whistling through it. She trailed one clawed finger down Sabrina's cheek, drawing black sap.
"She was always my favorite. So much fire. It makes the roots grow strong."
Julian's dagger was in his hand before he could think.
The grandmother laughed, the sound like breaking branches.
"Strike me down, and she dies with me. The town dies. Every soul you've met here rots."
Sabrina's eyes met Julian's. A silent plea:
Let me go.
THE CHOICE
Julian dropped the dagger.
"No."
He stepped forward, the water parting for him now. The grandmother hissed as he gripped the bone cage around Sabrina's heart.
"I know what you want," Julian said. "A new sacrifice. A fresh root to feed your tree."
The grandmother went very still.
Julian pressed his forehead to Sabrina's. "Tell me I'm wrong."
Her tears were black sap. "You're not."
Behind them, the grandmother's limbs creaked in anticipation.
Julian smiled—a feral, broken thing—and whispered three words against Sabrina's stitched lips:
"Take me instead."