to ruby red as it passed. Joy stumbled and nearly tripped on the stair. Her hand shot out to steady herself. Her fingers gave under the moist inner cheek.
“Ew,” she muttered and wiped her hand against her jeans.
“Come on,” Inq’s voice coaxed from somewhere down below. “It’s safe.” Inq’s words rose up, unseen. “In fact, it’s probably the safest place in the world.”
“Small comfort,” Joy muttered as she swallowed her fear and took the next step down.
The stairs descended into a dark tunnel with a yellow, misty light at the end. It didn’t smell like a dungeon and didn’t feel like a trap, but the stairway itself felt very old and the air was very still. The passageway brightened as she continued down the steps, growing slightly warmer, friendlier and smelling faintly of grass.
Joy blinked as she walked into a verdant green meadow that spread out to the horizon under a soft, sunny sky. She and Inq stood on the edge of an ancient wood, shaded by towering trees and twisting, leafy vines. The ground smelled loamy and rich and brown. A clear, sparkling brook chuckled over smooth stones. There was a hushed whisper as a breeze tickled the grass and clapped the leaves, but Joy could not feel the air on her skin. Despite what her eyes were telling her, everything felt like a held breath.
Inq squatted next to a patch of periwinkle flowers. She looked truly happy for the first time...ever. It was the look on her face that made Joy feel that it was okay to take those last, few steps into the impossible grove. She crossed the last riser and blinked up at the hazy suggestion of a sun.
“Where are we?” Joy asked. “And don’t say ‘inside the Bailiwick.’ That doesn’t explain any of this.”
“Doesn’t it?” Inq chirped, rising to stand. “The Bailiwick isn’t a title like a bailiff or a duke—it’s a place. The Bailiwick is the comptroller of the space between worlds. Specifically, this space.” She ran her flawless fingers over the tops of the grass. “Imagine this is a pocket sewn inside the Twixt. A little pocket universe, a tiny closet in space and time.”
Joy turned around in a circle. The base of the stair floated behind them with meadow fading out in all directions into an indistinct blur. The horizon was the exact color of the sunlight overhead. It was as if the whole world bowed at the edges and slipped under itself like tucked-in sheets. The slippery perspective made Joy’s head swim. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily. She could only manage one word:
“Why?”
Inq’s face grew serious. The pink-and-green sparks in her eyes flickered like flames. “To protect a door,” she said. “A door built between worlds—and shortly afterward, we had to use it to protect something else.”
Her eyes flicked over Joy’s shoulder. Joy turned and saw a tall woman standing by a tree. She was dressed in a long, flowing gown belted low on her hips, and her arms were covered in purple-black glyphs, her hair long and black and shining. Her eyes were as old as centuries. And when she smiled, two dimples appeared over a tiny, button chin.
“Hello, Joy,” she said. “My daughter has told me so much about you.”
JOY STARED AT the tall woman standing on the edge of a forest inside the belly of Graus Claude. Many things slid into place, but too many others slipped away, defying reason and sanity.
“You’re...” Joy began, but wasn’t sure how to finish. “Ink and Inq,” she tried again. “You made them?”
The woman drew her fingers down the bark of a tree. Calligraphy shimmered under her touch. “Yes, but they are their own persons now. Just as I designed them to be.” She gestured to Inq, who hurried forward and tucked herself into the crook of her mother’s arm, resting her heart-shaped face against her shoulder. The family resemblance—if that was what Joy could call it—was unmistakable.
“You’re their mother,” Joy whispered. Inq and Ink shaped themselves to look like her. Joy glanced at Inq. No, she remembered, Inq was the one who shaped them both. She was older. She’d been first. She’d known all along.
Joy swallowed, heart hammering. “Does Ink know?”
Inq shook her head. “No.”
The words echoed in her ears, boring into her brain.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?” Joy snapped. “You can’t tell me you’re hiding Ink’s mother in a pocket universe for his own good!”
“Of course not,” Inq said. “She’s hiding here to save her life.”
Joy found herself strangely unwilling to take another step. She was trapped along the edge of this world in a secret corner of the Twixt, all but feeling her skin bubbling with nerves. She felt lost, caged, betrayed by both her frenemies and by her own, changing body, afraid that any one of her reactions might trigger something new.
“Okay, stop. Just stop.” Joy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, I’ve had a long, strange day, but this is beyond too much,” she said, rubbing her hands against her jeans. “We are inside the Bailiwick.”
Inq nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?” Joy crossed her arms. “Why bring me here?”
The woman drifted forward. “I am told that you can help set us free.”
“Oh,” Joy said, as if that explained everything. Which it didn’t. “Okay.” She glanced at Inq. Joy noticed that her eyes were the color of her mother’s sigils—a deep indigo-black. So were Ink’s. A family trait. “Can you elaborate?”
“It’s complicated,” Inq said.
“Really?” Joy said. “Try me.”
Inq’s mother stepped to a nearby laurel tree and folded herself gracefully into its cradle of branches, curled to form a perfect seat. “It started years ago, back when our people and yours began forgetting their obligations and grew increasingly at odds.” She tilted her head back. “Many of our people had been enslaved, tricked into servitude. Retributions were swift and the death toll was rising, birthing a mutual sentiment of distrust and fear.” Joy glanced aside—it was a familiar story throughout history. “So the King and Queen decided to strategically withdraw, taking the bulk of our people out of harm’s way.”
“Wait a minute,” Joy said. “What King and Queen? The Folk are ruled by the Council.”
The statuesque woman turned her head. Unlike Ink and Inq, her eyes looked human, but they still had that cavernous, fathomless quality that she’d given to the Scribes. Joy felt like she was falling into them. “The King and Queen rule over the Twixt, the land which they cleaved from the elemental wild.” Her answer left no room for doubt. “When they chose to leave, they left behind a skeleton crew of loyalists in order to maintain our obligations and uphold our honor, fulfilling our pledge to sustain the magic inherent in the world and look after our own. They created a Council to rule in their stead, to be their voice while they were in exile.” Her smile faded
