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being honest or just trying to make her feel better.
    “Are you worried?” Bree repeated.
    “What’s to worry about? I know what will happen. As surely as each wave will break.”
    “And you’re not scared?”
    “No.”
    Liar .
    But she never said it out loud. Maybe she was the one who was scared. To lose him. To say good-bye. To face her own birthday and all the unknowns attached to it.

FOUR
    WHEN SHE WOKE, LOCK’S BED was already empty. Heath was in his, though, and he didn’t look well. Not even in sleep.
    There was a sheen of sweat on the boy’s brow, and his breathing seemed labored. Bree glanced at his leg. The bandage was heavy with a discerning amount of liquid—tinged pink and mucus yellow. Pus. Blood was one thing, but pus . . . Bree was no healer, but she knew it wasn’t good.
    “Heath?” she whispered, touching his wrist. His skin was clammy and cold.
    In the front of the hut, Chelsea sat at the table, weaving.
    “Is Lock fishing already?” Bree asked. The woman nodded, her eyes barely leaving the half-finished basket. “Heath’s bandages . . . They’re dirty. They need to be changed.” Another nod. “Is Sparrow coming soon? It doesn’t look right, and his fever’s climbing.”
    “I didn’t realize you were a healer, Bree.” There was no smile, no hint of a joke. “Please go worry about what you’re good at—fish, food. I’ve already talked to Sparrow. She’ll stop by later.”
    Bree frowned, but picked up her spear. Halfway to the shore, she turned around. Lock hadn’t blamed her for the accident, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Heath fell to the fever. Sparrow could only do so much for the boy. Most of it was already done. But Lock . . . he’d been sick once. Deathly sick. On the bridge between realms, Sparrow had called it. Desperation led Chelsea to allow Mad Mia a chance. And it had made all the difference.
    Maybe it would again.
    A failing driftwood fence surrounded Mad Mia’s ramshackle hut. Every few paces a post was erected, bone wind chimes hanging from them. They clinked in the morning’s tired breeze. Within the fence a small garden of wildflowers was wilting, and the charred fish that had been cooking over her fire yesterday was now gone. Likely stolen by some scavenging animal during the night, or perhaps burned right off the stakes in Mad Mia’s negligence. The woman’s door was propped open, but a dense curtain of vines hung in the frame.
    Bree slipped inside the fence.
    “You’re not going to find any fish in that hut,” a voice said.
    Bree turned to see Maggie eying her. Ness stood nearby, a load of laundry braced against her hip.
    “Who said I’m after fish?” Bree retorted.
    “Leave her at it,” Ness said to Maggie. “It’s her own hide if Keeva catches her ditching work.”
    The vines of Mad Mia’s house were drawn aside. “Is sleep precious to no one?” the woman asked, a glare directed at the three girls.
    “The sun’s been up for hours,” Maggie called out.
    “As was I, dancing for rain beneath the moon.”
    “Can I speak with you?” Bree said to Mia. “It’s important.”
    The woman grumbled, but pulled the vine curtain back farther. Bree ducked inside, not wanting to see the look on Maggie’s or Ness’s face.
    “Sparrow is a talented healer, but everyone has to die eventually,” Mad Mia said.
    “Not him,” Bree said. “Not Heath. He’s barely ten!”
    “The earth calls for some sooner than others.”
    Bree fumed. Here was Mia, old, ancient, and acting like it was perfectly fair for a young boy to have his life end before it truly began. Like children being Snatched was just as natural. Lock claimed it was merely the cycle of life, but Bree wasn’t convinced. If only the boys were lost, then maybe. But the girls—how it took only some of them . . . It was like a conscious choice was being made.
    There was Fallyn, Snatched well before Bree’s time, but still a legend recounted around the