“Creepy,” Anadil murmured. As people bustled above, wrong side up, the two witches stayed hidden in the statues’ shadows. “People are going to notice us, Hester. We’re the only ones with our heads on straight. Plus, the caves are supposed to be surrounded by a poisonous sea. I don’t see water, let alone a sea, do you?”
“Must be behind all this,” Hester said on tiptoes, glimpsing nothing but more shops and statues ahead. “We have to sneak through without anyone recognizing us.”
“And then cross a poisonous sea that we can’t even find,” Anadil added. “Not to mention trespass into cursed caves.”
“If you had your rats to scout, you’d be useful instead of a ball and chain,” said Hester.
“One is dead. One is missing. The other found Merlin and told Dovey where he is. My rat is the reason we’re here. So who’s the useful one?” Ani snapped back.
But Hester was already prowling forward, craning up at the floors of upside-down storefronts. Inside Borna’s Bread, upturned shoppers filled carts with baguettes and brioches and bottom-up cakes, while inside Toppled Tailors, flurries of purple moths flew mended clothes from reversed racks to waiting customers. Next door, in Sylvie’s Salon, men and women sat in upended chairs, perusing newspapers, as floating sylphs cut their hair, none of the patrons’ faces the slightest bit swollen, as if their bodies were born to live in the wrong direction.
“Isn’t the world upside down enough without it actually being upside down?” Anadil marveled.
“Maybe they see things clearer that way,” Hester said.
“Eh, I’d say this group is as blind as the rest,” said Anadil.
Hester followed her friend’s eyes to a domed theater hanging from the tip of a purple beanstalk like a Christmas bauble—the “Borna Bowl,” said the marquee—with the dome inverted and a full audience seated downside up, watching a spellcast of King Rhian’s coronation replaying in phantoms of gray light. As the spellcast rehashed the familiar scene, Rhian clutching Sophie, his princess clad in a prim, ruffled dress, the spectators hung on the king’s every word, while heads-down vendors hawked Lion memorabilia: mugs, shirts, hats, pins. . . .
“Is this what they do for entertainment? Watch that scum’s coronation again and again?” Hester asked, unable to hear Rhian’s speech from this far away.
“Probably plays every hour on the hour,” said Anadil, tilting her head for better viewing. “Strange, though. I don’t remember them spellcasting the coronation.”
A brown-skinned family in colorful smocks passed by on the skyroad, heads up like the witches, ogling the Borna Bowl and the rest of the upside-down realm. Drupathi tourists, Hester thought, she and Ani forcing smiles, which the family returned before giving Dot weird looks. Dot, who was lurking behind, sucking morosely on vine leaves she’d turned to chocolate with her lit finger.
“People will notice your glow!” Hester hissed, pulling her into the shadows. “And stop sulking!”
“It’s just . . . what you said back there . . . ,” Dot puled. “If Daddy dies, Nottingham’s ring doesn’t go to me. He changed his will after I freed Robin Hood. Don’t think he ever changed it back.” She turned more leaves to chocolate, her lit finger trembling. “If Rhian’s marrying Sophie, maybe Rhian already got Daddy’s ring. Because of me. Because Daddy didn’t trust me with it. Which means, because of me, Daddy might be . . . might be . . .”
For the first time, Hester’s cold facade softened. “That’s not how this coven thinks,” she said, cupping her hand over Dot’s glow and snuffing it out. “Focus on everything we’ve done to get here. Each of us did our part. Wolves wouldn’t have helped us if you hadn’t bribed them with chocolate snow. That magic carpet wouldn’t have snuck us through tunnels if Ani hadn’t threatened it with an unspooling spell. We’re still alive, Dot. We’re almost to Merlin. Whatever your Dad thought of you when he changed his will, he doesn’t think of you that way now. He loves you, Dot. Enough to join forces with Robin Hood—his own Nemesis—to keep you safe. Wherever he is, he’d want you to finish our mission.”
Dot mulled this over, gazing at her shoes, before she took a deep breath and tossed her chocolate away. “For the record, I still think Sophie went back to Rhian. Just like the message says. Same story as when she went back to Rafal. Spends too much time around Agatha and Tedros together, gets jealous and desperate and ends up kissing any boy who’ll have her, even a lying, murdering pig.”
“Could be worse,” said Hester. “Could be kissing a Snake.”
Dot snorted.
A chill gusted through the square, huddling the witches deeper into their hoods and shivering the spellcast in the dome. Then Hester smelled something on the breeze . . . something that made her muscles tense and her demon twitch. . . .
“The sea,” she said, pivoting to her friends. “It’s close.”
She led them ahead, the three girls gliding along the darkening skyfloor like bats, careful to avoid the glow of overturned lanterns sparking to life along the beanstalks. Hester navigated the coven past the Borna Bowl, hearing Rhian’s voice grow louder, the salty scent of the sea burning stronger and stronger. . . .
“Wait! Look at her dress!” Dot blurted.
“Shhh!” Ani whispered.
“But that’s not what Sophie wore at Rhian’s coronation,” Dot pressed. “You sure it’s a replay?”
Hester stopped cold.
So did Anadil.
They cocked their heads in unison, studying the inverted spellcast as Rhian held Sophie in close-up, the king’s and princess’s figures translucent.
“Citizens of the Woods, I did not expect a day like today to come. This morning, I learned that Japeth of Foxwood, my brother, my liege, has been in league with Tedros and Agatha, plotting against my throne,” spoke Rhian. “I thought my brother was the Eagle to my Lion. Instead, he was just another Snake. But the Lion always wins. By the time you view this spellcast, Japeth will be sealed in the dungeons and shall never be seen again. Our Woods is under siege by rebels and even my own blood can’t be trusted. I alone can protect us. I alone shall punish our enemies. I alone will keep these Woods safe.”
“Dot’s right. This isn’t from the coronation,” said Anadil. “This is . . . now.”
“Ding Dong, the Snake is gone,” Dot chimed. “At least Rhian did one thing right.”
But Hester was still studying the king: the chill of his voice, the void in his eyes, the shudder of threads on his jacket like sliding scales. . . . Next to him, Sophie wore a blank smile, like a puppet pulled by strings. The king clasped her tighter.
“But a traitor cannot stop our kingdom from glory,” he said. “And though I have lost a liege, soon I will gain a queen. My wedding to my true love will proceed as scheduled, and we shall spellcast it for the Woods to see. I make this promise to you all. With Sophie and I united, everything in our world will be possible.”
He looked at Sophie, who maintained her perfect smile and spoke directly into the spellcast.
“Long live the Lion!” she proclaimed. “Long live the One True King!”