As Mayhap pressed her face to the glass, the silver shrieked and scratched against the windows. She stumbled back, legs numb.
She turned to Seekatrix, her heart pounding. He was standing just behind her, still growling, and her thundering heart made her want to growl right back. “Seeka,” she whispered, folding her arms. “What’s going on? Why did you wake me?”
He pitched his ears forward, his growl only loudening.
Mayhap patted her thigh for him to follow her. She knocked on the intricately carved ebony screen that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. “Winnow,” she said, “are you in there?”
Silence.
Mayhap asked the house to move the screen aside. The electric lamp on the wall glowed. The bathroom — a square of seamless green marble with a claw-footed tub in the middle of it — was empty.
“Winnow?” said Mayhap again. Her sister’s name was peculiarly shaped in her mouth, as though it were a shard of broken china.
And Seekatrix was still growling.
Mayhap peered at the open bedroom door. She couldn’t remember if it had been closed when they’d gone to sleep. She felt it call to her — pulling her as though there were an invisible wire connecting it to her heart.
“Come along,” she said to Seekatrix, marching through the door. The droomhund walked at her side with his tail held halfway down, sloped like a lowered flag.
Lustring-shaded lamps lit Mayhap’s way as she followed the carpet that traced the hallway’s length like a gift’s ribbon. The walls were dotted with mirrors of every shape and size, framed in burnished silver. As she walked, she could see other Mayhaps walking alongside her. Her dressing gown billowed like a cloak.
Four rooms down, there was another open door. Mayhap pushed past it.
And there was Winnow.
Winnow was lying in a bed shaped like a hand and carved out of oxblood marble. The curtains on the far side of the bedroom were open. The moonlight, filtered through the grass and through a thousand rose-shaped windows, brightened her face as though it had been dusted with chalk. She stirred, waking. She sat up. But Evenflee did not wriggle or slink or jump out of her mind. In fact, Evenflee was nowhere to be seen.
Mayhap stepped into the room tentatively.
“Winnow,” she whispered. “Why are you in here?”
Winnow didn’t answer, only rocked her head from side to side, clenching her eyes closed. Mayhap approached the bed and placed a palm against Winnow’s cheek. Winnow blinked rapidly, as though she were trying to see something clearer.
Seekatrix yelped.
And Mayhap fell back from the bed with shock.
Winnow’s eyes were silver, their irises eaten up by the color.
“Winnow,” said Mayhap, louder now. “Winnow, what’s happened? Where’s Evenflee? Why were you closing your eyes without him? Were you experimenting again?”
It seemed to take a few moments for Winnow to register who Mayhap was. When she did, she recoiled, her face twisted. She lay down again, turning onto her side. The sound she made could only have been described as howling.
Which was probably what woke Peffiandra and Pavonine and brought them running.
“May?” Pavonine said. She stood in the doorway in her dressing gown of petaled lace. Peffiandra sat beside her, a full stop at the end of her sentence. “May, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” said Mayhap. “Go back to sleep, Pav. Everything’s fine.” She held a hand up to Pavonine to indicate that she should stay where she was.
But Winnow was still crying — sobbing. It was clear that Mayhap’s words were untrue. Perhaps the grass had been right to call her a liar.
Little liar. Little liar.
Pavonine marched over to stand beside Mayhap, and Peffiandra trotted after her, darting about the room playfully.
Pavonine reached for Winnow and rubbed her arm. “Winn,” she said. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
Winnow did not flinch at Pavonine’s touch. When she opened her eyes again, Pavonine drew in a breath, but she didn’t look away. Mayhap turned her face to stare at the wallpaper. On it, droomhunds flew through forests of earth-rooted trees.
“What happened to her, May?” asked Pavonine, her hand still on Winnow’s arm.
“I don’t know,” said Mayhap. “Seekatrix woke me up, and Winnow was gone, and I found her here, and — she doesn’t want me to touch her.”
“I think she’s hurting,” said Pavonine.
Mayhap could only nod.
“Where’s Evenflee?” said Pavonine.
“I don’t know,” said Mayhap. “I asked her, but she won’t talk to me. I’m not sure she can.”
As if in response to this, Winnow cried out.
“Shhh,” said Pavonine, stroking Winnow’s hair. “Shhh, Winn. We’re going to find out what happened. I promise.” She looked at Mayhap as if to say, We promise, right?
Mayhap frowned. Winnow was awake, which meant Evenflee had to be somewhere. If he’d left her mind after sleeping, he would normally be right next to her. “Where’s Evenflee, Seeka?” she asked. But Seekatrix only stared at her.
Mayhap checked the wardrobe for Evenflee, then kneeled to peer under the bed. There was no sign of him.
“Maybe he got scared and ran away,” said Pavonine. “Maybe he’s hiding somewhere.”
Mayhap thought about this. The droomhunds were sensitive creatures, prone to frights and shakes and shivers. Seekatrix, the most nervous of all, trembled every time he heard a door rattle.
Evenflee could have been spooked by Winnow’s cries. He could have slipped under a sofa or behind a cabinet. He could be waiting for someone to find him. But when Mayhap had come into the room, Winnow looked like she was sleeping. Now she was awake, and Evenflee wasn’t around. It didn’t make any sense. Even if she’d been experimenting by closing her eyes without him, he would have been around. The droomhunds were always around.
“Do you think that’s what’s making her unwell, May?” piped up Pavonine. “The droomhunds are always with us . . .”
But Mayhap knew, behind a locked door in her heart, that whatever had gone wrong with Winnow went beyond a missing droomhund.
Their parents had told them not to leave the house, and Winnow had, and now she was hurting and her eyes were silver, like the grass.
Winnow stirred, and Pavonine said, “May, look —”
Mayhap watched the silver of Winnow’s irises seep out of her closed eyes. The color spread both upward and downward, staining her cheekbones and eyelashes.
Pavonine tucked Peffiandra under one arm and rubbed beneath Winnow’s eye with her thumb. “What is it?” she asked breathlessly.
Winnow’s eyes shot open. She screamed.
Mayhap took a step back. “I don’t know, Pav. I don’t know,” she said.
“What are we going to do?” asked Pavonine. “There has to be something we can do.”
Mayhap chewed on a nail. “We need to make her better,” she said. “Of course that’s what we have to do. We have to make her better.”
“But how?” asked Pavonine. “How are we going to do that?”
She had put Peffiandra on the bed and was pressing a palm to Winnow’s forehead now. Winnow was groaning. Peffiandra pawed at her.