Eira’s boots had worn through at the heel on the second day. By the third, they were walking on bloody socks.
The forest smelled wrong. Green clung in a film to the back of their throat—thick, cloying, like wet leaves. Birdsong stuttered and looped. Light slanted through at strange angles, sharp and disorienting.
Celinda found her in a packed-dirt alley off Broadway, three blocks from the theater district. The girl sat against brick still warm from the day’s sun, staring up at the slice of sky visible between buildings. Not reading the book in her lap—just holding it. Dracula, spine cracked from repeated readings.