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Nothing.

The barrier sparked, faint and gold, right where our hands should have crossed the threshold together. I felt it more than saw it. It was a warning, not a wound.

"Stop." I caught her wrist gently before she hurt herself trying. "Martha. Stop, you're going to burn your hand on that."

She stopped. But she didn't let go of my hand. Standing there glaring at empty air like she could out-stubborn several centuries of old Magic if she just tried hard enough.

I hated it. I hated every part of it.

I hated that a line in this tomb had my name on it. I hated that whatever waited for my Mate Below might do exactly that again, and Martha would be somewhere I couldn't follow at all.

She crouched down at the base of the empty crypt a moment later, running her fingers along one final line of text carved into the stone floor.

WHEN THE DOOR OPENS AGAIN,

THE QUEEN MUST CHOOSE THE CROWN.

THE WITCH WILL KNOW WHERE IT SLEEPS.

Every head in that tomb turned, slowly and deliberately, toward Zelda.

"Why does everybody keep looking at me today?"

"Because apparently your predecessors couldn't leave a damn address," Martha said.

Zelda didn't answer right away. She was studying the mark on the Witch's carved palm again. Something that felt important was working behind her eyes. I watched her expression shift from confusion into something that looked a lot like dread.

"What?" Martha asked.

"I think I know where we have to look."

"Where?"

Zelda looked up, and whatever she was about to say, I already knew from her face that none of us were going to like it.

"The Baba Yaga Vault."

5

Ihad built up a whole mental picture of the Baba Yaga Vault on the drive over. Ancient stone walls. Skulls stacked up like decorative throw pillows. A cauldron or two, bubbling ominously in a corner, just for atmosphere. Creepy Witch stuff, basically, the kind of place that made you want to wipe your feet before you walked in out of pure respect for the dead.

Zelda parked in front of a laundromat that hadn't updated its sign since roughly 1974.

"This is the Baba Yaga Vault?" I asked, pretty sure that my bestie had taken a wrong turn.

"What were you expecting?" Zelda shoved the keys in her pocket and brushed a few red curls off her forehead.

"Skulls."

"Why?"

"You're Witches."

"That's racist." She truly sounded offended.

"Witch isn't a race."

"Still rude."