ELLIE

Cecilia is screaming, and I can’t help but wonder if it will be the thing that will save us or end us.

No, if anything ends us, it’ll be the Other that just burst through the window and now lurks on the floor of the nursery.

Piles of shattered glass litter the floor around its scaly, silver paws. Long claws protrude from the fissures in its paws, matching the dripping fangs extending from its long, scaly snout. Wings flake out from the reptilian creature’s back, stretching themselves out, causing more glass to slide off the membranous skin and clatter to the floor.

The silver scales tip me off that this is an Other, though it’s shaped like the mythical wyvern.

It stalks toward us, a razor-sharp tongue licking its silvery snout.

I’m not sure what to do. Does one scream at an Other? Likely not. If that were the answer, my bellowing child would have already frightened it away.

“Help,” I call, in case the guards haven’t realized Cecilia’s screams aren’t the routine sort, which of course they haven’t, because Cecilia screams constantly. “Help. Someone, please!” I shout, tucking Cecilia closer to my chest.

My heart pounds, but the fear coursing through my veins transforms into something else, something more productive, because what I feel doesn’t taste of fear at all.

No. This is something different.

I am something different.

I think perhaps I have my child to thank for that.

The Other lunges, but I am, somehow, ready. I bolt to the side, toward the nursery door. I’ve almost made it when I hear a clamor on the other side.

I step out of the way just in time as a line of guards comes rushing in, responding to my call for help.

Unfortunately, they have no idea what they’re up against, or that the Other has just lunged for me again.

It gets two guards between its jaws, the sound of their bones cracking. That normally would make me sick, except my body seems to know that it doesn’t have the option to be sick, not if I’m going to get my daughter out of this.

Instead, I retreat, hopping not-so-nimbly over the Other’s swooshing tail as it focuses on the guards.

I think to hide in the closet, but then the Other opens its jaws, dropping two corpses to the floor. It hisses, spraying a silvery liquid at the remaining guards.

This time, the sound does make my stomach lurch.

Several of the guards scream, cries of pain I’d yet to hear the likes of. As I reach the closet, I chance a look over my shoulder.

I regret doing so.

The silvery spray coats the soldiers’ armor, which is smoking, sizzling as the creature’s spit burns holes in it, ripping through the helmets and breastplates. It doesn’t slow as it reaches their skin, burning, burning, burning, until I glimpse muscle and bone and…

I look away, hearing the thud of bodies as they slump to the floor.

The creature sniffs around at their corpses, then there’s the familiar crunching sound as the creature feasts.

No. No, no, no.

No, it won’t get me. And it certainly won’t get my baby.

Distracted. I have to get out of here while the thing is distracted, but it’s blocking the doorway to the nursery with its massive body, and the only other way out of the room is the window.

That isn’t going to work.

We’re at least six stories up.

I could climb down, I figure. The outside of the palace is intricately designed enough that I could probably find enough footholds and handholds, if not to scale down, then to at least hide out until the Other is gone or someone can come rescue me.

I tuck Cecilia into my chest, slipping across the floor and over the Other’s happily swooshing tail. There are still shards of glass left in the window, but I manage to poke my head out and get a good look.

I instantly wish I hadn’t, the ground appearing so much further away than it usually does. Several gargoyles line the walls, and a few ledges too. But if I’m going to reach any of them, I’ll have to jump.

The calmness I was afforded moments ago seems to vanish as reality sets in.

There’s no way out of this room. Not with Cecilia in my arms.

I can’t catch myself and hold on to her, too.

No. No, I won’t accept that. There has to be another way. I will make there be another way.

Please, I pray to the Fates. You already saved her once. Please just save her again. You don’t have to worry about me.

I blink away the tears threatening to blur my vision, swallow the fear intent on paralyzing me, then search the room again.

A sling. I have to have one around here somewhere. I used one when I took the baby on walks, but it was usually Imogen who brought it to me, and in truth, I’ve never paid the slightest attention to where she keeps it. In fact, I pay little attention to much of how Imogen does anything she does; I’ve been so exhausted.

Since when did I let myself become so helpless?

Frustration boils inside of me, but I can’t let it win.

I make myself look over at the Other again, and to my dismay, I watch it lap up the last of the guards’ corpses.

No, no, no, no, no.

Cecilia is still screaming. The Other will finish its meal any moment now, and it’ll come straight for her.

I have to get out of here. I have to save her.

If only she could go, and I could stay, but there’s no way out.

I don’t realize I’ve been retreating until my spine hits a knob.

But there isn’t a door there, my brain says, rather unhelpfully.

Still, I turn.

And almost gasp in relief.