But more than that, she wanted to want nothing but to destroy Atlas.

She touched her thunderstone, the yellow satin ribbon, and the blue lapis lazuli locket that hung from the long bronze chain. The thunderstone was an emblem of Eureka’s power, the yellow ribbon was her symbol of hope, and the locket represented her purpose: to get to the Marais, the swampy no-place beyond her reach, to undo the Filling, to make Diana proud.

Eureka wondered what Esme’s crystal necklace meant to her. Had it been a gift from someone she loved? Did she love? Sometimes the witch looked like a beautiful, intimidating older girl; other times, like now, she looked like an alien queen from another galaxy. Eureka wondered whether Esme’s life had turned out the way she’d hoped it might. Or was she broken, like Eureka, masking pain with swarming bees and shimmering amethyst makeup and clothing made of orchid petals?

“What is the Glimmering?” Eureka asked.

Esme cupped one palm to the sky. She studied the rain gathering in it. “It is where your friend and her date have gone looking for freshwater—and where you shall discover your history. The truth is in the Glimmering.”

“What do you know about my history?” Eureka asked, then: “There’s freshwater nearby?”

Esme spread her fingers to let the water that had collected in her palm filter through. Where the water hit the earth, orchid stems wriggled from the muddy soil and laced themselves around the witch’s ankles, blooming amethyst buds.

Esme leaned toward Eureka. “The Glimmering looks like water, but it isn’t for drinking. It is a mirror that reveals a soul’s identity through the deep recesses of its history.” The buds at Esme’s feet yawned into blossoms at her knees. She smiled. “Mortals can face many things, but they cannot face their true identities. A single glance in our Glimmering has been enough to drive everyone insane so far.”

“Are we really all that bad?”

“And worse!” Esme smiled. “Mortals spend lifetimes admiring their good through ordinary mirrors. The Glimmering shows that which you are too weak and afraid to see.” The witch stepped closer, bringing with her a waft of fragrant, honey-scented air. “It’s very rare for anyone to make it back alive. Though of course”—she tapped Eureka’s thunderstone with an amethyst fingernail—“there are exceptions.”

“Is Cat there now?”

Esme’s grin darkened. “Perhaps your friend’s reflection in the Glimmering will mature her … into the grave.”

Eureka grabbed the witch’s shoulders. “Where is it?”

Esme’s laughter rose from somewhere in the earth, the black heart of a volcano. Bees stung Eureka’s hands. Rain fell on the rising welts, its salt amplifying every throbbing sting.

“Show me where it is!”

Like a ballerina at the barre, Esme raised her arm along her midsection, draped it over her face, then lifted it high above her head before it opened, like a flower. Her long, painted pointer finger gestured into darkness. Then the darkness shifted and a shimmering amethyst-colored haze lit a faint path in the night.

“If you hurry, maybe you can catch her.”

Eureka swatted through bees and ran. The witch’s silky giggle rang in her deaf ear as she tore over the muddy slush along the path. She didn’t think of looking back.

Up ahead the gossipwitch’s haze lit a quick-flowing stream the storm had cut into the earth. Eureka would have to cross the stream to follow the glow. She found the narrowest crossing and tested the water’s depth with her foot. The bank sloped down several feet—after that, she couldn’t tell. Eureka swallowed, touched her thunderstone, and waded in.

She inhaled sharply at the cold constricting her legs. She reached for the low branch of a hazelnut tree to steady herself as she moved forward. The water rose to her chest, not deep enough to use her thunderstone shield, not shallow enough for her to move confidently. The current was strong, rushing against her, urging her to join its flow, like a crowded high school hallway.

She slipped and lost her grip on the branch. She tried to put her feet down, but the current moved too fast. Her thunderstone floated along the surface as she swam hard for the far bank.

Sharp rocks struck her underwater. Something bit her lower back. A huge loggerhead turtle had clamped its jaw around her hip. The pain was excruciating. Eureka thought of Madame Blavatsky and her turtles and wondered if Madame B had come back from the dead to chide her for all the ways she’d failed her destiny. The turtle’s eyes were wide, yellow green, determined. Eureka made a fist and pounded the turtle’s head until its jaw slackened and it dropped off into the swirling stream.

She wasn’t far from the bank, but she was in pain and knew her back was bleeding. She imagined Cat striding happily to an inviting, deadly spring. That horror helped her thrust her body forward, until at last her fingers scratched the muddy edges of the bank. The soggy earth she clung to crumbled into the stream, sending her flowing farther from the now distant purple glow.

Her body struck a tree trunk. She wrapped her arms around it before the current pulled her away. She steadied herself. She lunged at the bank again. This time she grabbed slimy roots that held fast enough for her to pull herself up. At last she heaved herself out.

She collapsed on the bank in the rain, and considered never moving again. Then the amethyst glow grew dimmer. Eureka sprang up and ran toward it. She rounded the corner of a muddy path. She climbed a staircase of steep boulders lit by Esme’s glow.