The darkness bled into itself—no beginning, no end. I floated, buoyant on a tide of salt water. Above me, the night sky had blackened—moon and stars masked by heavy, water-laden clouds that never receded.
I jostled without pain, my muscles relaxed and my mind quiet. I did not know where my body ended and the water began. I merely yielded to the darkness, lost to the ebb and flow of the waves and the sound of water washing over me.
Time passed without mark. If there was a sun, it did not reach me at dawn. I passed minutes and hours and days afloat a tide of nothingness, my mind empty but for one thought.
Let me out.
More time passed. Still, the thought persisted. Let me out.
I was whole, swallowed by the water’s comfort. No pain, no memory, no fear, no hope. I was the darkness and the darkness was me, and together we rolled with the tide, lulled toward a shore I could neither see nor hear. All was water—all was salt.
But the thought nagged on. Let me out.
I tested the words out loud. My voice sounded like tearing paper. “Let me out.” I said it over and over, briny water filling my mouth. “Let me out.”
Minutes. Hours. Days. Let. Me. Out.
Then, out of nothingness, a long black beach appeared. Upon it, something moved. I blinked, my eyes clouded by a film of salt.
A man, clad in golden armor, stood on the dark shore just beyond the break in the tide, watching me.
The tide drew me in, closer and closer. The man was aged. He bore the weight of his armor without wavering, his strength deeply rooted—like an ancient tree.
I tried to call out to him, but I knew only the three words.
“Let me out!” I cried. I became aware of my wool dress, the heaviness of it. It pulled me down and I slipped beneath the surface, my words cutting off. “Let me—”
His hands were cold as he pulled me from the water.
He carried me onto black sand. When he tried to stand me up, my legs faltered like a newborn fawn’s.
I did not know his face. But he knew mine.
“Elspeth Spindle,” he said quietly, his eyes—so strange and yellow—ensnaring me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Ravyn’s hands were bleeding.
He hadn’t noticed until he’d seen the blood fall. With three taps on the velvet edge of the Mirror, the purple Providence Card, Ravyn had erased himself. He was utterly invisible. His fingers, knuckles, the heels of his palms, dug at the hardened soil at the bottom of the ancient chamber at the edge of the meadow.
It hardly mattered. What was another cut, another scar? Ravyn’s hands were but blunt tools. Not the instruments of a gentleman, but of a man-at-arms—Captain of the Destriers. Highwayman.
Traitor.
Mist seeped into the chamber through the window. It slipped through the cracks of the rotted-out ceiling, salt clawing at Ravyn’s eyes. A warning, perhaps, that the thing he dug for at the base of the tall, broad stone did not wish to be found.
Ravyn paid the mist no mind. He, too, was of salt. Sweat, blood, and magic. Even so, his calloused hands were no match for the soil at the bottom of the chamber. It was unforgiving, hardened by time, ripping Ravyn’s fingernails and tearing open the cracks in his hands. Still, he dug, enveloped in the Mirror Card’s chill, the chamber he’d so often played in as a boy shifting before his eyes into something grotesque—a place of lore, of death.
Of monsters.
He’d woken hours ago, sleep punctuated by thrashing fits and the memory of a piercing yellow gaze, Elspeth Spindle’s voice an echoing dissonance in his mind.
It was his castle—the one in ruins, she’d told him, her charcoal eyes wet with tears as she spoke of the Shepherd King, the voice in her head. He’s buried beneath the stone in the chamber at Castle Yew.
Ravyn had torn himself out of bed and ridden from Stone like a specter on the wind to get to the chamber. He was restless—frantic—for the truth. Because none of it seemed real. The Shepherd King, with yellow eyes and a slick, sinister voice, trapped in the mind of a maiden. The Shepherd King, who promised to help them find the lost Twin Alders Card.
The Shepherd King, five hundred years dead.
Ravyn knew death—had been its exactor. He’d watched light go out of men’s eyes. Heard final, gasping breaths. There was nothing but ghosts on the other side of the veil, no life after death. Not for any man, cutpurse, or highwayman—not even for the Shepherd King.
And yet.
Not all the soil at the base of the stone was hard. Some was loose, upturned. Someone had been there before him—recently. Elspeth, perhaps, looking for answers, just as he was. There, at the base of the stone, hidden a hand below the hardened topsoil, was a carving. A single word made indecipherable with time. A grave marker.
Ravyn kept digging. When his fingernail ripped and the raw tip of his finger struck something sharp, he swore and reared back. His body was invisible, but not his blood. It trickled, crimson red, appearing the moment it left his hand and scattering over the hole he’d dug, the ground thirsty for it.
Something was hidden in the earth, waiting. When Ravyn touched it, it was sharper than stone—colder than soil.
Steel.
Heart in his throat, he dug until he’d unearthed a sword. It lay crooked, caked in dirt. But there was no mistaking its make—forged steel—with an intricately designed hilt, too ornate to be a soldier’s blade.
He reached for it, the salt in the air piercing his lungs as he took short, fevered breaths. But before Ravyn could pry the sword free, he caught a glimpse at what was buried beneath it.
Resting perfectly, undisturbed for centuries. A pale, knobbed object. Human. Skeletal.
A spine.
Ravyn’s muscles locked. His mouth went dry, and nausea rolled up from his stomach into his throat. Blood continued to drip from his hand. And with every drop he gave away, he earned a fragmented, biting clarity: Blunder was full of magic. Wonderful, terrible magic. This was the Shepherd King’s body. He was truly dead.
But his soul carried on, buried deep in Elspeth Spindle, the only woman Ravyn had ever loved.
He tore from the chamber, taking the sword with him.
Bent over himself beneath the yew tree outside, Ravyn coughed, fighting the urge to be sick. The tree was old, its branches unkempt, its canopy vast enough to keep the morning rainfall off his brow. He stayed that way for some time, his heartbeat reluctant to steady.
“What business have you to dig, raven bird?”
Ravyn whirled, the ivory hilt of his dagger in hand. But he was alone. The meadow was empty but for dying grass, the slender path back to Castle Yew unmanned.
The voice called again, louder than before. “Did you hear me, bird?”
Perched in the yew tree above Ravyn’s head, legs dangling over the edge of the aged branch, sat a girl. She was young—younger than his brother, Emory—a child no older than twelve, he guessed. Her hair fell in dark plaits over her shoulders, a few stray curls framing her face. Her cloak was undyed, gray wool with an intricately hemmed collar. Ravyn searched for a family insignia, but there was none.
He didn’t recognize her. Surely he’d recall such a striking face—such a distinct nose. Such vivid, yellow eyes.
Yellow.
“Who are you?” Ravyn said, his voice scraping his throat.
She watched him with those yellow eyes, tilting her head to the side. “I’m Tilly.”
“What are you doing here, Tilly?”
“What I’ve always done.” For the briefest moment, she reminded him of Jespyr as a girl. “I’m waiting.”
Rain fell in earnest, carried on a swift wind. Droplets pelted the side of Ravyn’s face, and the wind caught his hood, pulling it off his brow. He raised a hand, shielding his eyes from the sting.
But the girl in the tree remained unmoving, though the branch beneath her trembled and the yew tree’s leaves whistled in the wind. Her cloak did not shift, nor did a single strand of her hair. Water and wind seemed to pass entirely through her, as if she was made of mist, of smoke.
Of nothingness.
Only then did Ravyn recall he was still using the Mirror.
This had been his purpose—why he’d forsaken sleep and come to the chamber. He’d dug with blunt fingers, met bone with blood, and found the Shepherd King’s body. But the Mirror Card held the answers he truly sought.
He’d used the Mirror a thousand times before to be invisible. But Ravyn had always been careful never to use it too long. He’d had no desire to incur the Card’s negative effects—to see beyond the veil into a world of spirits. He’d never wanted to speak to a ghost.
Until now.
Ravyn cleared his throat. He knew nothing of spirits or their temperaments. Were they as they were in life? Or had the afterlife… remade them?
He raised his voice against the wind. “Who do you wait for, Tilly?”
The girl’s eyes shifted to the sword in his hand, then back to the chamber.
“Do you know the man who is buried there?” Ravyn asked.
She laughed, her voice sharp. “As well as I know this glen, bird. As well as I know this tree, and all the faces that have tarried beneath it.” She twisted her finger in the tail of her plait. “You’ve heard of him, I suppose.” Her lips curled in a smile. “He’s a strange man, my father. Wary. Clever. Good.”
Ravyn’s breath faltered. “The Shepherd King is your father?”
Her smile faded, her yellow eyes growing distant. “They did not give him a King’s burial. Perhaps that is why he does not…” Her gaze returned to Ravyn. “You haven’t seen him with your Mirror Card, have you? He promised he would find us when he passed through the veil. But he has not come.”
“Us?”
The girl turned, her eyes tracing the woods on the other side of the meadow. “Mother is over there, somewhere. She does not come as often as she did. Ilyc and Afton linger near the statuary. Fenly and Lenor keep to your castle.” Her brow furrowed. “Bennett is often somewhere else. He did not die here. Not like the rest of us.”
Die. Ravyn’s throat tightened. “They are… your family? The Shepherd King’s family?”
“We’re waiting,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “For Father.”
“Why does he not return?”
The girl did not answer. Her gaze fluttered across the meadow to the ruins. “I thought I heard his voice,” she murmured. “Night had fallen. I was alone, here in my favorite tree.” Her eyes flashed to Ravyn. “I saw you, raven bird. You came as you always do, in your black cloak, your gray eyes clever, your face practiced. Only this time, you were not alone. A woman came with you. A strange woman, with eyes that flashed yellow gold, like mine. Like Father’s.”
Ravyn’s insides twisted.
“I watched you both leave, but the maiden returned.” Tilly held out a finger, pointing to the chamber’s window. “She went inside. That’s when I heard it—the songs my father used to hum as he wrote his book. But when I entered, he was not there. It was the woman who hummed as she raked her hands through the soil above Father’s grave.”
“Elspeth,” Ravyn whispered, the name stealing something from him. “Her name is Elspeth.”
Tilly didn’t seem to hear him. “Twice the maiden visited and dug at his headstone. She wandered through the meadow, the ruins.” Her lips drew into a tight line. “But when dawn came, her yellow eyes shifted to a charcoal color. So I came back here, to his grave. To watch. To wait.”
Ravyn said nothing, his mind searching for answers it did not have. He remembered that night he’d brought Elspeth to the chamber. He could still smell her hair—feel her cheek against his palm. He’d kissed her deeply and she’d kissed him back. Every part of him had wanted every part of her.
But she’d torn herself away, her eyes wide, a tremble in her voice. She’d been afraid of something in the chamber. At the time, Ravyn had been certain it was him. But he knew now it was something else—something far greater than him—something she carried with her, always.
His eyes snapped back to the girl in the yew tree. “What happened to your father?”
Tilly did not answer.
Ravyn tried again: “How did he die?”
She looked away, her fingers dancing a silent rhythm on the yew branch. “I don’t know. They caught me first.” Her voice quieted. “I passed through the veil before my father and brothers.”
It wasn’t the Mirror’s chill that was seeping into Ravyn. It was something else. A question that, in the dark corner of his mind, he already knew the answer to. “Who killed you?”
Those yellow eyes flared. They landed on Ravyn. “You know his name.” Her voice went low, a deep, scraping whisper. “Rowan.”
The King’s insignia flashed in Ravyn’s mind. His uncle’s flag—the unyielding rowan tree. Red Scythe Card, green eyes. Hunters, brutes.
Family.
Ravyn’s bleeding hands shook.
“We’ve waited a long time for Father,” Tilly said, her gaze turning upward, as if she were speaking now to only the yew tree. Her voice grew firm, her fingers curling like talons in her lap. “We will keep waiting, until his task is done.”
A chill clawed up Ravyn’s neck. He thought of the creature in Elspeth Spindle’s body—of yellow eyes and twisting, silken words spoken in the dungeon. A promise to help find the lost Twin Alders Card.
But Ravyn knew better. No promise comes without payment. Blunder was a place of magic—barters and bargains. Nothing was free. “What does the Shepherd King want?” he asked the girl-spirit. “What is he after?”
“Balance,” she answered, head tilting like a bird of prey. “To right terrible wrongs. To free Blunder from the Rowans.” Her yellow eyes narrowed, wicked and absolute. “To collect his due.”
The Prince rode faster than the other two Destriers. When he dismounted at the old brick house, Elm Rowan was struck by how still the world seemed when he was not on horseback. It unnerved him.
A mourning dove cooed. Elm took off his gloves, dipping his hand into his tunic pocket, the feel of velvet at the edges of his Scythe Card a familiar comfort.
He came to the front door, his gloves stretching at the knuckles as he wrapped his fingers in a fist. The door was aged, traces of lichen sheltering in the crags. The whole north side of the estate was covered in moss and ivy, as if the forest was dragging Hawthorn House deeper into its depths, vines thick as a man’s arm wrapping around the chimney, serpentine.
No one was inside the house. The warning had come days ago. Still, Elm pressed his ear to the door and listened.
Nothing. No muffled shouts of children, no ring of iron pots from the kitchen. Not even a dog barking. The house was still, as if kept that way by the tendrils of greenery reaching in from the mist.
The Destriers arrived behind him and dropped from their horses. “Sire?” Wicker said.
Elm opened his eyes and exhaled. He had no mind to command them. But Ravyn had made himself scarce, and Jespyr had remained at Stone to keep an eye on Emory, leaving Elm—petulant to his bones—to do the King’s bidding and look for Elspeth Spindle’s missing kin.
“It’s empty,” he muttered through his teeth. “Opal Hawthorn is no fool. She and her children would not have come back to this place.”
“Her husband seemed to think they’d be here,” the second Destrier—Gorse—muttered.
Elm twisted the brass handle and pulled Hawthorn House’s door open, the rusted hinges shrieking. “Tyrn Hawthorn would say anything to be free of the dungeon.”
“He’s got Cards,” Wicker said pointedly. “To hear him boast, you’d think old Tyrn had collected the Deck himself.”
“Then the least we can do is relieve him of his greatest treasures. Search the house.” Elm cast an eye over his shoulder to the sky. “Quickly. I’d like to outride those clouds.”
They took to the library first, emptying shelves, shaking old tomes until the house smelled of leather and dust. “I found a Prophet!” Gorse hollered through a row of mahogany shelves.
Elm drew his finger across the uneven mantel. The stones were cracked, but the mortar held firm—no hidden space to hide a Card. He stepped out of the library and started up the stairs. Oval niches held worn-down candles, every stone in the wall housing a shadow.
The first room off the stairwell was upturned, clothes and blankets and an odd sock strewn about. Two narrow beds, two wooden swords. The room of Elspeth’s young cousins, Elm guessed.
The next room was markedly more feminine. Elm lingered at the threshold, drawing cold air into his nose—the scents of wool and lavender. A quilt lay on the bed, the linens unwrinkled, neatly tucked. A small table with chipped green paint held a candle, and next to it, an oval looking glass. Just below the looking glass sat a fine-toothed comb.
Trapped in the wooden teeth were several strands of long black hair.
“There is nothing left of her here,” a voice called from behind Elm’s shoulder. “Whatever Elspeth took from this place, she carries with her.”
Elm jumped, his hand dropping to his belt. A ring of steel cut through the hallway and he pivoted, slicing his knife toward the voice.
He stopped the blade just before it grazed Ione Hawthorn’s throat.
She stood before him, clad in white like a bride. Long and flowing, her dress fell to the floor. Her yellow hair caught the hallway draft, and when she stared at Elm, her pink lips pursed, forming a question she did not speak.
Her gaze dropped to his knife. “Prince Renelm.”
His mind was racing, a rhythmic discord against the heaving of his chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s my home. Why shouldn’t I be here?”
Elm’s jaw seized. He jerked the knife away, slipping it back into place on his belt. “Trees, Hawthorn, I might have killed you.”
Her voice held a fine point, like the tip of a needle. “I doubt that.”
Elm dug at his pocket for the familiar comfort of his Scythe. He had not used his red Card in four days—not since that night at Spindle House.
After the Destriers had been called and Hauth, broken and bloody, carried away, Ravyn had put Erik Spindle and Tyrn Hawthorn in chains. Jespyr had ridden to Hawthorn House to warn Elspeth’s aunt, Opal Hawthorn, that the Destriers were coming. And Elm—Elm had tapped his Scythe three times and compelled what remained of Elspeth’s family to flee. Her stepmother, Nerium, her half sisters, Nya and Dimia—
And her cousin, Ione Hawthorn. They had all vanished into the night, not a trace of them remaining.
Until now.
Ione stood in front of Elm, looking up at him with sharp hazel eyes. She reminded him of fresh parchment. Unblemished, full of promise. The Maiden Card did that—made its beholder look unbearably new. It struck Elm as odd that she would still use the pink Card of beauty here, alone in Hawthorn House, so far from the scrutiny of Stone’s court.
He leaned closer, his shadow swallowing her whole. “It’s not safe for you to be here.”
Ione’s eyes widened. But before she could speak, footsteps sounded behind her.
Gorse stopped in his tracks at the top of the stairs, his gaze trained on Ione.
“If you’re looking for my father, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed,” she said, eyeing him with disinterest. “I’m alone. My family is elsewhere, without so much as a note.”
Gorse’s brow lowered. He turned to Elm. “Sire?”
More steps sounded on the stairwell. “Holy shit.” Wicker stopped just behind Gorse, his fingers sliding to the hilt of his sword.
Ione’s lips drew into a firm line. “I seem to be missing something. Why are you here?” Her gaze darkened. “Is Hauth with you?”
“The High Prince is at Stone, clinging to life,” Gorse snapped. “Attacked, by your cousin. All because your family didn’t have the stomach to burn her when they had the chance.”
Ione glanced at Wicker’s hand, which rested in a stranglehold over his hilt. “My cousin,” she whispered, drawing the words out. The needle in her voice returned. “What did Hauth do to her?”
“Nothing more than she deserved,” Gorse replied.
Ione’s expressions were few. But her eyes held a tell. Elm might have studied her face more, had Wicker not been gripping his sword. “Stay your hand, Destrier,” he said.
Gorse’s hand dropped to his own sword. “The King will want her right away.”
“Trees.” Elm reached into his pocket once more for the Scythe. When his fingers snagged velvet, he tapped it. “Ignore her,” he commanded the Destriers. “Keep looking for Cards.”
Their hands went slack on their hilts. Gorse and Wicker blinked and looked away, a glassy sheen over their eyes.
Elm jerked forward, his hand closing around Ione’s arm. “Not another word,” he warned. He wrenched her forward, pushing past the Destriers and hurrying down the stairs.
The sound of Ione’s bare feet slapping against stone floors echoed in the empty house. When they reached the parlor, she wrenched her arm free. “What’s going on?”
Elm’s throat caught, his voice rough. “Your cousin Elspeth—” No, not Elspeth anymore. He clenched his jaw. “She tore into Hauth at Spindle House. Broke his spine. He’s hardly alive. My father is out for blood. His inquest—” His eyes swept over Ione, a chill crawling over him. “I have to bring you to Stone.”
Ione did not flinch. She hardly even blinked. “So do it.”
“You don’t—” He took a steadying breath. “Clearly, you do not understand.”
“But I do, Prince. Had you not come and offered yourself as an escort, I would have found my own way to Stone.”
“I’m not your goddamn escort,” Elm bit back. “I’m arresting you.”
Ione turned to face him, but her expression remained unchanged—utterly blank. She should have been crying. Or screaming. It was what most people did when they faced an inquest. But she was just… calm. Eerily so.
Elm looked her up and down, an acrid taste in his mouth. “You’ve been using that Maiden Card too long, haven’t you? Where is it?”
“Why? Would you like to borrow it, Prince?” Ione studied Elm’s face. “It might help with those dark circles beneath your eyes.”
She didn’t wait for him to scrape together a reply. She opened the front door, the clamor of rainfall loud on Hawthorn House’s thatched roof. Elm’s exhale met the cold air, his patience for difficult weather—and difficult women—scant on the simplest of days.
“Forget the Maiden, then.” He pushed past her, her white dress stirring in his wake. “Do you at least have your charm?”
Ione pulled a gold chain out from the neckline of her dress. On it was her charm, a horse tooth, by the looks of it. A token to keep her mind and body safe in the mist. She glanced back at Hawthorn House. “What’s become of my family?”
“Your father’s at Stone, along with Erik Spindle. Your mother and brothers are gone—disappeared. Nerium and her daughters, too.” He looked away. “Your cousin is chained at the bottom of the dungeon.”
Ione stepped outside. She plucked a wet leaf from a hawthorn tree and ran it through her fingers. Droplets cascaded down the branch onto the tip of her nose and down the crease of her lips. When she said her cousin’s name, it came out a whisper—soft as a child’s secret. “Elspeth.”
She looked up at Elm. “She kept so many things hidden, even from me. I’d hear her footsteps in the hall at night, after we’d all gone to sleep. I listened to the songs she hummed. She spoke like she was carrying on a conversation, though she was so often alone. And her eyes,” she murmured. “Black. Then, in a flash, yellow as dragon’s gold.”
The lie slipped out of Elm before he could think. “I know nothing of that.”
“No?” Ione tucked her damp hair behind her ear. “I thought you might, seeing as you spent time with her at Castle Yew after Equinox. You, Jespyr, and of course, the Captain of Destriers.”
A thousand worries stabbed at Elm. The King knew Elspeth Spindle could see Providence Cards. He did not know that was precisely why Ravyn had recruited her. That Ravyn and Jespyr and Elm, the King’s chosen guard, had brought an infected woman into their company to steal Providence Cards. To unite the Deck. To lift the mist and heal the infection.
To save Ravyn’s brother, Emory.
To commit treason.
Glass cut through his mind. The Scythe. He’d forgotten he was still compelling Gorse and Wicker. Elm reached into his tunic—tapped the velvet three times—and the pain ceased.
Ione watched his hand in his pocket.
Thunder rolled. Elm looked up at the sky and shivered. “It’s going to storm.” He led Ione to his horse. “It won’t be an easy ride.”
She said nothing. When Elm lifted her onto the horse, she pulled her dress over her knees and swung her leg astride. He climbed up behind her, his jaw flexing when she settled into the saddle, the curve of her backside pressing into him. Her hair smelled sweet.
He spurred his horse. Hawthorn House disappeared into the wood, its final resident taken from its threshold in a flurry of rainwater and mud.
Ione leaned against his chest, her eyes lost on the road. Elm glanced down at her, wondering if she understood the fate that awaited her at Stone. If she knew this was likely the last time she’d leave her family’s home and travel the forest road. If she’d look back.
She didn’t.
The Mirror Card’s chill no longer lingered on Ravyn’s skin. He was back at Stone, but he was not warm. The cold of the dungeon clawed its way up dark, icy stairs, seeking purchase in his chest.
He held two skeleton keys in his hand. When he paused at the top of the stairs, peering down, his grip on the keys tightened. He didn’t hear his sister approach. But what kind of Destrier would she be if he had?
“Ravyn.”
He turned, hiding his startle behind a scowl. “Jes.”
Jespyr leaned against the corridor wall, blended well enough into shadow to almost render a Mirror Card unnecessary. Her gaze lowered to the skeleton keys in Ravyn’s clutch. “You’ll need another pair of hands to open that door.”
“I was going to find a guard.”
Something shifted in her brown eyes. “I’m capable enough.”
There was an accusation somewhere in the firm notes of Jespyr’s voice. Ravyn ignored it. “The King wants to see Els—” He flinched. “He wants to know about the Twin Alders Card. In private.”
Jespyr folded her hands in a net. “Is that wise?”
“Probably not.”
The sound of the gong echoed through the castle. Its toll announced early afternoon. Midday, midnight—the hour meant little to Ravyn. All he knew of time was that he always seemed to be running out of it.
Jespyr dragged her boot over a wrinkle in the corridor rug. “Are you well enough to do this? You’ve hardly spoken about what happened. About Elspeth.”
The muscles along Ravyn’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”
She shook her head. “I can always tell when you’re lying. Your eyes get this vacant look.”
“Maybe that’s because they are vacant.”
“You’d like everyone to think that, wouldn’t you?” Jespyr approached—pulled the second key from his grip. “You can talk to me, you know. I’m always here, Ravyn.” The corner of her lips quirked. “I’m always right behind you.”
They made it to the bottom of the stairs without slipping on ice. In the antechamber, the dungeon door waited. It was twice as wide as Ravyn’s wingspan. Forged of wood from rowan trees and fortified with iron, it took both skeleton keys to unlock.
Facing their respective locks on opposite sides of the door, Ravyn and Jespyr slid their keys into place. Ravyn made sure to turn his back, lest his sister see his trembling fingers.
The mechanisms embedded in the stone wall released the latches. Ravyn pressed his fingers in the holds and pushed the door open just wide enough to slip through, the weight of the ancient wood great.
“Leave it open,” he said, taking both keys. “Destriers will be here soon enough to collect Erik Spindle and Tyrn Hawthorn for their inquest.” He stepped through the door.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No. Get a Chalice Card from the armory. Meet me at the King’s chamber.”
“Are you sure you’re all right to do this?” Jespyr asked again.
Ravyn had been a liar always out of necessity, never a fondness for the craft. It was one of the many masks he wore. And he’d worn it so long that, even when he should take it off, he didn’t always know how.
He stole into darkness. “I’m fine.”
The air grew thinner the farther north he trod. The dungeon walk sloped, falling deeper into the earth. Ravyn wrapped his arms in his cloak and kept his eyes forward, afraid if he looked too closely at the empty cells, the ghosts of all the infected children who had died there might emerge from shadow and claim him.
The walk was littered with blackened torches, this part of the dungeon rarely patrolled. Ravyn continued until he was at the end—the last cell.
The monster waited.
Flat on the floor, eyes on the ceiling—as if stargazing—what had once been Elspeth Spindle’s body lay still. Air plumed out of her—now the Shepherd King’s—mouth like dragon smoke. When Ravyn’s footsteps stilled at the foot of the cell, the Shepherd King did not turn to look, the sound of his teeth clicking together the only greeting he tendered.
A knot in Ravyn’s throat swelled. Before he could stop himself, his eyes traveled the length of Elspeth’s body.
What had once been Elspeth?
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