More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
But his soul carried on, buried deep in Elspeth Spindle, the only woman Ravyn had ever loved.
“Aemmory Percyval Taxus.” He dragged his gauntlets across the sand. “That’s my name.”
“Listen closely. The journey to the twelfth Card will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake. The second begins at the neck of a wood, where you cannot
turn back, though truly, you should.” The Nightmare’s gaze shifted to Ravyn. His words came out sharp, as if to draw blood. “The last barter waits in a place with no time. A place of great sorrow and bloodshed and crime. No sword there can save you, no mask hide your face. You’ll return with the Twin Alders… “But you’ll never leave that place.”
Elm was cunning, and slow to trust. With only a few glances, he could map body language—hear the shift of breath just before a lie—sense a person’s energy without having to speak to them.
Ten minutes, he said to himself for the hundredth time in four days. It all might have been different had I gotten to Spindle House ten minutes sooner.
“The dark bird has three heads,” Emory said, his voice strangled, an invisible rope around his neck. “Highwayman, Destrier, and another. One of age, of birthright. Tell me, Ravyn Yew, after your long walk in my wood—do you finally know your name?”
Above rowan and yew, the elm tree stands tall. It waits along borders, a sentry at call. Quiet and guarded and windblown and marred, its bark whispers stories of a boy-Prince once scarred. His voice in Ravyn’s mind went eerily soft. And so, Ravyn Yew, your Elm I won’t touch. His life strays beyond my ravenous clutch. For a kicked pup grows teeth, and teeth sink to bone. I will need him, one day, when I harvest the throne.
“Neither Rowan nor Yew, but somewhere between. A pale tree in winter, neither red, gold, nor green. Black hides the bloodstain, forever his mark. Alone in the castle, Prince of the dark.”
You cannot imagine the rage that comes with having no control over your own thoughts—your own body. You, traitorous thing, who have never truly ceded authority. Liar, thief—immune to the Chalice and Scythe—you know nothing of losing control.”
Elm studied those hazel eyes. “The way you look at me from time to time—it’s as if you’re searching me. What exactly are you looking for?” “Maybe I find you handsome.”
“Between my legs. A thrumming, unquiet ache. A cruel trick of the Maiden, I think. My body is the same as it ever was. I can feel all the physical sensations of attraction. But my heart remains… locked.”
“All that talk of pleasure and warmth and that terrible, unquiet ache between your legs,” he murmured. “You painted such a pretty picture for me. And wouldn’t it be fun, denying me a kiss, had I lost our bet? To take my Scythe and render me helpless?” His top lip brushed hers. “Tell me, Hawthorn—does it make you feel something, toying with me like this?”
“Then do it,” he whispered, gliding a hand up her spine. “Use me. Toy with me. Feel something, Ione.”
“The freedom you seek has always been here, behind the mask. Be who you like. Love the infected woman. Steal, betray. Flout the King’s law. Stay.”
In the wood, the spindle is slight. A delicate tree against hail, wind, and might. But how the tree carries, and how the roots dig. She weathers all storms, no matter their bite.
He was alive. Beautiful and alive. And I could not touch him.
“Even so, be wary, Taxus. Be wary, clever, and good.”
“You are, without a doubt, the greatest disappointment in five hundred years, Ravyn Yew. Every time I glance your way, I find myself wishing I’d spent another century in the dark—that I’d spared myself the agony of your stony, witless incompetency.”
“I’d like to know the real you. Whenever you’re ready.”
Never breaking their gaze, Ione held a finger up to her Maiden Card. With three taps, she released herself from its magic.
Ione’s sobs carried through the door. Elm closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wood, his shoulders shaking as tears fell down his face.
“I’m a rotten thing, Ione. I’m learning as I go.”
words like warm and divine and I can’t fucking breathe when you look at me, Ione.
Fingers wove into his mess of auburn hair. Her voice was hushed, coated in awe. “You’re beautiful.” “No. That word is only for you.” Elm leaned back and pulled her onto his lap like he had on the throne.
how delicious it felt when she freed him of his pants. Her eyes went wide. She dropped her hand—measured him anew. “Elm.”
She braced herself on his chest, and when they started, it was agonizingly slow. Elm watched her face, looking for pain, ready to stop the moment he saw any. But Ione eased onto him, hips tilting this way and that, finding her comfort, which became Elm’s comfort, too. Inch by inch, she descended. And every memory of pleasure Elm had ever carried fractured in his mind, replaced by this. By her.
The slowness didn’t last. There was too much need—too much newness—between them. Elm stroked his thumb over her sex, his fingers digging into her bottom and hips as he moved with her, caught between savoring the moment and the insatiable need for more.
Ione’s tears stopped. She was looking at him the same way she had when she’d called him beautiful. She pushed into him, arms wrapping around his neck. “Then let me enjoy it with you,” she murmured into his mouth.
“Blood is the price to unite the Deck. To lift the mist and heal the infection. Your price. And I will gladly pay it. Gladly die. I’ve been dying piece by piece since Emory grew sick.” His throat constricted. “I have
died tenfold since Elspeth disappeared. And now your mist has claimed my sister. So do not speak to me of cost, Spirit.” His eyes fell to the Twin Alders in her claw. “I am leaving here with that Card. Or I am not leaving at all.”
“Human life is short. You are not as a tree, stoic and unyielding, but a butterfly. Delicate, fleeting. Inconsequential.”
Find your own virtue, keep your own rules.”
Kings and monsters can be made, and butterflies can be crushed. All that you know, I have created. I am Blunder—her infection, her trees, her mist. I am brimming with magic.”
“For even dead, I will not die. I am the shepherd of shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.”
“Be wary, Father,” he whispered. “Be clever. Be good.”
“I wish we could have had those hundred years, Hawthorn. I wish you could have been Queen.”
But poetry is as judicious as violence.
Death to the Rowans.”
“Long live the King.”
Because if you do, and we never get the time we’re owed, I’ll hate you, Ravyn Yew. I’ll love you and hate you forever.
The Nightmare hissed and wrenched away. “Get away from me, you traitorous scab.” At least untie him.
For he was the Nightmare, and the Nightmare was the King, and I was both of them.
But remember, though the mist is gone, the Spirit of the Wood remains, watching, measuring. To my kingdom, my Blunder, my land—be wary. Be clever. Be good.
And though it had taken slow, painful time, I knew who I was without him. I was more than the girl, the King, and the monster of Blunder’s dark, twisted tale. I was its author.
