More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
leaving me alone, bereft, with the dying roses.
“That’s twice you’ve handed me my ass and run off.”
“We were all in the garden,” Nya said, following her twin into my room, her corset casting an airy quality to her voice. “You’re the only one who came out with dirt on your dress and brambles in your hair.”
He watched me, something I could not read flashing in his gray eyes. “No, Miss Spindle,” he said. “I’m not nice at all.”
King Rowan had all the appearance of a great warrior stationed before his army, not a King at court.
“It has not been an easy harvest. The Spirit of the Wood’s stranglehold on Blunder continues. Still, let us celebrate the triumphs we’ve achieved in family, in health, and, most importantly, in the trade and use of Providence Cards.”
But it felt incomplete, my collection yet whole. And so, for the Nightmare… I bartered my soul.
“Good. Now pick your jaw up off the floor and follow me.”
Best stick to the old ways. Which are? Pressing a bloody ear to the door, I should think.
The Captain of the Destriers had arrived.
his jaw scraped against my ear. “I’d call an admission of treason exceptionally forthright for one day, Miss Spindle,” he whispered.
Weariness was king, and I his servant.
There was always something other about the animals the Spirit pretended to be. Their bones were too long—their teeth too jagged. Their eyes too knowing.
She is magic—balance. Eternal.” The Nightmare whispered behind my eyes, his claws sharp. But the Spirit was neglected, no matter her plea. The Rowans erased her, as they once did to me. But she keeps her own time, and I keep a long score. The tide that comes next will blot out the shore.
“There are so few of us, Miss Spindle. You are more special than you know. And it pains me to think I might have hurt you. I’m—sorry.”
I extended my hand. “You’re forgiven. On one condition.” The invisible string tugged the corner of his mouth. “What’s that?” When our hands touched, heat moved into my cheeks. “Call me Elspeth,” I said. “We’re about to commit treason together, after all.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.” I gave a mock sweeping bow. “I risk my neck for a chance at your gratitude, Captain.”
traced the Captain of the Destriers’ face with my eyes, lost in his past—starved for his story.
“Hauth brutalized him. So one day I just… brought him home. My parents became his parents, my siblings his siblings. He’s wary, untrusting, but he’d die before he’d betray us.”
Tell them. Tell them the truth. When your children ask, do not lie—do not hide the risk of magic. Children are strongest when their eyes are clear. Only then can they make their own choices. Only then are they truly free. Tell them. Tell them the truth.
The sound of his brother’s laugh snapped something in Elm. His green eyes narrowed, prey to predator.
“Too far, brother. Even for you, this is too far.” The Physicians cowered, offering Elm a wide berth. I pushed through the tightly knit crowd, the Nightmare spurring my steps. I kept my eyes on the boy, who still stood at the tip of Orithe’s brutal claw. Red versus red, the Princes faced off in front of their kingdom.
Messy, warm—a gentle chaos. The kind of chaos that lived in stark contrast to the stony, controlled Captain of the Destriers.
When the Shepherd returns, a new day shall ring. Death to the Rowans… “Long live the King.”
The girl, the King… and the monster they became.