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September 15 - September 17, 2025
“I’d always hoped I’d be the one to kill you.” He tapped Ravyn’s Mirror Card three times. And disappeared.
Would it kill you to be civil? I’m already dead. But yes. Decidedly.
Oh, give her a hug. Don’t be grotesque.
this killed me
“I can’t look at another dead Destrier.” “Huh,” Elm said. “I don’t feel that way at all.”
“Hey, Hawthorn.” The Nightmare took his sword back and snapped a finger in Elm’s face. “Focus, Princeling. Time is running out.
“You know how this goes, asshole. Be wary. Be clever. Be good.” I shut my eyes. When I opened them, a fatal blow had been dealt through Linden’s heart. Blood wept from it onto the forest floor. The Destrier shut his eyes, gasping only a moment before the great, final sleep called him through the veil.
He handed the Nightmare back his sword and had the good sense to look contrite. “I was keeping a promise.”
THEHHEHEHEEH
She held her Maiden Card in her hand and tapped her foot, hazel eyes narrowing over Elm. “That was excessive.” He let out a broken laugh, then surged forward. Catching Ione’s face between his palms, Elm leaned over, crashed his mouth against hers, kissed her feverishly. “I’m sorry. I should have gone with you. I’m not clever at all. I’m sorry—I’m sorry.”
The Nightmare and I stared. We seem to have missed something rather important, I said. Small mercies.
giggling
Ravyn blinked and looked up with unfocused eyes. He said my name, a whisper, just between us. “Elspeth.”
“I was ten minutes late to Spindle House.” An invisible thread pulled the corner of Ravyn’s lips before pain stole it away. “I’ll be ten minutes late through the veil.”
We raised ourselves to full height, Shepherd King—Nightmare—I. When we stepped forward, the forest stood still for us.
“Spindle. Or do you go by a different title now?” The thin line of his mouth twitched. “How’s Ravyn?”
“Fool. I’m not going to kill your brother.” He opened his arms, a beckoning—and a promise. “I’m going to crown him.”
Elm and Ione climbed into the chamber, the final Cards of the Deck—Scythe, Maiden, and Twin Alders—cradled in Ione’s hand. Neither of them wielded the Maiden. But to me, they seemed so beautiful they were terrifying. Elm glanced between Hauth and the Nightmare, his green eyes narrowing.
“I’ve got to get back.” He glanced one last time at the glowing lights of the Providence Cards he had lived—bled—died for. “They’re waiting for me.”
Elm looked up into the night sky. Held Ione Hawthorn close. He knew, in all the rotten, broken pieces of himself, that everything in his life had led to that moment, as if written in the lines of the trees. A crooked, wonderful circle, with his name in the heart of it.
All he could think was that he was bleeding on the table where his parents ate breakfast.
“I’m aware, Elspeth. Shouting at me won’t help.”
“It’s hardly my fault, Elspeth,” he muttered under his breath, “that I am constantly surrounded by idiots.”
“Elspeth says she’s utterly sick of you.” His voice was weak. “She didn’t say that.” “No. She didn’t.” The words slipped out of the Nightmare’s mouth on a fine thread. “Time to be strong, Ravyn Yew. Your ten minutes are up.”
Ravyn raised his gaze and caught his breath, a lump rising in his throat. “Elm.” His cousin looked down at him, auburn hair a tousled mess, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “Now who’s the one who looks terrible?”
“I should never have left you at Stone.” Ravyn swallowed the lump in his throat. “I knew how much you hated it there, and I left you.”
why would you do this to me
They bickered—an old, familiar song. Ravyn hardly heard it. His eyes were on another figure in the doorway. One who stood straight, with light in his gray eyes and warmth kissing his skin. Ravyn held out a hand. “Come here, Emory.” A crooked smile slid over the boy’s mouth. He lunged for the bed—landing on Ravyn so hard it tossed the wind from his lungs. He groaned, mussing his brother’s dark hair. “You’re better.”
Fit as a fucking fiddle.” Jespyr feigned a gasp. “Emory. You can’t talk that way in front of the King.” Emory jumped from Ravyn’s bed. Curtsied with an invisible skirt and bowed before Elm. “Apologies, Your Holiness.” “It’s Highness, you little—”
TOO FUNNY
“I’m happy you’re doing better, Ravyn.” Her eyes moved over Jespyr and Emory and Elm. “Don’t mind their teasing. They’ve been moping incessantly, waiting for you to wake.”
Elm slouched against the wall next to Ione, curling a finger in her hair. “Moping,” he said, “is a firm exaggeration.” She smacked his hand away and continued down the corridor, but not before she tended Elm a lingering glance that, even half-dead, Ravyn knew the meaning of. He waited for her to go before shooting his cousin a grin. “Well, then.” Elm’s teeth tugged at his bottom lip. “Shut up.”
lol
“You’re going to be a great King, Elm. We all think so. Even Taxus.”
Ravyn wondered if Tilly and the other children were there, just on the other side of the veil, watching for their father. Waiting, as they’d always done.
dont even
Two twisted crowns.
when I woke in her young mind, the first thing I felt, after five hundred years of fury”—his voice softened—“was wonder. Quiet and gentle. I remembered what it was to care for someone.” “She gave me that, too.”
“Please. Have I not paid? Have I not lost pieces of myself, following you into the wood? It was for her.”
A path to draw for you and the Princeling, both of you Kings in your own right.”
hell YES
“And I was not yet ready to bid Elspeth goodbye.”
“She’s clawed through hell with me.” His voice grew colder. “It’s time to let her out.”
“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” “To you, stupid bird?” Ravyn crossed his arms over his chest. “To her, parasite.”
Here we are, my darling girl, he whispered to me. The end of all things. The last page of our story.
RIGHT LETS JUST NOT
Just know that I am sorry, Elspeth. His presence was a hand against my cheek. I was too long in the dark. And I am sorry for that, too. For I dragged you in with me. It was well worth it, I said. To unite the Deck and lift the mist. To watch you right old wrongs. I’d do it all again, just to know you a little better, Taxus.
UNFUNNY
I don’t know what it will be like to finally slip through the veil, he whispered. I hope it is as it was, eleven years ago, when you freed me from the Nightmare Card, Elspeth Spindle. Quiet. Gentle. Full of wonder.
goodbye im emotional over a monster
A final note. An eternal farewell. And the monster they became.
Stone is no longer a fortress, but a refuge. To
elm you glorious man
Let us not hold The Old Book of Alders as our steadfast law. Rather, let us cherish it for what it is—Blunder’s twisted tale. A book of time, written by a man who knew magic like his own name, and bent to its sway.
To my kingdom, my Blunder, my land—be wary. Be clever. Be good.
“They’re there,” he said, tucking the Mirror Card Elm had gifted him from Stone’s vault into his pocket. “All of them. Even Ayris this time. Even Bennett. All of them, with him.”
wait im going to go cry
Ravyn’s hands were clasped in front of him, unshaking. When he glanced my way, the corner of his mouth lifted as it often did. Only this time, he let his smile bloom until it took over his entire face.
“A hundred years,” he said to her, as if she were the only one in the room. “I’ll love you for a hundred years—and an eternity after.”
UGHH ELM ILYYYYY
Ione caught my arm—hugged me tightly. Over her shoulder, Elm put his hand on the Shepherd King’s hilt. Winked at me. “None of this might have happened without you, Elspeth,” Ione whispered. “And isn’t that such a beautiful thing.”
As if we had been destined together. Shepherded together.
he SO brought them all together ugh
“Thinking about the last time we were here?” he said, offering me his hand. “When you pummeled me to the ground?” I pulled him close, stood on my toes, whispered into his lips. “One of my fondest memories.”
