Blood drained from Ravyn’s face. “Elspeth. You—you can’t find Elspeth?”
The Nightmare said nothing. But for a sliver of a moment, his ire shifted to an expression Ravyn had not yet seen on the monster’s face.
Despair.
Panic reached its fingers into Ravyn’s chest. Don’t play with me, Shepherd King. Let her out of the dark. Let me talk to her. NOW.
Jespyr shoved them apart. “If you two idiots can’t focus, I’ll be happy to lead this party. There are wolves at our backs.”
The Nightmares eyes drifted over her shoulder. When they landed on the wolf with silver eyes, the ire in his face vanished behind a smile. “Good,” he said. “We’re close.”
The journey to the Twin Alders will three barters take. The first comes at water—a dark, mirrored lake.
The lake did indeed look like a silver mirror. It reflected the sky, the trees—their faces—upon its smooth, indifferent surface. Gorse touched the water and pulled back with a shiver. Jespyr secured her bow over her shoulder. The Ivy brothers passed bread between themselves.
Ravyn watched the wolves, now seven in number, line up fifty yards behind them. “They stalked us here. Why?”
The Nightmare crouched next to him, dipping the tip of his sword into the lake. “Why risk their lives when the water would happily kill us for them?”
Ravyn’s gaze whipped back to the lake. It didn’t look deadly. “Poison?”
The Nightmare’s laugh hummed in his throat. “Magic.”
The lake stretched on for miles. It would take them hours to go around. “We must swim to the other side?” Ravyn asked.
A nod.
“What kind of magic?”
“The kind the Spirit likes so well. A barter.” The Nightmare’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “A drop of blood. Then the water will make of us what it will. If we survive the crossing, she will grant us safe passage to the next barter.”
Ravyn kept his gaze on the water. Like Castle Yew—like the wood—the lake seemed to go eerily still in the Nightmare’s presence. As if it had been waiting for him.
They drew blood. Ravyn dragged the edge of his dagger across his thumb, then squeezed the calloused tip over the lake’s surface. He watched one—two—three droplets fall, staining the water’s surface a fleeting crimson.
Jespyr and Gorse and the Ivy brothers did the same, cutting thin lines along the insides of their hands and bleeding into the water. When the Nightmare held the edge of his sword to his open palm, Ravyn stopped him.
“Keep your cut shallow,” he said. “Don’t give her a scar.”
There it was again—that pained expression that crossed the monster’s face. The one that looked like despair. More than wolves or the lake, that look terrified Ravyn. He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only the Nightmare could hear. “Tell me what’s happening.” A lump rose in his throat. “You can’t reach Elspeth?”
The Nightmare looked out over the water. So quick Ravyn hardly saw it happen, he dragged his thumb across the edge of his sword and shoved it into the water. “Swim fast, Ravyn Yew.”
He dove headfirst into the lake, shattering the smooth visage of the mirror.
Ravyn and Jespyr exchanged a tight glance. Gorse looked back at the wolves, who’d snuck twenty yards closer. He swore under his breath and dove into the lake, leaving short, choppy waves. Wik followed. Petyr kissed his lucky coin and joined them.
Ravyn looked at his reflection in the water. And maybe he was scared—maybe he was imagining things. Because the man who looked back up at him was not him. Not fully. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes—his head was covered by a hood, a cloth mask obscuring his face. He wasn’t the Captain of the Destriers, but the other Ravyn. The one who stalked the forest road.
The highwayman.
“Are you with me, Jes?”
His sister’s voice was close, just as it always was. “I’m right behind you.”
Ravyn bent his knees. To the sound of howling wolves, he dove off the embankment.
In stories, sirens were beautiful women whose songs pulled men into the deep. They were not dressed in black cloaks with masks fastened to their faces. They were not highwaymen.
But the creature that reached from the depths of the lake and took Ravyn by the ankle was.
His fingers were icy, piercing through Ravyn’s boot and into his skin. He spoke with Ravyn’s voice—wore Ravyn’s face, his gray eyes bright. “Swim no farther,” he said. “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.”
It was a test, honed by his blood—a trick of the Spirit of the Wood. To fortify him—
Or to drown him.
Ravyn flailed in the water. Lungs burning, he aimed a kick at the highwayman’s face and wrenched away.
The weight of his clothes, his blades, was enormous. But he was strong. He’d never had a choice but to be strong. Ravyn breached the lake’s surface and took a deep, gasping breath, searching frantically for the others. He saw Wik ten strokes ahead, then Petyr, struggling to keep up. “There are fucking demons in the water,” he screamed.
“Get off me!” Gorse shouted somewhere nearby, his voice clogged with water.
Jespyr came into view. She was swimming fast, sucking in frantic gulps of air. Ahead of all of them was the Nightmare. He’d almost reached the embankment at the other side of the lake. Whatever monster chased him beneath the water, the bastard was outswimming it.
Ravyn’s voice boomed over the lake. “Black Horse, Jes!” Icy water slipped into his mouth. “Swim.”
She didn’t need telling twice. Jespyr disappeared a second under the water. When she reemerged, her pace quickened tenfold. Ahead, Gorse did the same. He tapped his Black Horse Card and then the two of them were identical streams—currents pushing through the silver water—kicking with unearthly speed toward the shore.
Ravyn and the Ivy brothers were still in the center of the lake. And the monsters beneath the surface were catching up.
Legs pounding, Ravyn broke his pace to pull a knife from his belt. This time, when a hand found his ankle, he was ready.
The highwayman beneath the water yanked him back. “Stay, Ravyn Yew,” he said once more. “The man beneath the mask—that is who you are meant to be.”
Ravyn took in a gulping breath and let himself be pulled beneath the water until he was eye to eye with the highwayman, then plunged his knife into the monster’s shoulder. A shattering scream shook the water. The monster flailed and disappeared into the deep.
Ravyn returned to the surface just in time to see Petyr get dragged under.
He dove, following the stream of bubbles that fled Petyr’s open mouth. The lake monster beneath them had Petyr’s body and face, but it was cloaked as a Destrier, and its fingers were long—tipped by claws that latched into Petyr’s leg. Even when Ravyn levied the monster with a kick, those claws held on.
Ravyn wrapped an arm around Petyr’s middle and pulled with all his strength against the monster’s might. When they breached the surface, water blinded him—choked him. All he could think to do was drag in the occasional breath—just enough to keep himself conscious as he pulled Petyr toward the shore. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe—