“And that frightens you, Brutus? Unfettered magic?”
He said nothing.
“My orders go unchanged. Stay your hand. Neither you, nor your ponies, are to arrest or harm anyone who catches the fever in the mist.”
“Destriers, not ponies,” Brutus said, his voice hard as iron. “You named them so yourself.”
I flipped through my notebook, landing on a page somewhere in the middle. “The King’s Guard wears no seal. The Black Horse is their emblem, their duty, their creed. With it, they uphold Blunder’s laws. They are the shadows in the room—the eyes on your back—the footsteps upon your streets. The King’s Guard wears no seal.” I snapped the notebook shut. “Not a single mention of a Destrier.” My eyes lifted to Brutus. “I believe it was you, Captain, not I, who saddled them with that ridiculous name.”
A muscle along Brutus’s jaw flexed. “I’m in no mood to laugh, Taxus.”
“Just as well. I’ve forgotten the sound.”
“There was nothing to laugh at when the mist arrived. Nothing to laugh at when you bartered away every part of yourself for the Cards.”
I glanced at the red light coming from his tunic pocket. “You have benefitted from my barters, have you not? You have made a ruthless name for yourself at the edge of my Scythe.”
He paled.
“Yes, Brutus. I know what you have been doing behind my back. I may not be able to trespass into your mind with a Nightmare Card any longer, but I hear plenty. Apparently, you have a fondness for using the red Card on criminals. Finding new ways to punish them. You’ve even sent them into the very mist you claim so loudly to abhor.”
“Perhaps if you spent as much time ruling as you do scribbling about magic in that damn book,” he bit back, “there would be no criminals for me to punish. Besides—you gave me a free hand to protect the kingdom.”
When my voice slipped out of my lips, it was smoother than before. “And when you become red-stained, too familiar with pain—too reliant on the Scythe to put it down? I wonder then, Brutus, who will protect Blunder from you?” My hand dropped to the hilt of my sword upon my belt. “I care not that you are my sister’s husband. Kill another soul with my Scythe, and I will not merely take it back. I will pry it from your lifeless hands. Now get out.”
Red limned his green eyes. With a curt bow, he quit the library.
When the door slammed, I heaved a sigh. “There’s no use hiding, Bennett. I can see your Cards.”
A boy stepped out of thin air, twirling a Mirror Card between his fingers. He was young, no older than thirteen. His skin was a warm brown, his hair dark and unkempt. When he tilted his head to the side, birdlike in his movements, light caught his gray eyes and the high planes of his face.
“I know a part of you agrees with Brutus, Father. The mist is dangerous.” Bennett dragged a thumb over the Mirror Card’s edge. “Why not make peace with him?”
I set to scribbling once more. “And give your aunt Ayris the satisfaction of bridging the gap between us? I think not.”
“Everyone is frightened of catching fever. Of degenerating.”
“Not all who catch it degenerate. I never have.” I raised my gaze. “You certainly haven’t.”
Bennett smiled. “Haven’t I? I can’t use a Black Horse Card anymore.” He pulled a second Providence Card from his pocket, the Nightmare, violet and burgundy blurring between his fingers. “Someday, I won’t be able to use these either.”
“And yet you have incredible magic.” I opened my notebook—set to scribbling once more. “You could undo my life’s work, if you were feeling particularly spiteful.”
“Which I commonly am.” He paused. “The children miss you, especially Tilly. Come to dinner. Just this once.”
I waved an impatient hand, dismissing him.
Bennett stepped to the desk. Peered into my face. Sighed. “You’re with us, but you’re never really here, are you, Father?”
The memory fell away.
In the next, I was hurrying out of the castle, tucking a few small provisions—bread and cheese—into a satchel.
I stepped into the meadow, passed the stone chamber—aimed toward the woods.
“Going somewhere, brother?”
My hand flew to the hilt of my sword, my mouth drawing into a fine line. “Ayris.”
“You’re easier to follow without your Mirror Card,” she said, smiling at me. “Where are you going?”
I might have lied, once. But it took too much effort, fooling my sister. I needed to preserve my strength for whatever barter lay ahead of me. “To speak to the Spirit of the Wood. To learn about the mist—to ask her to withdraw it.”
Ayris’s smile slipped. “Alone?”
“It is better that way.”
She rolled her eyes, then her shoulders, and stepped closer. “I know you’re tired. Forlorn. I see it your face. Let me walk with you into the wood.”
“Brutus will be angry.”
She ignored mention of her husband and looked up at me, her yellow eyes weary. “What was it Father used to call us? When we disappeared into the trees as children?”
“Twisted,” I said, the corners of my mouth lifting. “Intrepid.”
“It has not been like that for many years. There are twelve versions of you, brother, each more distant than the last.”
I heard the sadness in her voice, but it hardly touched me. With my soul lost to the Nightmare Card, I felt as I once did when, by folly, I used a Maiden too long. Cold, unaware of the beating heart in my chest. Shut off.
And yet Ayris was still the sun to me. Even in the wood, cold and gray with mist, her presence was a light, a warmth. I wanted her near me, for there are some things not even magic can erase. “Very well,” I told her. “So long as you mind the mist.”
She smiled.
The memory faded.
When it returned, Ayris and I stood side by side. We stared up at a wall of alder trees.
Voices echoed all around me.
The wood that awaits you is a place of no time. A place of new barters, a hill you must climb. Betwixt ancient trees, where the mist cuts bone-deep, the Spirit safeguards, like a dragon its keep. The wood knows no road, no path through the snare. Step into the mist—it will guide your way there.
Ayris and I stepped into the alderwood, and the mist honed in on my sister. It shot into her nose, her mouth. She gasped—breathed it in—
And the warmth of the sun snuffed out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Elm
The urge to vomit was oppressive.
Elm clamped his jaw shut so tightly he worried for his teeth. He dropped his hand into his pocket and ran a finger along his Scythe, begging the violent churnings in his stomach to settle. He pictured riding horseback through a meadow, free and at ease. Calm, he told himself. Calm. Steady. Easy.
Filick led them to the door with a rearing stallion carved into its frame. No one spoke a word. Filick entered the room, but Elm stalled at the threshold. He hadn’t been inside Hauth’s room since he was a boy.
Ione shifted behind him. Her voice was frostbite cold. “I don’t want to see him.”
Elm shut his eyes a moment. “You needn’t go in.”