The old panic Elm had shoved behind walls was back. It clawed out of his chest, up his throat, into his mouth, begging him to scream. He was a boy again, tethered by his brother’s Scythe.
Waiting for pain.
Hauth held out his hand, and Linden dropped Elm’s Scythe into it. “When you returned the Nightmare Card last night, Linden used it. He found me. And pieced together what Father couldn’t.”
“‘Maiden,’” Linden said, glowering at Elm, then Ione. “That’s what I heard him say into my mind. Over and over. ‘Maiden Card.’ Then, ‘Ione.’”
Linden stood in front of Elm. Looked him up and down with an unmasked leer. “Hauth told me some time ago where he’d made Miss Hawthorn place her Card. But when I went to the throne room, it was not under the hearthstone. I thought maybe she’d recovered it. I went to her room to search. Her door was locked.” He reached for his belt. “But yours, Prince Renelm, was not.”
There was a clang of iron. Linden pulled a ring of keys—Elm’s ring of keys—free and dangled it in front of him. “You should really take your duties more seriously, Prince. It took me less than five minutes to unlock her door and find her Maiden. I tapped it three times, and then—” He ran a hand over his face, where the skin had once been cleaved. “My scars vanished. I was healed.”
Elm had to do something. Or else he and Ione might never escape this room. But he couldn’t. Fucking. Move.
A smirk graced the corners of Hauth’s mouth. “Not so tough without Ravyn, are you, brother?” He stepped forward, took Elm by the throat. “Where are they—Ravyn and Jespyr? Tell me.”
Another wave of salt hit Elm’s senses. His jaw ached. When he opened it, venom pooled, his brother’s Scythe dragging the truth out of his mouth. “Gone for the Twin Alders.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Hauth ripped the ring of keys out of Linden’s hand and hit Elm across the face with it. “When will they be back?”
“I don’t know.”
Another blow.
Ione made a noise in her throat.
“What’s the matter, Renelm?” Another blow. “Nothing clever to say?”
Elm’s mouth filled with blood. He spat, painting Hauth’s boots red. “You may be healed, but your time is marked, brother. I know who it is you woke when you bashed Elspeth Spindle’s head into the wall.” He looked deep in Hauth’s Rowan-green eyes. “And not even a Maiden Card can save you when he returns.”
Fear flickered over that perfect brutish face. Hauth’s fingers tightened around the ring of keys. Elm sucked in a breath, waiting for another blow.
It didn’t come.
Hauth reached into his pocket. “Linden,” he said, keeping his gaze locked with Elm’s. “Give Ione her Maiden Card back.”
Linden’s brow knit. But he did as he was told. When he touched the Maiden, releasing Hauth from its magic, the cruel, familiar lines of Elm’s brother’s face returned.
Linden slipping the pink Card into Ione’s hand.
“Tap it,” Hauth bade her.
The Scythe wouldn’t let him turn—Elm could only see Ione in his periphery. He heard the soft sound of her finger against the Maiden Card. Tap, tap, tap.
“Better.” Hauth stepped away from Elm, moving with menacing slowness until he stood opposite of Ione.
He pulled a dagger from his belt.
Elm’s insides seized. “What are you doing?”
“Conducting an experiment.”
He didn’t even afford Ione the ability to speak. Hauth merely dipped his head toward her, a mocking bow, and said, “Let’s try this once more, betrothed.” He raised his dagger.
And plunged it to the hilt into Ione’s chest.
Air washed out of her, a long, ragged breath. Ione’s hand went slack in Elm’s, then she was falling out of his line of sight, out of his grasp.
The world darkened at the edges. The scream welling in Elm ripped free. Linden hit him across the face, but he didn’t stop shouting. Lights burst behind his eyes, every last muscle spent fighting the red Card’s grasp.
In the end, it was Hauth’s brutal hand that turned Elm’s head. “Let us see how well the pink Card fares against a fatal blow.”
There was so much blood. Red like the rowan berry, like the Scythe. Red in Ione’s dress and skin and hair, red all over his bedroom floor.
She’d survived the fall from Spindle House. The Maiden had kept her alive then. She could survive this. Had to survive this.
But the blood—it was heart’s blood. Dark. Complete. The kind Elm saw on the hunt, when he made sure the stag had a quick, clean death.
The light in those hazel eyes was fading. Ione’s mouth parted, tears slipping over her cheeks, fear etched over her face. And Elm understood. This was what it was like when Hauth sent her falling the last time. When she was certain she would die. Only this time, Ione wasn’t looking up at the indifferent moon, waiting for the great stillness to claim her.
She was looking up at him.
Her hands were the color of snow, bloodless. They lifted to the dagger in her chest, ghosting over the hilt. Her lips, a sickly gray, moved, but no words came out.
“Let her speak,” Elm shouted—pleaded.
Hauth’s laugh cut through the room. “I don’t think I will.”
Ione’s gaze stayed on Elm, holding him in those hazel wells. She pulled the dagger out of her chest and dropped it on the floor. Closed her eyes.
And stopped moving.
Twenty seconds.
Forty.
One minute.
Hauth made an indifferent noise in his throat and looked down at the Maiden in Ione’s hand. “Seems there are limits to the pink Card after all.”
Two minutes, and Ione still did not stir. Elm was shouting so loud his brother flinched. Hauth shoved him to the floor—kicked him—then flinched again.
A bead of blood slid from Hauth’s nostril. He pulled his Scythe from his pocket and tapped it. “Stay down,” he told Elm. “Or you’ll regret it.”
When salt finally fled Elm’s senses, he didn’t hear what Hauth and Linden were saying to one another. He didn’t care. He was dragging himself through blood, all of his might spent keeping the last thread of hope he carried within himself from snapping.
He cradled Ione’s head in his hands. She was so pale, not a trace of pink anywhere. “Hawthorn?”
Nothing.
He pressed his forehead over hers. “Please, Ione.”
When she remained unmoving, Elm shut his eyes—slammed his teeth together. But no effort could restrain the tears burning down his cheeks.
Then, like a rush of wings—
“Elm.”
His head shot up.
Ione was moving. Just a finger. Then a hand, which came to rest over the wound on her chest. Then that chest rose with a deep, desperate breath. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, and Elm looked into her eyes.
Hazel—heat and life.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. When a sob finally cleaved itself from him, he wondered bitterly if it had been she who’d nearly died, or him.
Like poisonous clouds, Hauth and Linden loomed from above.