Jespyr tensed at Ravyn’s side. “You want me to…put my hands on his wound?”
The shadows around Ravyn were deepening, despite the fire. He was cold again, shivering. More tired that he had ever felt.
“I can hear his heart stumbling,” Emory whispered, voice breaking. “He’s going.”
Ravyn made a low groan and flinched, sending a new wave of agony up his body. “I’m all right.”
“Trees, you stupid pretender.” The Nightmare gripped Jespyr’s wrists—brought her hands near the dagger in Ravyn’s side. His father and Thistle gripped Ravyn’s legs, and his mother and Petyr moved to his shoulders. “Ready,” Morette said.
“Ready,” Fenir and Thistle echoed.
The Nightmare’s gaze collided with Ravyn’s. “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.”
He ripped the dagger out of Ravyn’s side, and Jespyr pressed her hands into his wound. A pain such as Ravyn had never known swept into him.
The world went black.
When Ravyn woke, he was no longer in the great hall but in his bedroom, sweating beneath several layers of quilted blankets. He tried to sit up, but a firm hand on his chest kept him down.
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?”
Ravyn started to laugh, but pain shot up his body, cutting it short. He put a hand to his side. He was shirtless, his entire abdomen wrapped in thickly padded linen.
He sat up too fast. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days.”
“Is the Deck—has the mist—”
Elm’s smile widened. He moved to Ravyn’s bedroom window. Drew back the curtains. “See for yourself.”
Blue sky met the smudged glass. Ravyn’s breath caught, sunlight pouring into his room. He’d never see the world in that color before. Yellow. Full of warmth. Of promise.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Ravyn felt dizzy—hollowed out. “Elm.”
His cousin raised his gaze.
“I’m sorry.”
Elm’s smile dropped. “What for?”
“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.”
Elm had barely opened his mouth to answer before the door burst open. Jespyr squealed, then hurtled toward Ravyn’s bedside. “Oh, thank the bloody trees, I’d thought I’d killed you.” She put her hand on his forehead—grabbed at his bandages. “Filick’s been to check on you. He said it was a miracle you didn’t bleed to death—”
“You’re elbowing his windpipe, nitwit,” Elm said, dragging her off. “Imagine how humiliated you’d be to kill him after bragging to everyone under the sun about saving his life.”
“That’s rich, seeing as you’ve been twirling that new Providence Card in everyone’s face for two days straight.”
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.”
“I am. Three taps of that new Card, and look”—Emory reached out, pressed his bare palm against Ravyn’s cheek—“I can touch people. No visions. No magic. Blissful nothingness. 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—”
Elm stopped short. Ione Hawthorn was passing the doorway, yellow hair tied over her shoulder in a white ribbon. She caught the doorframe—lingered at the threshold. “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 shot Elm a lingering glace 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.”
Emory and Jespyr snickered behind their hands, cackling as Elm shoved them out of the room. He closed the door. “As much as I enjoy your brooding, guilty conscience, Ravyn, it’s wasted on me. I was meant to stay at Stone. With Ione.” He stood straighter, pulled something out of his pocket. “This is the proof.”
Ravyn stared down at it—a Providence Card he’d never seen before. It was not one color, but twelve, iridescent as stained glass. Depicted upon it was a man—with brilliant yellow eyes and a gold crown of twisting yew branches resting upon his head. Above him were two words.
The Shepherd.
Ravyn’s eyes stung. “Where is he?”
“Retrieving something at Stone. He’ll be back soon.” Elm closed his fingers around the Shepherd Card. “He asked that you not use this to heal your infection until after you’ve spoken with him.”
Ravyn nodded. His eyelids began to droop. It hurt to stay awake. “You’re going to be a great King, Elm. We all think so. Even Taxus.”
“Who?”
Ravyn shut his eyes.
When he opened them again, it was night.
Moonlight streamed through his bedroom window. The pain where Jespyr had healed him was gone, but he was stiff all over. Ravyn sat up slowly, ran a hand over his face and coughed, his mouth dry.
“Here,” said a voice in the corner of his room.
Ravyn’s hand flew to his belt—which he was not wearing. “Trees. You might have said something sooner.”
The Nightmare handed him a cup of water. Ravyn drained it in three gulps. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to wake. There is something I must show you.”
“What is it?”
The Nightmare paused, the only noise between them the clenching and unclenching of his jaw. Then, slowly, his hand slid out from behind his back. In it, limned with burgundy velvet, was a Nightmare Card.
Ravyn sat up.
The Nightmare bent his neck, observing the Card in his hand. “The twelve Cards that united the Deck disappeared. The rest, scattered through Blunder, remain. This is the only Nightmare Card left. It was hidden away at Stone, just as it had been in Tyrn Hawthorn’s library.” He ran a curled finger over the velvet—heaved a sigh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve touched a Providence Card.”