He closed his fingers around it and turned to the door, lingering at the threshold. “Will you follow me into the wood one last time, Ravyn Yew?”
It wasn’t far. Ravyn could have walked the path blindfolded. When they got to the meadow behind Castle Yew, the Shepherd King’s chamber was bathed in moonlight. Breeze caught yew tree branches—made them sway. 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.
Ravyn needed help into the chamber’s window. He hissed out a breath, and the Nightmare lent him his strength, pulling him up by the arm.
They stood in darkness together, near the stone. Upon it rested the ancient adornments of Aemmory Percyval Taxus and Brutus Rowan. Gilded, bloodstained. Two twisted crowns.
The Nightmare cast his gaze upward to the rotted-out ceiling and the yew tree above it. “Will you tell your family who they really are? Who they are descendants of?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you worry they will see themselves differently.”
“Perhaps.”
The Nightmare’s laugh was a hum. A minor tune. “That is what Elspeth thought. That no one would care for her if they saw her for who—what—she truly was.”
“I do,” Ravyn said without pause. “I care for her.”
“I know,” the Nightmare murmured. He rolled his jaw, as if it cost him something dear, telling Ravyn the truth. “I thought I was the father she deserved. That I could carry her through this terrible, violent world. I hadn’t done it well with my own children, and 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.”
The Nightmare lowered his head, his spine hunching. “Elspeth will not heal if she touches the Shepherd Card.”
Ravyn froze. “She has to.”
“The thirteenth Card will heal anyone who wishes to be healed of the infection—permanently, just as the Maiden heals permanently. It will not be limited to one user at a time, nor will there be any ill effects for using it too long.” His jaw went hard, his words slipping through his lips. “But Elspeth’s magic is…strange. If she touches the Shepherd Card, she will absorb it. Every last barter—every payment I made. All twelve Providence Cards.” He shook his head. “She will not be healed.”
His words ripped into Ravyn. He bent, his breaths growing shallow.
A cold hand slid over his shoulder. Ravyn was too tired to shake it away. “Please. Have I not paid? Have I not lost pieces of myself, following you into the wood? It was for her.” He looked up into those ancient yellow eyes, tears threatening his own. “Tell me the truth. Is there a way Elspeth and I will meet again on this side of the veil?”
The answer was a cold, deafening silence.
Ravyn squeezed his eyes shut and bit down so hard his jaw seized. He felt like he was back at in the meadow, a knife in his side, bleeding out.
Then, soft as a shifting breeze through yew branches, the Nightmare answered. “Only one.”
Ravyn opened his eyes. The Nightmare stood before him like he had in his bedroom. Hand extended, palm open.
And the Nightmare Card therein.
“Destroy it,” he whispered. “With the final Nightmare Card gone, my soul will disappear. Her degeneration will have nothing to cling to. She will return. And I…” His voice faded. “I will finally rest.”
Ravyn reached for the Nightmare Card, hands shaking. “Destroy this, and Elspeth returns?”
“Yes.”
Something hot touched Ravyn’s relief. “You’re telling me I’ve had the means to free her all this time?”
The Nightmare grinned. “Yes.”
“You didn’t—why—” He pinched his nose, swallowing fury. “You make it so hard not to hate you.”
“I had my Deck to collect. History to revisit—and rewrite. A path to draw for you and the Princeling, both of you Kings in your own right.” The Nightmare clung only a moment longer to his namesake Card, then released it into Ravyn’s hand. “And I was not yet ready to bid Elspeth goodbye.”
Ravyn watched the monster closely. He didn’t pretend to understand their connection—Elspeth and the Shepherd King. He knew it was deeply forged. Ancient, terrifying magic. “But you’re ready now?”
The Nightmare nodded. “She’s clawed through hell with me.” His voice grew colder. “It’s time to let her out.”
Ravyn didn’t move.
The Nightmare turned, his mouth a hard line. “Do it now.”
“Don’t you want to say goodbye?”
“To you, stupid bird?”
Ravyn crossed his arms over his chest. “To her, parasite.”
Those yellow eyes flared, wicked, infinite. Ravyn held the Nightmare Card in a viselike grip and quit the chamber, wincing over the windowsill. “Goodbye, Taxus. Be wary. Be clever. Be good.”
He waited ten minutes in the meadow.
Then tore the Nightmare Card in two.
Chapter Fifty
Elspeth
Memories cloistered around me. Lullabies, riddles, rhymes.
I know what I know, my secrets are deep, but long have I kept them, and long will they keep.
What creature is he with mask made of stone? Captain? Highwayman? Or beast yet unknown?
Yellow girl, plain, unseen…
The berry of Rowans is red, always red…
You are young, and not so bold. I am unflinching—five hundred years old.
The Nightmare sat on the stone in the chamber, looking up through the rotted-out ceiling. The same place where Aemmory Percyval Taxus had once lived, bled, died. Here we are, my darling girl, he whispered to me. The end of all things. The last page of our story.
I tried to reach out for him like I used to, but it was me, not him, trapped in the darkness. This time, he reached for me. 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 all again, just to know you a little better, Taxus.
He said nothing to that, reticent to accept, even now, that he was anything more than a monster. 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.
It will be. It will be just like that.
He unclenched his jaw and hauled in a breath.
I’ll tell you a story, I whispered. It always helped me sleep as a child.
He nodded, folding his hands over his lap, and closed his eyes.
There once was a girl, clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King, a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two—
I shook my head.
Elspeth.
No. I’m not ready. Not yet.
Finish the story, dear one.
My voice shook. The two were together—
Together.