The highwayman shoved the tip of the arrow into the flesh below his jaw. He made a terrible strangled sound and collapsed, his black mask absorbing, then letting his life’s blood onto the forest road.
The salt was strong in the mist, as if the Spirit of the Wood, smelling blood, had come to watch the mayhem on the forest road. Elm checked that his horsehair charm was tight around his wrist and dragged the bodies into shrubbery. Two of the highwaymen were dead. The third—the one he’d beaten with his bare fists—was unconscious.
Elm searched their pockets, removed their masks. He did not recognize them. But he hated them—their arrogance. They’d wasted their lives for Providence Cards.
He stepped back onto the road and released himself from the Black Horse, returning it to the fold of his pocket. “Are you harmed?”
Ione stood next to his horse, her head downturned as she flipped something in her hand.
His Scythe Card.
“Hawthorn,” Elm called above the rainfall. He came closer, careful not to step in blood.
“I’ve never held a Scythe before,” she said, twisting the Card between lithe fingers. “Hauth never let me touch his.”
“It’s not a Card to toy with. The pain is excruciating if you use it too long. Hand it back before you get hurt.”
Ione retreated a step. “Yet you take me to the King, who would surely see me injured, though I knew nothing of Elspeth’s magic.” A twitch lifted the corner of her mouth. “Or had any hand in Hauth’s unfortunate circumstances.”
“Your fate is not of my making.” Elm took a rattling breath and wiped his bloody fingers on his tunic, the dark fabric quick to absorb the stain. “Give me the Scythe.”
Ione held the red Card out. But as soon as Elm reached for it, she pulled it behind her back. “What will you give me for it?”
Elm glowered. He knew nothing of the Maiden’s negative effects firsthand. What he did know he took from The Old Book of Alders, which stated that anyone who used the Pink Card too long would suffer coldheartedness. He imagined callousness, disinterest, even disdain. But as he traced Ione Hawthorn’s face, he saw none of those things in her expression.
He saw nothing at all. Her features were too well guarded. It worried him, not being able to read her—a woman who had sent an arrow into a man’s neck without a second glance.
Elm spat into a broom shrub, phlegm and blood. “It’s my Card. I don’t owe you anything.”
“I saved your life.”
“I would have managed without your help.” He gestured to the puddles of blood on the road. “All you did was make a mess.”
“I could have let him shoot you. I might have fled with the Scythe. But I didn’t.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart.” Elm took another step forward. “If only you had any.”
“I saved your life,” Ione said again, sharper this time. “Everything has a cost.”
Elm was so close to her his body blotted out the rain. He could feel her breath on his face. “Give me the Scythe. Now.”
“Don’t come any closer. In fact, don’t move at all.”
The smell of salt stung Elm’s eyes. Before he could reach out—twist Ione’s arm and rip his Card out of her grasp—he felt his muscles strain. Sweat dampened his palms, then the back of his neck. He tried to reach forward, but he couldn’t move. He was frozen, rooted to the ground.
“Hawthorn,” he warned, his jaw straining. “Stop.”
“Payment first.”
Heat crept up Elm’s neck. His muscles—his joints and bones—did not heed his command, no matter how ardently he told them to move. Such was the Scythe’s power. Ione could make him jump on one leg until his ankle snapped. She could make him throw his charm to the ground and run, unbidden, through the mist. She could even make him take the knife off his belt and plunge it into his own heart.
An old panic buried deep within Elm stirred. It had been a long time since someone had used a Scythe on him. “What do you want?”
Ione’s eyes trailed his body. “Your word,” she said. “Your honor.”
“To what end?”
“You must convince the King to give me free rein of the castle.”
“That might not be possible.”
Ione ran the edge of the Scythe across her bottom lip. “They say you’re the clever Prince. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Elm still could not move. The panic was rising in his chest, wrapping itself around his lungs. If he wasn’t free of the red Card soon, he was going to scream until his throat ripped open. “Trees—fine! Whatever you want. Just give me the goddamn Scythe.”
Ione tapped his Card three times, releasing him. She slid her hand from behind her back and held it out. A single drop of blood fell from her nostril.
Elm ripped the Scythe from her hand. “Never,” he seethed, bending until their faces were even, “do that again.”
The blood beneath Ione’s nose grew thin, diluted by rainwater. “Neither you nor your red Card mean a thing to me, Prince. I only want balance. I saved your life.” Her hazel eyes burned into his. “Now it’s your turn to save mine.”
Chapter Six
Elspeth
I remembered irises in a parlor. A tree with red leaves growing in a courtyard beneath the shadow of a narrow, towering house. A wood. Wild yellow hair. Laughter in a garden. Hands with crepe wrinkles working a mortar and pestle.
A library. A touch of velvet.
White robes. Blood on the flagstone. Claw marks in the dirt. A voice, spun of silk, in the walls of my head. Get up, Elspeth.
I clutched my throat, digging into my own mind for the voice. It was not there. I felt its absence, the darkness of my thoughts hollowed out, like an unfilled grave. Nightmare?
Taxus stood above me. I didn’t know how long he’d been there, watching me. “You are remembering,” he said slowly. “I will leave you now. You will be safe here.”
I cast my gaze to the dark water, the endless, listless shore. “Where is here?”
“A place to rest. To recover.”
“I don’t want to rest,” I whispered. “I want you to let me out.”
His yellow eyes softened. “Soon, my dear.”
He walked away, leaving no footprints. I watched him go until the gold of his armor disappeared into darkness, then stood on shaky legs and tried to follow. “Taxus—wait.”
But he was gone.
In his absence, I tried to piece the shattered mirror of my memories back together. I remembered impressions—colors and smells and sounds. The names were harder to recount, like working an atrophied muscle.
Strained, they came. Opal. Nya. Dimia. Erik. Tyrn.
Aunt. Half sisters. Father. Uncle.
Then, on a day or a night without marker, I remembered a walk through the wood. A nameday. An old rhyme. Yellow girl, soft and clean. Yellow girl, plain—unseen. Yellow girl, overlooked. Yellow girl, won’t be Queen.
Ione. I’d joined my cousin Ione in town. Followed her to my father’s house. Left early…
And met two highwaymen on the forest road.
Chapter Seven
Elm
Stone stood steadfast against the storm. It jutted out of the mist, its towers orange with torchlight. By the time they reached the drawbridge, Elm was soaked through his jerkin.