: Part 3 – Chapter 32

The room was dark when I woke, dawn still shy on the horizon. I stared at nothing, a dull ache throbbing behind my eyes.

I recognized the ceiling first. There were knots in the wood that, if my eyes remained unfocused, transformed into strange, grotesque faces that stared down at me. Before I’d any true concept of monsters, I used to imagine the shapes in the wood were creatures watching over me, neither benevolent nor evil.

But that was a long time ago.

I sat up in my childhood bed and scanned the room, pain thumping in the back of my skull. The room was exactly how I remembered it—the chest full of dresses, the wooden dollhouse. The pile of blankets, whose colors were now faded, moth-eaten, sat where I’d left them eleven years ago.

Nothing had moved, the room stilled, as if frozen.

The only thing out of place was the tall wooden chair and the man seated upon it, pulled from its home in the corner and placed beside my bed.

Ravyn was bent in sleep, his head bowed—as if praying. His face was smooth, all the strain and austerity washed away by sleep. In his pocket glowed the familiar violet and burgundy lights of his Cards, unblinking.

I watched him for some time, the light in my window growing brighter. I wondered how he’d gotten me up here, to the top of the house. I wondered how they’d cured me from the Chalice’s poison.

Most of all, I wondered—my stomach dropping—if after last night, Ravyn Yew had irrevocably changed his mind about me.

A quiet hand rapped three times on my door. I closed my eyes, feigning sleep.

Ravyn jolted awake, jumping to his feet. “Who is it?”

“Elm.”

I heard the latch release and the door squeak open, Elm’s steps hurried as he came into the room and shut the door behind him. “How is she?”

“Still asleep,” Ravyn muttered. “Filick left a few hours ago.”

“Any more blood?”

“No.”

“I could kill Hauth,” Elm seethed.

“What’s more alarming is why he wanted to use a Chalice in the first place,” Ravyn said. “Your brother suspects it was us in the wood that night. He has no proof, but he suspects.”

“We need to be careful, Ravyn.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Did you sleep?”

Ravyn’s yawn was answer enough.

“Sit back down before you fall over,” Elm said.

The chair creaked under Ravyn’s weight. I kept my eyes closed, uncertain if or when I should speak.

Ravyn’s voice lowered. “I used the Nightmare on her last night.”

My muscles tensed.

Elm was quiet a moment. “You used it to help her—to talk her through the game. Just as you did me.”

“I told her at the start I wouldn’t use it on her. I gave her my word.”

Elm snorted. “Last night was an extenuating circumstance, I’d say.”

“I doubt she’ll see it that way.”

“Why not?”

Ravyn paused. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, doubtful. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “It wasn’t like anyone’s head I’d ever been in before. I felt as if I’d been thrust beneath seawater. It was dark and shifting—a storm. When I spoke to her I could hear her voice, but it was far away.” He paused, the sound of his palms rough against his face. “I don’t know what happened, Elm. I must be losing my mind.”

Are you going to let him suffer like this? the Nightmare whispered.

I shut my eyes tighter. What will he think of me?

Does it matter?

Of course it matters. He matters.

So don’t lie to him.

My breath rattled in my chest. I opened my eyes, turning to Ravyn and Elm.

“Elspeth,” Ravyn said, pulling his chair closer to my bedside. He reached for my hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” I admitted. “What happened?”

“After you spit up a lake of blood,” Elm said, leaning against my bedpost, “Filick was able to get an antidote in you. You’ll be weak for some time.”

I rubbed my head, my eyes finding Ravyn’s. “I asked you not to use your Nightmare Card on me,” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.

Shame darkened the Captain’s handsome face. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.” Then, as if fighting the words, he let out a sharp exhale. “What the hell happened, Elspeth? What was that voice?”

“Voice?” Elm said.

“A voice spoke to me,” Ravyn said. “Like it was within the walls of my head. I heard it clear as day.”

“What did it say to you?”

Ravyn looked at me, his gray eyes sharp. “It told me to get out of her head.”

Tears fell from my eyes, betraying me as they washed down my cheeks. Ravyn reached for my face. “Elspeth,” he said, my name a rose on his tongue. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you. Just tell me.”

I shook my head. “You can’t help me, Ravyn.”

“I can try, can’t I?”

But I hadn’t said the words—not in eleven years. I’d buried the truth so deep and for so long that I did not know how to dig it up.

I pointed to the burgundy light in his pocket. “Better if I show you.”

Ravyn tapped his Nightmare Card three times, his eyes never leaving my face. The intrusion into my mind was just as abrasive as it had been last night—as if I’d been dunked beneath icy salt water. Behind my eyes, the Nightmare waited.

Be kind to him, I whispered.

It was strange, seeing Ravyn in front of me and feeling his presence in my mind at the same time. Ravyn, I said.

Elspeth.

The Nightmare’s voice dripped like oil. Ravyn Yew, he said. At least this time, you come invited.

Ravyn jerked back, his eyes wide.

“What is it?” Elm said, placing a hand on his cousin’s shoulder.

“There’s something there,” Ravyn gasped. “Someone else.”

“Another person?”

“Not a person. I—I don’t know.” He searched my face. “What is it?”

I nodded to the Card in his hand. On its face, just below the burgundy velvet, a creature was drawn. A beast of darkness…

A Nightmare.

Ravyn blinked. “That,” he said, holding the Card out between us. “That thing is in your head?”

Elm’s face went pale, his green eyes glassy, his fingers a vise on Ravyn’s shoulder.

Who are you? Ravyn demanded, shouting into the blackness.

The Nightmare was untouched by his distress. The shepherd of the shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.

Why are you in Elspeth’s head?

My thoughts twisted before my eyes. Suddenly I was back in my uncle’s library, the Nightmare Card splayed out on the cherrywood desk. I stared down at the monster on the Card. Yellow eyes—vicious claws—the slope of coarse fur trailing up his spine as he sat hunched, staring up at me.

I saw my small hands reaching for it, the library suddenly encased in the smell of salt.

Everything went black.

Across from me, Ravyn’s face had turned to stone, terror visible only in his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How did he get in your mind?”

“I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card,” I said. I glanced at Elm. “It’s my ability—my magic. The moment a Providence Card touches my skin, I absorb whatever it was the Shepherd King paid to create it.”

Elm choked on his words. “What do you mean, ‘paid’?”

I gritted my teeth. “When the Shepherd King made the Deck, the Spirit required payment. So he bartered for each Card, paying in objects, animals—”

Elm shook his head. “Not the whole bedtime story, Spindle, the essentials, if you please.”

“Let her talk,” Ravyn growled.

I swallowed, the words sticky in my throat. “When the Shepherd King made the Nightmare Card, he bartered a part of himself.” I closed my eyes.

Ravyn’s voice was paper-thin. “His soul.”

I nodded. “That is what I absorbed when I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card.”

Ravyn and Elm stared at me, their eyes wide, as if they had never truly seen me. “But if he bartered his soul,” Elm whispered, his eyes lowering to Ravyn’s Nightmare Card, “and you absorbed it, then the voice in your head…”

The Nightmare’s laughter filled my mind, making Ravyn flinch.

I looked up, the truth finally torn from me, piece by piece. “He’s the Shepherd King.”

There was not enough room in all of Spindle House to carry the burden of silence weighted over us. Elm looked as if he might scream, a hand on his mouth, his green eyes wide, his brow twisted by shock.

But Ravyn’s reaction frightened me more. Stillness—his entire face frozen, as if made of stone. “What about other Providence Cards?” he said. “Can you really see them by color?”

I looked away. “I can’t. But he can.”

“Are you saying that creature,” Elm said, pointing to the Card in Ravyn’s hand, “is the Shepherd King? That he’s been the one telling us where all the Cards are?”

“He doesn’t speak for me.” I bit my cheek. “Not often.”

“But he does help you,” Elm said. The Prince’s voice grew stronger. “That’s why you can fight—why you’re strong, fast. How else could you have survived your father’s attack that night on the road?” He turned to Ravyn, his shoulders tall with vindication. “It’s how she injured Hauth—how she maimed Linden. He did it for her.”

I didn’t bother denying it. “He doesn’t give me his strength unless I ask for it.”

“Ethical, is he?” Elm snorted. “This just gets better and better. I suppose those are his yellow eyes we’ve all been seeing these last few weeks?”

I clenched my jaw, the ache in my head suddenly nothing to the overwhelming despair pooling in my chest. I wanted to cry—to fall back on the pillows and sleep for a hundred years—the pain of their scrutiny and the fear etched into Ravyn’s face more than I could take.

Ravyn slid his hand up my arm. “Give us a moment, Elm.”

The Prince balked. “This just confirms everything I told you about her. That she’s been lying to us the entire time!”

Ravyn cast his cousin a sidelong glance. “Please. Go.”

Elm’s brow darkened. He turned from us, his shoulders low but his jaw tight. Beneath the shadow of his frown, I saw glass in his narrowed green eyes.

When the door latched, Ravyn turned to me, his brow knit and his mouth a tight line. “Why didn’t you tell me, Elspeth?”

I twisted my neck and looked toward the window. “I know what I know,” I said, tapping my teeth together. “My secrets are deep. But long have I kept them, and long will they keep.”

Ravyn stared at me, his brows drawing together.

You saw, just as they did, the Nightmare purred. You saw the yellow in her eyes the night you attacked her on the forest road. You’ve seen it a dozen times since.

It wasn’t my place to demand answers, Ravyn said. How could I have known this was her secret? He squeezed my arm. “He’s been in your head eleven years?”

“Trapped,” I said. “Just like I am. And he’s getting stronger. That’s my degeneration.” I blinked, my mind weighted, as if underground. “Every time I ask for his help, he grows stronger.”

“Has he ever hurt you?”

The Nightmare hissed. Hurt her? I protect her.

Then why are you growing stronger? Ravyn demanded.

The Nightmare’s claws clacked against the dark floor of my mind as he paced, restless. When Rowan stole my life, my soul remained, sealed in the Nightmare Card. I waited hundreds of years, consumed by fury and salt. His voice clung to me, as if made of wax. Elspeth pulled me from the Card, the darkness. So I protected her from a world that would see her killed. I spoke to her from The Old Book. She was already good, clever. But I taught her to be wary. I gave her my gifts—my strength. But nothing comes for free, Ravyn Yew. Especially not magic.

Ravyn’s voice was hardly a whisper. What happens when you grow too strong for Elspeth’s mind?

But the Nightmare’s only answer was the click of his teeth, everywhere at once.

My thoughts swam in darkness. I could almost feel the coarse fur along the Nightmare’s spine, as if he were under my hand. His voiced sounded like a hundred thrashing birds through my mind. “It was his castle—the one in ruins. The first Rowan King burned it down, murdered him and his family.” I looked up at Ravyn, my eyes damp with salty tears. “He’s buried beneath the stone in the chamber at Castle Yew.”

The door knocked three times again, this time urgent.

“Not now,” Ravyn snapped.

“The King wants us downstairs,” Jespyr’s voice called through the wood. “Now.”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“It’ll look suspicious if you’re not with us, Ravyn.”

Ravyn dragged his hands across his face, the shadows beneath his eyes more pronounced in the morning light. “I’ll be right there.”

Jespyr’s footsteps faded down the stairwell.

“What does the King want?” I said. “I thought everyone was staying here for another night of celebration.”

“To discuss patrols, undoubtedly,” the Captain said. “My uncle demanded more Physician inspections in town since the boy and his parents escaped. We escort them. I should be back before evening.”

He pulled his hand from mine, tapping his Nightmare Card three times, severing our connection. I felt strain between us—hesitance.

But when I reached out for him, he was already at the door.

“We can talk more when I return,” Ravyn said. “Get some rest, Elspeth.”

I stayed in bed five minutes, so anxious my legs kicked the blankets off on their own accord.

You need to rest, the Nightmare said. The poison has made you weak.

I ignored him and swung my legs over the edge of my bed.

A tap on my door stilled me, and I sat frozen, waiting. “Hello?”

The door creaked open, and in stepped my father, awkward on tender foot, as if I were a slumbering giant. “I wasn’t sure if you were awake,” he said.

I did not reply. I was too caught up in the light that trailed from his pocket, blinding and sapphire blue.

The Well Card.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

I shot him a quick smile, forcing myself to appear calm. When my hands began to shake, my entire body aware of the Well Card, I sat on them. “Tired, but better.”

My father stopped at the foot of my bed, legs planted shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, ever the Destrier. “I caught Filick Willow on his way out. He told me you had been using a Chalice?”

“Prince Hauth, not me,” I said, my voice cold. “I merely happened to be there.”

“Hmm.” My father’s blue eyes traced my room. “I’d be wary of Prince Hauth, Elspeth. He’s not… he’s a very…”

“Horrid man?”

The corner of his lip twitched. “He’s his father’s son.”

I didn’t ask what he meant. I doubted he would tell me, even if I did.

“What of Ravyn Yew?”

My back straightened. “What of him?”

He winced, clearly uncomfortable. “The two of you seem to be enjoying your courtship.”

Until he realized a King, five hundred years dead, occupied your mind, the Nightmare said.

I tried to smile. “I like him very much.”

My father reached into his pocket, his fingers stiff, and retrieved the brilliant blue light. He placed the Well Card at the foot of my bed and stepped back. Upon the Card, secured with a single piece of twine, was a dried yarrow stalk. “Your mother gifted me this Card when we wed,” he said, his voice low. “Her father had given it to her, but she wanted me to have it. ‘What need have I for a Well?’ she’d said in her usual lighthearted way. ‘Only a man would need a Card to keep track of his enemies.’”

He never talked of my mother. It splintered something in me, watching his eyes grow glassy.

“I wanted you to have it,” he said, inhaling, standing straighter than before. “You don’t have to give it to Ravyn Yew. You don’t have to give it to anyone. I just thought…” He looked away from me, the light in the windows catching his eyes, his voice barely a whisper. “If I could go back and do it differently, Elspeth, I would.”

He didn’t give me time to answer. And it was best, for I had none to give. I was too surprised, too moved, too stung to know what to say besides the quiet “Thank you” I murmured as he slipped out my door.

My black dress lay in a heap on the floor. If I’d coughed blood into it, the dark fabric showed no evidence. I dressed and crept down the stairs to the galley, the King’s voice loud as it billowed through the house, my father’s guests still abed.

A cloud of darkness emanated from the bottom floor. The Destriers had not yet gone on patrol. I slid across the galley and perched near the top of the stairwell. When the Destriers passed, Ravyn and Elm were last to go. I watched them, red and violet and burgundy the only colors in a sea of black.

Drawn by my gaze, Ravyn turned, his gray eyes fast to find me on the stairwell.

His face was unreadable as he approached. I leaned over the banister, my long hair sweeping down between us. “The Well Card is in my room,” I whispered.

Ravyn’s eyes widened. “You stole it from Erik?”

“He gave it to me.”

He cocked a brow. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

A small laugh sounded in his throat. “I’ll send Filick to check on you. He can take it with him back to Castle Yew.”

I felt the same tightness between us from before, the same strain. I reached down between the stair’s wooden balusters. I could only reach his shoulder. “I’m… I’m sorry, Ravyn,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you’d trust me. And I needed you to trust me if I was going to collect the Cards and cure myself.”

He shook his head and reached up, the tips of his fingers grazing my cheek. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Elspeth. I’m the one who broke my word.”

“I should have told you sooner,” I said. “I didn’t know how.”

Ravyn gave a small, sad smile. “I know.”

Elm coughed, waiting at the door.

My eyes fell to Ravyn’s mouth. “When will you be back?”

“Tonight,” he said, his thumb grazing my lips as it fell.

His kiss was a ghost on my black hair. A moment later he stepped beyond the threshold of Spindle House into the courtyard, his boots treading upon the first red leaves to fall from the ancient tree.

The Nightmare’s claws cradled my mind.

“Be safe,” I whispered to the wind as Ravyn Yew disappeared beyond the gate.

Had I known they’d be the last words I’d say to him aloud, I might have chosen them differently.