IT WAS STILL THE DEAD OF NIGHT WHEN WE ARRIVED IN THE ONYX CAPITAL
of Willowridge.
Mari never so much as stirred the entire ride. Griffin and I had watched her without a single blink between the two of us. Fedrik sat beside me all the while, patiently and wordlessly. If she hadn’t been breathing, I would have thought—
But she was breathing. She wasn’t dead. She was going to be fine. Briar would know what to do.
She had to.
Otherwise I’d never forgive myself.
We landed on a roof of tiled terra-cotta, and in the dark I could just barely make out a hilled city beneath us, streetlamps illuminating the clean, cobbled roads in buttery light. I could have licked the air itself in gratitude
—it was finally, mercifully chilly.
I had missed Onyx air more than I knew how to articulate. The familiar smell of lilac and gardenia hung in the dry breeze that kissed my face. Now we were only two hours by carriage from home, and no longer in a kingdom where I was wanted for treason.
I fished out my fur cloak from one of our hastily thrown-together sacks and dismounted. Kane’s significant wingspan retracted, those sleek, smooth, snakeskin-like wings tucking into his spine before polished obsidian claws and horns became neat fingernails and stacked silver rings.
He led us down a steep set of stairs, Griffin carrying Mari behind me. The wood creaked under our feet.
I surveyed the city, the fears I used to harbor of Willowridge feeling more and more like someone else’s memories. From what I could see, which wasn’t much due to the hour and the mist, Willowridge was filled with elongated homes topped by terra-cotta or slate roofs and solid unused chimneys. I could only imagine what the city was like in the wintertime, though, when wispy smoke must have drifted from each one against the faint evening snow, dancing along to the sound of bundled carolers.
These homes were different from the whitewashed villas of Azurine or the farmhouses and cottages of Abbington. Sturdier, with their rich brick or limestone, and more gothic as all things in Onyx seemed to be—tinged with something dark and haunting and a little sorrowful. Like the romantic wrought-iron gates or the lanterns on each home that gilded front steps and doorknobs or the hand-painted signs in that bold, swooping print that marked the street corners.
Kane walked through the night, leading us down a narrow, elm-lined street. At its end, a wide, expansive iron gate stood, bathed in a pool of gentle light from a streetlamp. Through the twisted metal I could see a vast and sprawling manor, grander than the townhomes two streets over, with delicate roof tiles and great windowpanes just outlined by moonlight. Griffin held Mari beside me, squinting into the dark stretch of land before us, as Kane approached the gates.
“Briar!” he called into the night, his voice accompanied only by the music of a lone busker and his accordion and the percussive clack of horses’ hooves on cobblestone somewhere deeper in the city center, away from the homes.
I waited, trying not to fidget, until the chill had seeped through my fur and into my bones.
Finally, the gates rattled open on their own—no guards or soldiers to pull them apart—and Kane gave us a shallow nod.
“A good sign?” I asked Griffin. “We’ll find out.”
We marched onto a rolling lawn. The moon was high in the sky, and rows and rows of lavender filled either side of the brick path beneath us, which led to the stately manor’s porch, lit by more lanterns beckoning us inside. A single white-painted bench hung from dark wooden beams above.
Kane grasped the weighty door knocker and its clang rang out too loudly into the night. When Briar opened the front door, her beauty nearly stole the wind from my lungs.
Almost as tall as Kane, and just as arresting, her long, dark hair was piled into a crown of braids atop her head. Her skin was white as snow and clear as the sky after a good rain, so smooth it was like porcelain, and carved with as much care. Strong jutting cheekbones, full lips like rose petals, and a slight, pert nose. Her eyes weren’t severe like Amelia’s—who knew why that comparison was on the tip of my tongue—but rather warm and open. Bright violet eyes like I had never seen, as if she was actually a mythical creature disguising herself as a young woman.
I wasn’t so far off—she didn’t look a day over thirty-five, but of course, she was.
She looked from me to Kane—both of us still unkempt and wet from rain and soaked in blood and dirt—to Griffin, holding an unconscious girl, to Fedrik, leaning on the column of her porch to support his weak leg, and bared her flawless teeth at us. “Kane, you shouldn’t have. All this fun, for me?”
“My witch is hurt. Possibly spelled or struck with a curse of some kind. She’s unconscious but my healer says completely healthy. She needs you.”
Briar stared at Mari’s face. Inspecting. Studying.
My stomach roiled on itself.
“Bring her inside,” Briar finally said, wrapping her dark robe tightly against the night’s chill. “There’s a spare bedroom on the second floor that Cori can help you to.”
“Thank you,” Kane said, gesturing for Griffin to bring Mari inside. The commander exchanged a nod of familiarity with Briar as he crossed her threshold.
Through the bleary light of what had to be two or three in the morning, an ornate yet cozy foyer gleamed under a crystal chandelier overhead. Sophisticated artwork peppered the walls of the wide maple-wood staircase Griffin carried Mari up, trailing behind a woman in a clean, white uniform whose face resembled the moon, both in serenity and shape.
I could just make out a long hallway farther down, which must have led into Briar’s elaborate home, but she guided us immediately to the left and into a dark sitting room furnished with a rich violet carpet that matched the sorceress’s haunting eyes.
Briar stepped one slipper-clad foot inside and the whole room lit up with warmth—white pillar candles ignited, a stone fireplace roared to life, and soft string music emanated from a harp in the corner with no player that I could see.
“Sit, sit,” she told us, folding her slender limbs into a plush chair. “Cori will make up the bedrooms. I have three spares and a small library with an extra bed on the second floor.”
I did as I was told and gathered my tired body into a ball in the corner of the leather settee. Fedrik sat next to me and Kane across from us.
Where had Cori taken Griffin and Mari? I arched to see where the staircase led.
“Cori will get her settled,” Briar said to me. “I need information from you before I see what I can do.”
“Anything,” I said. “And who are you?”
“This is Lady Arwen, my healer, and Prince Fedrik of Citrine. Broderick and Isolde’s son.”
Briar greeted us both before turning back to Kane. “Tell me what happened.”
Kane leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “She was—”
“We were attacked by bandits,” I blurted. “Mari—the witch—came to help, but Kane and I had already disarmed most of them. One bandit was left, though. He shot an arrow at her before we could get to him. I couldn’t see really, but I think it hit a necklace she was wearing.” I cringed. “It was
yours, actually. She thought it made her stronger. She was doing magic far beyond her reach as a young, new witch. Her mother died in childbirth, so she never got to learn from anyone properly.
“Anyway, she was fine. I mean, completely fine. She fell back with the force, but got right up moments later. No head injury. No chest wound. Then she collapsed about an hour later. Completely unresponsive, but her breathing and heart rate are normal.” I sucked in some air, and Fedrik placed a warm hand on my shoulder and gave a squeeze. “I’m a healer, as Kane said. I can tell you with certainty, she isn’t ill.”
Briar had listened intently before she spoke. When she did, she turned to face Kane. “Why did she have my amulet?”
“I gifted it to her,” he lied seamlessly. “Are you sleeping with her?”
I nearly choked on sheer air.
“No.” He furrowed a brow, but didn’t look in my direction. And why would he? The question had nothing to do with me.
Briar stood, smoothing her robe down her lean legs. “Very well,” she said. “What am I if not a walking favor for Kane Ravenwood?”
She breezed past us and up the stairs, leaving Kane, Fedrik, and me in the harp-twinged silence.
“What did she mean?” I asked Kane. “About being a favor to you?”
He grimaced. “She’s done a lot for me over the years. I’m very grateful to her.”
Bleeding Stones. The thought of her pleasing him, doing him favors, made me want to pitch myself into the sizable fireplace in front of us.
“You don’t know?” Fedrik asked me, confusion dotting his crystal eyes. “No, Prince, she doesn’t. And I don’t think now is the time, do you?”
“Know what?” I asked. I had developed a very unpleasant response to the thought of Kane hiding anything from me. My palms had already begun to itch and I folded them into my skirt to halt the fidgeting.
“My grim history,” Kane snarled at Fedrik.
My stomach tightened at the words. I knew very little about Kane’s failed attempt to take his father’s crown—only that it resulted in many
deaths and forced him and others to flee to Onyx. I didn’t blame him for not feeling as if he could open up to me now. Not after all our progress had just been washed down a bloody, rain-drenched drain.
Especially not when another man was seated beside me, a supportive hand moving up and down my back. Kane’s eyes were glued to the motion. A beast with its prey.
I hadn’t told him yet about Fedrik and me—that I wasn’t pursuing something with the prince.
But I couldn’t think of that right now. I couldn’t think of anything but Mari.
Kane stood abruptly. “I’m going to make some coffee.” “I’ll take one, too,” Fedrik said.
Kane regarded him with such distaste I nearly laughed. But I didn’t, and Kane walked out of the sitting room in silence, his heavy footfalls echoing as he trudged down the long hallway behind us.
“My mother told me about the Fae when I was eleven,” Fedrik said, eyes on the flames before us as they waved and jumped. “She said there was another realm, beyond Evendell, and it wasn’t on any map, or taught in any classes. A secret place, where very magical creatures called Faeries lived.
“It wasn’t so foreign to me—Citrine is a peculiar kingdom, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. The magic that keeps our kingdom safe is ageless, elemental, born from the seas themselves . . . But unlike Citrine, my mother had said, the Fae were kept in their realm against their will. Then she told me of the rebellion.
“Briar was one of Kane’s followers. That’s what she means by doing him favors. The last one she did for him lost Briar her husband, her home . . .”
I pursed my lips, my mind already moving back to Mari. Whether Briar would help her if she blamed Kane for the loss of her life back in Lumera.
“Briar is going to know what’s causing Mari’s illness, Wen. I’m sure of it. She’s said to be the most powerful witch of all time because she has the longest lineage. Her ancestors were the first-ever witches to exist, back when there were no mortals, only Fae Gods.”
“You know of the Gods?” I asked. His answering smile turned me sheepish. Of course he did. He was so worldly and educated. He had seen so much, been so many places. Explored, adventured, learned.
“I’m not sure what I believe. If you go to the Jade Islands, they worship something entirely different. It’s all relative, isn’t it?”
I nodded, though I knew nothing of the Jade Islands, or what they believed in. Where was Mari when you needed her? My heart protested as if I were pressing on a fresh bruise. I shot my eyes back to the top of the staircase.
“Shall we take our minds off it for the time being? Favorite place you’ve ever traveled?”
Siren’s Cove, with Kane.
Fedrik was trying so hard to be helpful. He actually was a good friend. Maybe my second or third ever. But thinking of Siren’s Cove made me think of Kane, which made me think of our stupid, violent argument earlier. And what might have unfolded between us had we not been interrupted.
“I’m going to head upstairs,” I said, standing abruptly. Fedrik stood as well. “Of course. I can come with you?” My eyes widened.
“That’s obviously not what I—” Fedrik shook his head. “I’m exhausted as well. I just meant, if you don’t want to be alone—”
“Thanks, but I just need some sleep.” In the last twenty-four hours, I had been trapped in a cavern, tortured by a boy who used to kiss me, attacked by bandits, and I might have lost my closest friend in the world. I didn’t think I could take another moment of being awake.
I slipped from the bewitched living room, through the foyer, and up the maple staircase. Dark specters of night cloaked the hallway, but I could still make out elegant tapestries on the walls and vases of Onyx’s lush lavender and lilac tucked into shelves and placed atop ottomans. I walked until I reached one of the rooms Cori had made up for us.
Inside it was like a little forgotten dresser drawer. Cramped, dusty, and overflowing. A long-abandoned hearth at the foot of the patchwork bed still held coals. The room wasn’t small, but it seemed as much due to the sheer
number of books that had been stacked, piled, and lodged inside its four walls. Rows and rows along the floor, on every shelf, filling a hand-painted ladder and open chest, piled in the corners, stacked in columns on a vanity
—this must have been Briar’s makeshift library, though I doubted she could find anything in this maze of parchment and leather. Mari would have blown a gasket.
The one saving grace was the room’s balcony, where a propped-open door allowed for a cool breeze and the mild rhythm of cicadas to waft inside.
I bypassed the bed to peer outside and down at the swing on Briar’s porch below. The wooden beam creaked under my hands as I leaned over, and I watched as two fireflies flitted through the lawn that sprawled beneath me. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, letting the moonlight brush over my face and clear my mind.
How nice it must be for Briar—to wake up in the mornings and walk out to her quiet porch, survey her bountiful lavender, and read a book on the softly rocking bench.
Lonely, sure.
But peaceful. Untouched. Unthreatened.
Nobody to worry over. To grovel and beg and pray for their safety. Nobody to hurt.
No ticking clock. Just a long, endless life, all alone. A pang of envy clamored through me.
I wanted her solitude, her serenity. She had built this life for herself that would ebb and flow for the next century.
My life would end within the year, and what had I built before it was ripped from me?
Turrets and spires and ramparts of sheer cowardice to protect me from my own pain and suffering. Now I might never be able to tell my closest friend how profoundly sorry I was. I’d let my grief over my mother’s death carve a chasm between my siblings and me. I’d broken my own heart and had no idea how to untangle the knotted mess between Kane and me. I had
definitely led Fedrik on in my pursuit of normalcy. And all the while, the walls I’d built did nothing to protect me from a fate I had no control over.
For so long, my sorrow had felt like an untouchable foundation under the structure of my life. A base I had to build atop—any joy, any progress erected over that same buried, stagnant, inaccessible grief.
And now, I realized all I had built was an abundance of pain.
My heart seized with the intensity of how much I missed my mother. She would have had thoughtful, soothing words to remind me why things could always get better.
But she wasn’t here.
And even if there was a chance of my survival—even if I could let myself believe in such a thing—I didn’t particularly want the life that would stretch before me.
I lay in bed for hours as that thought gutted me over and over and over.
I finally fell asleep, my legs twined in lilac-scented cotton, alongside the rising sun.
